Refresh=game changer, crowd calendars=unreliable

[Love Tink]

No they do not. I found FP for every ride when it was down this week. No matter if it was for weather or for a mechanical outage

Good recent example was for barnstormer. It was down last couple hours of park closing. Not for rain, it was the only ride down in the park. I booked several FP in the last hour (we actually wanted it for DGD to ride it) but each time they converted to an anytime FP. Because it was the last hour of the day these FP were good for any park, any ride, the next day. They clearly did not pull the FP

Pirates was down a couple days ago, obviously not for rain since it's indoors. We booked a couple for it for during the outage

The should stop FP distribution when they are down but I've never seen it happen

Yes, they do. I have seen it happen several times.

However, it is certainly possible that sometimes they miss an event - and it is great that you were able to take advantage when that happened.

 

[AngiTN]

Yes, they do. I have seen it happen several times.

However, it is certainly possible that sometimes they miss an event - and it is great that you were able to take advantage when that happened.

In all our trips, which avg 6-10 a year, they have never taken a ride out of FP queue when it was down. And there have been rides down every trip, for rain if nothing else. Though maybe we are talking apples and oranges. I'm not talking about planned outages. Of course they take them out of the queue for a planned outage. I'm referring to mechanical breakdowns or weather outages that are 100% spur or the moment, unplanned for.

 

[AngiTN]

Having said all that, we were just there, in the parks from June 14th through June 30th. This year was unquestionably the hardest trip we've had to use refresh and get more. I'd bet I've used refresh strategy for 75-100 park days total, and this year was much harder. It was about as hard as it was during the Christmas to New Years week we did just 7 months ago. I still got things, but not even close to as easily as we did in summer 2016 and 2017. Don't know if it's because more people are catching on or what, but it was tough sledding.

Things opened up greatly just after you left (sorry to say)
We found everything was plentiful during our trip from 7/3-7.
I was even able to move our FP for yesterday from first 3 hours to start at 11:00 when we had a friend from Tampa drive over to join us at Trader Sams at the last minute. We knew there was no way we could close up Sam's and make it to the park early so I opened the app Friday night and moved our Soarin' FP from 9:30-10:30 to 11:00-12:00. Then, we had a HUGE line to check bags at RAC and we weren't going to make 12:00 (with even the +15) without running so I opened the app while in the Uber and got it moved to 12:20. Then I got TT for as soon as we scanned in at Soarin'. The only ride I never found all day, Mission Space. No matter how many times I refreshed, it did not ever come up. It was harder to find than Slinky Dog!

 

[Love Tink]

In all our trips, which avg 6-10 a year, they have never taken a ride out of FP queue when it was down. And there have been rides down every trip, for rain if nothing else. Though maybe we are talking apples and oranges. I'm not talking about planned outages. Of course they take them out of the queue for a planned outage. I'm referring to mechanical breakdowns or weather outages that are 100% spur or the moment, unplanned for.

Angi, I know you know everything and have something to say on every single thread and then every subsequent comment on that thread on the Dis....so I'm just going to ignore my own personal experiences in favor of yours! You haven't experienced it, so it can't be true! Thank you so much for clarifying my memories as incorrect. I really appreciate it.

 

[Love Tink]

Things opened up greatly just after you left (sorry to say)
We found everything was plentiful during our trip from 7/3-7.
I was even able to move our FP for yesterday from first 3 hours to start at 11:00 when we had a friend from Tampa drive over to join us at Trader Sams at the last minute. We knew there was no way we could close up Sam's and make it to the park early so I opened the app Friday night and moved our Soarin' FP from 9:30-10:30 to 11:00-12:00. Then, we had a HUGE line to check bags at RAC and we weren't going to make 12:00 (with even the +15) without running so I opened the app while in the Uber and got it moved to 12:20. Then I got TT for as soon as we scanned in at Soarin'. The only ride I never found all day, Mission Space. No matter how many times I refreshed, it did not ever come up. It was harder to find than Slinky Dog!

Huh. I wonder if it was DOWN AT SOME POINT AND THEY REMOVED IT FROM THE FASTPASS OFFERINGS.*

Nah, more likely it probably became the most popular ride at WDW unexpectedly.

*This is exactly how I first learned they did this - trying to get a FP all afternoon that shouldn't have been hard to get, with absolutely not a single one popping up. Eventually finding out the ride had been down down.

