FPP window with partial on-site stay

Walt Disney World Touring Plans
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Hello,

First of all I would like to apologize for posing this particular question because I know this topic has been discussed before and it’s not in any way a new phenomenon. But the various answers I have found on both this and other Disney World related forums are somewhat conflicting and making a wrong interpretation could turn into a very vital mistake while making my bookings and plans.

Previously I asked about what I could expect as far as FPP availability goes when having to deal with a 30 day FPP booking window due to staying off-site. Having read a bunch more on these forums (especially the latest topics from @profmatt) I’ve started considering booking a 1 night stay at a Disney hotel just to get the Magic Bands and especially a better FPP booking window. But because of said conflicting answers I’m unsure on what my FPP window would look like with just a 1 night Disney Resort stay and 8 days worth of Disney World park tickets. I know that @profmatt has finished his FPP bookings (thanks for all those informative threads) so maybe he could clear up this particular question for me :wink:!

So for our personal situation, me and my SO will be arriving at Orlando Airport on the 24th of November at the beginning of the evening and begin our park days on Sunday the 25th of November. The vast majority of our trip we will be staying off-site. But we would be willing to put in a 1 night Disney Resort booking if that would benefit us enough in terms of Disney related perks.

My plan right now is to have the following hotel bookings:

24/11: Disney’s Pop Century Resort
25/11: Best Western Convention Center
26/11: Best Western Convention Center
27/11: Best Western Convention Center
28/11: Best Western Convention Center
29/11: Best Western Convention Center
30/11: Best Western Convention Center
01/12: Best Western Convention Center
02/12: Best Western Convention Center
03/12: Best Western Convention Center
04/12: Best Western Convention Center
05/12: Best Western Convention Center
06/12: Best Western Convention Center
07/12: Driving South for Everglades + Keys

We will be going for 8 days of Disney World, 3 days of Universal Studios and using the bit of remaining time we have in Orlando that aren’t taken up by visiting theme parks to do some Disney Springs and generally recharge a bit from those busy park days. Now my questions is, how would this 1 night Disney Resort booking affect my FPP booking window. From reading @profmatt’s threads I kind of assume that I’ll be able to book my FPP’s for 25/11 on 26/09, the passes for 26/11 on 27/09, the 27/11 on 28/09 and so on and so forth. So basically the rolling 60 day window I’ve read about. But Best Western CC is obviously ineligible for the 60 days FPP window and I’m unsure if this would throw a spanner in the works.

On some other forums I’ve read the following answer concerning similar situations compared to mine, usually with people booking “throwaway” hotel stays or campsites at the Disney Resort. According to them I could book my FPP for 25/11 on 26/09, but from 26/11 forwards my booking window would revert back to 30 days because I’m no longer staying on-site. So that would mean my period to book FPP’s for 26/11 would be 27/10 at the earliest, for 27/11 on 28/10 and so on and so forth. Basically, they state that I’d get a 60 day window for the day(s) I both stay on-site and have park tickets and would be rolled back to the 30 days when I leave the on-site hotel for an off-site hotel even though I had an on-site hotel booking during the same park tickets period.

Just to make sure I’m explaining myself correctly. This would not involve a so-called “throwaway” booking where I would cancel the booking before the actual start of the vacation. I’m European and our terms & conditions regarding the cancellation of bookings is not nearly as generous as the US ones. So I would definitely show up and actually stay at the Disney Resort for this 1 night booking. Not sure whether this has any affect or not, but I could imagine cancelling the booking could lead to a different result.

Could anyone clarify this for me and please also tell me whether they know this from personal experience or just from hearsay? I know this is an extremely long block of text for such a simple question but planning this thing is making me kind of nervous because there seems to be so much I need to take into account. Thanks for any and all help provided!

Greetings, Bob

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That is wrong. That is not the way it has ever worked. It may be the way a Disney thinks it works, and some TA podcasts and Facebook groups may say that, but I do not think that it has really ever worked that way with tickets or APs bought outside of a package. How do you think your example is different than @profmatt?

