O great and powerful TP’ers…tomorrow is my 60 day window for FP+. I’ve got my list based on meticulous TP’s crafted over these past months. But…as I checked the TP site for remaining FP’s for my date in August, there are none left!!! Empty…Zilch. So…I reset my TP for that day and targeted Avatar for our first ride…at 9am the wait is 140 minutes…on a crowd day of 4!
So I come to all of you…the Oracle’s of all that is WDW planning…humbled and troubled.
What do ye suggest to avoid missing one of the signature attractions but not watching my beard grow before we head to the next attraction at lunch!
The first thing I would say is to try getting the FOP FP tomorrow when your window opens. You never know what might happen. I just snagged 4 FOPs for a last minute trip (it was 33 days in advance).
If you don’t get the FP, we have done two things that were successful and did not involve a 140 minute wait. My favorite suggestion is to get in line for FOP just before park closing. Don’t worry what the wait time says because it often is higher than what it really is. We have waited between 45-90 minutes doing this and I think it was totally worth it. We have also done RD for FOP. We arrived about 70 minutes before the park opened at 9 and were off the ride around 10. Now that did involve a good bit of waiting but at least only some of it was during actual park hours. I think the 140 minute wait that TP is estimating might come from an arrival right at park opening.
I just made my 60 day out FOP fastpasses and here is how I did it. Most out here say that you can snag FOP fastpasses on 60 plus 3 days. In other words on the 60th day at 7am EST be on the computer and make your 10 days of fastpasses all on the 60th day. Don’t try to get a FOP fastpass for the 60th day but rather day 3 of your vacation. The farther into your vacation the better chance you have of getting the fastpass for FOP you want. This is because many people are going to be looking for a fastpass for FOP in there first day of vacation or the 60th day out. Some may only have a three or four day vacation so they will only be able to make fastpasses for three or four days of there vacation. If you have more than three or four days vacation then you can make fasspasses they cannot make beyond day three or four. Try making a fastpass for FOP as far as you can into your vacation and this will give you a great chance of getting what you want.
I was able to get my FOP fastpasses for a last minute trip at 31 days out. If you don’t have luck with searching for your whole party, trying breaking it up into groups of 2-3 and look for overlapping times.
I ended up passing on a FOP FP as only one for later in the day (around 5pm) was left for our day at AK. I had planned to RD FOP and from what I’ve seen on YouTube, people RD having arrived an hour or so before the park opens didn’t wait very long. But you waited an hour even with a 70-minute early arrival? Oh boy.
Today is my FP day too and I was shocked to see that there’s no FOP availability on my AK day (Day 60+3), not even in the evening, which is what I was planning. My fingers are crossed that some will be available. If not, we do have a second AK day at 60+6, but I’m really hoping for 2 FOP rides without RD or a late evening.
That was last summer though shortly after Pandora opened. We were not let into Pandora until 8:45. From what I have read, it seems like they are letting people in earlier than that now. And we walked slowly because I was hoping we could see the queue and we did. We weren’t trying to be part of the first group in line.
Just last week on a vacation with my extended family, I was able to experience FoP 3 times, once with a FastPass and twice by rope dropping it. I forced myself out of bed at 6 and was at the polynesian village bus stop at 6:45. First bus arrived right before 7, and I was through bag check and standing in line behind 15 people, waiting for entrance. We were walked back from the rope drop towards FoP at 7:40 and I was off the ride at 7:58. Maybe upwards of 60 people were able to shove their way in front of me between the rope drop and the ride queue, but even that barely had an effect on my wait time. After that I hopped on Na’vi River Journey with an 8 minute wait, walked across the park to do Dinosaur and Expedition Everest, and was done with 4 major attractions by 8:45. Really made the rest of the day feel relaxing. It can be hard for many to wake up early on a vacation, but if you can, you won’t regret it.
It seems like now people have been able to ride at RD and be done before the park even officially opens. I still really like riding at the end of the night though. You are able to experience the queue and the wait isn’t insane. We did that a few weeks ago and were on the very last ride of the night (we got in line 2 minutes before park closing). It was so nice walking through AK after closing–very peaceful.
