What do you wish you knew the first time you reserved FP+?

[momto2]

Super great help!! Mesaboy2 I have read your thread- it's great!

 

[lovndisney12]

When we were there in November it was our first time for Fastpass+ too. We park hopped from HS to MK. When we arrived at MK around 1 PM there really weren't any fast passes for anything we wanted - different than what we had experienced with the old system. I do agree with the suggestion to still go ahead and take something that is available.

It does make you be more "scheduled" if you are trying to mix in TS reservations, fast passes, shows, and parades. And because of that, don't be afraid to skip scheduled fastpass if it is actually going to take the enjoyment out of the trip because you seem to be too "scheduled" and not taking time to just enjoy the parks.

 

[ZoZo]

Get them early for the early AM! (If you're morning people...)
You can always get more later.

Not sure I'd agree with this. Seems that the prevailing wisdom is to arrive at rope drop, tour "standby" for a couple of yours, then have your FPs start after that. And I don't think "you can always get more later" is true. Depending on the time of year, and which park you go to, you might not be able to get any more (at least for the more polular rides).

If you park-hop, I'd recommend saving your FPs for the second park.

 

[alvernon90]

Mesaboy2 I have read your thread

Mesaboy2, you magnificent bastard!

 

[Fastpassminus]

I wish I had known to start them about 2 hours after entering the park. So that the post RD touring time would have been preserved & then I could ride the FPplus rides from say 10-1 of 11-2

 

[mullysisters]

Everyone said to book your FP+ in the morning so that you can get 4,5,6 FP+ later in the day. Well, there are no headliners available later in the day, or at a second park later that day.
I go in the booking screen the day the FP+ are available and choose MK over any other park I may visit that day. I pick late morning because I always go to EMH and "ride for free". Then I go in and move the FP+ around to make them fit my itinerary (ADR etc) Later in the day I try to get what I can but it will not be Soarin or Kili Safari for example, they will be gone. After MK my next hard to get park would be AK.
TT at Epcot is always easier to get on in the SR line. SE always easy to get later in the day. At DHS I go to EMH in the morning and ride RnR and ToT to my heart's content.
Don't fret over booking FP+. Go into MDE go to your FP+ selection screens and have fun. Pick the best available option offered and move on to the next day. Go back and move things around as everyone says. it's easy and fun.

 

[Madame]

I wish I'd known what a difference time of year & park hours would make - for both ADRs & FP+.

Booking ADRs at 180 for the end of Aug and FP+ at 60 for the end of Aug is IME way more difficult than booking mid March (& I booked the March ADRs at 165 days).

Everything was available for desirable times for our entire March stay - between RD and FP+ we rode 7D 6x on our 3 MK days.

When I booked last Aug's FP+ I couldn't get 7D before 8pm for any MK day but the last & expect the same for this Aug - at least I'm prepared & will not be frustrated at 1:30am.

 

[100AcreWood]

I have a question. How do you keep up with your fastpass+ schedule? Is it on the phone app, are you carrying a schedule around the parks? I'm trying to picture how this works.

 

[prudence64]

I have a question. How do you keep up with your fastpass+ schedule? Is it on the phone app, are you carrying a schedule around the parks? I'm trying to picture how this works.

It's on your app, but if you are worried about battery life, a pen and paper do the trick as well.

 

[Madame]

I have a question. How do you keep up with your fastpass+ schedule? Is it on the phone app, are you carrying a schedule around the parks? I'm trying to picture how this works.

I find the MDE app to be a battery hog. I create events in my Google calendar with alerts at 30 & 15 mins before.

We used this method 2x. Soooo glad I did this in March. The wifi was horrible (I teach high school with hundreds of kids jamming the wifi daily & so do not say this lightly).

I ended up having to buy another data package (we're from Canada) about half way through our trip. It would randomly disconnect & revert to data. I'd recommend a method that isn't data reliant if you're at all worried about usage charges.

 

[disnut8]

That it's all tied to the My Disney Experience which you can access from any computer and make changes at any time. I thought it was all tied to the Magic Band so I waited until I got those before making any FastPasses.

 

[g-dad66]

I wish I had know that when you change an experience, the app may give you a time that is not anything close to the current time frame you have.

For example, we had three late morning/early afternoon FP+s, and when I changed the experience for one of them (assuming that I would only see alternative experiences available during the same time window as the attraction to be replaced), we were assigned a late evening time for it when we wouldn't even be in the park.

Fortunately, after freaking out, I was able to act quickly enough to change it back to what we previously had.

 

[100AcreWood]

Sounds good. I was thinking I would just use my google calendars to send me reminders.

