September Fast pass selection troubles

With the window opening next month for fast passes, and the unexpected opening of SWGE, and the addition of EMH with early opening, i am having trouble picking my fast passes. Anyone else in this boat? TP seems like it is overly optimistic for wait times. I understand know one REALLY knows how the crowds will be until after August 29th. But what is your strategy now?

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It depends how interested in star wars you are. I would probably just plan like normal but be prepared to make adjustments as needed. If you can get park hoppers, i would do that. If i wanted to see swge i would be sure to block out a half day and hope for the best.

I mean for all the parks. Not just HS. I have a 2.5 yr old, so we wont be doing the big stuff, but if we arrive at emh, we can hit everything we want over 2 days for MK for instance. I am expecting larger crowds and waits than TP i guess.

Honestly, I always personally just stack all my FPP together in the morning with no time between. So, RD a few rides, then for instance, make 1st FP around 9:30, second at 10:30, third at 11:30. The goal for me is to use them up early, then start getting additional FP all day long using modify to get better times.

If you make a FP time for like 5 pm, you have little chance to use more than your initial 3 FP for the day.

That’s just my strategy. People will probably have different strategies.

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That was my original strategy. But with the emh, it seems silly to use a fp for an 8 min wait. Do you think day of fp will be easy to get? Pirates is one of our must do, and it is around 4:30 in our plan.

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Yes. No matter what the predicted CL, I stack them early. If it’s not busy, you will find FP being available all day long and you’ll never wait standby (this works best at MK where there are a lot of FP rides). If it’s busy, I have the same strategy. When MK CL was at a 9 during spring break, I was still getting pirates, jungle cruise, dumbo etc all afternoon.

Do keep in mind there are no fastpasses during EMH. What I did was do an EMH plan and then a separate plan starting at normal opening time (maybe it’s only showing 8 minutes as 9 am). I try to stack mine early on, but since we are two adults and DH hates to back track I don’t worry about that so much for this trip. If I had young kids, that might be different

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And just FYI even on an uncrowded day, you’ll probably not find many rides with only an 8 min wait.

Day of FP are plentiful on most days except for headliners like 7dmt, space, btmrr. I would definitely move up pirates in the day, personally.

Keep in mind that if you have FP spread out during the day, it makes it harder to take a break because you have to plan around those times.

Thanks. Ill try to move it. I was hoping to avoid too much backtracking. And meeting jasmine and aladdin are also on our must. Seems like they are out mostly in the afternoon?

Tbh MK is not that big, so backtracking is not that terrible. If it means I’m jumping from ride to ride using FP and not waiting standby at all, you’ll still save lots of time overall. I’d rather spend my time strolling from FP line to FP line than standing still in an hour long line.

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If we were going this fall, I’d definitely have hoppers. With the FP changes to HS I can’t justify spending my 3 FP there (even with a toddler), so I’d plan to do EEMH there one day and do non SWGE stuff before going to a different park for FP. 2 days worth of FP at MK is ideal. I like the 10, 11, 12 FP spots but I try not to hit the first one until almost 11, so you get the most of that early morning touring time.
I’d check out Easy WDW’s blog posts for recent 8 am opening day touring. That’s probably the most comparable to MK and AK with EEMH for planning purposes. He has a really great example from Easter week at MK this year, which was crazy busy, but he still did a lot from 8-10. If you can take full advantage of that time, you should be able to get a lot done, because many people will not be there that early.
As far as building your TP, I’d prepare for worst case scenario by the slowest walking speed and adding in periodic breaks. Even if the times aren’t super accurate, it will still help to give you an idea of ride order.
I also think with the circular/wheel layout of MK, it’s pretty easy to backtrack as needed. If you go for EEMH, you’ll probably need an afternoon break (and that was a must for us with a toddler).

I do the same as terp05 and try to stack mine starting around 9:30 and get them done to try to start grabbing more. We always get park hoppers and I’ll start grabbing for my second park while on the buses to the next park.

Now, for DHS, I don’t know what my strategy will be. We are going in late September. With the new tiers, I’m at a loss. DS6 likely will be just a hair too short to ride RNR, so that’s out. I don’t think TOT will be awful, as I think it will be back to full capacity by then. TSMM is my 2nd favorite ride in all the parks, but I would imagine it won’t be too bad. So, by default, I think we will get one for SDD and then use two random shows for our other two FPPs. Depending on how crazy the park is, we may be done there early and cancel our last two and park hop and try for same day FPPs at another park.

DHS is really the only park that is going to be new for everyone. At least I’ll have a month of SWGE being open to watch these boards on how bad it is.

We are in a similar boat. I have a 4 year old and we could CARE LESS about Star Wars. I think we are going to try and do EEMH for Toy Story area because he is obsessed and then do 1 FP for one of the Toy Story attractions and then use the other two for the shows. We hope to be out of there as soon as lunch is done. For MK, we are doing 2 days. We will do FPs starting at 9:30 and do EMH both days.