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Sunday, 5:45 AM

You know what I find really interesting?  When my alarm goes off on a work day—REGARDLESS OF THE TIME or how much sleep I’ve had, I immediately and automatically hit the snooze button.  I seem physically incapable of getting right out of bed.

But when the alarm goes off on vacation (or for vacation related insanity like Fast Pass scheduling….) BAM, I jump right out of bed like it’s full of snakes or spiders or something.  I’m sure that says something very troubling about me and my brain, but I’m not in the mood for deep psychological analysis this morning, so we’ll move on.

At any rate, the alarm went off and I headed straight down to the computer.  I immediately logged into My Disney Experience, and headed straight to the Fast Pass Plus reservation area, selected my “Group”—my husband Frank and myself—and tried to choose my dates.  It was still only 5:55 AM, so you guessed it…no luck.  They are not kidding with that window.  All that was available were reservation dates up to 30 days out.  It looks at your hotel reservation and does not open that 60-day window until 7:00 AM (Eastern) the 60^th day our from the first night of your reservation.

Tried again at exactly 6:00 AM and magically, the window now showed all the days between now and the last day of our vacation.  (The sixty-day window is for day 1 of your vacation—or really the first night in a Disney hotel…but the window then opens for every night you’ve booked in Disney hotel for the duration of that reservation, and will include the day after the last night.  They’re assuming you get up, check out and go to a park on your last day.  For those of you that like to resort hop: The window will open for the duration of that first reservation.  So, if you are staying two nights at All Star Movies and then heading to the Grand Floridian for four nights, ONLY the first two nights will show up in your initial 60-day window.  You’ll have to go back in two days later and book your fast passes for that second reservation.)

My plan of attack was to try and get the most difficult Fast Pass Plus (FPP) reservations out of the way first.  I had planned our Epcot day as November 17, day 2 of our trip, and I really want to check out Frozen Ever After; it is new since our last trip.  After you select your “group”, choose the date for the first FPP you are booking and then the system asks which park you want to visit.

By default, the system will automatically offer FPPs in the morning first.  Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios all feature a tiered system.  They group the most in-demand attractions in one tier, only allowing you to choose one from that tier, and the rest of the FPP attractions in the other tier, allowing you to choose two.  If you want times in the afternoon or evening, you can select those windows.

I chose November 17 and Epcot and the two tiers popped up.  It defaults to morning first, and will show the earliest available FPP slot for each attraction.  **Note: If the attraction you want is not listed, it means there are NO available FPP left for that attraction for that day.  This means you will either have to wait in regular lines for the attraction or try to get a FPP for a different day of your trip.  For Frozen Ever After, the earliest available slot that day was 2:20 PM. I immediately grabbed it.  It takes you to the next screen, which is a confirm screen.  Take a quick look and make sure all the members of your party are listed and that you have the attraction and time slot you selected on the previous page.   Once you confirm, it will ask if you want another FPP, and offer the option to continue on the same day or select a different day.

For my purposes, I wanted to work on my next most difficult attraction: Flights of Passage at Animal Kingdom.  I grabbed the date and the earliest time offered was already 4:30 pm.  I then booked FPP for Expedition Everest and Kilimanjaro Safari for the same day.  Yay.  And then I realized I was booking the reservations ON THE WRONG DAY.  I was supposed to be booking on Monday, November 20 and instead I’d grabbed Sunday, November 19.  I blame the early hour and the lack of caffeine.  CHECK YOUR DATES PEOPLE!!!  I immediate chose to book a new FPP on a different (and correct) day, went to Animal Kingdom and found the earliest Flight of Passage FPP available on THAT day, which was 2 PM.  Grabbed it, and then proceeded to book the other two I wanted for AK for that day.

I then went back to November 19 and selected Hollywood Studios.  It immediately tells me I already have FPP booked for that day and to book new ones, I will be cancelling the old ones.  I knew that already, but it’s good to note that Disney TRIES to stop you from accidentally canceling something you DON’T WANT to cancel.  It will ask you to make the choice for each member of your party individually.  (See screen shot below.)

