what to expect on FP selection night

[Mikie]

On of your original questions - can I get 6 for 7DMT? - I'd say you have good enough chances that you should definintely try before automatically complicating the process looking for smaller groups. I went in moderately-crowded October, looked online at midnight of my 60 day (because I happened to be up) and was able to book for my group of 12 all at one time. I had a handful of times available to me on my first planned MK day (first day of trip, 61 days away from my booking window) and numerous times available to me for day 65 of my trip. I picked my MK fastpasses only and went to sleep & returned to complete all my FP selections for the trip the next afternoon. By 2:00pm of my 60 day booking day, I had no 7DMT times available on trip day 1 for the whole group of 12 and a handful for trip day 5 (65 days away). You may not have the same luck, but if you're booking at midnight, I think it's worth trying the whole group at once to start and only getting tricky if you have to.

Further, you should make all your initial FP selections for what most of the group wants to do and book it for all 6. Then go into each person/attraction/time and adjust for the rides where part of the group actually wants something different. It's what Disney IT suggested for making group reservations with some "whole group" interests and some "sub-group" interests and it worked well for me.

I'm not sure if Mesaboy's very helpful links include screenshots or a walkthrough, but if not, you can go to youtube and search "Fastpass+ walkthrough" and see some quick videos that will give you a good idea what the whole process will look like. It's frustrating that people with a room/ticket package have no way of looking at the screens ahead of the instant the 60 day window opens.

ETA: I see that as I was typing, Mesaboy2 posted back that his link does have pictures - go there!

 

[soniam]

Definitely try it online or on the app before show time. You should be able to select a day starting tomorrow and going 30 out, if you have valid tickets linked to MDX. It's good to try it out in case something went wrong linking your tickets. You can even play around with doing changes to times and attractions for different people. It just won't be on the day you are going. A lot gets explained once you play around. Be sure to cancel any experimental FP you book.

However, if you are on a package, I don't think you can play around. Mesaboy's post highlights this issue.

 

[PetePanMan]

If you plan to park hop can you say select 1 ride in one park and then use the other two at a different park? I suspect not but want to confirm.

 

[whiporee]

If you plan to park hop can you say select 1 ride in one park and then use the other two at a different park? I suspect not but want to confirm.

No. They all have to be in the same park on the same day.

 

[mesaboy2]

If you plan to park hop can you say select 1 ride in one park and then use the other two at a different park? I suspect not but want to confirm.

Sorry, no.

 

[Planogirl]

Is this similar for offsite visitors at the 30 day mark? I thought about experimenting with this but the site is so flaky that I don't want to possibly confuse it.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

I just got 7 FP+ for Anna and Elsa for March 22. I got in at midnight and it was simple. I also got 7 for the Mine Train that week.

Book all members for an attraction. Then go in and change the attraction for those who want to ride something different. I did it for several days on several different attractions--split party FP+. No problem!

It took me about a half hour to book 7 days of FP+ for a party of 7. At 60 days out, I got everything I wanted. Good luck!

 

[Mambo Junkie]

For those that have recently made their FP reservations, I have a few questions regarding your experiences.

1) What time did the system let you "in" and how exactly did you know you were in? Did you have to keep refreshing the screen as if you were waiting to purchase concert tickets?
Midnight. My selection date opened in September

2) How long did the entire FP selection process take? Was it longer than you expected?
Around an hour. Yes, it was longer than expected and I tweaked it for the next 60 days.

And now some questions specific to my travel party of 6:

3) At 60 days out do I have a chance of getting 3 FPs to Anna/Elsa meet or should I only try for 2?
I got A&E first try. I went to day #5 of my trip and plugged in A&E, 7DMT and FoF parade party of 6 and got all 3. I held on to them the whole 60 days. I tweaked and worked the rest around, but not those 3. Try for a date later in your trip; you have to remember, all of those people going in front of you are able to book at least the first few days, so try for later. You can always go back and try to move them up. In fact, I got fps for all 3 on our day #7, then moved it forward, settling on day #5.

4) At 60 days out do I have a chance of getting 6 FPs to 7DMT?
Yes. Try for later in your vacation as stated above. You can also get them within the 60 days but you have to be vigilant.

5) How close to my desired times should I expect the FPs to be?
You should be able to get what you want. I focused on the hardest to get (TSMM, A&E, 7DMT etc), and made sure I got that desired time. Then you can work the other fps around that.

