Which is better? Schedule FP+ for later time or do first when doing rope drop?

[Alice777]

We are planning to do rope drop for all the parks and have scheduled 3 FP+ earliest as possible so that we can get another FP+ after we use 3.

After reading some posts, now I'm wondering if this is the best way.

What is better strategy?

1. Do 3 FP+ earliest possible to get another one soon as we are done with three?
or
2. Save 3 FP+ for later afternoon and do popular rides first thing at rope drop? (If we do this, would be wasting time going from one part of park to another?)

Thank you

 

[Jfsag123]

I like option 2. I prefer the safe bet to the gamble. By that I mean, you are basically throwing away at least one or two of your pre-booked FP+ options if you book them at RD time, as nothing really needs a FP then, save for the few most popular attractions in all of WDW. You are doing that in the hopes of being able to score a good choice for your additional fastpasses. However, if you tour efficiently at RD and schedule FP for later, you are guaranteed good choices for your fastpasses during the time when it's most crowded, because you got to pick them in advance. You don't have to walk back and forth all over the park to do things this way if you just loosely plan your day.

 

[CAS239]

You normally won't need fast passes prior to like 10 or 11 am (7dmt, soarin, etc are exception). Therefore FP's right at open are a waste imo. We usually schedule ours at our 2nd park we hop to, so usually around like 2/3pm

I don't see the draw in getting the first 3 out the way and then trying to see what you get after that.

 

[Alesia]

I never book my first FP before 11:00 am. Any earlier and you're wasting the best couple of hours of the day.

There's no need to do much criss-crossing the park, you just need to make a decent touring plan.

 

[Delirium]

I would not do first thing FP, but I would not do 'late afternoon' either. There's a happy median starting mid-morning that finishes up your FPs early in the afternoon, and you still have time to grab a 4th and 5th. Or, if you're hopping, you can save the FPs for the 2nd park of the day. The key is to make the correct choices with your first three.

 

[Alesia]

FWIW, we tend to schedule all of our fastpasses between 11:00 and 3:00 and still manage to get 8 to 10 additional fastpasses at MK.

 

[ArielSRL]

We are scheduling most of our FP for after our mid day break. We are touring RD to about 11, then late breakfast/early lunch, break, then back to parks for late afternoon/evening.

 

[g-dad66]

For Epcot and HS, there's not much point in doing your FPs as early as possible to get extra FPs later. For the rides that really need FPs, there's not going to be much of any availability by the time you finish FPs 1-3.

But your strategy could make sense for MK (and possibly AK).

 

[Linleedo]

We schedule them late morning, early afternoon around lunch.

 

[EmmyL258]

I'm planning a mid afternoon break for my DS5 and DD4, just in case. So my thoughts were to schedule fast passes starting at 11, then no later than 1/1:30, and then another for afternoon/early evening. Our ADR's are all around 5ish because we are early eaters.

How do people manage to get so many rides in at rope drop? I've been playing around with touring plans and just don't see how that is possible, where many of the rides have waits over 30 minutes or so starting at 10ish. We are not morning EMH people, so we are planning to avoid EMH parks.

So how do you figure out which rides to do at rope drop so as not to waste your morning?

 

[Alesia]

I'm planning a mid afternoon break for my DS5 and DD4, just in case. So my thoughts were to schedule fast passes starting at 11, then no later than 1/1:30, and then another for afternoon/early evening. Our ADR's are all around 5ish because we are early eaters.

How do people manage to get so many rides in at rope drop? I've been playing around with touring plans and just don't see how that is possible, where many of the rides have waits over 30 minutes or so starting at 10ish. We are not morning EMH people, so we are planning to avoid EMH parks.

So how do you figure out which rides to do at rope drop so as not to waste your morning?

Use the cheat sheets at easywdw.com to help you make a touring plan.

We can generally get 4 rides in the first hour, 3 in the second hour, and 2 in each hour after that.

 

[Moonwolf]

I used both strategies last summer based on the different parks. For MK I used strategy #1 because there are more rides in the park that have FP the sooner we finished with our original 3 the better chance to get something good for our other picks. This worked because our first priority was to hit every ride at least once so re-riding wasn't a priority. For the other 3 parks that don't have as many rides I used strategy #2 since hitting a ride once at RD and then having a FP later on in the afternoon/evening so we could re-ride the big rides after we had done everything.

 

[krmixon1117]

I always schedule mine for late afternoon - after we've had a rest at the hotel. Do as much as you can at rope drop.

 

[Linleedo]

We enter the park and head right to our most favorite popular ride. The line should be pretty short. We ride it and sometimes get right back in line to ride it a second time. We then usually have a fastpass for our #2 most favorite ride. We then go on less popular rides and usually have a fast pass for our # 1 ride and ride it a third time. We continue to ride less popular rides until lunch. After eating, we ride the 3rd fastpass ride. At that point we either try for another fastpass or go back to the resort to swim. After showering, we return to the park ( and use the 4th fastpass) and either eat dinner or continue getting on attractions. We only go when there are light crowds. I hope this helps.