You will also see an error like this if you are trying to book a FPP in a window that overlaps another FPP.  I kept trying to overlap by a few minutes for attractions that were close together but it caught me every time.

For Hollywood Studios, the most important attraction for us is Toy Story Mania.  We LOVE that ride.  Sunday has Extra Magic Hours, so we will be heading straight to Toy Story Mania as soon as we are allowed into the park but I wanted to have a FPP for later so we can ride it again.  I booked one for 10:45 AM.  We’ll end up using it toward the end of the window as we have lunch reservation at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at 11:55 AM.  The other two FPP I booked for that day are Star Tours, 9:50 AM and Tower of Terror, right after lunch.

After HS FPP were booked, I went to Saturday and booked our FPP for Magic Kingdom.  I wasn’t as worried about these because I knew we were going to the Christmas Party on our first night and would likely be able to ride everything we wanted at least once that night…The toughest one to get at MK is Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, so I did that first and got a 2 pm window.  The other two I grabbed were Peter Pan’s Flight and Haunted Mansion.

I then went back to Friday and booked the remaining two FPP I had for Epcot.  Spaceship Earth and Mission Space.  I’m not too worried about either of these, and may end up cancelling or choosing alternate times or attractions as I get closer to the trip and have a better idea of how we will be touring the park.

Finally, I booked a few FPP for Tuesday morning, our final day.  I suspect we won’t end up going to the park on this day; I’m leaning more towards stopping at Disney Springs on our way to the airport but just in case we DO decide to go to the park, I booked a couple at MK (walking distance from our resort and our favorite park).  Once we decide whether we will use these, I will update and/or release these FPP.

Here’s a different error message you might see.  I didn’t run into this when I was actually booking, but I did run into it later when I was trying to book additional FPP to help me with this article.  I basically logged out and logged back in to fix this issue.  I know errors are super annoying, but you have to admit, this error message is awfully cute!

Once you’re finished, Disney will show you all the FPP reservations you’ve made.  I highly suggest printing or saving these pages to PDF so you have a copy of what you booked.  I’ve never had a problem, but I have heard a few stories of FPP being dropped from the system somehow…I’m not sure having a printout will help in the conversation with Disney about any missing FPP, but it sure couldn’t hurt.  Hopefully those bugs were worked out in the beginning and that is NEVER an issue anymore, but ya never know.

Note: If you are visiting Magic Kingdom on a date where there is a special event, for example, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, the software stops issuing FPPs at 5:30.  The park closes to non-party guests at 7:00 pm.  (Note these parties are special ticketed events and require separate purchase of a ticket.  I will be talking specifically about this in a separate post.)  If you have a ticket to the party, you can enter the park any time after 4pm using your party ticket, even though the party doesn’t start until 7 pm.  So, you can reserve FPP between 4pm and 5:30pm.  The system won’t let you overlap passes by even five minutes, though, so you may want to try and book a 3:30 or 3:45 FPP as your first one, even though you won’t be in the park until 4 pm.  You’ll have until 4:30 or 4:45 to use the FPP, based on the 1-hour reservation window.

The Bottom Line

My early morning mission was successful.  I was able to book Fast Pass Plus reservations for each attraction I’d planned to, and generally, the windows that I booked work for what I have planned for each day of our vacation.  I didn’t run into any technical challenges at all, and the only glitch was one I created myself by choosing an incorrect date.  I’ve still got a few things to figure out, so I may make a couple minor changes on the less popular attractions as we get a little closer to vacation, but overall, I’m pretty happy with how it went.  I was even happier when I went back to bed for an hour before getting up and heading to work! 😉

Happy Dreaming!

Brooke

Focus on what is most important to you and your group.  If you all have different favorite attractions, write down everyone’s favorites and determine which are likeliest to have the longest lines.  Do any of these attractions offer Single Rider lines?  Is that an option for your group if they do?

