... or "How I Learned to Stop Stressing about Advance FPs at 60 Days". I've been around long enough to plan my strategy for each trip and book my FPs at 7am at 60 days out. I've also read plenty of posts panicking about the lack of available FPs. And lots of posts about people scoring same-day FPs for those same hard-to-get rides. So is it really all that easy to find same-day FPs or 4th FPs (or more) for attractions like FoP, 7DMT, FEA, Space Mtn, Soarin, Test Track, etc? After my experience last week - absolutely yes. This isn't a new strategy - but one I'm now going to incorporate more after seeing it work during a busy week at the park.
So a bit of backstory: I followed my usual strategy of booking FPs first thing at 60 days out for a trip the week before Christmas. I was able to get FoP at 60+5 and 60+7. Last week (on our 4th day) we finished our morning FPs at MK and were deciding what to do the rest of the day. We settled on seeing Pandora at night. Although we had our FoP FPs the next day, I decided to check MDE to see if any FPs were available that evening for FoP or NRJ. Nothing. So I used the "trick" of refreshing the ride times repeatedly to see what would come up. After about 20-25 tries, FoP popped up for about an hour later. Too early - but I booked and tried to modify the time. No immediate success - but after numerous refreshes through the afternoon I was able to keep pushing the time back until I had my FPs for the evening (which also meant that FP slots were opening throughout the day). I was a bit shocked - as wait times for FoP were averaging 3-4 hours that day. And FoP as a "4th FP" isn't a strategy too many people go for.
Long story short - I started doing this the rest of the week after we'd gone through our 3 advance FPs. I didn't have too much trouble booking same-day 4th FPs for anything - including 7DMT, BTMRR, Test Track, Soarin, TSMM, ToT, Space Mtn, Jingle Cruise, HM, and character meets. And I saw plenty of other attractions pop up during the refreshes (including EE, NRJ, RNRC, RoL, Fantasmic, MS, Splash Mtn, Speedway etc.). So what did I learn? That worrying too much about FPs - even during a busy week - may be a bit exaggerated. Would I still recommend advance FPs for the best rides? Yes. Would I recommend relying on same-day FPs exclusively? Nope. But it does seem easier to get those same-day FPs than I'd realized. A little patience and perseverance on MDE, and almost anything is possible.
A few strategic thoughts on using the same-day strategy:
-Flexibility on time and park improve your odds
-Advance FPs still recommended (especially if you have to plan the days), although finishing the advance FPs earlier in the day may make it easier to use the same-day strategy in the afternoon and evening
-The more popular the attraction, the more refreshing you may need to do on MDE
-Have an external charger available - refreshing MDE constantly seems to kill batteries
-If the preferred attraction pops up but at an inconvenient time, consider selecting it anyway and then try to refresh/modify the time
-Larger groups may have a tougher time (we only had 3) - consider splitting into smaller groups on MDE if necessary and then trying to find overlapping FP windows for all the groups
-MDE allows users to search for specific times on the half-hour - although it may be anecdotal, I seemed to have more success right before and after the hour and half-hour, as well as FPs coming up more frequently around lunch and dinner times
-for more popular rides, most FP times tended to come up within 1-2 hours later (instead of much later in the day)
I'll still be up early 60 days before my next trip to book FPs, but much less worried if I can't get everything I want.
So a bit of backstory: I followed my usual strategy of booking FPs first thing at 60 days out for a trip the week before Christmas. I was able to get FoP at 60+5 and 60+7. Last week (on our 4th day) we finished our morning FPs at MK and were deciding what to do the rest of the day. We settled on seeing Pandora at night. Although we had our FoP FPs the next day, I decided to check MDE to see if any FPs were available that evening for FoP or NRJ. Nothing. So I used the "trick" of refreshing the ride times repeatedly to see what would come up. After about 20-25 tries, FoP popped up for about an hour later. Too early - but I booked and tried to modify the time. No immediate success - but after numerous refreshes through the afternoon I was able to keep pushing the time back until I had my FPs for the evening (which also meant that FP slots were opening throughout the day). I was a bit shocked - as wait times for FoP were averaging 3-4 hours that day. And FoP as a "4th FP" isn't a strategy too many people go for.
Long story short - I started doing this the rest of the week after we'd gone through our 3 advance FPs. I didn't have too much trouble booking same-day 4th FPs for anything - including 7DMT, BTMRR, Test Track, Soarin, TSMM, ToT, Space Mtn, Jingle Cruise, HM, and character meets. And I saw plenty of other attractions pop up during the refreshes (including EE, NRJ, RNRC, RoL, Fantasmic, MS, Splash Mtn, Speedway etc.). So what did I learn? That worrying too much about FPs - even during a busy week - may be a bit exaggerated. Would I still recommend advance FPs for the best rides? Yes. Would I recommend relying on same-day FPs exclusively? Nope. But it does seem easier to get those same-day FPs than I'd realized. A little patience and perseverance on MDE, and almost anything is possible.
A few strategic thoughts on using the same-day strategy:
-Flexibility on time and park improve your odds
-Advance FPs still recommended (especially if you have to plan the days), although finishing the advance FPs earlier in the day may make it easier to use the same-day strategy in the afternoon and evening
-The more popular the attraction, the more refreshing you may need to do on MDE
-Have an external charger available - refreshing MDE constantly seems to kill batteries
-If the preferred attraction pops up but at an inconvenient time, consider selecting it anyway and then try to refresh/modify the time
-Larger groups may have a tougher time (we only had 3) - consider splitting into smaller groups on MDE if necessary and then trying to find overlapping FP windows for all the groups
-MDE allows users to search for specific times on the half-hour - although it may be anecdotal, I seemed to have more success right before and after the hour and half-hour, as well as FPs coming up more frequently around lunch and dinner times
-for more popular rides, most FP times tended to come up within 1-2 hours later (instead of much later in the day)
I'll still be up early 60 days before my next trip to book FPs, but much less worried if I can't get everything I want.
