For our upcoming trip this November, our planned AK days are 60+1 and 60+5. I know we want to ride FOP several times if possible. I’m also aware of how tough it can be to get a FP at all, much less at the time you would like, particularly at 60+1.
As I’m working on our touring plans I am trying to get our fast passes fairly early in the day so that we can take advantage of getting additional same day fast passes, so I wonder…
If I am lucky enough to snag a FOP fast pass but it’s not until late in the day, should I take it anyway and just give up on the idea of additional fast passes? Or abandon the FOP fast pass in favor of 4th and 5th fast passes on other things?
We will rope drop FOP on 60+1 anyway, so we are sure to ride it at least once. I guess I am trying to determine which is more valuable, a FOP fast pass or the possibility of additional same days fast passes on other rides.
What are the CL predictions for your days? The day we went was a 3. We used our first three and then I got lucky and scored a NRJ one for right before our afternoon break. I only got one other after that and it was for the KS after dark which was cool. We did not wait any more than 20 minutes for anything that day.
Predications are 2 and 5, but I have to be honest and say that I have almost zero faith in those low numbers. Would love to be that lucky, but having been at that time of year before, I just can’t imagine it. If they are anywhere close, however, the waits should be fairly low.
Gotcha! Yes, I had no hope of getting a same day FOP. Was just thinking we could snag same day fast passes for additional rides on other things like EE and KS if our first three were earlier in the day.
Oh I see. I was thinking you were going to book 3 early ones and then try for a same day FOP. During the first couple of hours everything will be low waits except FOP so you should be able to get plenty of rides in even without early FPs.
I suspect you will get 60+5 early enough. I got 60+3 at 3:00 (my FPP day was last Sat) and there were plenty of times to choose from around then. I would think 60+5 you could get noon or so based on nothing but guessing. If you RD on 60+5 and have FOP FPP for that day, you can probably do almost everything else early and won’t really “need” additional FPP unless you want multiple KS or EE rides. IMO extra SD FPP are really most useful at MK–I think it’s because the tiers at the other parks screw everything up.
I agree with you on everything but the additional FPs. I got them for every one of the parks in May, which we found to be very helpful. In AK, we had a late FOP, around 6:30, and still found a fourth FP for an additional ride on EE.
I don’t usually plan any extra FPs, so maybe that’s why I treat it the same for all parks. I consider myself lucky for any extra FPs I can get, especially with 5 people. However, we actually did pretty well with what we got.
Just to add my 2 cents, I’d definitely take any FoP FPP I could get, regardless of time. If it happened to be late, I would then keep trying to modify up until trip - last year when it first opened I did not get any FoP on first try, but after a few weeks was able to snag a set around 1PM.
Then, on AK days, I would do the pre-RD plan if at all possible for your family: be there 60-75 minutes before RD. They let you in early, should be on and off FoP by a bit after scheduled RD. You could then go for Navi and on to rest of park. (If you did happen to have those later FPP, you’ll be glad you did! I talked up the ride before any of us had been, kids were really psyched we got to ride again later.)
After all of that, to answer your actual question: I think with a good TP in park, you can usually manage well without the 4th and additional FPP (even if it isn’t ideal overall.) FoP is worth focusing on, but that won’t take everything else out of the loop.
If you still are worried it might, just doing the pre-RD arrival and/or trying to ride FoP right before close can get you 2 rides without any FPP and a relatively minimal amount of park time used. (People are reporting 40-70 minutes FoP waits if you get on a little before closing.)
We got a party of 9 FP for FOP on the 60+2 day and I was so excited. It was for about 6PM but that’s OK- I grabbed it and felt happy that I went to the effort to stay up until 1AM to book… MDE was super glitchy so that was the only “difficult” FP we got, but that’s the only one I really wanted and we only have one AK day.