Do they release additional FP times at any other point within the 60 and 30 day mark. I feel like I have come across this by accident but if you are aware of some sort of schedule, I would appreciate a heads up.
No they don’t. Usually if whole batches of FP come available it’s because hours have been extended.
I know people say that all additional FPs are due to hours changing or people canceling. But I’ve seen at least one thing that makes me wonder. I’ve been monitoring FP availability closely on the Dibb for the last 2 or 3 months. A few weeks ago, meeting Mickey in Town Square was following its usual pattern of random scattered days filling up, especially as the dates got closer. But then all of a sudden every single day had availability, most days in the morning. It was such an abrupt change that I wondered if they’d opened a second room with Magician Mickey. At the least, it seems like they must have released more FPs without hours changing. It was strange!
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It does happen. In its first year, FOP opened up tons of FPs for the next month on a couple of occasions. But it doesn’t happen often or on a schedule.
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It happened with me and FOP as well. No FPs were available for AK before 9am or after 6pm, than a bunch came up and I got FOP for my party (8 people, 8:05am, 60+1).
It is possible to notice that Disney hasn’t released FPs for a time slot when not even super-available rides (think Winnie the Pooh) have any slots showing for that time period at 60 days. If that happens when you are scheduling FPs it might be worth it to keep checking to see if Disney has released them yet (contrary to at 60+x days at 7am EST there won’t be many people checking, so you don’t need to be online at the exact minute to benefit from that).
This worked so well for us the week of Nov 17-22! The drops were very dependable. I got FoP twice and SDD once using those times. Those were definitely the hardest to get (I did a LOT of refreshing that week) and I probably wouldn’t have got them at all if I hadn’t known the drop times.
One thing to note for others- the soonest times available were 1-2 hours later (so for a 12:01 HS drop, I got SDD for 1-2). Have a plan in place for what to do while you wait, since you can’t get any other FP during that time period!
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I’m here 12/27/19 and I can report I tried for FoP at 11:01; 1:01 and 3:01 and no FoP fastpass availability came up. It’s 3:40 as of me posting this but I’m not hopeful about 5:01.
My post supports what someone else said about Disney not dropping during holidays 
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No FoP FP drop at 5:01 p.m.
I’m sorry. 
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Thanks for this info. I need to read thru the forum more. I think I have just been stuck in the comfort of Chat. 
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Pop in when you can! There is a lot of great info here!
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Thank you so much!!! Got 4th FP Test Track at 1:29pm for 2:20-3:20. AND just got 5th FP Test Track at 4:03pm for 6:05-7:05pm. WOW.
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Ok this is very helpful and also confusing 
a couple Qs:
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how do I use this info strategically along with the “FP availability” function AND just hitting refresh for my 4th+ FP while in line ALONG with a plan I made?
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Do I follow the plan I made and try to pick up FP for whatever my next steps are or do I pick up FP and keep modifying my plans?
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Is there a video or article that shows someone using the plans in the parks/picking up additional FP to see what this is like IRL?.. my main concern is picking up additional FP and using it in coordination with the TP app…trying to figure out an optimal way and balance of using all the great strategies all together!
Also wondering, at the drops, what range of times are usually available? Say the drop is 1201, are the FP typically for 1-3, or are there immediate or later day ones that also come up?
The drops are usually within the next 2 hours.
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I never look at the FP availability tool. It only searches for 1 person so I don’t think it’s particularly useful - just my opinion.
You need to stay flexible to really utilise this. You can optimise your plans in the park on the app as long as you are marking each step you do as complete. In all honesty I don’t do this, but I also know what I’m willing to skip and I’m not married to my plans.
I don’t know to be honest, I’m just a user like you and not a very tech savvy one!
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The mechanics are pretty simple. You open the MDE app, go to My Plans, and then Get FastPass+. It will ask you which day and park and have you indicate who in your party.
I don’t think the FP availability function is hugely helpful at that point, because you’re really grabbing whatever is there you want. You can just look at the wait times on your plan to know what would be most helpful.
Here’s how I did it…
If your plan is EXACTLY what you want to do, you would only look for fast passes for activities already on your plan, and probably only ones that have a >10 min wait because otherwise when you start moving things around you might not save enough time to justify any extra walking. You can add the new fast pass to the plan. You could re-optimize, but since I manually tweaked things a lot, I just manually moved things around and hit Evaluate until I worked in the FP how I wanted it
But I was also looking for things not on my plan because I had put several things towards the end of the day that weren’t must dos that we were willing to skip. I had polled my family as we went on what rides they’d want to do again. So, I grabbed any of those and worked them in, cutting other stuff as needed.
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I have 7 in my traveling party - when they do the drops will I be able to find enough for the whole group, or would I need to break it down to two smaller groups of 3 and 4? We have three kids, two parents, and two grandparents, so having a few people sit out isn’t the end of the world if I can get the kids on a few extra headliners.
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Groups of your size and bigger have had success, but splitting into 2 groups is a good idea if you’ve refreshed a few times and nothing has come up for 7.
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We did our group of 8 together yesterday at Magic Kingdom and that worked fine until evening. Today at HS we did 4 and 4. Got an SDD for 4 and TSM for the other 4 at the 12:01 drop.
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