SDFP: CHANGES COMING!! Beware the 7th of June?!

[superman007]

I have a logistical question about my upcoming trip and park hopping and the use of SDFP. Sorry for the long post in advance, I just want to lay out the scenario (plus my wife is already sick of me asking for her opinion and our trip is still four months away):

Recently I switch my package to free dining because it saved me about $6 and I was able to add the park hopper option for no additional cost. Now my travel plans are all in a flux because I could move to different parks if I wanted to. I have young kids (2&5) and plan on trying to schedule a break around lunch time to go back to our resort.

So far my plan includes:
Tue - MK all day (ADR at BOG-lunch and CRT-dinner)
Wed - AK 1st half / Epcot 2nd half (dinner ADR @ Teppan Edo)
Thu - Epcot (Early morning) 1st half/ AK 2nd half (dinner ADR @ Tusker House)
Fri - break day
Sat - probably MK
Sun - HS (Early morning & Star Wars Dessert party reservation!)

So, my question really hinges around my Wed/Thu plans. The reason I wanted to do Epcot on Thursday is that I can do early morning hours. I was planning on staying at Epcot but I couldn't get dining reservations for the times I wanted at Teppan Edo. I figured since I have hoppers and will have breaks mid-day I can just use them. The problem is that our SDFP use will be less effective since we can't make FP reservations until we're in the park! Should I make my FP+ reservations for my second park and use my SDFP in the first parks or vise versa? I have small kids so probably won't be doing many of the rides where there are height requirements anyway (unless my 5 year old really gets into it, and it's hard to know until we get there). Thoughts/suggestions?! Thanks!

 

[Party.Of.4-NY>>>FL]

I have a logistical question about my upcoming trip and park hopping and the use of SDFP. Sorry for the long post in advance, I just want to lay out the scenario (plus my wife is already sick of me asking for her opinion and our trip is still four months away):

Recently I switch my package to free dining because it saved me about $6 and I was able to add the park hopper option for no additional cost. Now my travel plans are all in a flux because I could move to different parks if I wanted to. I have young kids (2&5) and plan on trying to schedule a break around lunch time to go back to our resort.

So far my plan includes:
Tue - MK all day (ADR at BOG-lunch and CRT-dinner)
Wed - AK 1st half / Epcot 2nd half (dinner ADR @ Teppan Edo)
Thu - Epcot (Early morning) 1st half/ AK 2nd half (dinner ADR @ Tusker House)
Fri - break day
Sat - probably MK
Sun - HS (Early morning & Star Wars Dessert party reservation!)

So, my question really hinges around my Wed/Thu plans. The reason I wanted to do Epcot on Thursday is that I can do early morning hours. I was planning on staying at Epcot but I couldn't get dining reservations for the times I wanted at Teppan Edo. I figured since I have hoppers and will have breaks mid-day I can just use them. The problem is that our SDFP use will be less effective since we can't make FP reservations until we're in the park! Should I make my FP+ reservations for my second park and use my SDFP in the first parks or vise versa? I have small kids so probably won't be doing many of the rides where there are height requirements anyway (unless my 5 year old really gets into it, and it's hard to know until we get there). Thoughts/suggestions?! Thanks!

JMHO, but I would use FP+ in the second park of each day. Hit the kiosks first thing upon entering the a.m. parks for SDFP.

 

[sweetpea29488]

When you make the SDFP do you have to take a picture after each fp or will it give a summary and then you can take a picture?

 

[ScrapYap]

I have a logistical question about my upcoming trip and park hopping and the use of SDFP. Sorry for the long post in advance, I just want to lay out the scenario (plus my wife is already sick of me asking for her opinion and our trip is still four months away):

Recently I switch my package to free dining because it saved me about $6 and I was able to add the park hopper option for no additional cost. Now my travel plans are all in a flux because I could move to different parks if I wanted to. I have young kids (2&5) and plan on trying to schedule a break around lunch time to go back to our resort.

