We booked our FP+s while on our Universal/WDW combo trip (I stayed up until midnight on March 31 and made the selections for today and Friday. Got everything we wanted when we wanted.)
I didn't have a chance to sit and obsess and analyze over the best strategy b/c this news came out so recently. I had been more worried about having to use kiosks. So here's the strategy we came up with for our DHS/Epcot day.
Went to DHS for RD. Went on RNR twice, TOT twice, Star Tours (watched a few minutes of Jedi Training), One Man's Dream, Legend of Jack Sparrow and got our pic taken with Mike and Sulley. We had collectively agreed that TSM was not super important to us this time. Our youngest was finally tall enough to do RNR, so that took precedence. With that said, the TSM line at around 10/10:30 was 65 minutes. That is a reasonably expected time in years past during the spring (in my limited experience).
We bused over to Epcot and drank cola's from around the world, rode Figment, putzed around Innoventions East, walked around World Showcase stopping for pictures, and food including turkey legs, orange chicken and nachos and empanadas. Then we rode the first of our 3 FP+ rides: Spaceship Earth. Standby was only a 15 minutes so we wanted to switch it but the system was down on the app (tried both my dh and my phone. Got the same "sorry, experiencing technical difficulties" type of message). So we kept it as is and went through. Then went to Innoventions West and rode Sum of All Thrills. Soarin' was our second FP+. When we got there, the app said waits were 150 minutes but the standby line was actually closed. They said it was due to "technical difficulties." But the ride was functional and we could use our FP+s, so we did. It took us 30 minutes from the time we got into the FP plus line to the time we exited. They were just opening up the standy line again and the wait was 30 minutes. We considered riding again but decided we'd rather get more variety of rides instead of a re-do on Soarin'. So we did Nemo, Turtle Talk with Crush (which I begrudgingly did but found to be hilarious). Then we went to our third FP+ which was Mission:Space. Again a walk-on at this point (4:30 p.m.) but app still wasn't working (and what would we have even changed it to in tier 2 anyway?). Test Trace was above 55 minutes all day so we'd written it off but when we approached, it was 40 minutes for standby and 15 for single rider. Three in our party wound up in the same car. Two others also wound up in a car together.
Then we went on Gran Fiesta and Maelstrom. Caught a glimpse of Anna & Elsa as we walked by and that was enough of that for us! Walked from Norway back through WS to Int'l Gateway to rest our feet on the 25 minute boat cruise back to DHS. Ate a leisurely dinner at the ABC Commissary which included a free cupcake "pixie dusted" to my son for his birthday (was wearing his bday button). Rode TOT two more times and RNR two more times. By now it was 9:30 and we headed into the second showing of Fantasmic! Got center (forget section name) seats about 6-8 rows up (close enough to get misted). Had a great view and not packed in at all. They'd made an announcement earlier in the evening that the first show had become standing room only. There was a TON of space at the second show.
Anyway, we did all of this and our longest wait was about 20 minutes (Monsters Inc. photo opp and Maelstrom). The wait for Turtle Talk felt long, although I don't think it actually topped out longer than 20 minutes.
So, I don't know if the crowds were down or if we just managed to avoid them.
The FP+s worked very similarly to FP- once redeemed, so that was smooth. My observations would be though, it sort of stunk having FPs for rides that didn't need them and not being able to access the app and make changes on the fly. Also, I figured it would be fine to not buy MB's but it did become a pain to keep pulling out the cards. Had we planned a longer vacation, i would've probably bought the magic bands.
I'm not sure I would've changed our strategy if I knew I could get more FPs later in the day. Maybe I'd make the first set a touch earlier but making them and using them first thing in the morning isn't really like getting a FP at all because rides are at low line levels, at least for the first 3-4 rides you do in most parks. I hated having to use FP when a line was under 15 minutes. Seemed pointless.
But in the end, I feel as if we accomplished a TON in one day with only 3 FPs (only 1 of which really seemed useful). I have no idea how much we would've been able to do if it was busier. Someone said today was supposed to be a 7, but I'm not sure. It felt quite normal to me.
I just wanted to share that we had a good experience today and did manage to ride some of our faves more than once while utilizing the current system. The strategies included Rope Drop, afternoon FP's and riding during the first show of the park's evening entertainment.
