Try this FP+ touring strategy when staying onsite with park hoppers

[Laketravis]

FOR THOSE STAYING ONSITE WITH PARK HOPPERS:

• ADR, Park, and FP Planning:

Make your ADR's for dinner first, then plan your FP+ around that. For example:​

• If we were going to Biergarten or Yachtsmans, we would make FP+ reservations for afternoon or evening at EP or HS.

• If we were going to Chef Mickey's or Crystal Palace, we would make FP+ reservations for afternoon or evening at MK

• If we were going to Boma or Tusker House, then.....you got it, AK. Due to AK's early close, make your FP reservations in the afternoon before your ADR

• Morning Park Selection:

If you want to sleep late, skip this part. Otherwise, plan on being at park opening and using nothing but Standby or Single Rider lines:​

• The park with morning EMH should be your first choice

• If there aren't any morning EMH that day, choose the most recommended park from EasyWDW.

• If the recommended park is the same as your PM park, pick the next recommended park.

• Morning Park Standby Line Strategy:

Once at the park in the morning, it will depend on the park as to what your strategy should be at RD:​

• With the tiers at HS and EP, getting to your favorite headliner first is obvious priority. If conditions are favorable, you might even get to enjoy it twice. If you're a glutton for one particular headliner, you might just camp out at that one until the SB line reaches 45 minutes or more.

• For MK, you'll have an hour or two before waits start to build. Possibly longer if this is an EMH morning. If you are into rides, do the mountains first. If you are into characters, do your meets first.

• For AK, you'll need to turn around and head back out of the park. You should be at one of the other three, since there is really no advantage to going to AK over any other park in the morning. The animals are still asleep.

• Assemble your Power Plan:

Now that you've built your morning, afternoon, and evening, put them together like this:​

• Plan on leaving your morning park or taking lunch in it by 11:30. This should provide plenty of time from RD to do TT, Soarin, and MS for Epcot, TSMM, RnRC, and ToT at HS, and the Mountains or Character Meets at MK

• After lunch, hit your second park of the day with your afternoon FP's.

• Proceed to your ADR for dinner. Yum.

• After dinner, move to the third park of the day for the evening, preferably the one with evening EMH for an extra bonus chance at headliner attractions to finish out your day.

• First preference is either Epcot or MK where you'll be able to fit in fireworks, maybe even a parade, and then more headliners during EMH.

• Last preference is HS, which does a poorer job of providing thinner crowds during evening EMH. But you might catch standby Fantasmic! or short standby lines for the less popular attractions until EMH kicks in and increases your odds of getting back on the headliners.

• What can a typical day look like?

Combining all of the favorable elements provides maximum benefit. For example:​

• Morning: Epcot and Soarin, Test Track, Mission Space.

• Lunch: World Showcase

• Afternoon: HS and FP's for TSMM, ToT, Star Tours

• Dinner: Cape May

• Evening: MK Fireworks and EMH for SM, BTMRR, Splash

So easy even a caveman can do it............



__________________

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

sounds a bit like our overall plan

We're going to EMH parks in the morning or to a slightly "less" recommended park (that's where we differ from your plan). In the afternoon we're hopping to a less busy / most recommended park - to use our FP+ and hopefully benefit from low crowds.

So on the Tuesday we're there we're starting at Epcot (EMH) will ride Soarin etc and eat lunch in WS then hop to MK (recommended park) to use our FP+ and hopefully ride a fair amount of rides.

 

[CanadianPaco]

That was nicely explained! It'll be helpful for sure!

 

[Rags]

I have a similar plan for our trip this week!!! Thanks for the report and validating my plan!!!

 

[ckelly14]

Great plan, but I'm not sure if I want to hop or not. Avoiding the EMH park seemed to work well in the past but I'm not sure how that will change with FP+. I may just go to the least busy park in the morning, followed by afternoon resort time, back to the same park with FP+ in the evening. Call me weak, but I just can't handle a full day at the park in June. I would need to take another week off from work after my vacation!

