MightyGitis
Jedi
- Joined
- May 9, 2011
- Messages
- 614
Howdy folks! Thought I would fire up a pre-trip report for once. Mainly because I'm treating this slightly as an experimental trip with the intentions of using it to maximize the use of FP+.
Before I get into that mumbo jumbo though let's talk about who I am and who I'm visiting the world with.
WHO
My name is Lauren and I'm an AP holder from Virginia. I'm a big Disney fan and as a result have become a bit of a WDW shutterbug. I snap hundreds of pictures each trip and then slowly disperse them through my @mightylauren Instagram account.
I've been visiting the World for nearly three decades. Some years more sparsely than others but in recent years it has become multiple times a year as my sister moved to Orlando with her fiancé.
Normally I fly down with my parents in tow but in rare occasions we have a sisters only trip such as this one. A two person trip!
WHEN
June 26th to July 1st.
Normally I avoid the heat of summer but we were hoping to catch both the Seven Dwarves Mine Train (already have two FP+ booked for it) AND the new Diagon Alley expansion at Universal studios. Universal has STILL not given us an opening date so we might be there before it opens or opening weekend, which was no our intent.
WHERE
6 day stay at All Star Music. The ASMu is my sister and I's go to hotel for trips that are just the two of us. We don't need anything fancy just a place to rest our heads at night.
MEMORY MAKER
We booked an AP special room which came with a free Memory Maker package that allows us free digital downloads of all photos linked to our Magic Bands. We are pretty excited about this because of the selection of ride photos we can get. We love making funny faces for ride photos!
MY DISNEY EXPERIENCE/ FP+
This will be my third trip using MDE and Magic Bands. (By the time we go we will have FOUR Magic Bands each) We are still working out our strategy for this. As of right now our full Disney days have FP's scheduled in the morning park with the intention of getting 4th passes at the second park in the afternoon but we aren't sure if that's the smartest decision. The day I arrive we have evening FP's scheduled in MK for the new Mine Train, Peter Pan, and Splash mountain. The day we intend to attempt to go to Harry Potter in the morning we also have evening FP's in MK including a second ride on SDMT (we have no intention of touching the standby line).
Some observances of FP:
- I prefer scheduling and adjusting on a browser. Preferably my iPad. Here when you want to change times you go to a page with all three reservations and can use drop downs to move your times around.
- When scheduling far enough in advance it's better to intentionally pick the wrong side of the time spectrum and then move them. In other words I picked the choice with all evening FP's and then move the times to the morning. This allowed me to place them back to back with no gaps between one pass and the next. (The intention being to use 3 FP's in the first 3 hours the park is open to get new ones at kiosks)
- Copying works great so long as slots are still available. After making FP's for SDMT my sister had a friend who wanted to join us but I can't copy that pass to her because the slots are all full. Something to bear in mind for people booking FP's for one member of the party intending to copy it to the rest of the party later.
I feel like there's more to say I'm not thinking of! But as I will be updating this I suppose that's okay. ;-)
Before I get into that mumbo jumbo though let's talk about who I am and who I'm visiting the world with.
WHO
My name is Lauren and I'm an AP holder from Virginia. I'm a big Disney fan and as a result have become a bit of a WDW shutterbug. I snap hundreds of pictures each trip and then slowly disperse them through my @mightylauren Instagram account.
I've been visiting the World for nearly three decades. Some years more sparsely than others but in recent years it has become multiple times a year as my sister moved to Orlando with her fiancé.
Normally I fly down with my parents in tow but in rare occasions we have a sisters only trip such as this one. A two person trip!
WHEN
June 26th to July 1st.
Normally I avoid the heat of summer but we were hoping to catch both the Seven Dwarves Mine Train (already have two FP+ booked for it) AND the new Diagon Alley expansion at Universal studios. Universal has STILL not given us an opening date so we might be there before it opens or opening weekend, which was no our intent.
WHERE
6 day stay at All Star Music. The ASMu is my sister and I's go to hotel for trips that are just the two of us. We don't need anything fancy just a place to rest our heads at night.
MEMORY MAKER
We booked an AP special room which came with a free Memory Maker package that allows us free digital downloads of all photos linked to our Magic Bands. We are pretty excited about this because of the selection of ride photos we can get. We love making funny faces for ride photos!
MY DISNEY EXPERIENCE/ FP+
This will be my third trip using MDE and Magic Bands. (By the time we go we will have FOUR Magic Bands each) We are still working out our strategy for this. As of right now our full Disney days have FP's scheduled in the morning park with the intention of getting 4th passes at the second park in the afternoon but we aren't sure if that's the smartest decision. The day I arrive we have evening FP's scheduled in MK for the new Mine Train, Peter Pan, and Splash mountain. The day we intend to attempt to go to Harry Potter in the morning we also have evening FP's in MK including a second ride on SDMT (we have no intention of touching the standby line).
Some observances of FP:
- I prefer scheduling and adjusting on a browser. Preferably my iPad. Here when you want to change times you go to a page with all three reservations and can use drop downs to move your times around.
- When scheduling far enough in advance it's better to intentionally pick the wrong side of the time spectrum and then move them. In other words I picked the choice with all evening FP's and then move the times to the morning. This allowed me to place them back to back with no gaps between one pass and the next. (The intention being to use 3 FP's in the first 3 hours the park is open to get new ones at kiosks)
- Copying works great so long as slots are still available. After making FP's for SDMT my sister had a friend who wanted to join us but I can't copy that pass to her because the slots are all full. Something to bear in mind for people booking FP's for one member of the party intending to copy it to the rest of the party later.
I feel like there's more to say I'm not thinking of! But as I will be updating this I suppose that's okay. ;-)
I can't wait to hear more about your FP+ theory, I was thinking just the opposite. I thought get FP+ for late afternoon/evening and do other rides at RD. Now I'm wondering which would actually work out better. 
Can't wait to here how your FP+ strategy works.
