Trying to figure out the FP situation

[cmadara]

So, this is the first time we are going with the advance FP and I'm trying to plan it out. I was disappointed to hear that you had to get all 3 FP for the same park. We have park hoppers and we always go to one park in the morning and another in the evening. We are going the 2nd week in August. My biggest concern is getting FP for the Pandora rides (which I know I can't get both at once).
I guess my question is how do I maximize my FP choices doing 2 different parks per day and still being able to ride all the headliners. We are in the parks for 5 full days.
The thought I have in mind is to save the FP for the second half of the day but then I don't think I will be able to fit in both Pandora rides.
We have never been in August so I'm not sure about the crowds. We will be at the parks well before rope drop so will we be able to hit the headliners in the morning before leaving for our break?
Any suggestions are much appreciated!

 

[Klayfish]

If you're going to do multiple parks in one day, you have to decide where you want to use the FP+. Do you want to "save" them for the second park later in the day, or use them right away and pick up what you can in the second park. No "right" answer to that.

The wild card here is not really knowing what Pandora FP+ will be like once it opens. We're big park hoppers too. More often than not, we use the FP+ in the first park, because once we use those 3, you can then immediately pick up a 4th FP+ at any park. Then when you use the 4th, make a 5th, and so on. With limited exception (7DMT or FEA), we usually have no trouble getting a FP+ for headliners that same day. However, don't know if that'll work for Pandora or not.

 

[barbliny]

It's really a personal preference. We do it both ways in the same trip.

We always go to a park in the morning at ropedrop (EMH if there is one), long mid-day break, back to (usually) a different park at night (EMH if there is one).

My personal rule is that I try hard to avoid the parks between noon and 5 pm - I'm just not good to be around in the high heat of the day and the peak crowds!!! If they want to keep going - have at it, I'm going back to the hotel - it's for their own good!

If we are going to a park in the morning that has am EMH, I normally save my fp+ for the second park of the day. I can usually get what we want done without them, and get out of the park by noon.

If we are going to a park in the evening that has night time EMH, we always get fp+ for that park. My reasoning is that crowds are often elevated in that park for the day - and I get 3 fp+ for the 3 hours leading up to the start of night time EMH. It guarantees 3 headliners, and if there are long standby lines at the beginning of EMH we'll get a snack and a drink to wait it out about 30 minutes until the lines start clearing a little bit.

I usually pick one day where our only set plan is MK in the morning - starting the first fp+ 15 minutes after official opening time. This way we can do fp+ just in that park and try for 4th, 5th fastpasses while we're in the park.

I also like to make sure I have fp+ for 'night rides' at a park so I can assure I get on the popular rides in the dark where they are completely different and normally more thrilling (7DMT, EE, BTMRR, Test Track, ToT) - so, that requires a morning plan that is park-free or rope-dropping a park using standby and lower crowds the first 2 hours. Test Track and ToT are the only ones that we will leave up to chance without a 'dark time' fp+ and leave that for nighttime EMH.

I think fp+ will become crucial in AK with the opening of Pandora. The good news is you have time to see what the actual impact is before you have to start booking your fastpasses 60 days out from your trip. You can watch people's reports during the first 2 weeks Pandora is open. I think the biggest toss-up is going to be what happens at ropedrop for AK - does everyone run for Pandora, thus EE and Safari become even easier to do standby? Or, are the increased crowds at ropedrop going with fp+ in hand for a Pandora ride a couple of hours after park opening and increasing the riders on EE, Safari, and Dinosaur making it much harder to do these headliners standby?

If you're interested I listed our exact plan for our 1st week of June trip here ...

https://www.disboards.com/threads/planning-with-hopping-any-advice.3603617/

 

[Mickey's Best Girl]

Our go to "plan" (and I use that word lightly) for Fastpasses is to get them for our evening park. We rope drop in the AM and hit a lot of attractions with little to no wait. Then off for a break and back to a Park in the evening.

Now obviously this plan is terrible for those who want to use their first 3 passes then keep booking more but it's what works for this crew.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

Since we have teenagers now we are not rope drop people. We like to stay out very late. We go every August and in the past MK would be open to at least 11pm or midnight (not anymore). We would use our FPs in the afternoon at one park and head to MK after - then we wouldn't need FPs since we go on rides during the parades and stay late. So as PPs have said - it all depends if you are rope drop people. If so then use your FPs for the 2nd park.

 

[gatorlisa]

We always hop. So far, we've had 3 trips since FP+ came out. We tend to open and close parks and generally don't take breaks. We find by arriving before rope drop, we have no trouble doing what we want to at the first park of the day stand-by. We then have FP+ for our second park, starting in mid afternoon, and then see what we can get as 4+ FP once we've used the first 3. Like @Klayfish mentioned, other than a couple of rides like Frozen Ever After and SDMT (and likely also the two Pandora rides when they open), it's not too difficult to get additional or same day FPs for most stuff. We are taking our first long trip over Labor Day and I'm figuring it will take more than one visit to get both Pandora rides in. I figure either two days with AK as our second park and one Pandora FP for each of those days, or one day where it's the 2nd park and have a FP for one ride and another day where we are there for rope drop and ride one first thing.

 

[cmadara]

Thank you everyone for your responses. All really good ideas and this weekend when I have some time to digest everything, I will restart my plan. It will be interesting to see how Pandora effects my AK day. I am only planning on 1 day at AK so I'm thinking pre-pre-rope drop, mad dash to 1st Pandora ride then have a FP for 2nd one- will decide which one to FP once I read how others are doing it.

Not sure if I'm liking this whole pre planning thing. I had a difficult time with the 180 day ADR. I'm usually not a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of Disney girl- I always have a very detailed plan!
Thank you Barbliny for your link! I will check it out!
Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!!
Have a great weekend and a Happy Mother's Day to all Disney Moms!!

 

[ArielSRL]

We are park hopping on two days of our trip. We always take an afternoon break but most days we just go back to the same park so we use one or two before we leave for break and one or two after we get back. But two days we are actually planning different parks for AM and PM.

The first one is an Epcot/DHS split. We are using our FP in the AM for Epcot because of the tiered system and trying to get Soarin', TT, and Frozen done in the 1.5 days we have at Epcot. We are doing DHS at night because we are doing the dessert party.

The second one is an MK/AK split and we are using our FPs in the PM at AK so that we can get a FP for both Pandora rides in the 1.5 days we have at AK.

So basically you just have to see what works best in your schedule.