The lesson to be learned here is never give up! I've been a big defender of the new FP system but was worried about my first trip where basically every loophole I've ever used has now been closed.
Arrived at Epcot this past Sunday at about 3pm after spending the morning at AK. I was able to get a Soarin FP earlier that afternoon when we finished our AK FP. Right after scanning at Soarin I refreshed a number of times to fairly easily find Mission Space within 30 minutes after ending Soarin and then Spaceship Earth about 30 minutes after that. That's when the fun began. We were planning on spending the rest of the afternoon & evening (5 of us) in WS doing F&W and had been refreshing a number of times to try to get an Illuminations FP as those seem to pop up fairly regularly. At around 6pm a FP popped up for Test Track at 6:40! We rode that and headed back to WS again keeping on my phone waiting for Illuminations to appear. And at 8pm an 8:30 Frozen popped up! Did that and watched Illuminations basically by the rail right outside Norway without ever having see that FP (I had seen it earlier in the day but wanted to get a few more rides in first as the Illuminations FP is one I'd only take when I was done riding for the day).
We spent 5 days there the weekend of Jersey Week and the longest line we stood on was 30 minutes to meet princesses at MK. At various points we got 4th FP for pretty much anything we wanted. The only rides I can think of that didn't show up were the Pandora attractions and 7DMT. (Some rides like Peter Pan and Space Mountain rarely showed up and usually only very late or for hours past).
The only downside was that we did a lot more criss crossing of the parks as we often took what FP popped up for near immediate use (which I guess considering what I ate might be considered an upside).
FP+, now that you can get add'l FP by app, is really amazing. But it really does take a lot of refreshing to get full use out of it. I personally never minded sitting there and refreshing 15 times a minute for 5 minutes and I can see if you're the type of person who just looks and takes what is offered the first time you may get frustrated. But for those with patience and persistence - you can really get a lot done!
Arrived at Epcot this past Sunday at about 3pm after spending the morning at AK. I was able to get a Soarin FP earlier that afternoon when we finished our AK FP. Right after scanning at Soarin I refreshed a number of times to fairly easily find Mission Space within 30 minutes after ending Soarin and then Spaceship Earth about 30 minutes after that. That's when the fun began. We were planning on spending the rest of the afternoon & evening (5 of us) in WS doing F&W and had been refreshing a number of times to try to get an Illuminations FP as those seem to pop up fairly regularly. At around 6pm a FP popped up for Test Track at 6:40! We rode that and headed back to WS again keeping on my phone waiting for Illuminations to appear. And at 8pm an 8:30 Frozen popped up! Did that and watched Illuminations basically by the rail right outside Norway without ever having see that FP (I had seen it earlier in the day but wanted to get a few more rides in first as the Illuminations FP is one I'd only take when I was done riding for the day).
We spent 5 days there the weekend of Jersey Week and the longest line we stood on was 30 minutes to meet princesses at MK. At various points we got 4th FP for pretty much anything we wanted. The only rides I can think of that didn't show up were the Pandora attractions and 7DMT. (Some rides like Peter Pan and Space Mountain rarely showed up and usually only very late or for hours past).
The only downside was that we did a lot more criss crossing of the parks as we often took what FP popped up for near immediate use (which I guess considering what I ate might be considered an upside).
FP+, now that you can get add'l FP by app, is really amazing. But it really does take a lot of refreshing to get full use out of it. I personally never minded sitting there and refreshing 15 times a minute for 5 minutes and I can see if you're the type of person who just looks and takes what is offered the first time you may get frustrated. But for those with patience and persistence - you can really get a lot done!
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