Rope Droppers what time do you book fastpass+ for?

[Mama2girlz]

We plan to be at the parks by rope drop, what time should we book fats passes for? I don't want to waste a fastpass on a ride that won't have a long wait in the morning.

 

[DisneyChristmas]

I would book later in the day at a DIFFERENT park if you're hopping.

 

[Day-Day]

I would book later in the day at a DIFFERENT park if you're hopping.

This is what I'm thinking as well. If I'm not planning to hop, I am considering an early FP+ that I may re-schedule if standby lines are short; however, this can be risky since later FPs may already be filled so it will not be my primary mode of operation. I have already selected FPs for our May trip and they are all in the afternoon.

 

[wallskm]

We only have a couple days of hopping planned and for those days we have our FP+ after 3 or so at our 2nd park. On non-hopping days most of our FP+ are in the mid to late afternoon, before our dinner ADR. We may have one starting at 11 on days that we don't plan to stay late at the park.

 

[shocker]

I would book later in the day at a DIFFERENT park if you're hopping.

This is what we do. We go back to the room for afternoon naps and plan to be back in a park for the evening around 5pm. But even then, we sometimes "waste" FP+ when we find there is NO line at a particular attraction, even major headliners. So, we just do those multiple times then move on.

 

[wuzzy6]

I would book later in the day at a DIFFERENT park if you're hopping.

I completely agree! We were there a week ago, and after using the system in its entirety, I really think that this is the very best way to go if you plan on hopping! Park 1: Hit RD/morning EMH and ride your guts out on your faves! Park2: Afternoon/Evening FP+ your other faves!

If you do not plan to hop to a different park and will be in the same park all day, then I think you'd be wise to FP+ your choices between lunch and dinner.

You really have to make choices based on what you think will work best for you, but it's nice that you can see what did/didn't work for others who've gone before you!

 

[bastos]

If you plan to stay at one park, easy wdw has BEAUTIFUL plans for each park - with built in breaks, too. He suggests where to go with FP and when - PLUS has a focus with characters and not.

 

[PSUGuy]

We hop to Epcot in the afternoon every day so half the time we'll use FP+ for Soarin' and others that with FP- the passes were gone or too late to suit us. For AK we get a pass for EE starting at 9:30 then hit the Safari first thing. For DHS it's a FP+ for Tot, we hit TSM first thing. In MK we hit Spc Mtn first thing and Buzz and People Mover with FP+ for Spl Mtn. Worked fine for us last Oct and this March.

Bill From PA

 

[DisneyChristmas]

I'll add that (depending on crowd level), if one of your later FP+ turns out to be a walk-on, don't use that fast pass. Use the app to trade it for something else..maybe even a fireworks viewing area. But this really depends how busy the park is.

 

[JimmyV]

We prefer to stay in one park all day to capture the essence of that park and prefer to abosrb the atmosphere rather than using Disney buses to shuttle us from park to park. So we used our FPs as close to 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00 as possible. That gave us plenty of time to make the best of the morning hours, plenty of time for lunch, and plenty of time as a buffer between our last FP and our dinner ADR. On crowded days, park hopping may not work out as well as you plan, because you could find yourself walking into a park with 3 FPs that you can use with no problem, but long SB lines for everything else. To us, using up all that travel time just to bang out 3 rides with FPs isn't worth it. But others enjoy that strategy. We find that this style of touring is just a bit too much "hit and run" for us, and not enough "Disney absorption".

 

[mom2maggie]

We are early morning rope droppers, after lunch time hoppers We plan to schedule our fast passes for whatever park we are hopping to in the afternoon. We can usually ride standby in the mornings after we've had breakfast.

 

[ciera321]

I'd say it really depends on your touring style. We do RD every park day, however, we leave the park in the heat of the day around 2 or 3PM to swim, clean up, then head out to dinner. We always get PH, but usually go to a park after dinner for the fireworks, not so much rides, as we usually do table service and are pretty full. For our touring style, I made our FP reservations starting around noon, scheduling them back to back. We can usually get in our favorite headliners at least once, sometimes twice, by arriving about 45 minutes to an hour before posted park opening. Once we get the headliners done, we fill in the time with the low wait time rides and attractions like Great Movie Ride or Mickey's Philharmagic. This has worked on many trips, and we're hoping that it will with the new system as well!