Single Rider Lines

For example, at Hollywood Studios, we love Toy Story Mania, the Tower of Terror AND Rock-n-Roller Coaster.  Disney puts all three of those attractions into one tier, because, shock of shocks, those are a LOT of people’s favorite attractions.  By utilizing Extra Magic Hours and making sure we are at the park before it opens, the odds are fairly good that we will be able to ride all three of these attractions before the lines start to get long, and that, by far, is the best strategy.

But if for some reason, we can’t do all three pretty early and avoid the lines, the first one we will drop initially and ride later is Rock-n-Roller Coaster, because it has a single rider line.  Traditionally, most people like to ride with the rest of their group, so if a group has an uneven number, you might end up with an empty seat.  Disney will almost NEVER waste an empty seat, so they pull from the “Single Rider” line to fill that seat.  What that means to you: If you are willing to ride the attraction sitting next to someone you don’t know while your loved one(s) sit next to someone else, you can shave LOTS of time off your wait times.  There are a lot of groups of 3 and 5, so there is a high demand for single riders to fill in those groups.  The longest we’ve ever waited in the single rider line was twenty minutes, and that was on a CRAZY busy day with one of the longest regular standby lines we’ve seen—almost 3 hours!  You still enter the line together, you wait in line together, you just split up right before your ride vehicles are loaded.  Most of the time, Frank and I end up in the same car, just different rows.  Every once in a while, you may end up riding a couple of minutes apart and one of you will have to wait at the other end for a minute or two but if you’re open to it, it’s a GREAT way to avoid the line, ride the attraction you like quickly and move on about your day.   Currently, Disney offers three attractions with single rider lines:  Test Track at Epcot; Rock-n-Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios; and Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom.

Character Greetings

When most people think about Fast Passes, they tend to think primarily about rides.  Sometimes, they’ll consider shows. But one other type of attraction that can be reserved via FPP is CHARACTER GREETINGS.  If this is something that is important to you, you may want to consider using FPP to schedule some of these during your trip.   The most popular characters (especially the Frozen princesses, Anna and Elsa) often have CRAZY long lines, full of lots of small and frequently tired and impatient children.  Some kids are scared of the characters, even the princesses, so you may want to consider that before using up a FPP reservation if your child hasn’t even met a character before.  Character greetings are something we enjoy, but they aren’t super important to us, unless we are traveling with more of our family.  One of my favorite Photopass pictures from the wedding trip is with most of my family and Sorcerer Mickey.

Note: We did not book FPP for this greeting.  Mickey was there, the line wasn’t long, I browbeat everyone into going over there 😊.  So, we tend NOT to use FPP for Character Greetings, just hopping into lines if they are short and we have time.  BUT, I know for many people, getting that picture with Snow White or Goofy will MAKE their trip.  If that’s you, consider booking a FPP reservation.

Bottom Line

I look at FPP as a bonus—a way to get extra rides on a favorite, or a way to combat long lines later in the day after everyone else has shown up, or as a way to ride something we like that normally has long lines in a park we won’t get to until later in the day.

Identify your top priority attractions.  Determine if they are Tier 1 attractions (at Epcot, Animal Kingdom or Hollywood Studios).  Think about where in the park your top priority attractions are located.  Think about where you have scheduled meal reservations (or, if you don’t have meal reservations, think about approximately when you think you might want to take a meal break and, potentially, where.)  Think about WHEN you will be at the parks, and whether you’ll be able to take advantage of lighter, early morning crowds.

Finally, think about which attractions may be the hardest FPPs to get.  Right now, the highest demand FPPs are Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and Space Mountain, all at Magic Kingdom.  Frozen Ever After, Soarin’, Test Track and Illuminations at Epcot.   Toy Story Mania and Rock-n-Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios.  At Animal Kingdom, the “hot” attractions are Avatar Flight of Passage, Na’vi River Journey and the Rivers of Light nighttime show.

Now that you’ve prioritized, you’re ready to book your Fast Pass Plus reservations!

