Which to get as a fourth, fifth and beyond fast pass?

[yorkieteacher]

On our next trip the first week in March, my adult daughter wants to do a morning at HS and afternoon at MK. According to two different crowd calendars (I know they aren't 100%accurate, but I have continually found them very helpful in managing expectations!) MK will have moderate to high crowd levels, of about 7-8. I have suggested to her when the time comes to try to get our fourth, fifth and sixth fast passes in this order, from hardest to get to easiest to get IMO, but need input from experts on these boards-Pooh, Under the Sea, Small World and Barnstormer. We will spend the late afternoon from about 3ish in Fantasyland, as we have a BOG dinner at 5 and want to then go see Happily Ever After. I have also suggested Dumbo without a fast pass due to the play area, possibly the carousel and Mickey's Philharmagic without a fast pass. To me, Small World and Barnstormer would be the most excruciating with long lines and no fast passes, but are also the ones we could skip. Suggestions from your prior experiences? I know we will just have to grab what we can when we can, but are any of these ones we should just forget getting a same day fast pass for in more crowded times?

 

[eeyoreandtink]

I think that the hardest one to get is gonig to be Pooh, to the point that its unlikely that you will get one at 3 in the afternoon. You will also need to consider return time in the equation. You cannot get fastpass 5 untill you have used fastpass 4 ,ect. So will need to balance getting a later return time with getting more fastpasses. Honestly, we haven't had a lot of success with getting any more than the 4th fastpass because return times for anything that actually needed a fastpass were so late.

 

[JETSDAD]

On our next trip the first week in March, my adult daughter wants to do a morning at HS and afternoon at MK. According to two different crowd calendars (I know they aren't 100%accurate, but I have continually found them very helpful in managing expectations!) MK will have moderate to high crowd levels, of about 7-8. I have suggested to her when the time comes to try to get our fourth, fifth and sixth fast passes in this order, from hardest to get to easiest to get IMO, but need input from experts on these boards-Pooh, Under the Sea, Small World and Barnstormer. We will spend the late afternoon from about 3ish in Fantasyland, as we have a BOG dinner at 5 and want to then go see Happily Ever After. I have also suggested Dumbo without a fast pass due to the play area, possibly the carousel and Mickey's Philharmagic without a fast pass. To me, Small World and Barnstormer would be the most excruciating with long lines and no fast passes, but are also the ones we could skip. Suggestions from your prior experiences? I know we will just have to grab what we can when we can, but are any of these ones we should just forget getting a same day fast pass for in more crowded times?

None of those are hard to get as additional FP's throughout the day. I guess I would say Pooh would be the most difficult of them but still not hard. Refresh a bit and hit those and more with return times not far out.

 

[SaintsManiac]

We were able to get Pooh as a 5th on July 4th with no problem. It within the next hour, too.

 

[yorkieteacher]

I think that the hardest one to get is gonig to be Pooh, to the point that its unlikely that you will get one at 3 in the afternoon. You will also need to consider return time in the equation. You cannot get fastpass 5 untill you have used fastpass 4 ,ect. So will need to balance getting a later return time with getting more fastpasses. Honestly, we haven't had a lot of success with getting any more than the 4th fastpass because return times for anything that actually needed a fastpass were so late.

Hopefully we will be trying for the Pooh fast pass to ride about 3 just after we finish our last HS fast pass-which we wil try to have finished by noon. In the past, as soon as we finished riding the 3rd FP ride, even if that fast pass was for say 3-4, if we all tapped in and finished riding it by 310 we could get an available 4th one as early as 315. I hope that hasn't changed. Honestly, I don't like to park hop unless it is just for a festival, meal, or show. Never for the rides. And I don't remember ever needing more than a fourth fast pass. But we will be with a little who doesn't wait in long lines as well as we do!

 

[DavidNYC]

Don't make an order for add'l ones. Have your list of rides that you want to get as add'l fast passes and refresh to get whichever one you can get earliest. For every one you mentioned, with a moderate amount of refreshing, you should be able to find a return time within the hour of when you're searching (and based on past experience, I'd bet for at least a few of them you'll find you can get a near immediate return time - Ariel and Small World in particular I can usually fine return times within 15 minutes almost any time of day). Of those you listed, Pooh probably is the hardest so if that does show, you may want to grab it as long as it's not too far off.