 

[NancyK]

That's a great plan. My only minor disagreement would be your statement about Animal Kingdom. We've always found that there were more active animals on the safari first thing in the morning. Since it gets very hot in AK by lunch, we always choose to do AK first thing in the morning. YMMV.

 

[wisblue]

The approach is a lot simpler if you are people like us who do not make many, if any, ADRs. That provides a lot more flexibility for choosing parks and FP+ times.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

That's a great plan. My only minor disagreement would be your statement about Animal Kingdom. We've always found that there were more active animals on the safari first thing in the morning. Since it gets very hot in AK by lunch, we always choose to do AK first thing in the morning. YMMV.

I agree completely - we have AK scheduled for mornings 3 days of our 9 day trip (Friday, Monday and Wednesday) we're only doing it in the afternoon one day (Saturday).

 

[summermac]

The only thing I don't like is that now I have to have two parks planned out. I at least always liked to have our hopper park be a surprise for the day. Our touring plan is typically:
Rope drop (and on this trip using FP+ to not be running all over the park as well)
Grab & go breakfast at the park (or granola bars, etc I brought)
Late TS lunch of 1:30 - 2:00
Hop to next park

 

[ArwenMarie]

How about setting up a second account under your spouse's email to hold your ADRs? Then you wouldn't get as much interference with FP.

 

[MinniesYooHoo]

FOR THOSE STAYING ONSITE WITH PARK HOPPERS:

• ADR, Park, and FP Planning:

Make your ADR's for dinner first, then plan your FP+ around that. For example:​

• If we were going to Biergarten or Yachtsmans, we would make FP+ reservations for afternoon or evening at EP or HS.

• If we were going to Chef Mickey's or Crystal Palace, we would make FP+ reservations for afternoon or evening at MK

• If we were going to Boma or Tusker House, then.....you got it, AK. Due to AK's early close, make your FP reservations in the afternoon before your ADR

• Morning Park Selection:

If you want to sleep late, skip this part. Otherwise, plan on being at park opening and using nothing but Standby or Single Rider lines:​

• The park with morning EMH should be your first choice

• If there aren't any morning EMH that day, choose the most recommended park from EasyWDW.

• If the recommended park is the same as your PM park, pick the next recommended park.

• Morning Park Standby Line Strategy:

Once at the park in the morning, it will depend on the park as to what your strategy should be at RD:​

• With the tiers at HS and EP, getting to your favorite headliner first is obvious priority. If conditions are favorable, you might even get to enjoy it twice. If you're a glutton for one particular headliner, you might just camp out at that one until the SB line reaches 45 minutes or more.

• For MK, you'll have an hour or two before waits start to build. Possibly longer if this is an EMH morning. If you are into rides, do the mountains first. If you are into characters, do your meets first.

• For AK, you'll need to turn around and head back out of the park. You should be at one of the other three, since there is really no advantage to going to AK over any other park in the morning. The animals are still asleep.

• Assemble your Power Plan:

Now that you've built your morning, afternoon, and evening, put them together like this:​

• Plan on leaving your morning park or taking lunch in it by 11:30. This should provide plenty of time from RD to do TT, Soarin, and MS for Epcot, TSMM, RnRC, and ToT at HS, and the Mountains or Character Meets at MK

• After lunch, hit your second park of the day with your afternoon FP's.

• Proceed to your ADR for dinner. Yum.

• After dinner, move to the third park of the day for the evening, preferably the one with evening EMH for an extra bonus chance at headliner attractions to finish out your day.

• First preference is either Epcot or MK where you'll be able to fit in fireworks, maybe even a parade, and then more headliners during EMH.

• Last preference is HS, which does a poorer job of providing thinner crowds during evening EMH. But you might catch standby Fantasmic! or short standby lines for the less popular attractions until EMH kicks in and increases your odds of getting back on the headliners.

