Today (March 3) marks 60 days until my spring trip to Disney World with my mom for the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. I can’t believe it’s coming up so fast!! As you all might recall, I made Advance Dining Reservations for this trip back in December, at 180 days out. (You can read about that here). The next big activity in our trip planning is making our Fast Pass Plus reservations, and today was the day!!
A couple things to keep in mind: In order to book your Fast Pass Plus (FP+) reservations at 60 days out, you must have both a Disney resort reservation AND your ticket media for all guests in your party linked in My Disney Experience online. If you are not staying at a Disney resort, you will not be able to make FP+ reservations until 30 days before your trip. Also, if you do not purchase your park tickets in advance and have them linked in My Disney Experience for EACH guest in your party, you will not be able to book FP+.
I had purchased an annual pass last summer in preparation for my November anniversary trip with my husband. Mom and I had already decided to go to the Flower and Garden Festival this year, so I knew I had at least one more trip within a year—those extra days combined with the food and merchandise discounts available to annual passholders made it an easy decision for me to get an annual pass. Plus, at the time, DVC members were being offered a pretty good deal on annual passes. I did spend a lot of time evaluating the 5 day and 10 day passes first, especially for my husband’s pass…but ultimately decided on an annual pass for both of us. I still have hopes we might be able to do a short visit in the fall before our passes expire, but finances may prevent that this year…time will tell. Regardless, my annual pass was already in my account…but my mom had to get her pass in time so that we could enter the information into My Disney Experience.
As many of you are aware, Disney raised ticket prices in February. Fortunately, my mom purchased her 5-day pass a few days before that increase. She also purchased her pass through Undercover Tourist—which is a great site that does offer a slight discount on Orlando area theme park tickets. Mom purchased her ticket online from Undercover Tourist and received the actual card in the mail a few days later. She immediately took a picture of the back of the card with all the important numbers on it (this is a critical step, just in case you ever lose your ticket!) and sent it to me. I used those numbers and added the ticket to my account and assigned it to her. [To add ticket media to your My Disney Experience, log in and choose My Reservations and Tickets. Then click on the Link Tickets button. 
Once you’ve selected “Link Tickets”, you’ll see the screen pictured below:
Disney offers several examples of different ticket media to help you figure out what information you need to enter. Once you’ve entered the ID number and hit enter, you’ll be directed to the list of Family and Friends you’ve tied to your account so you can assign the ticket to a particular person. Note: You MUST have the person whose ticket you are adding set up as a Family member or Friend in your My Disney Experience BEFORE you add their ticket media, or you won’t be able to assign the ticket to them. Also, tickets are non-transferable, so don’t plan to share a tickets between family members–it won’t work.
Once you’ve linked the ticket to your account and assigned it to the family member you are traveling with, you will be ready to book your FastPass Plus reservations. (Make sure that your friend or family member is ALSO linked in your resort reservation as a member of your Travel Party…without that, they won’t have the sixty day access that is for resort guests. If you made dining reservations at 180 days, you’ve most likely already done this!)
I had already linked mom in the hotel reservation we have for May 2-7 at Old Key West, and in all the Advance Dining Reservations (ADRs) I had made for us for that trip; all that was left was to reserve our FP+. Once her ticket media was linked, I knew I would be able to make FP+ reservations for the two of us at 6 am March 3 (the window opens at 7 am eastern time, 60 days before the first night of your resort reservation). An important note to remember: If you are doing a split resort stay, where you are staying at two (or more!) different resorts during your trip, you will have a sixty-day window for each “leg” of your trip. For example, if you are staying at Saratoga Springs for 2 nights and then at the Grand Floridian for 5 nights, your first sixty-day window will open up sixty days before your first Saratoga Springs night…but you will only be able to book FP+ for the two days of that reservation. You’ll have to log back in two days later for the Grand Floridian five days to open up. If you have any questions about this, please reach out. You can email me at brooke@disneycastledreaming.com if you need help.
To prepare for this morning’s FP+ booking session, I spent about 20 minutes yesterday reviewing the plans I’d already made for our trip. I took a look at which parks I’d planned for which days, and what dining reservations I’d made for each day. This trip, we are visiting parks on both our inbound travel day and our outbound travel day, so I took a look at what times I was anticipating we will have available on each of those days. I made a quick list of the days of our trip, which park or parks I have planned for each day, and which restaurants and the times for our ADRs.