A few things to keep in mind:

• You can only book up to three FPP reservations in any given day, and those must all be in the same park.
• Three parks (Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios) use a tiered system, grouping the most popular attractions together, and limiting you to choosing just one of those for your initial three FPP reservations. Be aware of which attractions are in those limited tiers and prioritize which ones are most important to your group.
• Once you’ve used all three of your initial FPP reservations each day (or cancelled any unused ones), you will be able to book one additional FPP reservation using the app on your phone or one of the kiosks in the park itself. Once you’ve used that one, you’ll have the option to book another one and so on.
• Based on that, you may NOT want to choose an evening attraction or FPP time slot late in the day as one of your first three FPP reservations. If for example you select Epcot Illuminations viewing as one of your FPP for a particular day, you will max out at three…you will never be able to book any additional FPP after you use your first three because you won’t be using the third one until the park is technically closed for the day.
• Disney will not let you overlap FPP reservations, even if the attractions are right next to each other. So, if you have one FPP at 10:45 am, you can’t book another one for 11:30 am.
• If you are visiting the Magic Kingdom on a day with a special ticketed evening event, FPP windows will end early.  For example, on days when there is a Mickey’s Not so Scary Halloween Party, or a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, the park closes at 7 pm to non-Party guests.  The system stops issuing FPP reservations at 5:30 pm, and you won’t be able to book any FPP for later than that.  (Note these parties are special ticketed events that require a separate purchase.  I’ll be talking more about these parties in a separate post.)
• If your group is good about getting up and getting going in the morning, do not waste FPP by booking them in the first hour of the day…there usually aren’t long lines until after 10 or 11 am, so why burn a fast pass when you don’t need it?  Use it later when it can really save you from waiting in line.
• Similarly, if you know your group is NOT good about getting up and getting going, don’t waste FPP by booking them too early…if you aren’t likely to arrive in the park until noon, don’t book FPP’s at 10 and 11…you won’t use them and they’ll be wasted. Take your family’s touring style into account when you are planning.
• Manage your expectations. Waiting in line for attractions is part of the overall theme park experience.  You WILL be waiting in some lines, no matter how carefully you plan and no matter how early you get up.  FPP are limited, and there are a LOT more attractions you’ll want to ride than you’ll be able to book FPP for.  Know that you absolutely will be waiting in lines and while I like to plan as much as I can to minimize lines, it’s impossible to avoid them completely without avoiding most attractions altogether.  (Unless you live in Orlando and can go whenever you want.  Then obviously, if there’s a line, you can leave and ride another day.  I am so jealous of those people!)

Even when you have a FPP, you may not “walk right on”.  Generally speaking, with FPP, you’ll usually wait 10 -15 minutes max, but sometimes things happen that can make that wait longer.  In extremely busy periods when the regular line has waits of 2 plus hours, you may end up waiting as long as 30 minutes in the Fast Pass return line.

There are lots of ways to help the time pass quickly while you wait in line—In a few days, I’ll be putting up a separate post on some of the things we try to keep from getting too bored in line.

Finally, remember that there are FOUR parks at Walt Disney World, filled with a TON of attractions, shows, characters, dining experiences, shops and magical experiences.  There are two water parks.  There are several golf courses.  There are lots of water craft and activities you can try.  You will NOT be able to do everything.  You may not even be able to do everything you really, really want to do.  Focus on the few MOST IMPORTANT attractions or events, and fill in the rest of your time with what you can fit.  Don’t make yourself crazy.  It’s all wonderful, and if you relax and accept that you can only do so much (and gee, you’ll just have to plan another trip to do the rest!😉)

As long as you make sure to hit the most important stuff (for you and your group–everyone is different, and what’s most important to us, may NOT be important for you) you will have a wonderful magical time.

Happy Dreaming!

