Thoughts on Afternoon Fastpass+ Only

[DisneyMandC]

My fiance and I are heading to Disney in only 18(!!!!) short days for our honeymoon! We will be there the week after the Easter/spring break crowds phase out. While we do plan on getting to the parks early, I have set up mainly afternoon-only Fastpasses for our rides. I figure we can get in early in the morning and try to hit as many things before a big afternoon crowd comes in, then have our fastpasses when the latecomers show up. Thoughts? Am I way off? It's been 10 years since I've done a proper Disney vacation and have never used the FastPass+ system. I just remember going 10 years ago to Epcot and I could get on Soarin and Test Track virtually right away in the mornings but there were no fastpasses by afternoon and the wait was 80 minutes!

 

[mom2rtk]

During such a busy season, there's not likely to be much left after you use your first 3 anyway, so afternoon FP just sounds like good planning to me.

 

[goofy4tink]

That's what I've done for my May trip.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

When my husband and I did an adults only trip last March, we booked all our FP+ for the afternoons (so we could sleep in every morning) and it worked out PERFECTLY. It was crowded the week we were there, I think 8's each day, and we still rode everything we wanted, and the waits weren't too horrible.

 

[Indio]

That's what we've done for our May trip also. Hitting rope drop and getting what we can done in the 1st 2-3 hours, then have fastpasses in the afternoons.

 

[taythecray]

When we went in December we parked hopped and saved all our fastpasses till later at night (7-10pm) worked out great! We weren't planning to get a 4th and beyond however.

 

[chelseabun76]

This will be my way to go next trip (although by the time I get back I'm sure something else will be in place of FP+!!), when we went in January I didn't have any MK fp+ planned for before noon. We went at rope drop, hit anywhere from 4-6 rides by noon standby, had lunch, then used our fast passes, and fit in the parade, electric parade, fireworks, and dinner, and our day was full!!

 

[AlisaJ]

That is my plan with myself and two teenagers for April.. We plan on going to EMH at another park most mornings and hit all the rides and shows we want and then hop over to MK to use our FP for afternoon and early evening

 

[DisneyMandC]

Awesome, thank you all! Yeah I think my earliest Fastpass right now is like 12:20. We also have two days in every park except Animal Kingdom, so I figure even if there's something we miss one morning and don't have a fastpass for that afternoon, we can hit it the next morning.

 

[Epcot Mom]

We have done several fp+ trips. We set up our fp for 11-12-1. We sleep in but have until 12 to use the first one so we aren't in a rush. Depending on how early we get there, we eat lunch between the first and second or second and third. Then we can get a subsequent fp or more likely, head back to the resort for a swim and adult beverage. Then we head out for a nice dinner at night and enjoy the atmosphere of Disney. If we know we are going back to or near the park where we were during the day, we will often pick up a late fp just in case the kids want to double up and use our fp as well as theirs. This is our method to a relaxing vacation.

If you're wanting to maximize benefit of fp, I'd still go with 11-12-1 but then you could be selecting your 4th and so on right at 1. We were there last week, we had several MK days where we went to a kiosk and got a fp right away for something we enjoy doing but that had long lines. We also didn't experience the long kiosk lines so many people talk about. I saw a long line at the kiosk in front of Jungle Cruise, but by the time we used our fp, we walked up to empty kiosks and picked up a fp right away for something else!

 

[Cando86]

That's exactly what we did in January and it worked great! Because it was a slower time, we were even able to get good 4th FPs but just in MK (everything was available except SDMT and Anna & Elsa).

 

[DisneyMandC]

Great to know, thank you all! Yeah I'm not too worried about getting those 4th Fastpasses everyday. Since we're honeymooning we're planning on eating A LOT so we have dinner reservations booked every night. I figure we feel up to it before dinner to get a 4th fastpass for after dinner, we will. If not, we won't worry about it!

 

[DisneyMandC]

@Cando86, I was reading your trip report yesterday and LOVED it!! Is there another one I'm missing?! The one in your signature stopped at page 5 and I thought there was more yet to come!

 

[KEVD]

We have done several fp+ trips. We set up our fp for 11-12-1. We sleep in but have until 12 to use the first one so we aren't in a rush. Depending on how early we get there, we eat lunch between the first and second or second and third. Then we can get a subsequent fp or more likely, head back to the resort for a swim and adult beverage. Then we head out for a nice dinner at night and enjoy the atmosphere of Disney. If we know we are going back to or near the park where we were during the day, we will often pick up a late fp just in case the kids want to double up and use our fp as well as theirs. This is our method to a relaxing vacation.

If you're wanting to maximize benefit of fp, I'd still go with 11-12-1 but then you could be selecting your 4th and so on right at 1. We were there last week, we had several MK days where we went to a kiosk and got a fp right away for something we enjoy doing but that had long lines. We also didn't experience the long kiosk lines so many people talk about. I saw a long line at the kiosk in front of Jungle Cruise, but by the time we used our fp, we walked up to empty kiosks and picked up a fp right away for something else!

When you got your additional FPs at 1, what were the return times like?

 

[Epcot Mom]

We had pre-reserved fp for the mountains and were hitting the park early and going on mountains again before the crowds got there. We used the 4th, etc fp for things like Small World, Jungle Cruise and Barnstormer that had standby times around 30 minutes but we got fp that were good literally right away. We used these to hit some of the "lessor" attractions that are fun to ride but we don't want to wait 30 minutes for. My kids are older so these are re-visiting smaller attractions after they had their fill of the e-ticket types. Made for a nice balanced trip. And worth re-stating, this was last week during the spring break season. The park was pretty crowded but if you know how to use the system, we still did everything we wanted and some things we didn't expect to do because we could get these "right-away" fp I'm talking about.

 

[Cando86]

@Cando86, I was reading your trip report yesterday and LOVED it!! Is there another one I'm missing?! The one in your signature stopped at page 5 and I thought there was more yet to come!

AW thanks!!! It's just not done yet - there is definitely more to come !!!

 

[sweetnjmom]

With the exception of our AK day, where we want to do FP for the safari between 10-11 am (hopefully still early enough for the animals to be active), that's our plan as well.

 

[ZoZo]

Awesome, thank you all! Yeah I think my earliest Fastpass right now is like 12:20. We also have two days in every park except Animal Kingdom, so I figure even if there's something we miss one morning and don't have a fastpass for that afternoon, we can hit it the next morning.

Sounds like a solid plan. Congratulations on your wedding! Have a wonderful time.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

For our upcoming trip in August I plan on doing all of my FP+ for our PM park. We usually do rope drop, midday break at the pool and then a PM park.

I have our FP+ starting around 5 or 6 everyday except one morning I plan on doing FP+ at DHS in the morning and then just stroll Epcot in the evening. Also our MK PM EMH day we will start around 5 so no morning park that day anyway.

For our 10 day trip, with 8 day park tickets I have FP+ for 4 MK days, 2 EP days and 2 DHS days.

 

[Jfsag123]

This is what we did for our trip last week and it worked wonderfully. Have a great trip!