It looks like we will be pretty lucky from a crowd perspective for this trip; estimated crowd levels are relatively low for the days we are there, especially the first few days of our trip. Hopefully, this means that standby lines will be shorter, reducing the need for FP+ reservations and/or increasing our ability to be flexible and reschedule FP+ while we are at the parks. Late March through most of April tend to be very busy at the parks due to spring break visitors, so we deliberately planned our trip for early May, and it looks like it will pay off for us, at least from a crowd perspective. I also like the look of Epcot a lot during May. The Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot runs from February 28 through May 28 this year, and while Epcot is stunning throughout the festival, I think it gets more beautiful later in the festival, as more flowers bloom and plants mature.
Because the Flower and Garden Festival is our PRIMARY motivation for this trip, I’ve planned two days at Epcot this time, and am hoping we’ll be able to take in some of the special presentations and tours offered only during Flower and Garden.
When planning your FP+ reservations, be sure to take into consideration the preferences of everyone in your traveling party. For example, my husband LOVES thrill rides, so when I plan our trips, I make sure I plan for those “exciting” attractions, like Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror or Expedition Everest. My mom does NOT enjoy thrill rides, so I focused more on attractions and shows that she’ll enjoy. If you’re planning for a larger group with diverse interests, you’ll want to either split up a little bit to allow everyone to do the things they want to do, or you’ll want to let each person pick ONE attraction that’s most important to them for FP+ planning and try and balance everyone’s priorities. It can be challenging, but involving the whole group in the planning process can help build excitement and enthusiasm for the trip.
Normally, Saturday is the one day per week that I sleep in a little bit…but NOT today! 😊 That FP+ window is too important! So I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m., and as soon as it went off, I was up and in vacation mode!
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Disney is serious about this window…your access to Fast Pass Plus reservations for your trip will not open even 30 seconds early…If you try, you will see the dates after 30 days grayed out. I know it’s hard, but try to be patient. Your window opens at 7 am EASTERN time.
It’s important to start with the Fast Pass Plus reservations that will be most difficult to get. There’s an understandable tendency to want to book each day’s FP+ in order as you’ve planned your trip. BUT, keep in mind that there are thousands of other people visiting the parks the same days you are, and for some of them? Their 60-day window opened a couple days ago because they’re arriving before you. If your most desired attraction is Pandora Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom, but you’re not visiting AK until the last day of your trip, waiting even 10-15 minutes to make that reservation will most likely result in either not being able to get a FP+ at all for that attraction, or one much later in the day than you might have wished. I can’t say it enough…the more planning and prep work you do up front, the more relaxed and laid back you’ll be able to be on your trip. So, when you’re planning your FP+ attack, focus on those hardest to get FP+, no matter which day of your trip that park might fall on. Some “HOT” attractions include:
Pandora Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom
Pandora Na’vi River Journey at Animal Kingdom (note: Disney only allows you to book a FP+ for ONE of the two Pandora attractions, so you’ll have to choose!)
Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom
Kilamanjaro Safari at Animal Kingdom
Frozen Ever After at Epcot (in Norway)
Soarin’ Around the World at Epcot
Test Track at Epcot (note: Disney places Frozen, Soarin’ and Test Track in one FP+ tier, so you’ll only be able to choose ONE of these, unless you’re visiting Epcot more than once during your trip)
Toy Story Mania at Hollywood Studios
Rock-n-Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios (note: Disney groups Toy Story Mania, Fantasmic, Beauty and the Beast and Rock-n-Roller Coaster all in one tier, so you’ll only be able to choose one of those!)
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Magic Kingdom
Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom
Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom
For us, I had three “high priority” FP+ reservations I wanted to make: Pandora Flight of Passage (Mom loves Soarin’, so I’m hopeful she will love Flight of Passage as much as I did), Frozen Ever After (it’s new since the last time we went, and I want Mom to experience it) and Toy Story Mania (it’s just FUN and we both love it!). Everything after that was pretty much gravy for us—I know we won’t be riding the thrill rides, and we are both big fans of getting to the park early in the morning so we can ride the things we want to ride before the lines get long. This works really well everywhere except for Animal Kingdom Pandora (as I learned the hard way!), so I’m relatively confident we’ll be able to do all the things we want to do, especially with the (relatively) lighter crowds projected for the first few days of our trip.