Brooke

Tomorrow morning, 6 am Central Time…our Fast Pass Plus reservation window opens.  For those of you that AREN’T familiar with Fast Pass Plus, it’s a tool that Disney implemented a few years ago that rewards those of us who (neurotic, anal, a little crazy, planning nerds) like to plan ahead.  Fast Pass Plus lets you schedule time to ride up to three attractions per day in advance…When you use it, you SIGNIFICANTLY reduce your wait times on those pre-planned attractions.  There are (of course) some limitations…

• Your Fast Pass Plus reservation window opens 60 days before the first day of your trip, if you have Disney hotel reservations (and these MUST be linked to your My Disney Experience account). If you’re not staying on Disney property, you have a 30-day window for Fast Pass Plus reservations.
• Fast Pass Plus does not really allow for park hopping in your planning. All three preplanned attractions in a particular day MUST be in the same park.
• Fast Pass Plus uses a tiered system to prevent you from using all three Fast Pass Plus reservations on the most in-demand attractions…or on the same attraction.

Now, I know that many of you will read this and think “are you crazy??? You expect me to know WHAT ride I will want to ride WHEN on my VACATION?????”  And my answer to you is simply, “Yes.  I am crazy.” Reality.  BUT I also will say…it only takes a little planning, but it will have a BIG impact on the success and joy in your vacation.  Because trust me, if you can reduce your time standing in line, you WILL have more fun.  You’ll be able to do more, see more and most importantly, SIT DOWN AND REST MORE.  Just kidding.  Well, maybe not.  But you will free up some time to give you more time, period.  And you can use that however you want.  Highly recommended: Naps on the monorail.  But I digress…

And the bottom line: You can change your mind.  You can decide not to use your advance FPP reservations.  You can choose to make the FPP reservations as a “break in case of emergency” back up plan and go merrily about your laid back, no planning involved vacation.  But I STRONGLY suggest you take 20 minutes and go ahead and book them.  JUST IN CASE.  No one will ever know, I promise.  😉

A couple of things that work in our favor:  When you schedule a time for your Fast Pass Plus (FPP), you are actually scheduling a one-hour window.  If your planned ride time for Toy Story Mania is, for example, 11:00, you can go to the attraction any time between 11:00 am and 12:00 pm and ride the attraction with either no wait, or a very short wait.  **Note: Rumor has it that most cast members working the FPP entry points will give you a 10-15 minute grace period if you’re late for your window BUT keep in mind…they don’t have to.  So, I try very hard to never need that grace period. I don’t want to risk wasting my FPP.  Once you have used your three booked in advance FPP, you can use the My Disney Experience app on your phone to book additional FPP reservations, one at a time, or you can use kiosks in various locations around the park.  I’m excited to see how this has improved over the last couple of years…Last time I was in the parks, the app didn’t work very well and I got REALLY frustrated.  But I’ve been hearing good things so I’m optimistic.

The other thing that is helpful is that you can set up everyone in your family or traveling group as a “FPP group” so you can book all your FPP together.  In the very early days of FPP, this was a real challenge.  You’d book one set for one person and then have to go back and try and book the same ones for the next person…it was super challenging.  Fortunately, they fixed that, and booking in groups works really well now.

If you are someone that is really good about being at the park early for rope drop and/or extra magic hours, you generally can ride the most popular attractions first thing without needing to use up your FPP.  That’s the strategy I use…I plan on early entry and try to ride the most popular and in demand attractions first, and book our FPP reservations for a little bit later in the day, after the crowds have started to pick up and the lines are getting longer.  If the wait would be 10-15 minutes without a FPP, why use up a FPP? I’d rather ride without a FPP when the lines are short and take advantage of FPP when the lines are longer.  Of course, that doesn’t always work perfectly, but again, I have to emphasize getting up early and getting to the park of your choice BEFORE it opens is KEY to doing everything you want to do without feeling rushed or waiting in super long lines.

Tonight, to prepare for tomorrow morning’s FPP reservation session, I reviewed my tentative plans for our trip.  I reviewed scheduled meals, and which park I planned to visit when.  I reviewed park hours and Extra Magic Hours schedules.  I made little quick sheets to have with me in the morning.  I reviewed the current tier structure for each park, and I have a pretty good plan of which attractions I’m going to try and book first.