And completely disagree with above poster about difficulty of FP beyond the 4th. I routinely can do 10-15 FP in a day without too much effort beyond a few minutes of refreshing for each one. Lots and lots of rides where you can often get return times between immediate and 1 hour from searching and if you prioritize those, you can get many. The main thing you'll need to balance is quick return times vs. criss-crossing the park.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Hopefully we will be trying for the Pooh fast pass to ride about 3 just after we finish our last HS fast pass-which we wil try to have finished by noon. In the past, as soon as we finished riding the 3rd FP ride, even if that fast pass was for say 3-4, if we all tapped in and finished riding it by 310 we could get an available 4th one as early as 315. I hope that hasn't changed. Honestly, I don't like to park hop unless it is just for a festival, meal, or show. Never for the rides. And I don't remember ever needing more than a fourth fast pass. But we will be with a little who doesn't wait in long lines as well as we do!

You might have better luck than us, but based on what we have seen I would expect a return time closer to 5 or later if we are talking about a 7-8 crowd level. There is really virtually no way of predicting these things though. I would just plan on logging in ASAP and seeing what is left for the rides you want.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

And completely disagree with above poster about difficulty of FP beyond the 4th. I routinely can do 10-15 FP in a day without too much effort beyond a few minutes of refreshing for each one. Lots and lots of rides where you can often get return times between immediate and 1 hour from searching and if you prioritize those, you can get many. The main thing you'll need to balance is quick return times vs. criss-crossing the park.

I didn't say you COULDN'T get them, but my experience has been that most of the available ones were for rides that didn't need fastpass. I don't see the point in booking a fastpass for a ride with a 15 min or less posted wait, and criscrossing the park to use them. We have found it wastes more time than it saves and we get worn out a lot quicker. We just do everything we want to do in one area and move on. Very rarely do we find a 5th or 6th fastpass for something where the line is actually significant enough to warrant it.

 

[DavidNYC]

I didn't say you COULDN'T get them, but my experience has been that most of the available ones were for rides that didn't need fastpass. I don't see the point in booking a fastpass for a ride with a 15 min or less posted wait, and criscrossing the park to use them. We have found it wastes more time than it saves and we get worn out a lot quicker. We just do everything we want to do in one area and move on. Very rarely do we find a 5th or 6th fastpass for something where the line is actually significant enough to warrant it.

Agree about minimizing crossing the park to save just a few minutes. But at moderately busy times, most of those lines are still up in the 20-30 minute range for much of the day and while those are definitely manageable standby times. Those 15-30 minutes saved can really add up over the course of 5-6 rides! Again, nothing to drive yourself crazy for in planning but I'm shocked the number of times that, for example, we'll pass Small world with a 20-30 minute stand by and before going on line I'll just take a shot with FP and get a return time in 5 minutes!

 

[JETSDAD]

Just to note with adding additional FP's, there's no need to run all over the park to do this. We go into a land and use FP's for all the rides in that area before moving on. Some people don't mind waiting 15-30 minutes frequently....that adds up over the course of a day. I'd far rather use FP's.

 

[Klayfish]

Pooh is actually one of the easier ones in our experience. It winds up being DW and I "go to" attraction when we get 4th, 5th, 10th FP+ for our kids for Space Mountain (DW won't ride SM). So while they are on SM, we get Pooh. We can get it easily for 5 minutes in the future.

At MK, you won't have much of a tough time getting nearly anything. 7DMT is the hardest, but even that isn't too terrible. No need to crisscross the park.

 

[yorkieteacher]

Pooh is actually one of the easier ones in our experience. It winds up being DW and I "go to" attraction when we get 4th, 5th, 10th FP+ for our kids for Space Mountain (DW won't ride SM). So while they are on SM, we get Pooh. We can get it easily for 5 minutes in the future.

At MK, you won't have much of a tough time getting nearly anything. 7DMT is the hardest, but even that isn't too terrible. No need to crisscross the park.

