Have you used MaxPass? It’s so much better than FP+
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Here! Here! I love MaxPass 
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No. But I don’t want to have to get to the parks at rope drop to be able to ride the headliners. It’s that simple. We like to arrive around 10:30/11 am typically unless we’re going to MK from Bay Lake, in which case it’s maybe 9:30ish.
I like knowing ahead of time that we can get on all of our favourites over the course of our stay. In between we fill in and do lots of smelling the roses.
I also have a fear of using my phone - got badly burned with DS using roaming data and running up hundreds of dollars in charges. Luckily he was a minor and the company should have capped him at £50, so it was refunded.
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I see. I think you can book them from inside the hotel (but you may have to tap in first. I know I’ve got more fastpasses with MaxPass during a hotel break before). I’m also American so I don’t have to worry about the roaming like you so I can see that too. I did also run out of battery once and couldn’t use my last BTMR fastpass (the ride broke anyway so we couldn’t ride it so we caught the fireworks and headed home).
We have a phone plan where we just pay $10/day if we are in a foreign country (and we get Canada and Mexico for free as if they were America). And it’s just as you use it. So when we do travel out of country we try to stick to one phone a day as the go to phone but if someone gets separated they could always use theirs and it would just charge them the $10 the moment they did.
Max Pass you have to be in the park.
I either want to book them ahead of time, like FP+, or have some front of line pass. Personally I like DLP. Good old paper FP if you want, can get another after using or I think 60/90 minutes after your return time. Or you can pay. If you only want family rides or only want thrill rides you can select those, otherwise you get all of them. And you pay less to have one ride on each and more to have unlimited rides.
I prefer to pay too but it is classism which bothers me on a moral level…just not enough to not fork over the money HA HA. We were supposed to go to DLP so I booked the Castle Club room partially for the paid fastpasses (and also for the view and the potential of being able to sit on my balcony with a perfect view of the castle and fireworks). I loved being able to buy fastpasses in Shanghai and even bought more forking over something like $15 or $25 for each subsequent ride pp for Tron (it was soooo worth it!) In Hong Kong, we stayed club level for the “free” fastpasses as well. I HATE lines and I think if I couldn’t avoid them I wouldn’t love the Disney parks as much. I’d still enjoy the resorts and being in the magic but I’d probably spend less time in the parks themselves and bail at lunch when lines got too long.
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DLP is doable without paying for them, that’s the great thing. You can just go with the free paper ones, and they don’t run out until later in the afternoon.
But at DHS, AK and Epcot there just aren’t enough rides for them to last. I remember our first trip when the boys were young, staying offsite. Got to Epcot around 11am and the earliest Soarin’ FP was for 7pm. No way would we stay that long back then. So we never got to ride it. Even at MK I could see 7dmt, Space, PP, Splash being gone for the day well before noon.
If it happens, so be it. We’ll have to change our style, no more cooked breakfasts in the room. But if we can pay, as long as we don’t have to pay for every day of our tickets, then it’s fine. But for 14 days for 4 people? That’s a lot. And that’s also the downside of MaxPass to me too. Not sure they will do that but maybe they will.
I think it’s more likely they’ll do the full on paid thing like Universal and the non-American parks have. It has to make more money than MaxPass but maybe that’s too big of a jump and lots of people will complain though if they give them out based on hotel as well. Like 3 FP’s for people in Deluxe, 2 for Moderate, 1 for Value.
I think express pass at universal is fairly expensive. AP holders have it included on some levels and it’s a perk at certain hotels. I prefer MaxPass over FP and I have EP on my US AP
I have to believe I’ll be back too, if only for a trip on the Starcruiser. Which, amazingly, the kids don’t want to do.
Well, more room and less expense for me!
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If you buy the express for each person, it can be expensive. But if you’re staying at a deluxe resort with the Annual Passholder discount, it can be pretty economical. When I went last year on a 3 day 2 night trip in February for 2 people, the express pass cost around 35 dollars per person per day.
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Depends on your circumstances. On a short trip to WDW staying on-site or any stay off-site, your odds would likely be higher with BG. On a long trip to WDW, your odds would likely be higher with FP (if it were similar to the pre-Covid-19 FP+ system).
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We considered it before, and to purchase it for everyone in our party it would be the same cost as a second day in the park. We were in the process of figuring out whether a second day would be more beneficial, or the time gained by having the express pass- then everything shut down so we never finished the thought process over it. If you are a smaller party it is included in luxury level hotel rooms, but unless I was mistaken our family of five does not fit in one room so it was a wash that way as well.
Because we usually are only in orlando for a week at a time, I would gladly pay for anything that allows us to do two days of attractions in just one day. I think I would pay for it at Disney, and then cut back on other upgrades like after hours
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FYI - 5 people fit a room at Hard Rock (rollaway or bed nest required). Once our youngest outgrows sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor, vacation accommodations will be much harder!
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Have you considered the deluxe two queen room with the sofa bed?
5 people can also be registered at the standard 2 queen rooms in Royal Pacific and Portofino Bay.
It was a bit tight, but last winter we did 2 adults and 3 children in a Jurassic World Kids Suite at Royal Pacific Hotel.
Keep in mind that every adult over 2 in a room will cost $40 a night.
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We were booking through military discount, not sure that room type was available. That’s usually the configuration we look for (2 real beds + sofa). But YDS actually likes his bed nest, so it’s not a big deal…yet…
Out of curiosity how does the military discount compare with the APH discount?
No idea. I get the sense it’s highly variable (not a fixed percentage). I think our specific trip was 30% off rack?
Very true! I’ll never forget how crammed the 5 of us were (youngest was 11) in a standard RP room. We were rearranging furniture to get the rollaway in a decent spot. Still worth it for the XP though.
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Depending on when you go, you may want to look into the APH rates. I have gotten them for nearly 40% off the rack rates (not stay more save more)