Fast Pass Experience Recap (Long)

Walt Disney World
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Hello -

Long time reader and third time poster. I wanted to thank the community for all the help, but I wanted to share my 60 Day Fast Pass booking experience to provide any help I can to others.

First, I have put in 50-100 hours of research on this Disney Trip (from best time to go, accommodations, dining, fast pass strategies, etc). I am a planner by nature, and I wanted my kids (DD5 and DS2) to have the best experience possible.

Our trip is Sunday 2/2/19 - Saturday 2/8/19. Guests will be Me33, DW32, DD5, DS2, FIL64, MIL63. Our original plan was: Mon-MK, Tue-AK, Wed-HS, Thu-MK, Fri-EP, mostly based upon crowd calendars from TP.

I had my FP+ in order of difficulty to get, and they were as follows:

  1. FOP (1st choice: 11:30 AM)
  2. SDD (1st choice: 9:30 AM)
  3. 7DMT (1st choice: 11:15 AM)
  4. PP (1st choice: 9:15 AM)
  5. Soarin (1st choice: 10:00 AM) - we have an Akershus 8:10AM ADR and plan to walk over / RD Frozen
  6. Space Mnt (1st choice: 1:00 PM)
  7. BTM (1st choice: 11:00 AM)
  8. Pirates (1st choice: 10:00 AM)
  9. Kil Saf (1st choice: 9:15 AM)
  10. KRR (1st choice: 10:15 AM)
  11. Pooh (1st choice: 10:15 AM)
  12. Space Earth (1st choice: 1:00 AM)
    13-15. Not important

Each of these times were based upon running through personalized touring plans and using proximity as a key factor. Also, we operated under the assumption that we would only be in the parks from 9AM - 2PM (naps) and that we would have a lunch at 12:00 PM for 60 minutes with 30 minutes of flexibility either way. We have ADR’s for dinner each day b/w 6:00-6:30 PM.

First, the 7AM experience… I was ready with my laptop and iPhone. The Disney Website was very slow on my laptop and even after deleting my DS2 from our party (which I didn’t know I needed to do ahead of time), it was not letting me proceed. It took until 7:10 AM or so before the Disney site on my laptop seemed to be working correctly. So, right out of the gate, I had to use my iPhone, and I was behind by about 3 minutes.

I immediately went to FOP for Tue 2/4 and the best time was 4:30 PM. I had planned for this b/c I knew my AK and HS days were interchangeable. I go to Wed 2/5 and get a 1:55 PM. Not 11:30 AM, but I’ll take it. I move over to Tue 2/4 (which has quickly become my HS day now), and there is no SDD. I panic. I quickly check EVERY DAY, and there is only after 5PM on Friday. I go back to Tue 2/4 and grab Toy Story Mania at 9:30 AM and begrudgingly know I am going to have to RD SDD.

More bad news, I go to Mon 2/3 and look for 7DMT, best time 4:25 PM. I am doomed. I am freaking out. I move on to Peter Pan on the same day… 12:50 PM. The trip is ruined. My world is crumbling.

I get on a hot streak and grab Soarin at 10AM on Fri 2/7. Space Mnt at 1:10, BTM at 11AM, POC at 9:55 AM all on Th 2/6. I move to Wed 2/5 and grab Kil Safari at 9:10 AM, and then strike out again as there are no KRR avail at all. I quickly grab Exp Ev at 10:20 AM. I finish out with Pooh at 10:15 AM on Mon 2/3 and Space Earth at 12:50 PM on Fri 2/7.

Recap - My AK Day (Wed), MK2 Day (Thu) and EP Day (Fri) are great. My MK1 Day (Mon) and HS Day (Tue) are a disaster. It’s about 7:20 AM.

I moan and complain to my wife. I would pay $100 to do it all over again. Then, I start tinkering. I see that 7DMT has a 1:35 PM on Thu 2/6, do I grab it??? I check Mon 2/3 and POC, BTM, and Space Mnt all have the right times avail. I make the switch and grab 7DMT at 1:35 PM on Thu 2/6. So, I have switched my MK days. I look at PP on Thu 2/6, and there is a 9:10 AM. Boom!!! I switch Pooh to Thu 2/6 as well. So, I have effectively moved 7DMT up from 4:35 PM to 1:35 PM and PP from 12:50 PM to 9:10 AM while keeping Pooh at the right time.

Now, my Mon, Wed, Thu, and Fri are great. My Tue is fine, but I am disappointed about not getting SDD.

So, here are my FP times with original time vs. what I actually got:

  1. FOP (1st choice: 11:30 AM) - I got 1:55 PM.
  2. SDD (1st choice: 9:30 AM) - I got Toy Story Mania at 9:30 AM and will RD SDD.
  3. 7DMT (1st choice: 11:15 AM) - I got 1:35 PM.
  4. PP (1st choice: 9:15 AM) - I got 9:10 AM.
  5. Soarin (1st choice: 10:00 AM) - I got 10:00 AM.
  6. Space Mnt (1st choice: 1:00 PM) - I got 12:55 PM.
  7. BTM (1st choice: 11:00 AM) - I got 10:55 AM.
  8. Pirates (1st choice: 10:00 AM) - I got 9:55 AM.
  9. Kil Saf (1st choice: 9:15 AM) - I got 9:10 AM.
  10. KRR (1st choice: 10:15 AM) - I got Exp Everest at 10:20 AM.
  11. Pooh (1st choice: 10:15 AM) - I got 10:15 AM.
  12. Space Earth (1st choice: 1:00 AM) - I got 12:50 PM.
    13-15. Not important

Summary - I wish I had prioritized SDD over FOP, for my kids, but I’m not sure it would have mattered. I’m glad I was flexible and built my ADR’s around being able to switch my AK and HS days (by not having a breakfast ADR’s for those days). I wish I had originally set my MK Day with 7DMT as my later MK day knowing that was the hardest of the MK FP’s to get, but I got lucky by being able to switch my Mk days up.

