Hi there - just booked all our FPs this morning for my family’s first Disney trip (two kids, 7 and 9) - very excited! We have two days planned for MK, with the first day (2/18) focused on Frontier/Adventure/Liberty and second day (2/20) on Fantasy/Tomorrowland. For the second day we have a BOG PPO (during EMM) with the intention of riding SDMT before RD crowds. For FP, I was able to get:
10:10: Peter Pan
11:20: Space Mountain
1:50: SDMT (insurance in case there’s a glitch with our PPO and/or we want to ride a second time)
We also have a reservation for CRT at 11:50.
So here’s my questions:
Would you keep the FP for SDMT? Or would you consider taking a different FP, either in the afternoon, or morning so that we can reload FP by lunch?
(I’m using the Personalized TP software and depending on how I run it, sometime it doesn’t want to use the FP for either SDMT or SM (says this could increase wait times, walking times, etc). It also suggests FP for Pooh, Belle, and Monsters Inc.)
Alternatively, would you just keep the SDMT FP and ditch the BOG PPO?
sameboat as you First time got 7Dw at 2:50 which not ideal
have 7Dw other days as well so did think about ditching but i recon im gonna get all the ride once, and not sure most deserve a 2nd
So also interested in answer but my current plan i i hear they release FP on the day im gonna see i i can move up 7Dw on the day
Even though I find SDMT underwhelming, for your kids’ ages, I think it is still a good ride. And since obtaining SDMT as a FP is difficult, I’d keep it. You’ll still be able to obtain same-day FPs after that point without issue (and you might not even really need them based on when you’re going).
I’d keep them as you have them, and focus your PPO endeavors on other rides while everyone else is trying for SDMT. You’ll get through far more that way then any advantage you’ll have in obtaining same-day FPs later.
If you manage to RD SDMT, you can always modify it to something else, and earlier that day, presuming you won’t want to ride it again.
It is true that sometimes getting the lowest wait time for one ride will cause you to miss out on lower wait times on other rides, resulting in actually increasing your overall wait/walk times. Note that, practically speaking, any time walking or waiting is effectively wasted time, so even if you have a plan that gives you lowest wait times, if you have to walk back and forth a lot, you are still effectively “waiting” for that time. A 10 minute walk between rides to save 5 minutes in line is still effectively a waste of 5 minutes.
#1 - I 100% agree with everything you wrote in the entire post! Keep that 7DMT FPP #2 - I’ve been trying to tell people how crisscrossing the park just to save 3 minutes per queue is impractical for so long. Well said!!
Also, it is so much more pleasant to RD the non-headliner rides. You can just get there 5 minutes before park opening and leisurely walk to the attraction, without being crushed in a sea of humanity or waiting a lot before.
Yep! I head straight to Adventureland every trip at MK RD. Walk on to at least 3 attractions in the first hour while the majority of ppl are getting off of their first ride of 7DMT or Space
Here’s a blog from one of my favorite places - easywdw.com - it’ll show you the advantage of “turning left” at end of Main Street to do more attractions.
Then JC / BTMRR / PotC - just go to that side of the park and you’ll see less crowds. The most popular rides seem to be on the ride side of MK for some reason…
Thanks for the advice, really helpful! Totally agree about not chasing low wait times. This is really making me feel good about my MK Day 1 plan where I was planing to start on the “left side” with HM and then FPs for BTMRR (10), PoC (11), and JC (12). Probably won’t really need the FPs but gives us the flexibility to have a relaxing morning and/or ride multiple times if we want…
So it seems like the consensus is definitely to keep the afternoon SDMT FP for MK Day 2. Is it still worth showing up for the BOG PPO to get a little headstart on the other Frontierland attractions (Pooh, Buzz, JotLM, etc), assuming we don’t RD SDMT? Note that it is an EMM morning so, from what I’ve read, it sounds like we’ll be ahead of the RD crowd but won’t be allowed to ride anything until EMM ends at 9.
This is true. On non-EMM days they’ll walk RD people right over to the queue at about 10 minutes early. On EMM days they wait until right at 9am to escort those people.
I’m going to throw in my experience on this just to say, absolutely keep your FPP for 7DMT and don’t count on getting to ride after BOG PPO. I have done BOG PPO twice in the past 6 months and NEITHER TIME did I get to ride 7DMT before park opening due to not getting out of the restaurant in time. The first time I’ll take responsibility, we didn’t get to the park as early as we should have, having to take the resort monorail didn’t help either, and there was a long line to pay our bill although we had ordered ahead. The second time we arrived to the restaurant right at 8. We had again ordered ahead but again the lines to pay were huge. They shuttled us into the ordering line although we didn’t need to order, that wait took 15 minutes. Then we found a table and sat and waited…and waited…40 minutes later our food finally arrived. We had one allergy entree, I don’t know if that was the holdup or they were just swamped that day. But definitely at least keep the FPP until you see if you will get to ride PPO, then decide if you want to ride again or switch to an earlier FPP.
Thanks for sharing that! Will definitely hold on to the SDMT FP, and will also be ready to complain if our food doesn’t show up (have read about that happening to others as well).
Still haven’t figured out - is it better to hit SDMT at 9 (gives us chance to ride twice or cancel the later FP), or just use the head start to get through all of the other nearby rides before lines build (Pooh, Buzz, etc)? I’ve read that two lines form during the PPO, one for SDMT and one for PPF - how does it work if instead you wanted to head straight for Pooh?
My understanding is that only SDMT actually runs for early rides, everything else you can just line up to get on at 9. So if you can, definitely try to get in SDMT before 9.
when im there. But thanks