So far my plan includes:
Tue - MK all day (ADR at BOG-lunch and CRT-dinner)
Wed - AK 1st half / Epcot 2nd half (dinner ADR @ Teppan Edo)
Thu - Epcot (Early morning) 1st half/ AK 2nd half (dinner ADR @ Tusker House)
Fri - break day
Sat - probably MK
Sun - HS (Early morning & Star Wars Dessert party reservation!)

So, my question really hinges around my Wed/Thu plans. The reason I wanted to do Epcot on Thursday is that I can do early morning hours. I was planning on staying at Epcot but I couldn't get dining reservations for the times I wanted at Teppan Edo. I figured since I have hoppers and will have breaks mid-day I can just use them. The problem is that our SDFP use will be less effective since we can't make FP reservations until we're in the park! Should I make my FP+ reservations for my second park and use my SDFP in the first parks or vise versa? I have small kids so probably won't be doing many of the rides where there are height requirements anyway (unless my 5 year old really gets into it, and it's hard to know until we get there). Thoughts/suggestions?! Thanks!

I agree with Party of 4 - pre-book your FP for the second park.

Are you buying tickets for the Express Bus option? If not, you are nuts to park hop with two little kids.

Personally, I think a regular rope drop is better than a park with early morning hours. Just too many people hit that park - so it's only good for the first couple hours. (Tons of people make their plans around the park with EMH, but then they oversleep and get there in Solyent Green mobs at 10:30.) Of course, if you are doing the Express Bus (which is absolutely wonderful - check out people's youtube videos on it - some people do all four parks in one afternoon and make it look easy) - then this could work out well. Just leave before Solyent Green arrives.

Are you staying near HS? If so, a resort break will make your combo of early morning and dessert party doable. Though the back and forth is still a pain. And August is hot. The little ones won't be able to keep up the pace. I'd enjoy the resort in the morning, let the baby nap while you pack for the flight/drive the next day (and get the boarding passes printed), then go to HS. There will still be SDFP. (People cancel their FP All Day Long.) Then you'll all be fresh enough to really enjoy the dessert party - instead of just enduring it.

 

[Buddyboy1]

Help! I have my MDE and phantom MDE . Do I invite the phantoms to be friends? Will that allow me to see sdfp on my real MDE? I'm confused. Thank you for your help and I'm so grateful for this thread

 

[ScrapYap]

Help! I have my MDE and phantom MDE . Do I invite the phantoms to be friends? Will that allow me to see sdfp on my real MDE? I'm confused. Thank you for your help and I'm so grateful for this thread

You're missing the point. With phantoms, you have two choices.

1. If you're willing to take the risk that your phantoms and real profiles could be merged, then just keep everything on one MDE. Then you can see all your FP and your SDFP on your MDE.

2. If you don't want to take risk of ending up with cloned MagicBands if your profiles are merged, then set up a second MDE. But the whole purpose of a second MDE is to keep the sets of profiles completely separated. Being friends with your phantom MDE defeats the purpose of having two MDEs. The disadvantage is that you can't see your SDFP. The advantage is that you are less likely to have profiles merged.

There's no "right" way. Whatever you feel more comfortable with.

 

[Buddyboy1]

Thank you Scrapyap

 

[otterpop]

You're missing the point. With phantoms, you have two choices.

1. If you're willing to take the risk that your phantoms and real profiles could be merged, then just keep everything on one MDE. Then you can see all your FP and your SDFP on your MDE.

2. If you don't want to take risk of ending up with cloned MagicBands if your profiles are merged, then set up a second MDE. But the whole purpose of a second MDE is to keep the sets of profiles completely separated. Being friends with your phantom MDE defeats the purpose of having two MDEs. The disadvantage is that you can't see your SDFP. The advantage is that you are less likely to have profiles merged.

There's no "right" way. Whatever you feel more comfortable with.