I didn't have a chance to sit and obsess and analyze over the best strategy b/c this news came out so recently. I had been more worried about having to use kiosks. So here's the strategy we came up with for our DHS/Epcot day.
Went to DHS for RD. Went on RNR twice, TOT twice, Star Tours (watched a few minutes of Jedi Training), One Man's Dream, Legend of Jack Sparrow and got our pic taken with Mike and Sulley. We had collectively agreed that TSM was not super important to us this time. Our youngest was finally tall enough to do RNR, so that took precedence. With that said, the TSM line at around 10/10:30 was 65 minutes. That is a reasonably expected time in years past during the spring (in my limited experience).
We bused over to Epcot and drank cola's from around the world, rode Figment, putzed around Innoventions East, walked around World Showcase stopping for pictures, and food including turkey legs, orange chicken and nachos and empanadas. Then we rode the first of our 3 FP+ rides: Spaceship Earth. Standby was only a 15 minutes so we wanted to switch it but the system was down on the app (tried both my dh and my phone. Got the same "sorry, experiencing technical difficulties" type of message). So we kept it as is and went through. Then went to Innoventions West and rode Sum of All Thrills. Soarin' was our second FP+. When we got there, the app said waits were 150 minutes but the standby line was actually closed. They said it was due to "technical difficulties." But the ride was functional and we could use our FP+s, so we did. It took us 30 minutes from the time we got into the FP plus line to the time we exited. They were just opening up the standy line again and the wait was 30 minutes. We considered riding again but decided we'd rather get more variety of rides instead of a re-do on Soarin'. So we did Nemo, Turtle Talk with Crush (which I begrudgingly did but found to be hilarious). Then we went to our third FP+ which was Mission:Space. Again a walk-on at this point (4:30 p.m.) but app still wasn't working (and what would we have even changed it to in tier 2 anyway?). Test Trace was above 55 minutes all day so we'd written it off but when we approached, it was 40 minutes for standby and 15 for single rider. Three in our party wound up in the same car. Two others also wound up in a car together.
Then we went on Gran Fiesta and Maelstrom. Caught a glimpse of Anna & Elsa as we walked by and that was enough of that for us! Walked from Norway back through WS to Int'l Gateway to rest our feet on the 25 minute boat cruise back to DHS. Ate a leisurely dinner at the ABC Commissary which included a free cupcake "pixie dusted" to my son for his birthday (was wearing his bday button). Rode TOT two more times and RNR two more times. By now it was 9:30 and we headed into the second showing of Fantasmic! Got center (forget section name) seats about 6-8 rows up (close enough to get misted). Had a great view and not packed in at all. They'd made an announcement earlier in the evening that the first show had become standing room only. There was a TON of space at the second show.
Anyway, we did all of this and our longest wait was about 20 minutes (Monsters Inc. photo opp and Maelstrom). The wait for Turtle Talk felt long, although I don't think it actually topped out longer than 20 minutes.
So, I don't know if the crowds were down or if we just managed to avoid them.
The FP+s worked very similarly to FP- once redeemed, so that was smooth. My observations would be though, it sort of stunk having FPs for rides that didn't need them and not being able to access the app and make changes on the fly. Also, I figured it would be fine to not buy MB's but it did become a pain to keep pulling out the cards. Had we planned a longer vacation, i would've probably bought the magic bands.
I'm not sure I would've changed our strategy if I knew I could get more FPs later in the day. Maybe I'd make the first set a touch earlier but making them and using them first thing in the morning isn't really like getting a FP at all because rides are at low line levels, at least for the first 3-4 rides you do in most parks. I hated having to use FP when a line was under 15 minutes. Seemed pointless.
But in the end, I feel as if we accomplished a TON in one day with only 3 FPs (only 1 of which really seemed useful). I have no idea how much we would've been able to do if it was busier. Someone said today was supposed to be a 7, but I'm not sure. It felt quite normal to me.
I just wanted to share that we had a good experience today and did manage to ride some of our faves more than once while utilizing the current system. The strategies included Rope Drop, afternoon FP's and riding during the first show of the park's evening entertainment.
Hopefully the App will be fixed sometime soon. You are far from the first who has mentioned that. If you don't mind me asking, what phone system are you using?