I was victorious with two of my three goals. I booked FP+ for Pandora Flight of Passage for early evening on arrival day; I booked Frozen Ever After for after lunch on our first Epcot day and I also grabbed FP+ for those attractions on our “return” days at those parks. I’d rather have them and decide to cancel then NOT have them and regret it!
Unfortunately, I was NOT successful with Toy Story Mania. All those FP+ were already gone for the afternoon we are planning to visit Hollywood Studios. And because we are doing two parks that day, we won’t be taking advantage of the early morning arrival to head to Toy Story—we’ll be at Magic Kingdom in the morning. So…odds are fairly high we will miss this attraction this trip. But that’s ok. Soon, Toy Story Land will be opening, and with it, more crowd absorbing attractions AND an extra Toy Story Mania track! So, next trip, it should be easier to book FP+ for this attraction.
Once I had my “hot” FP+ attractions booked, I filled in the days with other attractions, shows and character greetings that I think we’ll enjoy. When I visit with Mom, we tend to be pretty relaxed about our touring, so we may not use all the FP+ reservations that I’ve made, or we may end up tweaking these reservations based on what’s going on each day, but it’s good to have them booked in case there are unexpected crowds, or if we REALLY need a break from the heat.
Reminder: Disney only lets your reserve three FP+ reservations per day, and all three must be in the same park. Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom all use a “tier” system for their FP+ reservations, grouping the most popular and highly sought-after attractions together, and limiting guests to choosing just one of those, with the other two reservations coming from the rest of the attractions that use FP+. As a result, you may find yourself booking a FP+ reservation for an attraction you aren’t likely to need it for, unless you are visiting during busy times. For example, you will rarely need a FP+ to ride Living with the Land at Epcot or It’s a Small World at the Magic Kingdom…BUT if those rides are super important to you and you want to make sure you don’t miss them, go ahead and book the FP+. You can always cancel later if you get to the park and ride the attraction without a line ahead of your FP+ reservation.
Also: After you’ve used all three of your FP+ reservations for the day, you can book additional FP+ reservations, one at a time. Those can be in any park—but again, only one at a time. So, from a strategy perspective, you may NOT want to use a FP+ to book a reservation for something late in the day, like Fireworks viewing, because you won’t get the opportunity to book any other FP+ until AFTER that last one is used. Usually, I won’t book FP+ for the first couple of hours the park is open as USUALLY the lines are pretty short during that time, and I’d rather save FP+ for when lines are longer. But I also like to have used all our FP+ reservations by 3-4pm, so we can book additional FP+ reservations as needed later in the day. So my “ideal” FP+ window is usual from 11:30ish to around 3pm. The one exception to the early morning short lines scenario is Pandora at Animal Kingdom. That area seems to OPEN with already long lines, haha.
Character greetings: I rarely use FP+ for character greetings because I’m usually concerned about getting all those thrill rides in. BUT if character greetings are important to you, book the FP+ reservations…those lines can be maddening, and with FP+, your wait time will drop to minutes (in most cases). I booked us a couple this trip since we had the available FP+ space left, and I like character greetings…I just HATE waiting in line for them. So we’ll do a couple this trip.
Shows: Unless you are visiting at a busy time of year, you usually won’t need FP+ reservations for any of the shows; however, if you want to make sure you have great seats or you’re super concerned about seeing a particular show at a particular time, you may want to use a FP+ reservation to lock that down. This trip, I did use a couple FP+ for show reservations—mainly because both days we are visiting Animal Kingdom are travel days and we have a compressed window of time to visit the park—I wanted to be sure we’d have time to see Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo. In all likelihood, we won’t need them…but why not have them, just in case?
As we get a little closer to our trip, I’ll revisit all our meal and Fast Pass Plus reservations, and make decisions to make changes if necessary. I’m also trying to find out as much as I can about this year’s Flower and Garden Festival, since that’s the big draw for us this trip. Can’t wait to see Epcot in all it’s Spring glory!
Happy Dreaming everyone!
Brooke