 

[Klayfish]

Things opened up greatly just after you left (sorry to say)
We found everything was plentiful during our trip from 7/3-7.
I was even able to move our FP for yesterday from first 3 hours to start at 11:00 when we had a friend from Tampa drive over to join us at Trader Sams at the last minute. We knew there was no way we could close up Sam's and make it to the park early so I opened the app Friday night and moved our Soarin' FP from 9:30-10:30 to 11:00-12:00. Then, we had a HUGE line to check bags at RAC and we weren't going to make 12:00 (with even the +15) without running so I opened the app while in the Uber and got it moved to 12:20. Then I got TT for as soon as we scanned in at Soarin'. The only ride I never found all day, Mission Space. No matter how many times I refreshed, it did not ever come up. It was harder to find than Slinky Dog!

Yeah...our luck. It wasn't "bad", we got them, but it took much more work and the options were a bit more limited.

We had the same experience with Mission Space. It was darn near impossible to get, no idea why. Yet, the standby line was often 10 minutes or less...

 

[wgeo]

Yeah...our luck. It wasn't "bad", we got them, but it took much more work and the options were a bit more limited.

We had the same experience with Mission Space. It was darn near impossible to get, no idea why. Yet, the standby line was often 10 minutes or less...

I had the same experience - we were there 7/2 - 6th and found refreshing was much harder than it was a month ago, figured it was due to the holiday crowds. I mostly got what I was looking for, but it sure took a more time than I wanted to spend. Oh except for HS, I got non stop tower of terror and RNR a month ago and couldn't get much of anything last week, but that didn't surprise me because of the change in tiers and TSL opening.

I did manage to get a Mission Space FP moved one day, guess I was luckier than I thought.

 

[js]

I found using a browser to be much faster than the app, I could get many more refreshes in the same amount of time. This was on an iPhone 7.

Hi. Could you explain this slowly (lol) to me. I have an iPhone 6+ but not sure what you mean use a browser. Do I not do this in my MDE?

Also for those that use Refresh, do you make your FP for mornings so they are used up and you can start Refreshing earlier?

My FP window is tomorrow and hopefully wont have to modify it too much but will want to use the Refresh for extra FPs while there.

Thank you.

 

[AngiTN]

Hi. Could you explain this slowly (lol) to me. I have an iPhone 6+ but not sure what you mean use a browser. Do I not do this in my MDE?

Also for those that use Refresh, do you make your FP for mornings so they are used up and you can start Refreshing earlier?

My FP window is tomorrow and hopefully wont have to modify it too much but will want to use the Refresh for extra FPs while there.

Thank you.

You can go to the website on your browser instead of using the app. I refresh the page by pulling down or you can click a new time

Book your first 3 for whatever time works best for your touring style. If you are not a morning person the don't book them then. If you are, do. Refresh works no matter when

 

[Klayfish]

Also for those that use Refresh, do you make your FP for mornings so they are used up and you can start Refreshing earlier?

Yes, but that's just what works for us.

 

[jaysmom4285]

Angi, I know you know everything and have something to say on every single thread and then every subsequent comment on that thread on the Dis....so I'm just going to ignore my own personal experiences in favor of yours! You haven't experienced it, so it can't be true! Thank you so much for clarifying my memories as incorrect. I really appreciate it.

She said that "in all of her trips" she has never experienced this. She is speaking from her personal experiences, much as you spoke from yours. And just because you couldn't get a FP while a ride was down doesn't necessarily mean they were shut off. Sometimes they just don't show up for a variety of reasons, so that isn't definitive proof. It could just be bad luck.

 

[AngiTN]

Angi, I know you know everything and have something to say on every single thread and then every subsequent comment on that thread on the Dis....so I'm just going to ignore my own personal experiences in favor of yours! You haven't experienced it, so it can't be true! Thank you so much for clarifying my memories as incorrect. I really appreciate it.

I'm sorry. Good luck to you in your trips

 

[Dbktmc]

I'll chime in that I consider myself a well seasoned, and early adopter, of the refresh strategy. Been using it for 2 or 3 years now. I do exactly as AngiTN described when booking my first 3. When I book #2 at the 30 or 60 day mark, it may show up 10 or 15 minutes after #1. So if #1 is 10-11am, it'll give me 11:15am to 12:15pm for #2. I take that one, and then do the same for #3, then will modify #2 and #3 to move them back to where they're back to back to back. Sometimes I can do it right away (at 30 or 60 days), sometimes I have to wait until day of.