I know it is hard when people say otherwise, and they mean well, but they are wrong.

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Since I have not yet cancelled my throwaway room — and I’m not sure I’m going to — my situation is currently the one you describe.

The check-in date of the room is 19th June. The FPP window opened 60 days before that date. The check-out date of the room is 20th June, because it’s a one-night stay. The 60 day window did not close up for dates after this. I was able to book fast passes for the 21st June 60 days in advance, despite the fact I will not be staying on-property on 21st June. And again on 22nd June, and so on.

Once the 60 days window opens, it doesn’t close. It advances by one day each day, irrespective of the fact it is covering days where I will not be on-property.

(I did not actually book FPPs for those dates because my trip starts on 25th June. But I could have done so.)

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I’m not sure, but I think that where you might run into issues is that you might not be able to book FPP for, say 6 Dec when your tickets are 8-day tickets and your stay is on 24 Nov. I think that your FPP window would be 60 days for the first 8 days after 24 Nov. For 25 Nov you would get to make FPP at 61 days (so on the same day you could make them for 24 Nov) but after that it would be 60 days, but I think you only get length of ticket. In other words, I think you could book your first 8 days of your trip at 60 days out (except for day 2, which would be 61) but then it would revert to 30 days. But I don’t actually know, this is just speculation.

@profmatt is your ticket a 14-day one? It’d be good to let @frankbeerens80 know what happens after 14 days from your first FPP day (has that come and gone yet?), if only 30 days out is available or if you could still book FPP at 40, 45 days, etc.

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All tickets are good for 14 days after first use. So I think all dates for @frankbeerens80 's trip should be fine, if I’ve counted right.

They will only be able to book FPs for 8 of those days though.

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So if you stay on site for 1 night and have say 3 day tickets you could book FPP for days 1 and 2 and then for day 13, all at the 60-day mark? Except for day 2 which would be at 61 days? I understand that if he has 14-day tickets he could book at 60 days for any of those 14 days. But if your tickets are shorter…at what point does the FPP “bonus” of being onsite end? Does this make sense?

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With the 1 night stay, you can book for day 1 and 2 at day 60. Then the window rolls on a day at a time.

Since all tickets are good for 14 days, then you could book for day 13 once the window has rolled on far enough. (It’s too early to do the maths right now, I need coffee)! That uses your 3rd day’s entitlement.

You can’t book all 14 days’ worth of FPs all at once at the 60 day mark, if you only stay for 1 night. You apparently used to be able to do that, but not any more.

But you still essentially get a 60 day window for each day at a time, just not the 60+ length of stay window.

ETA - added the part in bold to clarify

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And to add …

The 60 day rolling window stays open until the last day of your onsite stay. So if you decide you want to come back for a Saturday “next month”, you could buy a ticket, link it and then get the 60 day window for booking FPs for that day visit.

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See, you learn something new every day! All this Disney math makes my head hurt. :confused:

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Looks like I’m not going to cancel it.

I’m currently only entitled to a 40% refund of the room cost — the UK cancellation terms are not generous! — and I’m scared that if I do cancel it, I may lose the FPPs I’ve already booked, although they are now covered by my stay at the Contemporary on my last night.

It’s not worth the risk for the small refund I’d receive.

But I have no regrets. I got to book five or six days of FPPs earlier than I otherwise would have been able to book them. And that reduced the stress of booking the trip. Plus it was the cheapest onsite room available. And I’ll get a free Magic Band. Woot.

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I’m not sure I understand why the last day of the ticket duration would be any different. It wouldn’t be the biggest of issues since I think a rolling 60 day window for the first 7 is still very worth it to book the 1 night on-site stay. I know there are some differences between US and EU bookings so I don’t know if that’s at play in the situation you just described. But US citizens can also book 8-day park tickets, no?