We plan on spending our last WDW day entirely in MK, so we hope to FP 7DMT, Peter Pan and Buzz on that day, rope dropping Adventureland rides and Haunted Mansion w/o fast passes. I've been able to do this several times before. I am hoping we can knock out the rest of Fantasyland beforehand on our half day MK park day, when we have BOG dinner reservations. I basically am telling my daughter it is easier to fast pass most Fantasyland attractions as 4th, 5th, etc, fast passes then it is to count on being able to rope drop all we hope to get in while we are in HS the morning before our afternoon in MK. I want us to use a couple of fast passes in HS that morning, and I hate to look foolish to my grown daughter! It seems most of the people responding agree my plan is sound!

 

[mamamelody2]

If I were you I'd get my FPs at HS. Choose your tier 1, then, I don't know...Star Tours?? That's the only tier 2 ride. Do those, then do a show or 2 if you want to (FP likely not needed). While you're doing the shows, find yourself a FP for MK. The ones you listed are not typically difficult at all. We were in MK November 2017 and the actual TP crowd level ended up being an 8. We got 15 FPs that day. We were a party of 2.

 

[TinkSassy]

The ones you have listed I would try for in this order - Pooh, Under the Sea, Small World and Barnstormer. Pooh is the only one of these I have had trouble with on busy days. You should be able to do very well - I do MK on arrival days often so start FP around 1pm or so and go through 7-8 regularly because I'm just grabbing what ever I can and saving the harder rides for a day with a more solid plan. I think you are in good shape. Remember you can pick up your 4th at MK while still at HS so you might want to tap in early for anything you can there (not much to get with the Tier system) and start stacking your afternoon for easy sailing

 

[_19disnA]

For the 4th (and beyond) FastPass, I don't think doing a lot advance planning will yield any better results. Once you can reserve the 4th, see what rides are available AND where you are in the park. As some others have mentioned, walking to the other end of the park for one new FastPass doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[mrd7896]

I personally think pooh as number one and small world as number two. Since Under the Sea is constantly a moving track, the waits are generally rather low. You may not need to wait more than 10-15 minutes even with standby.
the day before thanksgiving (so a rather crowded day) we were able to get that as FP #6 and we did it just because we could..the standby wasn't even long

 

[yorkieteacher]

If I were you I'd get my FPs at HS. Choose your tier 1, then, I don't know...Star Tours?? That's the only tier 2 ride. Do those, then do a show or 2 if you want to (FP likely not needed). While you're doing the shows, find yourself a FP for MK. The ones you listed are not typically difficult at all. We were in MK November 2017 and the actual TP crowd level ended up being an 8. We got 15 FPs that day. We were a party of 2.

SO glad to hear this! My thoughts for our upcoming trip exactly! Daughter wants (and so do I) grandson to be able to enjoy Magic Kingdom afternoon , and I keep asserting he will be able to do LOTS in MK with same day fast passes, more than if we tried to do an HS morning with NO fastpasses! I am also hoping and praying they change those darned FP tiers in HS before our March trip with RotR opening!

 

[yorkieteacher]

I personally think pooh as number one and small world as number two. Since Under the Sea is constantly a moving track, the waits are generally rather low. You may not need to wait more than 10-15 minutes even with standby.
the day before thanksgiving (so a rather crowded day) we were able to get that as FP #6 and we did it just because we could..the standby wasn't even long

I agree-I actually think the queue for Under the Sea is cute, but daughter has gotten positively claustrophobic in it during Christmas week. I despise Barnstormer and Small World queues- My plan, with all the input, is to go for Pooh in 3-4 timeframe after we ride our first fast pass HS ride ( I understand from this board if we only get two in HS we can book our third in MK immediately after we tap in for our first HS) As soon as we ride Pooh go for Under the Sea or Small World as our fourth FP and be able to ride it before 445, try for 5th as soon as we ride fourth at one of these we didn't get -or Barnstormer in 6-7 timeframe after we eat dinner, work in Dumbo and/or Philharmagic before our dinner between these fast passes, eat at 5 at BOG, ride our 5th FP ride , then check out lines for whichever we have missed. Hopefully by 630 we can ride it with minimal wait and still make Once Upon A Time/Happily Ever After at 730/8. I am such a planner, but I have found it pays off!