Help me with my FPP strategy

We’re staying off site, and our stretch of 30-day FPP days is approaching. I’d intended to spend a morning at HS, but every time I re-evaluate our TP, fewer attractions can be squeezed in. So I give up, we’ll just skip HS entirely. That leaves us a morning at AK, after which we’ll head to Epcot for our 2pm reservation at Garden Grill.

Our priorities at AK are EE, KS, Nomad Lounge, FOTLK, and animation class. We don’t care about Pandora, and two of the kids are too short to ride FoP anyway. The longest wait on my TP is 33 minutes for KS.

At Epcot, we want to do basically everything, but we have a whole second day there as well. So for this one afternoon, I’d like to cross off either Soarin’ or TT, a few tier 2 rides, wander around WS, and watch the fireworks. Dinner is whatever looks good from F&W booths. The longest wait on my TP is 34 minutes for Soarin (leaving TT and FEA for day 2), but I haven’t really figured out what combination of rides to attempt on each day.

What FPPs do I book?

I think you need to balance two things.

  1. The possibility of obtaining same-day FPs
  2. The FPs that save you the most time.

I’d start by looking at your TP and find the attractions with the longest WAIT times. See if you can obtain FPs for those first. So, in your AK example, if you obtain a FP for KS, you might save yourself upwards of 30 minutes (although in the case of KS, probably more like 20 minutes, since you have to wait for the next available safari anyhow).

Of course, you have to pick the ONE Tier 1 and two Tier 2s that save the most time.

However, if the time saved across the attractions in your TP are roughly the same, try to obtain FPs that are EARLIER in the day as much as possible. This will allow you to get through your FPs and then start getting same-day FPs if they become available.

My 3 year old (who knew nothing about Avatar or Pandora) really enjoyed Navi River Journey. You may want to consider a FP for that at AK. If you want to do EE and KS, I would recommend making those FP. For the third, if you really don’t want to do Navi, then I would FP FOTLK.

The TP wait times are not etched in stone (especially now with more uncertainty than usual due to SWGE opening). It may end up being about 33 minute wait for KS, but there is no guarantee that it’s not substantially longer. I think KS would be a very good use of a FP per my reply above.

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The next longest wait on either of my TPs was 13 minutes. At that point, I feel like I’m just guessing which FPPs will actually save any time.

Is it pretty easy to get same day FPPs for Soarin’? Seems like I’d be better off grabbing a FP for KS and relying on same day availability in Epcot, vs having no FPPs in AK.

You can book three tier 2s, right? AK tiers are weird.

Yes

I wouldn’t say easy. I got one last fall after a fair amount of modifying. It wasn’t easy and there were times where it wasn’t available, but I eventually got it. From my experience, it’s an easier same day FP than Test Track, but not as easy as Nemo and the other Tier 2’s (I didn’t try for a same day for Frozen so not sure how that compares).

That said, I think I would book the FP for KS and then as soon as I was done with FP at AK, I would start looking for Soarin’. If you are done with AK FPs around Noon, are prepared to keep looking and modifying for Soarin’ and also are ready for the same day FP drop times, I would guess you have a decent chance of scoring Soarin’ (again, no guarantees).

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