Useless FPs?

[Klayfish]

You should be able to just let your window lapse, if I understand right. We are planning to arrive at our WS day at 10, so we have FEA from 10-11. But since we want to throw away our other tier 2s so we can get soarin later in the evening, we have one FP at 9 which is opening time. That one we will let expire before we even get to the park and since it’s rope drop, most people won’t be using FP yet and it shouldn’t inconvenience anyone. Then we will modify our 11-12 FP while in line at FEA so it expires as soon as possible, allowing us to hopefully get a spot for Soarin booked around 11:15 for the evening.

That's how it's "supposed" to work, but it hasn't always been our experience. We've had several times where we just let it lapse, but then were blocked from making another FP+ because it was still showing on our MDE account. We had to go tap in, even though it had expired, or have a CM remove it. Not sure why, but it happened more than once. So for us, if we book it, we ride it...or at the minimum do a tap and run.

 

[JohnneeO]

We've grabbed a FP+ for JIA that we really didn't need. We were hopping over to Epcot after spending the day in AK. We wanted to get there before 7 PM to ride Figment before it closed for the day, and grabbed the FP via the app on the trip over to Epcot. It was a bit comical to scan in the FP, and to be walking through a virtually empty queue simultaneously with stand-by riders, as we traveled separate but parallel paths to the loading platform.

 

[Princess_Lisa]

I've done that. Epcot is the most common because outside of the 3 tier 1 rides, there isn't much that really requires a FP (SE depending on the crowds. I don't do MS anymore). One time at MK I rode Buzz first, then Pooh. I wanted to reride Buzz, so I just grabbed a FP for 5 minutes later for the Tea Cups, walked over, tapped in and walking away got on MDE and found a 4th FP for Buzz which I was able to modify earlier. I ended up riding 3 or 4 times back to back by grabbing another FP+ as soon as I tapped in and modifying until I got a good timeslot.

 

[VeeHam]

Yes, it'll work better with rides that have greater FP+ availability, especially rides that have large capacities/fast loading. However, with the exception of FoP (and I'll presume the new two new Toy Story rides), it works fine with the other "headliner" rides. We routinely get 7DMT, Space, Splash, TT, RnR, ToT, TSMM, FEA, Soarin', EE, etc...even Na'vi is becoming easier.

How do you do this during the summer? We went once during the summer two years ago and it was so busy and there really weren't many FP to be had. We scheduled our three and were able to get a few more but not many and not for popular rides. We are planning a trip in a few weeks and the crowd calendar shows the parks at 7's and 8's the whole week. Why does everyone say this is not busy? I am going to try this when we go back and see how it works. Thanks

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Its stupid to waste them.
I make FP's for things I'm going to use them for.
Sure maybe its not needed for LWTL but if I made the FP selection I'm going to use my FP.

 

[Klayfish]

How do you do this during the summer? We went once during the summer two years ago and it was so busy and there really weren't many FP to be had. We scheduled our three and were able to get a few more but not many and not for popular rides. We are planning a trip in a few weeks and the crowd calendar shows the parks at 7's and 8's the whole week. Why does everyone say this is not busy? I am going to try this when we go back and see how it works. Thanks

Let's just say I don't have a high opinion of crowd calendars, so I don't have a clue what they "predict" as it has no value. We do have the Touring Plans app, because we like to use the wait time list that it has. A few times while we're in the park, we have looked at what the crowd calendar "predicted" it was going to be and laughed our heads off. We've been the past 3 summers straight and never really felt it was all that crowded. In fact, it's been pretty light. The only exception is the few days around July 4th, in MK. Keep checking MDE for more FP+. Truly, we just go from FP+ to FP+ to FP+ until we're done. The only rides we don't use FP+ are ones that don't need it anyway and we can walk right on (Nemo, Figment, Philharmagic, etc...).