Hope this helps someone out there!

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This is where I stopped reading. If you’re not going to take your trip seriously, then we can’t help you. This is a community of committed planners. We’re not the kind of people who wrote the term paper the night before it was due.

50-100 hours. Pah. It takes me that long to choose the colour-coding for my spreadsheet.

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mousemat… hoping that is some sarcasm! If I was being honest, I would’ve said 100-150, but I was afraid of being called crazy. I also forgot to mention the DIS Unplugged Podcast and Disney Food Blog YT Videos I’ve watched. Thanks for your response (I think).

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Right @sanstitre_has_left_the_building is never sarcastic…

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ryanjagel… what’s the backstory that I’m missing here?

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Oh yeah… That was definitely sarcasm. I have no idea how many hours I spent planning our first trip last January. It basically took over all my binge watching time.
I enjoyed reading about your fp experience. We stayed off site so I had to book each day separately (and give up on many of the major rides). What an adrenaline high to have to do it all at once! But you adjusted really well! And my guess is that SDD wouldn’t have mattered either.

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I’m British. It’s cultural. Which means you can’t criticise it.

Everyone on here is crazy. It’s a badge of honour.

If I may be serious for a moment — when I read your original timings I did think “yeah, good luck with that” — they were pretty ambitious. You’re competing not just with people with your start date, but people with longer trips and earlier start dates and the Club level people who were booking 30 days before you.

Bummed you didn’t get SDD but if you’re a proper Liner, you’ll be rechecking half a dozen times per day every day until you get there. Sometimes miracles do happen. Also, don’t forget same-day drops. And expanding park hours lead to a sudden torrent of availability of FPPs.

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That could take awhile, but all kidding aside he means well. Overall I think you did well for you’re FPP day, the planning paid off! Now you can look forward to checking and making minor tweaks to the times and possible massive changes when and if park hours change :grin:

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Thank you all for your comments. Keep them coming. Since I made this post, I’ve already moved 7DMT up from 1:35 PM to 1:00 PM. I don’t have to go to work for another 45 minutes, that’s like 250 refreshes.

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@sanstitre_has_left_the_building essentially oozes a slimy trail of sarcasm wherever he goes. :wink:

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IT’S CULTURAL. You. Are. Not. Allowed. To. Criticise. It.

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I wasn’t criticising. (Nor was I criticizing…just to be clear.)

Just stating the facts. :smile:

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Nicely done!!! We are there 2/5-2/9 so FP day for us is less than 48 hours away!

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And yes, we are definitely all crazy here. And if anyone in our real lives tries to give us Disney advice… It’s most likely going to drive us insane. Because it’s bound to be Disney 101 and we’re all doctorate level over here.

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SDD is really tough to get unless you are looking for it at 60+5 or later. You didn’t say which days you tried, but I doubt it would have been available for your first few days even if you got on MDE at 7:00 am.

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Your experience reminded me a lot of mine, except that I didn’t have the IT problems that you did in the first few minutes. It is frustrating but will be worth it when you are enjoying all those rides with your family while everywhere you see hour long waits for the stuff you booked ahead of time. Our trip was only 5 days and during CL 10 (we just got home) and I failed to get any SDD, SDMT, or FOP on the first day. I did eventually manage to get SDD and SDMT, but a FOP never materialized despite checking many times a day until the day of. One thing you could do is to split your group up into smaller groups for some things. If there is something you really want but didn’t get or need to move you could have 2 groups and look for a smaller number of people for the hard to get ride. I managed to get SDD for 2 of my party and each was in their own time slot, but the slots overlapped, for example. And, in the end, my DD7 took one look at SDD and was like “aw &^%& no!” so we ended up swapping it for ASS. The adult who was supposed to ride SDD with her rode but hated the ride b/c it was too intense for him…so, getting stuff in advance doesn’t always work out anyway. My DD7 was small enough that they let me ride ASS with her despite not having a FP for it and we both had a nice time (although I will warn you that is a rougher ride than expected…).

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I will also point out that rides like 7DMT and PP aren’t that far apart really. The parks seem big but they aren’t as much in real life (except Epcot, which is huge if you get stuck in world showcase on the wrong side—I misplanned at Epcot by having my husband and kids at the Japanese pavillion for lunch and have to run back in time to make TT that was too soon).

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Also if you’re not already following, I really enjoy reading Easy WDW’s blog. He rope drops the parks very frequently, so you’ll find some great information there about getting on SDD first thing.

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Just keep watching. People change their plans so much. By the time we went on our trip I only had 1 of my original FPP- FoP at 2:00 on my +4 day. At 11:01 I changed it to 12:05 and added 2 people. So that was that. And it was all great. I got SDMT and SDD in the park, along with many others.

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You actually had a very successful FP day! And as a novice? WOW! Great work. Nimble, on the fly changes.

SDD can be pretty elusive but keep checking. Just keep trying to modify your TSMM to SDD. I planned my last trip at about 45 days out and eventually got SDD at 11:30. Your attitude for 250 refreshes in the 45 minutes before work will take you far.

Have a great trip. And stop in UK pavilion for a culturally appropriate cuppa sarcasm.

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