I’m staying onsite at AoA from July 6-13. My FP+ window opens next month and I’m researching on what my park touring plans will be so I’m ready to get FP+ at 7am when it opens in May. However, I keep on thinking that getting a FP+ at a decent time for the extremely popular rides (FOP, 7DMT/SDD/Frozen at Epcot) are very slim…meaning I likely won’t get FP’s for these rides with a 10-11am window, likely it would be much later in the day/evening (if at all). That means it negatively impacts my ability to get additional FP’s once I get thru the 3 allotted per day.
I’m thinking that if I can get a decent hour for these FP’s, then great. If not, I’m thinking that I focus on getting FP’s for other rides with good return times, and try to Rope Drop the most popular rides each day we visit the park.
Does this make sense? I hear that RD at HS for SDD is just complete insanity, and we are adults/late teenagers, so we just might skip that completely and focus on TSM/RnRC/ToT.
Or should I just take whatever FP’s I can get for these most popular rides and try to modify them using the Disney App up to/when in the park.
I’ve been to WDW 4 times before, but this is my first visit using the FP+ system, as well as the addition of the new rides that are causing everyone to lose their marbles during RD! (FOP, SDD, 7DMT, Frozen).
I’ll continue reading up on this, but wanted to ask the question to the experts here at the TouringPlans Forum.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
What you are saying makes total sense. I would personally get the FP’s and try to modify them up. It’s MUCH easier to change plans by dumping then and picking something else earlier in the day than vice versa. It will give you flexibility to think and change over then next 60 days. Also, if you’re going for 7 days, you’ll probably be able to do just about everything else, even if it’s not optimal even if you don’t get day-of FP’s. You won’t be able to ride FoP at all with FP or some pretty hard core rope drop.
And fwiw, when we went in December the week before Christmas, we were there for 7 days and only used day-of FP three times: for Figment, Magic Carpets, and for Jungle Cruise. We found that with the good TP’s we had, EMH, and a few RD days, we could do everything we wanted without it and without waiting.
You have 8 days in your stay - you are correct that you won’t be able to get the most popular FP+ for the first days of your trip, especially for early in the day. But for 4th day of your trip or so onward, you should have no trouble getting the FP+ for when you want them, so plan your days accordingly.
My FP day was yesterday and I was successful at getting everything I wanted at times very close to what I had in my TPs.
BUT - I was looking for the popular ones later in our trip (10 park days over 13 days). I did get FEA on my 60+2 day within 10 minutes of my plan time. I have SDD 3 times, 7D 3 times, FOP and Navi on different days and, as I said, everything I wanted.in the past 24 hours I’ve modified 6-8 of the FPs to different times or attractions as I tweaked TPs.
Now my disclaimer - my family does not RD, ever. If I can get them to a 9am ADR, I am doing good, so I rarely was looking for a first FP at 9am. Also, since we will be there at a busy time, I am not expecting to get any SD FPs. If I do, I will consider that pixie dust. 
Good advice everyone. Happy to hear there are chances to get tough FP’s…I was already planning on starting with latest dates first…I hope all this works! Greatly appreciated.