• What can a typical day look like?

Combining all of the favorable elements provides maximum benefit. For example:​

• Morning: Epcot and Soarin, Test Track, Mission Space.

• Lunch: World Showcase

• Afternoon: HS and FP's for TSMM, ToT, Star Tours

• Dinner: Cape May

• Evening: MK Fireworks and EMH for SM, BTMRR, Splash

So easy even a caveman can do it............



__________________

Could you modify this for someone who doesn't want to park hop? It's rare for us to park hop. When we feel we're "done" with a park for the day we simply go back to the resort after our dinner ADR and hang at the pool with cocktails for the rest of the night. I cannot deny that I'm extremely worried about our upcoming trip and all of this FP+ crap. I'm on overload reading so many different posts/threads/opinions/arguments and I can't get it all straight in my mind! I honestly need a step by step FP+ for dummies! HELP!

 

[summermac]

Could you modify this for someone who doesn't want to park hop? It's rare for us to park hop. When we feel we're "done" with a park for the day we simply go back to the resort after our dinner ADR and hang at the pool with cocktails for the rest of the night. I cannot deny that I'm extremely worried about our upcoming trip and all of this FP+ crap. I'm on overload reading so many different posts/threads/opinions/arguments and I can't get it all straight in my mind! I honestly need a step by step FP+ for dummies! HELP!

We are planning to hop but we never plan our 2nd park so in a way my strategy will be the same as yours.

Here's my plan for MK for Wednesday Feb 12:
have my FP+ scheduled in an effort to minimize running around the park. I have a slow as molasses 6 year old and my parents are coming too. They are in their 50s but day after day of crisscrossing the park (like our 1st trip) wears anyone out.

If we get there and can make good use of rope drop with minimal waits, we will try not to use our FP+ so we have the option of changing them to another park for hopping.

For example here's my MK day plan
8:00 Crystal Palace
Fantasyland at Rope Drop for hopefully:
Peter Pan, Pooh, and Small World
Mermaid and Ariel and by then I think our FP window will open for:
FP+ for ETWB 10:05 - 11:05 (might not be necessary so if not will change it)
Barnstormer
Tomorrowland for
Buzz, Astro Oribter (time permitting) and Space Mountain FP from 12-1
Monster's Inc if there's time
FP lunch at BOG at 1:35
Back to Fantasyland for Philharmagic (let our food settle)
Then over to Liberty Square for Haunted Mansion, Riverboat, Presidents
(If we didn't need our FP+ earlier for ETWB I will change it for Haunted Mansion depending on SB times or even Jungle Cruise for later)
I think it will be about 4:30 by now, if not explore Tom Sawyer island
BTM FP+ from 4-5; then Country Bears (we've never seen and Splash is closed)
Adventureland for Pirates, Jungle Cruise (with a possible FP+), Aladdin and Tiki Room
DOLE WHIP TIME!
Enjoy the rest of the evening (if any left) at the park doing whatever or hop if we so chose.

So basically I tried to pick my FP+ based on where I thought they'd be necessary at about the time we plan to be in each area without criss-crossing the park.

(We might try to go to Space and ride it standby right after Peter Pan and Pooh b/c we can rider swap it for a second time later, opening up another FP+ but at the same time I don't want to be in Fantasyland, run to Tomorrowland and run back to Fantasyland. Although we are kind of doing that anyway since we have lunch at BOG so I guess we'll play that by ear.

 

[Laketravis]

Could you modify this for someone who doesn't want to park hop?

Workin' on it

 

[Momtomouselover]

How about setting up a second account under your spouse's email to hold your ADRs? Then you wouldn't get as much interference with FP.

I found that if you do your FP+ reservations first and then your ADRs it didn't limit your FP times. Of course, this may not work if you don't want to wait until your 60 day window for ADRs but since we were flexible on where or what times we would eat it worked for us.

