Today at Epcot, MDE and FP+ thoughts

[BrerTom]

First full day of our trip spent a rainy morning at EPCOT. I love when the weather is bad because the park is empty. However for Epcot this presents a challenge because test track is almost always down with a good amount of rain. I had hoped to do test track first and then my tier one for Soarin but because test track was down and I didn't have a fast pass I would have to come back later and hope that it was open for stand by. This got me thinking about strategy.... For those that rope drop and get one walk on, better to make test track the FP+ and go to soarin first. Then go to test track at the FP+ time and if it's down you get a freebie to come back any time during the day.

Also, I tried picking up test track as a fourth FP and of course I have to wait until all three fast passes are used. At the point I was planning for test track I looked into canceling my third fast pass to see if I could just then get the forth one thereafter but no... Had to use it. So rather than wait for 3 hours till the window expired I was able to switch out my third for a less popular one at an earlier time. Then when it expired I was able to get a test track pass for later that day.

I asked the kiosk staff about the "glitch" yesterday. They said it was a major downtime for them that affected multiple systems. And as of 11a today they still had not determined the cause. While I had their ear, I offered some feedback about the my disney experience app. Today it was running extremely slow and early on in the day it would error out when trying to use the modify FP feature. My guess is they need to increase the bandwidth their servers can accommodate. I bet they didn't anticipate the actual number of times a guest would modify their plans.

Anyway, these just thoughts from my first day of seven. This is really a nice week to go - crowds are comfortably modest and weather except for today's rain appears to be perfect.... 80s all week.

 

[AnotherWorld]

Thanks for the post! I was wondering if you had to use the third FP+ before going to the kiosk or if you could cancel it. We don't plan to use our third at Epcot.

Did you try canceling your third?
When you said you changed to an earlier time, was it right after you used your 2nd FP+?

We have Spaceship Earth FP+ 9:10-10:10, Soarin 10:10-11:10, & Nemo 11:10-12:10. We want to be in the WS at 11:00, so we don't plan to use Nemo. If we have to wait until 12, is there a kiosk in the WS?

Thanks again for the report! Hope you have a great week!

 

[BrerTom]

I did try canceling the third both on the app and then at the kiosk and could not. Of course the app was having trouble yesterday so maybe it's possible. I did end up moving another one to right after the last by checking a couple of less popular selections. Nemo was a walk on but everyone seems to select this as a third so I switched to figment. There is only one FP+ kiosk in world showcase by the international gateway entrance. Judging by the lack of lines for this one it may be little known.

 

[AnotherWorld]

Thanks for the reply! Hope you are enjoying your trip!