Morning! For background, I’ve been on lines for quite awhile now but find that I seldom post anymore but still enjoy reading. I am a TA and as such will often when possible book FPP for my clients while they are in the park after their initial 3. In doing so this past week it got me thinking about our upcoming trip.
We will be there as a party of 12 at Christmas. This past week I saw very little available in terms of fourth fpp for things that Would have appealed to me for a family of 5 I was working with. Obviously at Christmas and will 12 it will be worse!!! So here is my question. What would you do? Book FPP early in the day and hope you can get something decent in the afternoon or book your FPP for the afternoon and see what all you can get done in the morning and then have some guaranteed big rides in the afternoon? Thoughts?
I haven’t been at Christmas, but I was there the early part of Thanksgiving week last year. I booked my fast passes early in the day for my party of 6 with plans to snag more same day fast passes and it did not work well at all for us. There was extremely limited availability and it left us wandering in the afternoons quite a bit. We are going again in June and will try the same strategy because we have friends who it worked super well for at that time of year last year, but I personally would hesitate to plan my day that way during a holiday time again.
Of course, I know that Disney has complete control to release as few or as many fast passes as they want at any time. So my experience may not reflect what might happen at any other given time.
At Christmas I would probably go for your priority rides regardless of timing, so at least those would be guaranted.
For the general case: how many people in your group are able to get FPs? For 12 if you have 4 people looking for 3 each you have a much better chance of getting FPs and end up with intersecting times. With 5 minutes of modifying my group was very successful getting what we wanted at intersecting times.
Pick a different time to go!
With 12 people, more likely this simply because I think it will be easier to get the FPs you want for that many people in the afternoon than early. That way you at least have FPs for things you want.
However, I think I would still TRY for earlier FPs if they are available.
I’m going on NYE at MK with 8 people and my plan is to try to book FPs early (like to finish them at around 11 am, with the last FP window being 11->12). Lines are bad from 10am anyway.
I know that availability for other fps will be very limited and not for any headliner, but i still want to try 
i’ll split up my group and search for overlapping times for sure.
We were there over Christmas and New Year in 2016 and going back next year.
I asked the family what their 3 top picks were for each park and made sure we got FPs for those. For example, DS said Speedway, I wanted Dumbo and Jingle Cruise - so that’s what I booked! And at DHS we all wanted to see Indy so we booked that; we saw people being turned away for two shows in a row - that was on the 30th.
So my advice is to ask the group what their priorities are and book those. Anything else is pixie dust. We did have luck though with later FPs, things like FEA, Pirates, HM, Buzz etc even on Christmas Eve and New Year itself.
Thanks for the thoughts everyone. I think part of the draw of later FPP is that I won’t spend all afternoon tracking down additional FPP for 12 people (actually 11). It’s a group that likes to stick together so I don’t know how much splitting up there will be. And obviously FPP for 12 will eb difficult aso as some of said I may be getting later ones no matter what! I appreciate the feedback!
We had absolutely no luck with additional FPs day of during Christmas week 2018. I tried, but no go. And that was with three of us.
This is why I decided to spend extra for Club level and the additional FPPs for our trip 12/26-1/2, even though I normally don’t see Club level as worth it. I bought them for 5 days, so at least I know we will get 6 FPP a day those days. I hate that I had to spend extra to get it, but it will be worth it if no extra same day FPP for top rides are to be found.