My daughter will be marching at Disney with her marching band. The rest of the family will be going to watch her, and then when the band trip is over, she will be staying with us and we will vacation as a family for about a week. We will be staying on site. How does booking fast passes work in this case? I fear that I will not be able to book her fast passes, as Disney told me I could add her on to our room reservation at the resort when she joins us. I am assuming that means that I can’t book her fast passes along with the rest of the family? How would that work with two different ticket lengths? (ours may be 8 days, hers 5 as she will get days with the band separate from us).
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I believe the information you have received is correct. Once she joins your reservation you can make fast passes for her. Which would mean she would be able to make them a few days after you. Not ideal but probably manageable; it’s easier to find a FPP for one than for many so you will probably be able to find her a time that overlaps with your own.
In terms of different ticket lengths, you could look at purchasing for a start date that will allow coverage for the duration of your trip length. I recently helped a friend whose tickets were a little more affordable by choosing a start date before they actually arrived. We just had to be sure the end date of the tickets was not before the last day they wanted to be in parks. I’m not sure if that’s making sense. The date-based ticket system is a little confusing.
If it were our marching band, they would probably make the student do everything exactly the same as the other kids until the very moment that she joins you. What I mean by this is that if the other students were getting a 3 day park hopper, but I wanted to extend that into a 10 day hopper for her, the band would say nope…it’s too complicated to make exceptions and do things differently for different students. If this IS the case for your daughter, maybe you could make her a second MDE account. She can use one when she is there with the band, and then use the other when she’s with you. You’ll buy her second ticket with your families’ tickets, and book her with you in your room…all under a different MDE account. That way you would have full control over her MDE stuff (FPP, ADR,etc) while she is on family time. Just a thought.
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If they are buying a separate ticket for her, can they not just set her up on the reservation in advance with FPP and everything but not using her same name or something like that? Or is it buying different length tickets that causes the problems?
I’m thinking that “kid1” is booked on band trip and “kid1a” is booked with the family.
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She won’t have an onsite reservation from the sounds of it?
If she IS on site I wonder if she could have the tickets linked somehow by calling guest services?
She will be staying onsite. Probably one of the AllStars. I made a reservation for the whole time at Pop.
day 1-5 she is with the marching band, with tickets (and meal vouchers?)
5-12 she will be with us
My main concern is making fast passes at the 60 day mark. I want to make sure I can make fast passes for all of us together.
operator 1 told me to add her to our reservation on day 5 and make her fast pass selections then.
operator 2 told me to add her to our reservation on day 5 and call the help desk and ask for fast passes that match ours (???)
(both of the above operators were not sure if this could be done because she would have a shorter ticket length than the family)
I called the help desk, he said add her to the reservation for the whole time, make an account for her, link band tickets and family tickets to her, then link her to us and I should be able to schedule her at the same time as long as she is listed on the room
Hope #3 works, but I will have to find out once I have tickets to add.
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My main worry would be getting a ticket number from the school that you can link up. Are they passing them out to the students, or handeling everything internally?
On another note: I happen she has a blast while there. I went for a band trip 20+ years ago and have great memories from it. My favorite part was when they had us on a soundstage playing a movie score while the movie played on a big screen behind the Disney conductor. It was awesome.
Oh- and the band stayed at ASMusic, obviously 
We just did a similar band trip over Easter.
5 days with the band group (and she made FP for her and friends on those tickets) - then 3 days with the family. Both staying at Pop.
I had her on our family reservation for the whole week.
I booked all the family FP at 60+ days out, but didn’t include her until she was with us.
We have APs so maybe that made it easier for us?
That sounds amazing!