ScrapYap, you have me worried...what are the chances of real profiles and phantoms being merged? For example, our real profiles are "first name, last name" and our phantoms are "first name, followed by the word "second"; to remind me these are for the "second" set of FP's.

Should I just change the first name to something else for our phantoms (as mentioned in the OP)?

Evan

 

[Wish Upon A Starbucks]

When you make the SDFP do you have to take a picture after each fp or will it give a summary and then you can take a picture?

You can take a picture at the end of all three FPs together.

 

[nat8199]

Thanks to this thread I think I have us set up to get SDFP for our 2018 trip, if this is still an option.

Here is what I did, and please let me know if I made a mistake:

I went in to my original MDE account for our trip in 2015, and changed all our names to random variations. We still have all five of our magic bands from that trip.

I made a new gmail address and used that to make a brand-new MDE account. We will use this account to make our reservations and tickets for 2018, and they will send us the new MBs.

Now we have two sets, linked to two MDE accounts, and we will use our old bands for SDFP.

Thank you all!!!

 

[superman007]

I agree with Party of 4 - pre-book your FP for the second park.

Are you buying tickets for the Express Bus option? If not, you are nuts to park hop with two little kids.

Personally, I think a regular rope drop is better than a park with early morning hours. Just too many people hit that park - so it's only good for the first couple hours. (Tons of people make their plans around the park with EMH, but then they oversleep and get there in Solyent Green mobs at 10:30.) Of course, if you are doing the Express Bus (which is absolutely wonderful - check out people's youtube videos on it - some people do all four parks in one afternoon and make it look easy) - then this could work out well. Just leave before Solyent Green arrives.

Are you staying near HS? If so, a resort break will make your combo of early morning and dessert party doable. Though the back and forth is still a pain. And August is hot. The little ones won't be able to keep up the pace. I'd enjoy the resort in the morning, let the baby nap while you pack for the flight/drive the next day (and get the boarding passes printed), then go to HS. There will still be SDFP. (People cancel their FP All Day Long.) Then you'll all be fresh enough to really enjoy the dessert party - instead of just enduring it.

Thanks for the feedback! I was considering the Express Bus but we are thinking of going back to Caribbean Beach Resort most days around 11:00-12:00 for nap/swim/rest anyway until about 2-3pm. That includes the days we'll be visiting AK and Epcot. Since we would have to get back on a bus either way I thought it might not really matter which park we were going to. We're doing a split stay with Wilderness Lodge at the end and that resort is not close to HS. However, the show starts 1/2 hr earlier that Sunday night, which makes bedtime a little easier for the little one!

I think I'll try SDFP for the morning and advanced PF for the afternoon.

 

[runwad]

FYI Superman007 and anyone else reading. We parked hopped in the past long before the express bus and never had an issue with it. We're doing it again with our upcoming trip and aren't planning on using the express bus this time either.

 

[alisonslp]

FYI Superman007 and anyone else reading. We parked hopped in the past long before the express bus and never had an issue with it. We're doing it again with our upcoming trip and aren't planning on using the express bus this time either.

I second this. We often park-hop 3-4 parks in one day. Granted, I have teens and their goals for each park are different but it can be done fairly easily. With younger kids, just make sure you have good strollers so the little ones stay rested. We used a stroller for my youngest up to 7years. He had some mild walking issues and it just made the trip so much easier for us all.

 

[superman007]

OK, this makes me feel a bit better! I was thinking I was crazy for trying to do this! I've heard it's hard for small kids to last the whole day and I've heard it's a pain to travel back and forth from the parks. It probably has a lot to do with your family. Since this is my first trip with kids I guess I'll find out! My goal is to be as prepared as I can to say "You're Welcome" when things work out and do my best to "Let It Go" if my plans fail!