 

[summermac]

Here's my Epcot plan for Thursday Feb 13:
Rope drop Soarin
Quick grab and go breakfast
Ride Living w/ the Land after, Turtle Talk FP at 10 (if even needed, if not change it while in park), Nemo
Spaceship Earth
FP for Test Track opens at 11:05 (12:05 latest) so depending on time ride Mission Space before or after. If standby isn't crazy by then (HAHAA) maybe even ride Test Track twice
Hit World Showcase:
Mexico ride
Maelstrom
Continue touring
Lunch at Biergarten at 1:45
More WS until we're done.
Upon finishing WS go to Imagination Pavilion and whatever else we missed at Epcot or want to do.
I also have a FP+ for Nemo at 4:05-5:05 but it's basically just there b/c I had to schedule something. If at all possible I am hoping to not use FP+ for even Test Track in the morning and reschedule those for later in the day for 2nd rides. We shall see how that goes.


Friday, Feb 14 (DHS)
Rope drop for RockNRollercoaster, get a Rider Swap so some can ride again. The only reason I didn't go to TSM at Rope Drop and use FP+ here is because my mom and my daughter won't/can't ride so it seemed wasteful to get a FP+ for only 5 of 7.
I think there is a coffee/pastry thing right by Tower of Terror exit - hello breakfast.
FP reserved for Tower of Terror from 10:00 - 11:00 after RNR may just ride Tower standby and change this FP+ later.
Watch Beauty and the Beast Show
Continue to Animation Courtyard to see Mermaid at the very least and continue until FP+ for TSM opens at 11:05 to 12:05
Backlot Tour and Lights Motor Action time permitting
Star Tours (FP from 1-2 if necessary)
SciFi lunch at 2
After lunch (3:30ish) Indiana Jones, Muppets, whatever else on that side we didn't have time to do.

I know this is probably a little overscheduled but we are very flexible - this is just my general flow for this park. We may skip BATB earlier in the day in lieu of more rides on RNR and Tower of Terror - it all depends on how my daughter likes TOT.


My AK plan is for a noon arrival b/c the park is open late that night and we have a late breakfast ADR at Ohana. I figure by Saturday and our crazy touring for 3 days, we are going to need a break from that and IMO AK is the perfect park for this, especially since it's open late.

 

[MinniesYooHoo]

Workin' on it

Thank you! Thank you!

 

[heathsf]

Could you modify this for someone who doesn't want to park hop? It's rare for us to park hop. When we feel we're "done" with a park for the day we simply go back to the resort after our dinner ADR and hang at the pool with cocktails for the rest of the night. I cannot deny that I'm extremely worried about our upcoming trip and all of this FP+ crap. I'm on overload reading so many different posts/threads/opinions/arguments and I can't get it all straight in my mind! I honestly need a step by step FP+ for dummies! HELP!

I agree with PP - plan to get to the park at least 30 min. before RD so you can do as many rides as possible with little to no waiting, and schedule FP+ for late morning/afternoon when lines are longest. You should be able to get plenty done this way. Try not to get too overwhelmed, I really think getting to the parks early is still going to be the key to accomplishing a lot, same as before... And whatever happens, you're still in the most magical place on earth

I have a question of my own though, will MDE not allow you to schedule a FP+ that could possibly conflict with an ADR? What are the specific constraints? For example if I have a 4-5 pm FP+ window, could I schedule an ADR for 4:45?

 

[Laz]

FOR THOSE STAYING ONSITE WITH PARK HOPPERS:

• ADR, Park, and FP Planning:

Make your ADR's for dinner first, then plan your FP+ around that. For example:​

• If we were going to Biergarten or Yachtsmans, we would make FP+ reservations for afternoon or evening at EP or HS.