6) Can you specify how far apart you want the FP times to be?
You take their suggested times that work best with what you have planned, then tweak. One thing I did find: sometimes when you're trying to get an fp for a "fixed time" event (like Finding Nemo, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, if you have an fp which interferes with the show, it will look like there is no availability. If you move the ride fp to a different time, then you can get the time you want for the show, and after that you can get the desired ride time. (assuming it isn't a hard to get fp - which most aren't 60 days out)

7) Is it possible to get FPs for three consecutive hours like 10am/11am/12pm?
Yes. I did that with a couple of MK days. I had M&G Tinkerbell at 3:20, M&G Mickey at 4:20 and Peter Pan at 5:20. We ended up running ahead so we just waited in SB for Mickey, cancelled our fp for his M&G and picked up another for a later ride. (Dumbo)

8) Half of my party is park hopping on one day. Is it easy to get FPs for the 1st park for the 1st three members of my party AS WELL AS FPs for the 2nd park for the 2nd three members after we part ways?
Yes. When you select the fps, you can choose who will be riding. Whoever has the hardest to get fp should be the one you go for first. For instance, if you're going to MK and want to ride the 3 Mountains, and they're going to Epcot and want TT or Soarin, then you should go for theirs first, if they want a specific time. IMO the Mountains are easier to get. ( except maybe SM) Actually, this may be wrong, I'm not sure about this...

9) There are some rides that three members of my party can't ride on. How do I arrange it so that I can get 3 FPs for one time slot and another 3 FPs for another time slot on the same ride a short while later (swapping wrist bands)?
I would get the fp first, then go in and edit it, clicking on the 3 riders and changing their time. That way you have the ride. Even if there is no availability to change the time, you still have an hour to ride twice.

10) What is the time window in which you must arrive at the attraction before your FP is invalidated?

I have read it depends on the CM. Personally, if it was something I really wanted to do, I wouldn't push it. We were at Epcot in December and we knew we would be running late for one of the fps. We were able to cancel it and pick up another, later.

Thanks!

These are just my opinions and my experience. A lot of others who know way more than I do will also give you great advice. Good luck!

 

[njitgrad]

Thanks for all the responses, a great help indeed. I just want to get this part over with. 13 hours and counting.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

How did it go?

 

[njitgrad]

Honestly, it was a logistical nightmare because of having different FP preferences for my two subgroups. My two boys and I are into the faster rides while my wife, my father-in-law, and our three year old daughter are limited (in one way or another) from going on the same rides. So there are some FPs we wanted to do together and others we were going to do by splitting up for a few hours.

After I logged on and created a FP for three attractions for a given park I then thought I could "easily" change a single FP attraction on a user-by-user basis.

Not so simple after all. The system has to cancel out ALL existing FPs for that user first. So the FPs that I had in common among my two groups had to be re-reserved (for those individuals that a modification was being made to) and of course the new times didn't always coincide nicely even after I fiddled around with the particular FP times for both groups.

So basically my FP windows for COMMON rides (those that all 6 of us are going on) are only 30 minutes in some cases. For example, Group A has 7DMT FP for 1120am to 1220 pm while Group B has 7DMT FP for 1150 am to 1250 pm. Which means that our combined FP time is really 1150 am to 1220 pm. That only gives us a 30 minute common window.

I ended up going to bed at 130 am annoyed that I had to go through such an ordeal. This system has to be made more robust. I'm just glad it's over with (but not happy about the short overlapping FP time windows).

 

[Mikie]

Sorry it was such a pain, but I hope you ended up with a schedule that will help you have a great trip! I don't have any tickets in my account now, so I can't play around, but I'm positive there's a way to adjust one FP without canceling or changing all 3 (I did it for all my park days - kept 1or 2 group rides, but changed just certain ones or certain people)

I wish I could see what button it was & sure wish the system were more straightforward so users could easily identify it.

Now it's time to relax - ideally, the advanced work is done now!

 

[njitgrad]

Yeah it really was silly. After making my initial selections for all 7 days I then started tinkering with the MK FPs. My boys are not interested in A&E so I wanted to reduce the number of A&E FPs from 6 to 3 and make those three for Space Mountain instead. When I selected "change attraction" I assumed I could specify each individual person (via a check box). This was not the case. To get around this I backed out of the system to the main FP screen and selected "modify FP". After selecting the three people I wanted to change the FP for it said that it would effectively cancel all FPs held by those three individuals. Having no choice in the matter I went ahead and cancelled them. After booking the Space Mountain FP I then had to re-booked the common FP attractions, which of course resulted in shorter (overlapping) FP time windows.