 

[ScrapYap]

FYI Superman007 and anyone else reading. We parked hopped in the past long before the express bus and never had an issue with it. We're doing it again with our upcoming trip and aren't planning on using the express bus this time either.

For many, "time" at WDW is almost as important a currency as money. That's the only unavoidable issue with standard park hopping. The walk from Fantasyland to the MK bus stop alone is 20 minutes - unless the park is empty or you jog. Hopefully your wait for the desired bus won't be more than 20 minutes in the (albeit shaded) heat, but anyone who's been to WDW enough times has waited 45. Then you have your day's second set of bag check, turnstiles, and the walk (probably negotiating crowds) to the interior of the next park. And all that requires a certain amount of physical and mental energy - which is also at a premium. For the cherry on top, add two small children and a stroller? If it works for you, it's the way to go. But the word "hopping" doesn't really express the amount of time and energy that schlepping from park to park most often requires. Unless you spring for the Express Bus. 12 minutes from Rock-n-Roller to Kilimanjaro Safaris is a "hop."

 

[alisonslp]

For many, "time" at WDW is almost as important a currency as money. That's the only unavoidable issue with standard park hopping. The walk from Fantasyland to the MK bus stop alone is 20 minutes - unless the park is empty or you jog. Hopefully your wait for the desired bus won't be more than 20 minutes in the (albeit shaded) heat, but anyone who's been to WDW enough times has waited 45. Then you have your day's second set of bag check, turnstiles, and the walk (probably negotiating crowds) to the interior of the next park. And all that requires a certain amount of physical and mental energy - which is also at a premium. For the cherry on top, add two small children and a stroller? If it works for you, it's the way to go. But the word "hopping" doesn't really express the amount of time and energy that schlepping from park to park most often requires. Unless you spring for the Express Bus. 12 minutes from Rock-n-Roller to Kilimanjaro Safaris is a "hop."

Obviously off topic of the original thread, but I did watch a few youtube videos of the express bus and I have to say, for the cost, it likely is worth doing this if you want to get into 3 parks in one day with small kids. It is NOT a necessity but it will make the day easier. And if you are staying for multiple days, then the cost is a minuscule addition to your costs (unless it went up, the were saying $24/7 days pp). It is certainly more convenient, getting let off inside the park, bypassing the turnstiles and security but For us, I still don't think it is worth it as we would be paying $15 since we would use it only one day and we have 5 people, so $75 is steep when we haven't had a problem with hopping in the past.

 

[WDW-WOW]

Hi, Just back and wanted to report on my SDFP experience. This was my second trip using them, and I was pretty familiar w/how they worked thanks to this thread! I have a ton of extra MBs from relatives that have travelled w/me on past trips so I brought 2 extra sets. We were a party of 2. On Saturday, 04/29, we stopped a kiosk in Epcot at around 9:40 a.m. on our walk from Soarin' to TT. No line at the kiosk, and we had our choice of Frozen, TT, Soarin, SE, etc. We were only looking for a specific time frame, so the only ones we wanted that would work were the SE ones for around 4:30. Grabbed that set, rode TT single rider 2x, then took the boat over to DHS. We were hurrying to make our Star Tours FPs which expired around 11:30. We stopped at the kiosks closest to the front gate (I forget the name of that street - Sunset blvd?), and had to wait about 5 minutes. For some reason one of my bands wasn't working. Tried it for a few minutes, then gave up as we had to rush. I was bummed because I had hoped to get RNR FPs and GRM. Rode Star Tours and TOT, then waited in huge, ridiculous kiosk line (easily 20-30 minutes, no cast members to help the confused) near TOT. Both bands scanned this time but no FPs for RNR or GMR for the next few hours. Ended up riding GMR standby, then back to kiosk to try to get one FP for RNR, which worked. Rode TSM w/FP, (booked a 4th FP for 10:40p.m. for BTMRR on MDE after we scanned our regular bands) one of us rode RNRR w/FP, then headed to Epcot to use SE FPs and do a little drinking/eating around WS, then took monorail to Poly for long cocktail break. Think we got to MK at around 9:00 pm and didn't try for any more FPs as we were able to ride Peoplemover, HM, Philharmagic, Buzz, and Pirates with little to no wait, and use the FPs for BTM.