 

[soniam]

I like to use Touring Plans, but a spreadsheet is just as handy. I used the spreadsheet for making ADRs and FP+ too.

If you do cancel an FP for one member, you can try the copy option in the app. Copy doesn't exist, as far as I can tell, on the web. Be careful with copy and make sure you are really doing what you want. I accidentally deleted an FP for our group using copy. Luckily, this was weeks out, and I was able to go redo all of the FP immediately. It was scary though.

 

[feistygalkmc]

After having one trip under our belt with fpp I was a little more experienced this year. Here are a few things I did (also referred to mesaboy's link several times lol )
-use those extra fp options if you can, I didn't realize last year you could do this until AFTER our trip. There may not be anything 'good' available but the option is there.
-with that said above, using your 3 allotted fp in the am or let's say before noon could benefit you. Then again, depending on the attraction some of our fast passes are during the time our 2 year old will be sleeping (hopefully) so that opens up some time for us in the morning.
-I just changed our meet Mickey m&g to haunted mansion yesterday....why, well, I've been watching wait times for a few months and while early May could be different I noticed my favorite attraction has a consistently higher wait time than I'm Illini to wait. More so than what I've noticed on previous trips.
-our first night I have wishes fp viewing area booked, but only did so because we aren't entering the park until around 5pm on this day. We could go earlier but since we are driving we should arrive between 12-2 and this will give us ample time to rest, take showers etc instead of storming the parks. It was the perfect time to ride pirates (which is closing for rehab during our trip), let our daughter meet tinker bell and then go see her fly across the sky for wishes! Since it's so late in the day I was ok with giving up a fp for the viewing area.
-I had to book as a single for wishes and use the copy to another party method a few others mentioned. Hubby's wishes fp is 5 minutes later than mine but it's all good.
-I would suggest making 2 lists, the first listing each day of your trip and what your 3 selections are. The second list is a priority list of those selections which attractions have the highest priority to you keeping in mind the popularity of the attraction and booking them in that order. Ex. When booked our SDMT I just clicked 2 other attractions on my list and hit done! Lol I just was making sure the SDMT FP was secure, then went back and amended the other two attractions once I got the more popular ones.
-just remembered that last year we made several times adjustments to our fp. If we were running behind etc. it didn't always work but I want to say that most of the time I was able to move the fp just 30 or so minutes later. We did this quite a bit, there were also times when we would notice the wait time at say dumbo was low when we were there so we rode it and changed the fp we had reserved to something else.
-which brings up my final point, if you find you are not able to use the fp you have, please cancel it. This opens it up for another guest (I think anyway? ) to experience an attraction they may not have been able to before.

 

[spacemountain]

Are you able to have two people each logged in at the same time to their own MDE accounts as part of the same package working on scheduling FP+s? If it will let us I figured we could each take different days to do to get through the process more quickly.

 

[Cyrano]

I ended up having to buy another data package (we're from Canada) about half way through our trip. It would randomly disconnect & revert to data. I'd recommend a method that isn't data reliant if you're at all worried about usage charges.

That is why we switch off data when we travel to USA. So no surprises with data fees

 

[jerseygirl82]

Not sure I'd agree with this. Seems that the prevailing wisdom is to arrive at rope drop, tour "standby" for a couple of yours, then have your FPs start after that. And I don't think "you can always get more later" is true. Depending on the time of year, and which park you go to, you might not be able to get any more (at least for the more polular rides).

If you park-hop, I'd recommend saving your FPs for the second park.

I agree with this advice - book your FPs for afternoon if you plan to hit the park for rope drop. Last year we were at MK for opening during Easter week and walked on to every ride in Fantasyland without a wait. In fact, we were done touring by noon and ready to head back to the resort for a swim as the masses were pouring in.

This easter week we will be there again with no FPs due to a very generous friend gifting us some passes that I do not have in my possession yet. I plan to be at the gate for EMH, tour as much as possible, hit our BOG lunch ressie and then maybe stick around for the Festival of Fantasy parade. Then we will head back to Poly to swim and relax before heading back for Wishes.

 

[momto2]

Are you able to have two people each logged in at the same time to their own MDE accounts as part of the same package working on scheduling FP+s? If it will let us I figured we could each take different days to do to get through the process more quickly.

I was wondering this too!

 

[jumpropemom]

During a crowded time such as July 4th week, if I plan to get there at RD, am I better to make my FP for early(like 9:30am), or wait until around 11 or 12? My hesitation with the later is I may not be able to get a 4th FP. Thoughts??