Because our trip this year rolls into Thanksgiving week, which is a peak period for Walt Disney World, I suspect I will not be able to get all the FPP that I’m hoping for…but I will give it my best shot!  Hopefully between Extra Magic Hours and always being early for open, we will be able to hit those really important attractions…

I already have two breakfasts that I will be cancelling because Disney has added Extra Magic Hours those mornings in the parks we were planning to visit.  Both breakfasts were planned to help us get into the park early and be fed and already inside when the park actually opened.  BUT now that EMH has been added, I don’t want to sacrifice that extra hour sitting down at breakfast.  A big bummer because the Tusker House breakfast at Animal Kingdom is one of my favorites, but it can’t be helped. {sigh}

I’ll update you tomorrow on how my FPP reservations go.

Have a great night everyone!

Happy Dreaming!

Brooke

Today I have Disney on the brain!  We are 62 days out from our trip to Walt Disney World for our third wedding anniversary…because we are staying at a Disney resort and have already purchased our ticket media, our Fast Pass Plus booking window will open Sunday morning at 7 am Eastern time.  Guess who will be on her computer at 5:55 am Central time on Sunday?  ME.  SO not happy about that, but it MUST be done, haha.  (Yes, yes, I know.  FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.)

Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about our Fast Pass Plus strategy so I will have a plan of attack Sunday morning.  The end of our trip falling into Thanksgiving week means that I really will probably have to grab the fast pass reservations for the END of our trip first to hopefully get what we want.  I’ve tentatively planned Animal Kingdom for our last full day at Disney, which will be Monday, November 20.  I am SUPER EXCITED to see the new Pandora (Avatar-based land) attractions, and I know they’ve made the two Pandora attractions both Tier 1 attractions, which means I can only book ONE of them as a Fast Pass attraction.  ☹  I’ve got to spend some more time on my Fast Pass strategizing, so I will sit down tomorrow and review our meal reservations and each day’s tentative agenda and write down my basic plan for each day, and then identify which attractions I want to try and get Fast Passes for.

When I was younger, I was the Queen of Exhausting Disney Vacations.  We had to be at the park for rope drop (or earlier), we had to see and do EVERYTHING and we had to stay until the bitter end (or the Kiss Goodnight), regardless of how late that might be.  I also liked to park hop, just on principle, so on Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom days, I almost always included at least a few hours at a different park.  While we had a BLAST, those trips were a little frantic, and VERY tiring.  It always seemed like we needed a vacation from our vacation when we got home.

Now that I’m a LITTLE older (😉), some of the URGENT must do everything or die mentality has faded.  I love Disney so much, and I truly love almost every single attraction, show, shop and mode of transportation.  BUT, I don’t have that “I don’t know when I’ll ever be back here” again feeling I used to have.  Some of that is maturity (we can only hope), some of it is owning DVC (when you KNOW you have points every year, it’s a little easier to calm down and say, we will have the points to come back next year), some of it is knowing my husband has also become a Disney fan (not that I gave him a TON of choice, but he honestly DOES really love it too), some of it is knowing that I have friends and family members that also enjoy it A LOT that I could probably talk into a trip eventually….  Regardless, I no longer tour the parks “COMMANDO” fashion.  I do still try to be at the parks for rope drop…honestly, that is the SINGLE best tip I could give anyone planning a Disney vacation.  If you do nothing else, GET TO THE PARK BEFORE IT OPENS.  You can usually get more done in the first two hours of the day than you’ll be able to do the rest of the day.  SO many people like to sleep in, or have a hard time getting their families up and going, they don’t get to the parks until late morning, or even early afternoon.  TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT.

But where before, I would plan our days to run run run, now I strategize and prioritize a little more.  I think it makes a BIG difference in how much my husband (and my Mom, in the trips I take with her) enjoy our trips.

More on this tomorrow….

Happy Dreaming!

Brooke