Sunday, 04/30 - Walked into MK around 8:15 (9am opening) and went to kiosks on Main Street in Town Hall (?). No wait - got Small World, Pooh, and BTMRR for that morning (we were only staying a few hours). Lots to choose from had we been staying all day, or coming back that night. We headed to AK in early afternoon to use our prebooked FPs for EE, KS, and KRR. I tried about 10 different times throughout the day to get a safari FP for an earlier time than the one we had (7:05 p.m.) but no luck. Ended up waiting for it in a 30 minute standby line.

Hope this helps! Sat/Sunday were super busy, much more so than I've experienced in all my prior trips (about 8 total at all different times of the year)! Didn't have a choice about which parks we went to when, so maybe that was it! Also my first trip hopping.

 

[rn448698]

I'm sharing my experience this week. I have 4 room keys from October 2013 with the Mickey in the circle. These are from the original test while staying at Yacht Club. Two are room only. Two are package. Two are for one person. Two are for the other.

All were somehow connected to our existing fast passes for this week when I tried the kiosks, but the cards most definitely did not exist in my MDE account as active or inactive.

 

[superman007]

OK...after all the advice I have a plan for hopping with advanced PF+ and SDFP that deviates a bit from what was suggested:

I'm really only hopping on two days:
Day 1: Animal Kingdom, break at resort, Epcot (dinner reservation)
Day 2: Epcot (early morning hours), break at resort, Animal Kingdom (dinner reservation)

Day 1: In this case it doesn't make sense to save my advanced FP+ reservations for Epcot because I want to focus on the world showcase in the evening where I have dinner reservations and you don't really need FP reservations for any of the activities in that section. If I can snag a soarin or test track SDFP before we leave so be it (my youngest can't even go on these rides so I'm not too worried about missing them); otherwise those rides can wait and I can enjoy time in the world showcase in the evening. That leaves me open to use my advanced FP+ reservations at Animal Kingdom in the morning. It would also allow me a later start at Animal Kingdom in the morning if I have my advanced reservations all set (my wife is very concerned about making it to the parks at rope drop EVERY morning).

Day 2: Early morning hours at Epcot allows me to see the one ride my two children want to see- Frozen Ever After + meet and greet with Elsa and Anna without major lines (Early morning might be better negotiated today if I give them a break the day before at Animal Kingdom!). Turtle Talk with Crush, Mission Space Green, and Disney Pixar Film apparently don't need FP reservations (according to my research on the matter). Of course if they show up for SDFP, so be it. Again, Test Track and Soarin' are not a priority since my youngest is too small and I'm not sure it's worth the FP+ reservation for my family. Now my advanced FP+ reservations for AK will be more useful because of the added Tier 1 rides that my whole family can enjoy that afternoon that we might have missed the first day (well...we can all do Na' Vi River journey and I can do Avatar Flight of Passage probably while everyone else in my family is doing something else or we do a rider switch on either Day 1 or Day 2).

So it seems the park and family dynamics can really make the difference when you want to schedule FP+ and try SDFP! So now I've made my plan and now I wait!

 

[ScrapYap]

I'm sharing my experience this week. I have 4 room keys from October 2013 with the Mickey in the circle. These are from the original test while staying at Yacht Club. Two are room only. Two are package. Two are for one person. Two are for the other.

All were somehow connected to our existing fast passes for this week when I tried the kiosks, but the cards most definitely did not exist in my MDE account as active or inactive.

That's really strange. You're definitely on the MagicBands and Cards page (not Tickets and Reservations). Is it possible the card numbers appear with the wrong icon (with a picture of a band)?