Success getting FP+ times together at the park for A&E?

[Emilyswish]

I have FPs for A&E for our August trip for our family of 5. But they are all at different times. Mine overlaps with my daughter's, 11:10, 11:30, then my husband and older son are together at 12:30, and my other son has one for 12:50. I have called for help and was told to keep checking for times to open up but no success yet. They suggested that since our times are so close, we could ask someone at Guest Relations to help us get our times together.

Has anyone had success with this or should I not get my hopes up for GR to work it out for us?

 

[johnnyblz20]

I am sure if you just showed up around 11:25-11:30 you could get everyone in even though your one son isn't until 12:30.

 

[mistysue]

I just want to say good luck.
I've gave up on the princesses after a couple weeks, right now I have two sets of 2 for the mine train. Somehow I think this is a little hiccup Disney didn't think through all the way... wondering what they will suggest when their system is telling me I have to send my 5 and 11 year olds through without us, or that DH and I can go, but only have 10 minutes of overlap so we have to go together without the kids... At least if it doesn't work out it's not against the rules for you to even use yours.

 

[Emilyswish]

I am sure if you just showed up around 11:25-11:30 you could get everyone in even though your one son isn't until 12:30.

That's what I'm hoping for but I don''t want to assume they'll allow it! The last FP is not until 12:50 so it's a whole hour and 20 minutes after our first set of FPs. So I just keep checking . . . every day . . . multiple times a day!! I feel like a lunatic!!

I just want to say good luck.
I've gave up on the princesses after a couple weeks, right now I have two sets of 2 for the mine train. Somehow I think this is a little hiccup Disney didn't think through all the way... wondering what they will suggest when their system is telling me I have to send my 5 and 11 year olds through without us, or that DH and I can go, but only have 10 minutes of overlap so we have to go together without the kids... At least if it doesn't work out it's not against the rules for you to even use yours.

Sorry mistysue. It is so frustrating. It doesn't make sense to split families up into groups (or single children!) to get FPs. We have two sets of overlapping times, instead of just taking up one time slot when we'll all see them together. Maybe Meet and Greets should have a Family FP per group instead of per person?

Anyone else have experience with getting their times together at the park?

 

[lauradis]

We are all disney planning crazy people here

Thank you for info.

Watching the A&E craze, have friend with child that is dieing to see them in dec 2015

Wish disney would put a&e in all the parks till the craze is over.

Wake up Disney.

 

[GigiDisneyfreak]

That's what I'm hoping for but I don''t want to assume they'll allow it! The last FP is not until 12:50 so it's a whole hour and 20 minutes after our first set of FPs. So I just keep checking . . . every day . . . multiple times a day!! I feel like a lunatic!!

Sorry mistysue. It is so frustrating. It doesn't make sense to split families up into groups (or single children!) to get FPs. We have two sets of overlapping times, instead of just taking up one time slot when we'll all see them together. Maybe Meet and Greets should have a Family FP per group instead of per person?

Anyone else have experience with getting their times together at the park?

I was able to get my family of 4 FP+ at one time. I know from reading on here that I am the minority but I had a choice of times and I was able to get all 4 at one time without having to use the copy button. I know for most this hasn't worked but it is possible.

 

[GinnyBear's_mom]

Last night when my booking window opened I was able to book 3 A&E fastpasses together for my family for our late September/early October trip. There were plenty of times to choose from and there was availability on all 4 days we are visiting Magic Kingdom. Instead of booking fp+ for one person and copying, I booked fp+ for all 3 of us at the same time.

 

[Missyrose]

I am sure if you just showed up around 11:25-11:30 you could get everyone in even though your one son isn't until 12:30.

The CMs will not allow someone to "just go through" despite their reservation time.

 

[pogopossum]

CMs do have the ability to manual override at the fp queue. Just use your phone to show them that you are one group. We hopped from AK to MK one day and for some reason I was able to make 3 new fp selections on dw's band, but it didn't carry over to the rest of us. When we got to the first fp, our bands didn't turn green, but I showed the CM my phone and she she did an override. Later due to rain and lightning Big Thunder wasn't running for our time, we got notified that fps would be honored until closing. Same thing, bands wouldn't activate, I told CM that we had missed due to weather and she did the override.

 

[SillySallySews]

Instead of booking fp+ for one person and copying, I booked fp+ for all 3 of us at the same time.

This is how I got FP for my whole family too, but it was back in June when people didn't seem to have so many issues. I would not count on them just letting you through with a child, even if you all have FP. Because A&E are so popular right now they seem to be more strict about enforcing the rules at the M&G than they are at other rides. I would just keep checking and try to get times that overlap.

 

[OasterP]

I just booked our FP at 60 days out about a week ago and was able to get A and E for three people at two different days of our trip - I honestly had no issue at all. I will say that no days were available our first five days, so it might have helped that we have a trip longer than that.

There wasn't anything I wasn't able to get that I was looking for actually, so I'm sorry for those having issues - that would definitely be frustrating!

Now I'm just waiting for my fp reservations to mysteriously disappear!

 

[JZCubed]

I have FPs for A&E for our August trip for our family of 5. But they are all at different times. Mine overlaps with my daughter's, 11:10, 11:30, then my husband and older son are together at 12:30, and my other son has one for 12:50. I have called for help and was told to keep checking for times to open up but no success yet. They suggested that since our times are so close, we could ask someone at Guest Relations to help us get our times together.