 

[alicemouse]

We're rope droppers with a mission each morning. We book our FP's for late morning/early afternoon (11:30, 12:30, 1:30) and then not really ride much the rest of the day--definitely vacate during the 2-5 time frame if crowds are huge. We like to plan the morning, take an afternoon pool/nap break, and keep our evenings flexible.

We did try some evening FP+ on our trip in December and it worked out well and it was nice to have them, but a little weird because that's not how we're used to touring. We never bothered with regular FP in the evening on the old system. We just did all of the headliners early in the day and did the attractions with shorter wait times or shows or shopping later in the day.

In theory, I do think it's most advantageous to schedule your FP+ for mid-afternoon/ evening, but the FP return lines could possibly be more backed up (just like the standby queue) later in the day. Not sure how this will play out yet. Will people be more likely to miss their FP times when they are later in the day?

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Saying RD isn't enough information. I would presume if you are there for RD that you plan to spend at least two hours in the parks, but how you spend your day beyond that is pretty wide open.

I mean lots of folks like the afternoon nap/break approach, still others like the chug until done approach, still others solidly focus on being in the parks for dinner ADR's/fireworks.

In one sense, you don't need to plan your FP for the first hour the park is open, but by 10, or 10:30 a FP could very much makes sense. Especially since you have to spread them out at least an hour apart. If your first FP isn't until 11am, then your second will be 12-1 at the earliest, and the third will be at 1-2pm at the earliest. So you will be committing to being in the park until at least 1:30pm.

Afternoon is always a good time for attractions like Philarmagic and CoP. that hasn't changed. Late night is still a good time for BTMRR and IaSW- that also hasn't changed. Pan is somehow still crazy at all hours.

 

[pixarmom]

I'd say it really depends on your touring style. We do RD every park day, however, we leave the park in the heat of the day around 2 or 3PM to swim, clean up, then head out to dinner. We always get PH, but usually go to a park after dinner for the fireworks, not so much rides, as we usually do table service and are pretty full. For our touring style, I made our FP reservations starting around noon, scheduling them back to back. We can usually get in our favorite headliners at least once, sometimes twice, by arriving about 45 minutes to an hour before posted park opening. Once we get the headliners done, we fill in the time with the low wait time rides and attractions like Great Movie Ride or Mickey's Philharmagic. This has worked on many trips, and we're hoping that it will with the new system as well!

We're rope droppers with a mission each morning. We book our FP's for late morning/early afternoon (11:30, 12:30, 1:30) and then not really ride much the rest of the day--definitely vacate during the 2-5 time frame if crowds are huge. We like to plan the morning, take an afternoon pool/nap break, and keep our evenings flexible.

We did try some evening FP+ on our trip in December and it worked out well and it was nice to have them, but a little weird because that's not how we're used to touring. We never bothered with regular FP in the evening on the old system. We just did all of the headliners early in the day and did the attractions with shorter wait times or shows or shopping later in the day.

In theory, I do think it's most advantageous to schedule your FP+ for mid-afternoon/ evening, but the FP return lines could possibly be more backed up (just like the standby queue) later in the day. Not sure how this will play out yet. Will people be more likely to miss their FP times when they are later in the day?

This is exactly what we do - rope drop, FP+ start at 10:30 or 11, then back to the resort after lunch ADR/FP+ are finished. Ideally, I'd like to leave the park by 2pm, but it's sometimes 3pm. We booked one evening FP+ for arrival day last month and found that the evening FP+ line was much longer than the lines for our late morning FP+. That could just be coincidence, but that was our experience. Generally, we like to have a busy morning at a park (usually MK or DHS) and then gradually wind down through the late afternoon and evening, ending the day at Epcot. FP+ in the afternoon may maximize ride time, but our touring style has moved away from that kind of strategy.

 

[bookgirl]

Rope Drop in the morn and FP in the early evening. I didn't have hoppers so I did same park originally, but then I upgraded to an AP so I switched a lot of stuff around to other parks.

I originally did have one day where I did morning FP but that was because I didn't plan to be in any park in the afternoon. So I did FP all about 1 1/2 hours apart to do SB in between.

 

[Mama2girlz]

I should have been more detailed in my post.

We will not be park hopping my kids are young. And we do plan to go back to the resort around 2:30pm for pool/rest. I think the previous posts suggesting late morning might be ideal for us for FP+. I will try to book them between 11-1:30pm
Thanks for the responses!