Our strategy for using the first 3 is a little different though. We're not rope drop people, we very much prefer to sleep in and take our time. We aim to arrive at the parks right at the end of FP+ #1 window. So if FP+ #1 is 10-11am, we show up at 10:55am. By time we finish that ride, it's already time for FP+ #2. That's just one less thing we have to modify. We've developed quite a talent for making it to FP+ #1 right at the very end, even dipping into the grace period....haven't missed one yet. Then after tapping into #2, we'll immediately modify #3 so that it's as soon as we are done with #2. Then we're off to the races to get more.

Having said all that, we were just there, in the parks from June 14th through June 30th. This year was unquestionably the hardest trip we've had to use refresh and get more. I'd bet I've used refresh strategy for 75-100 park days total, and this year was much harder. It was about as hard as it was during the Christmas to New Years week we did just 7 months ago. I still got things, but not even close to as easily as we did in summer 2016 and 2017. Don't know if it's because more people are catching on or what, but it was tough sledding.

We were in Disney from 6/22 - 7/1. I used the refresh strategy the entire trip but I have to say that it was difficult. Sometimes it would take 15-20 minutes just to get a ride that we wanted to show up and then we still had to modify. Perhaps it is becoming very popular as it is being discussed on the boards so often.

I've never lost an FP other than once or twice when the app has crashed. And that inherently involves refreshing again when you open the app again. The FPs are definitely held for you for a brief time. Otherwise you would very frequently not get the really high value FPs that are shown to you. Hundreds if not thousands are after those same ones so you're chances of being the first to click it after it was shown to you would be really low.

I have to say that I had the same experience where times that showed up on my screen were gone before I could grab them. This happened multiple times for me over the course of our 10 day trip.

 

[JETSDAD]

I've been playing around a bit with waiting varying times to select FP's that show up and seeing if it errors or if it let's me have the FP. I've only been using FP's that would have zero chance of sticking around for minutes if they were available to everybody (FOP, SDD, and 7DMT). So far, everything under 5 minutes has had 100% success rate. Anything over 8 minutes has 0% success. Seem to have mixed results so far between 5-8 minutes (I'll keep playing with that).

I do believe that the website may give errors but that it has more to do with Disney IT rather than the FP left available for anyone to select. A while back I switched to using the app almost exclusively as the site did seem to cause me more grief.

Here are 2 examples from earlier this evening. The first screenshot for each will be when it showed up, the second will be when I grabbed it. Times are left on the screenshots to show how long I waited to grab them. Both of these would have no chance of sticking around 4-5 minutes if they were available to everyone.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

The only ride I never found all day, Mission Space. No matter how many times I refreshed, it did not ever come up. It was harder to find than Slinky Dog!

It seems like there is always one outlier. On our June trip, the only thing I couldn’t get was Navi River Journey. Everything else came up with little effort.

 

[anomamatt]

In all our trips, which avg 6-10 a year, they have never taken a ride out of FP queue when it was down. And there have been rides down every trip, for rain if nothing else.

Same thing I have observed in many (7ish, multiday) trips 2016-2018. In fact, I often use this to acquire a bunch of anytime FPs. I grab FPs (over and over again) for rides that are down. And they convert to anytimes.

Like @AngiTN, I have never seen FPs become unavailable when (because) a ride is down. Just more data points...

 

[Merlin Jones]

I found using a browser to be much faster than the app, I could get many more refreshes in the same amount of time. This was on an iPhone 7.

Speed aside (though it is of course important) I've found that leaving the MDE app on will drain my iPhone battery about 3x faster than with it off, due to it constantly updating the wait times, etc. Using the browser helps with that, though you have to re-login more often.

 

[nkereina]

In January I had Safaris 9am and FoP 10am booked in AK for morning. As soon as I tapped into the FoP one I was able to book TSMM in HS for the afternoon.

Just want to clarify to be sure I understand. You only had two FPs pre-booked in AK? And then you were able to book one at DHS after you used the second one? It was my understanding that your initial 3 all had to be pre-booked and then used before you could obtain a 4th one. No?

 

[Iowamomof4]

Just want to clarify to be sure I understand. You only had two FPs pre-booked in AK? And then you were able to book one at DHS after you used the second one? It was my understanding that your initial 3 all had to be pre-booked and then used before you could obtain a 4th one. No?

That is not the case anymore.

 

[nkereina]

That is not the case anymore.

No longer the case at all, or just when park hopping? I was reading the cited thread, and that author seems to indicate you have to use all 3 FPs (or have them expire) before you can book a 4th tier 1 attraction in the same park. Is that old info now?