Has anyone had success with this or should I not get my hopes up for GR to work it out for us?

Guest Relations inside each Park can manually do what Cast Members over the phones cannot accomplish - override the electronic system.

If you take a few minutes when you arrive in MK to stop by Guest Relations inside the City Hall, they should be able to accommodate your request to have your family together, instead of entering A&E separately - particularly given that all in you group have FP+ for the meet-n-greet.

 

[Emilyswish]

Thank you everyone. I know some people have been able to book all of their FP together prior to the trip, I was just hoping someone might have had an example of getting their times together at the actual park once their trip has started.

I will keep checking MDE to get our times all over lapping but it's good to hear that their might be a chance the CMs can help us out too.

 

[mommycal]

I was able to get my family of 4 FP+ at one time. I know from reading on here that I am the minority but I had a choice of times and I was able to get all 4 at one time without having to use the copy button. I know for most this hasn't worked but it is possible.

someone PLEASE explain the copy button. ANY luck of getting a M&G for our 3 little girls, aka our family of 5?!?! my window isn't open yet but I'm scared just thinking of our NOV trip.

 

[mistysue]

Sorry mistysue. It is so frustrating. It doesn't make sense to split families up into groups (or single children!) to get FPs. We have two sets of overlapping times, instead of just taking up one time slot when we'll all see them together. Maybe Meet and Greets should have a Family FP per group instead of per person?

I'm mostly amused by getting fastpasses my kids are too young to be allowed to use as our only options at this point.
I had the same idea with the meet and greets though. It really should be a "group pass" exactly because of things like this. They should do something like issue one group every 5 minutes and give a max group size. This business of having 2-3 groups to get 5 people in is silly. Enter as one and cut the time occupied by half.

someone PLEASE explain the copy button. ANY luck of getting a M&G for our 3 little girls, aka our family of 5?!?! my window isn't open yet but I'm scared just thinking of our NOV trip.

When you get in you will see it. When you go to your reservations and click to modify your FP+ selections, you will have an option to select all new, change, copy or cancel all. If you select "copy" you go to a screen and select who you want to copy from, then on the next screen you select who you want to copy to. It will then think for a minute and pop up with what your options are. If you are lucky, it gives you the same rides and times. Sometimes it moves a time or will offer a completely different ride for something... if you agree it will switch all of the people to the new selection together.
As a warning, if you use the phone app it will often confirm and tell you everything copied, but if you go back to verify it often won't copy the hard to get ones. It's like it doesn't want to let you down so it just lies to keep you happy. I kept getting a screen confirming my family had A&E and the mine train together- but when I look at our plans it would show that the copy didn't actually happen. On the website it will show you that it can't do it and you either have to pick something else or tell it to cancel.

Do your selections ASAP when it's open and try to get them together, then split people up if you can't get the hard ones. This next part will seem really simple when you go to do it, writing it out is more daunting than the process. I found it easiest to pick 2 rides I want and something silly I don't. Then modify and act like you are changing the times. When you click to change times it will let you select individuals to swap times for. Click one person, then change the time by 5 or 10 minutes. Divide everybody up into groups of 1 or 2, then once you show up all spread out, go in and change the attraction to the ride you want. Once you all have the right ride, keep trying to modify the time to get everybody together or overlapping. The closer you are to 60+ days the more likely it will work. I'm hoping that when we get really close (within a week or so) it will suddenly get easy again- that seemed to be what the early summer reports were saying.

 

[Emilyswish]

I'm hoping for that too. Maybe the week of the trip people will change plans or drop the FPs that they've been hoarding!!

 

[GigiDisneyfreak]

someone PLEASE explain the copy button. ANY luck of getting a M&G for our 3 little girls, aka our family of 5?!?! my window isn't open yet but I'm scared just thinking of our NOV trip.

I can't help with the copy button because I didn't need to use it. If you are staying on property and staying for more than 6 days you should not have a problem booking them all at one time. If you are staying for less then 6 days then you might have a problem. When you book start with the last day you will be there and work forward from that day. I booked mine on the last day I will be in the MK and then I was able to find one a few days before that one.

 

[GigiDisneyfreak]

I'm hoping for that too. Maybe the week of the trip people will change plans or drop the FPs that they've been hoarding!!

 

[practicallyperfect77]

Sometimes it moves a time or will offer a completely different ride for something... if you agree it will switch all of the people to the new selection together.
.

Am I understanding correctly that of a I have A&E on person A and trying to copy to person B, but it changes the attraction to let's say Buzz and I don't realize it and hit accept that now person A and B have Buzz?

 

[Christinaxo]

I am going the last week of August and was only able to get overlapping times for DD & I, with DS & DH having overlapping times hours before. This defeated the purpose because they only would want to meet A&E to witness the sheer joy that DD would experience, so I swapped theirs for Space Mountain but still looking for FP+ everyday! After about 25 days of searching (seriously!) I got both of them overlapping times with ours, just this morning. Mind you all of our times are single, overlapping, FP+. Maybe the same way we dropped our times because they didn't work, others are doing the same, since when initially booking I think everyone is grabbing whatever they can hoping to make it work. As the trip gets closer people will be able to finalize things better and drop what they don't need! Don't give up and good luck!!!