• If we were going to Chef Mickey's or Crystal Palace, we would make FP+ reservations for afternoon or evening at MK

• If we were going to Boma or Tusker House, then.....you got it, AK. Due to AK's early close, make your FP reservations in the afternoon before your ADR

• Morning Park Selection:

If you want to sleep late, skip this part. Otherwise, plan on being at park opening and using nothing but Standby or Single Rider lines:​

• The park with morning EMH should be your first choice

• If there aren't any morning EMH that day, choose the most recommended park from EasyWDW.

• If the recommended park is the same as your PM park, pick the next recommended park.

• Morning Park Standby Line Strategy:

Once at the park in the morning, it will depend on the park as to what your strategy should be at RD:​

• With the tiers at HS and EP, getting to your favorite headliner first is obvious priority. If conditions are favorable, you might even get to enjoy it twice. If you're a glutton for one particular headliner, you might just camp out at that one until the SB line reaches 45 minutes or more.

• For MK, you'll have an hour or two before waits start to build. Possibly longer if this is an EMH morning. If you are into rides, do the mountains first. If you are into characters, do your meets first.

• For AK, you'll need to turn around and head back out of the park. You should be at one of the other three, since there is really no advantage to going to AK over any other park in the morning. The animals are still asleep.

• Assemble your Power Plan:

Now that you've built your morning, afternoon, and evening, put them together like this:​

• Plan on leaving your morning park or taking lunch in it by 11:30. This should provide plenty of time from RD to do TT, Soarin, and MS for Epcot, TSMM, RnRC, and ToT at HS, and the Mountains or Character Meets at MK

• After lunch, hit your second park of the day with your afternoon FP's.

• Proceed to your ADR for dinner. Yum.

• After dinner, move to the third park of the day for the evening, preferably the one with evening EMH for an extra bonus chance at headliner attractions to finish out your day.

• First preference is either Epcot or MK where you'll be able to fit in fireworks, maybe even a parade, and then more headliners during EMH.

• Last preference is HS, which does a poorer job of providing thinner crowds during evening EMH. But you might catch standby Fantasmic! or short standby lines for the less popular attractions until EMH kicks in and increases your odds of getting back on the headliners.

• What can a typical day look like?

Combining all of the favorable elements provides maximum benefit. For example:​

• Morning: Epcot and Soarin, Test Track, Mission Space.

• Lunch: World Showcase

• Afternoon: HS and FP's for TSMM, ToT, Star Tours

• Dinner: Cape May

• Evening: MK Fireworks and EMH for SM, BTMRR, Splash

So easy even a caveman can do it............



__________________

Well done! Good job making lemonade out of lemons Since my family and I go during the summer we would take an afternoon break at the hotel. We would have an early dinner, then use the FP+ for late afternoon evening, and then proceed to the night EMH park.

 

[mom2aandj]

I found that if you do your FP+ reservations first and then your ADRs it didn't limit your FP times. Of course, this may not work if you don't want to wait until your 60 day window for ADRs but since we were flexible on where or what times we would eat it worked for us.

The other thing you can try: the picks Disney generates CAN overlap a bit with an ADR. I actually had a fair amount of success this morning just letting Disney generate FP+ picks until I found one that was the time slot I wanted to overlap with an ADR. For example, I have a 7pm ADR and the Disney pick for one ride came up as 8:20-9:20pm. Just what I wanted, as we almost never spend 2 hrs at an ADR. It would not let me go in and modify a time any earlier than 9-10 pm.

 

[Aliceacc]

I haven't had time to really play with ideas; work has been kinda busy.

But my ADRS go in in a week and a half. I have them roughed out, so sometime in the next few months I'll work on FP+.

Our typical routine is Rope Drop, stay until lunch or shortly after lunch, get back to Stormalong Bay for the afternoon, then hop (or not) depending on our ADRs.

So I'm thinking that this thread may be the start of my planning-- perhaps we'll plan one FP+ for just after lunch, on our way out of the park, and 2 for the evenings.

Here's another question: Do I now Go to the AM EMH park, or avoid it? Does it come into play at all with the change in Fastpasses?