Hi there! My family of 4 (me, DH, DD6, DS4) is heading to Disney in early December as part of a larger group of 10 total people. My sister, her husband, their 3 kids (6, 4 & almost 2), and my Mom are the remaining group.
Our FP day comes in early October and we’ve been doing a lot of planning thanks to the help of our Unofficial Guide and this site, but there’s something I’m still confused on & hope someone would be willing to explain more about our options. We know that everyone gets 3 FP a day and we somewhat understand Rider Swap, which we’ll need to take advantage of on a few rides that the youngest can’t go on.
Here’s my situation that will apply to a few rides - I’m going to use FOP at AK as my example. All 5 adults on the trip want to ride FOP. None of the 5 children are big enough to ride. This problem gives me some questions:
If all 5 adults are successful in getting FP for FoP, we are now one FP ahead of the children. The 5 children cannot ride something without us adults, so do we just not get the kids a 3rd FP on that day? For example, let’s say we manage to get FP for all of us for the Lion King show, and we get FP for all of us on KS also. But then by sheer luck we get the 5 adult FP for FoP. Do we need to do anything about unused FP for the kids? Does this matter in any way?
Clearly all 5 of us adults cannot ride FoP together because then there is no one to watch the children. So how do we time/stagger our FP goals for FOP? Would 2 adults get a FP say at 2pm (that we snag at our 60 day mark), then the other 3 adults try to get a FP that starts at 230pm? Is that enough time for the first 2 to ride FoP and take over watching the children so the remaining 3 can get in the FP line, and how will we know if it’s enough time?
Can we use FP & Rider Swap together? Say my sister, our Mom and I get FP for FoP. We go to the FP line & ask for RS passes for our husbands. Then us 3 ladies ride while the husbands keep the kids occupied. Probably they could not go on a ride while they waited though, due to the youngest kiddo’s size and there would not be enough adults to ride with the four older kids. Then when we 3 ladies come back, the guys take the RS passes & go on FoP. But this brings me back to my same question - the kids are still behind one FP and now the guys are one FP behind also. But if we can use FP & RS together, then can we try to schedule an EE FP for the guys, have them ride it & get RS passes for me & my sister? My Mom would be out of luck on that one, right, since it’s only one adult per RS pass?
Sorry if I’m not understanding this properly. If we can use FP & RS together, that solves some of our issues but not everything, because we have an odd number of adults. Any feedback & advice would be much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
You do not need to use all three FPP per person. If you get FoP for the adults the kiddos can use only 2 and nothing will happen. And you CAN RS and FPP together. Actually that’s your best option. The way this works: you walk up to the FPP at FoP, say you’re doing RS and three people will be allowed to ride ( I think it’s three, someone will correct me I hope). You will recieve a piece of paper that acts like a FPP. Once they come out, the other three will be allowed to ride through the FPP line… so no wait. Check out this post regarding RS: https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/rider-switch
If you do not get FoP FPP do not panic! Do RD and head there immediately joining the buffalo stampede directly to Pandora. 20 minutes wait tops. Good luck!
For rider swap the whole party must go to the line first. You ask for a rider swap, and those who are riding first will be given a lanyard to take in line. Up to 3 people can use the rider swap, i.e.: ride later.
So if you decide the dads will ride second, book fastpasses for the ladies for FoP. Meanwhile book fastpasses for the dads and kids for Na’vi River Journey at around the same time. You all approach FoP together, the CM sees the kids and gives you a lanyard (which is exchanged later for the rider swap “ticket”).
Dads and kids then go to the river ride. Meet up again later and at some point the dads can go back to FoP It doesn’t have to be immediately after. Often the rider swap will be good until the end of the week, not sure about FoP, it could be good for the rest of the day given the numbers involved.
So in summary, only half the group need the fastpasses.
And you don’t need to have fastpasses to use rider swap either.
Or, you get FPP for FoP for all 10 of you, including the kids. Ride it once using your MB, then put your kid’s MB on and ride it again!
We did something similar last year when my parents, who are in their late 70s, clearly weren’t going to ride Tower of Terror or Space Mountain. But they were with us and swiped in, so there would be no issues with people saying you cheated.
THIS! This is what I would do. If all you do is walk up to the tapstile, don’t say anything, tap in, Mickey turns green, and you walk into the line, they should be none the wiser. Just don’t stand right in front of the CMs and switch bands with the kids. Do it in a bathroom or something. I saw people doing that in November and the CMs gave them guff.
I would definitely stagger them but I don’t know how long it takes to get through the FPP line on a normal day.
Thanks for the replies! This has been helpful to get a better idea of our options. Since I’m the primary organizer in my group, I want to be able to offer “the right answers” now that we are getting focused on our FP selections. Our group will likely not travel together 100% of the time either, so trying to coordinate the times when we want to ride together & therefore plan to be together are all coming into play. I sure hope the advice I read here before, that “going crazy with planning NOW will save time, effort & from going crazy ON VACATION” is true, because boy, I’m kind of going crazy!