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So basically, it’s not as good (anymore) as if you’d have your entire stay on-site as far as the FPP booking windows is concerned. That’s fair and makes complete sense. But it seems the theory at least checks out (thanks to everyone helping me out on this one!) and the rolling 60 day window is still much better than staying completely off-site and being bound to the 30-day window.

It means I’ll still have a very hard time getting the big FPP’s because I’ll obviously lose out against the people that are having their entire vacation on-site and can book using a 60+ day window for the length of their stay. I can totally live with that. But at least I’ll be able to beat all the people that are staying completely off-site by about 30-days and hopefully be able to get better times for whatever is left after the on-site people booked their FOP, 7DMT etc. FPP’s.

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Not that this will apply to me but maybe for whoever else that may come across this thread at a later point in time. In my case I’d book the 1 night on-site stay on the 25th of November as pointed out above. Would that mean I could link park tickets upto the 24th of January to that very stay and be able to use a 60-day FPP booking window?

Given how everyone described my current situation and the logic behind it, that does seem consistent. It just feels weird that I could have a hotel booking 2 months earlier than my park days and still be able to link it together as if I’d be on-site and have the 60 day FPP window. Don’t get me wrong, not complaining at all since I’ll be utilizing this very system but it just feels a bit odd.

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CYou would have to have separate park tickets, because they expire after 14 days. But yes, if you really wanted to. Just link more tickets,

And to be honest, for US guests, that kind of situation calls for APs - except that AP holders are limited to the number of FPs you can hold, and act oddly. And I’m not sure I understand how they work (in fact I know I don’t fully understand them).

And it’s also worth pointing out this. Disney closed the first major loophole about FP windows, i.e. you only get a rolling window now, not the full “length of ticket” window.

This is a “feature” at the moment. That’s not to say they won’t work on this next, and close the rolling 60 day window when the end date reaches your end of on- site stay.

They have also closed the loophole about using extra FPs on bands not used to get into the park. And have started removing the “change party” feature, which will be rolled out to all operating systems and the website eventually.

Clearly they have things “in their sights”. Don’t bank on this working in a year or two.

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I think this is probably what I was thinking of. I’m sure I read this at some point in the last two years of researching a trip to WDW and that this is still just stuck in my mind.

And yes, US citizens can book tickets from 1-10 days. We have 8-day tickets and will be there at the same time as you, starting on Nov. 30.

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Thanks for the huge amount of info! I guess I can only hope they don’t fix this particular 60-day rolling window with just the partial on-site stay within the next 6-7 months then!

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I know this is an old topic, but just wanted to let you all know that the loophole was most likely closed today. Tried for FP for 60 day rolling like yesterday and wasn’t able to.

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Can you give us some details please?

I assume you have an onsite stay and then an offsite stay. What are your dates for both?

The reason I ask is that the rolling window won’t start until 60 days out from your check-out day + 1.

So you make all your FPs from check-in to check-out at 60 days out.

Then you have to wait until 60 days out from check-out day, and then the next day your window would have opened for the day after you check out. Did this not happen? Or have you not reached that point yet?

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And an update.

Looks like @ribbit1019 was one of the first to find that the rolling 60 day window has been discontinued.

Here is an article from WDWMagic, which reports two updates to the FP system.

  1. If you cancel a reservation for which you booked FPs, those FPs will be cancelled. You have a 2 day window to rebook.

  2. If you move offsite and still have ticket media left, you will need to wait until the 30 day window to book those remaining FPs.

So basically the changes we were expecting, but they have only just introduced them.

https://www.wdwmagic.com/other/mymagicplus/news/22feb2019-changes-to-fastpass-reduce-misuse-of-the-service.htm

It is not clear yet about the leading reservation question, ie booking FPs and then cancelling the first few days.

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Want to chime in. Right now I have a split stay in April with two days onsite followed by six offsite with a six day ticket. I booked FPP for all six days last week with a rolling window. My FPP for days 3-6 are still intact. Additionally I was able to modify a FPP still. I am not yet in my 30 day window. I am still suspicious that these changes are effective.

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