I guess I have to keep checking daily now to see if I can make some of the FP times on common rides closer together.

Is there a way to bring this issue up to the MDE web designers? This sounds like a really serious limitation of the FP system and should be addressed immediately. You should not have to release all of your FPs for a day just because you want to change one FP attraction.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Did you try choosing the new attraction? I think once you chose the replacement attraction the box to choose the individuals for whom you wanted to change popped up. Not 100%sure. I did the exact same thing though and did not have to cancel all their existing reservations. The system is definitely a little wonky about canceling and changing. Sorry you had such a hard time.

 

[njitgrad]

Did you try choosing the new attraction?

I did not because the wording in the pop-up window suggested that I would be changing the FP for all 6 users. I wasn't going to take that chance with an A&E FP which I have learned from this site can be a hard FP to obtain. In the end I was surprised to realize there were a bunch of A&E time slots to choose from. I was expecting very limited availability.

 

[Mikie]

Is there a way to bring this issue up to the MDE web designers? This sounds like a really serious limitation of the FP system and should be addressed immediately. You should not have to release all of your FPs for a day just because you want to change one FP attraction.

I don't know how to report a complaint or suggestion specifically about this, but I suspect they don't want the change process to be super-easy. I think they like to say you can adjust them so it doesn't sound too rigid, but they'd really rather you take one of their suggested sets of times without making any changes at all. If the ability to change is more intuitive and obvious, more people will use it and FP would of be more crowd TRACKING vs crowd CONTROLLING.

 

[njitgrad]

Followup....I was able to tweak some of the ride times around so now ALL common ride FP start times are within 5-10 minutes of each other and all FPs for when we split up are within 15 minutes of each other.

I have a question about the Character Meets. My daughter, wife and father-in-law have afternoon MK FPs to A&E, Tinkerbell, and Cinderella. This is after my daughter gets the treatment at BBB in her own Cinderella dress in Downtown Disney. My boys and I are going to be using MK FPs for the thrill rides in the morning while she is at BBB. Does that mean that my boys and I can't even watch her (from some designated area) as she meets these characters? This is one of the reasons I opted to buy the Memory Maker but I'd still rather see my daughter in person at these meets.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Glad you were able to work out the time issue!

 

[beck00]

Followup....I was able to tweak some of the ride times around so now ALL common ride FP start times are within 5-10 minutes of each other and all FPs for when we split up are within 15 minutes of each other.

I have a question about the Character Meets. My daughter, wife and father-in-law have afternoon MK FPs to A&E, Tinkerbell, and Cinderella. This is after my daughter gets the treatment at BBB in her own Cinderella dress in Downtown Disney. My boys and I are going to be using MK FPs for the thrill rides in the morning while she is at BBB. Does that mean that my boys and I can't even watch her (from some designated area) as she meets these characters? This is one of the reasons I opted to buy the Memory Maker but I'd still rather see my daughter in person at these meets.

From our experience, I would say I don't think it's possible for you to see her meet Tinkerbell or A&E if you don't go in with her. We met Tinkerbell inside the Town Square Theater, and A&E are in the Princess Fairytale Hall. Both locations were inside, through doorways, around corners. We used FP+ on our MagicBands while DH and DD (1) waited outside. I'm not sure about Cinderella because we met her before dining at CRT.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

From our experience, I would say I don't think it's possible for you to see her meet Tinkerbell or A&E if you don't go in with her. We met Tinkerbell inside the Town Square Theater, and A&E are in the Princess Fairytale Hall. Both locations were inside, through doorways, around corners. We used FP+ on our MagicBands while DH and DD (1) waited outside. I'm not sure about Cinderella because we met her before dining at CRT.

I used a fp for Tink at Town Square, but the standby wasn't long at all. The A&E is a biggie, and unless you get in on standby you won't get to watch. Did you try for BBB at MK? Keep a watch for a cancellation thread. It really makes things easy if you're already going to be at that park. Also keep calling. People cancel all the time, you just have to be at the right place at the right time, so to speak. We also met Cinderella at CRT, but the line for Cinderella and Rapunzel was very long. The only Princess we did not meet was Rapunzel because I had to give up the fps for something else.