People seem to get terribly excited about booking ADRs at 180 days and FPPs at 60 days (or earlier).
But with the exception of a small number of restaurants and rides, is this even at all necessary? I’ve never booked an ADR earlier than about 120 days and often much less. Yet I’ve managed to get all kinds of difficult ones: e.g. V&A, BOG, CRT, etc. It might take some perseverance and patience, and you might not get exactly what you want — you might have to do some tweaking — but getting up early to book things seems really unnecessary to me.
This is just as true of FPPs. With a very few exceptions, you don’t need 60 days. And even with the genuinely popular rides, I’ve had FOP and 7DMT and even SDD FPPs booked closer than 60 days.
Wouldn’t you want to make it easy on yourself though? I suppose you could say it’s easier not to have to get up early, but since we don’t - I would rather have everything to choose from than take a chance on getting it later.
We planned a late trip this year - meaning we booked the trip after ADRs and FPPs windows had opened. We are a party of four, and there were some FPPs I just cannot seem to get no matter how many times I check.
That being said we did not have a great deal of time choice with FPP. ADRs were OK, but that’s largely due to patience and the TP finder.
This was our first trip that we actually had planned before 180 days (it was sort of an accident - when I went to look for flights in November for mid-August, prices were so good I booked it). Mid-August is a relatively chill time and I’ve always been able to get reservations I wanted.
EXCEPT FOR:
T-Rex.
I’ve never been able to pick up T-Rex later.
Booking t-Rex 180+6 the earliest I could get was 8:30pm. I now have a Landry’s card so that whole exercise was useless.
I’m with you, Matt. I did the 7am thing once to schedule CRT for our first trip. Now I just take what I happen to find. Half of the fun for me is the looking, so I enjoy it. Maybe those people that put in a TON of effort are expecting that it will be a one and done, all or nothing, once in a lifetime trip. Mine was supposed to be and I’ve been back twice a year since 2014.
I have also found that no matter how much effort I put into the plans, I end up ignoring/modifying most of it in the end because it happens to suit us better in the moment. My family is less likely to have good memories if we’re constantly being dictated to by a touring plan or ADR schedule.
I can only say all of these things because we have the luxury of multiple trips. We’ve already seen and done the “must dos”. If I didn’t, perhaps my opinions would vary.
And sometimes people love to do it because it helps them to feel closer to a vacation that is actually six months away. Anything to get closer to the magic.
I rarely have our trips planned out 180 days in advance, but thanks to the reservation finder we have always been able to dine where we wanted. On a recent trip with 7 people we had some issues with the military tickets so I couldn’t make our FPPs at day 60, but we still got everything including FOP a few days later. That really made me realize that maybe it wasn’t worth it to panic and get up early.
Sorry, i’d rather get exactly what I’m after immediately to better allow for flexibility later. A great example is there was a last minute “want” on the trip to eat at Ohana. Had I known about it in advance of my 180 day, I probably could have gotten exactly when we wanted to eat… now, thanks to the reservation finder, I was able to get a reservation… but as you noted, it’s not exactly what I wanted as we’re eating at a really non-ideal time and I don’t even know if we’ll be able to fully enjoy it because we have only 45min-1 hour to eat now before we have to leave to meet up with the rental people to turn back in equipment.
I have the reservation finder still looking for a better time, but it’s been 2 weeks now and no luck so I’m not expecting it to find anything.
There we go, fixed that for you. Since that is actually how you feel
Did you see my topic regarding park hours? I want pre rope drop ADRs. I want 8am, not 8:40 or 8:50. I also don’t want them on an EMH day. Like @Randall1028, I also have an ‘Ohana dinner on my list. I am still deciding if I want to even try for a dining with an imagineer lunch. Will my trip be ruined if I do not get these ADRs? No, it will not be impacted in any way. I have two 280 days next week and I will be on my computer at 6:00am both days .
There is a big difference in getting what ADR’s and FPP you want and the crowd level. I believe your trips have been during moderate to low crowd levels. You may not have been as successful during a high crowd levels visit.
Get yourself a Landry’s select club card, cost is $25, which you will get back at your first meal as they give you a $25 credit. It also gets you immediate seating at all of their restaurants, regardless of whether or not you have a reservation or if there is 20 people in front of you. You WILL be the next group called, as long as there are no other Landry’s club members in front of you. Personally, never waited more than 5 mins for a seat, with a group of 6, for any Landry’s restaurant, T Rex included, as well as Yak & Yeti
Half the fun is making a dream ADR list, waking up (if you even managed to fall asleep the night before) at 5:30 am and logging in, and impatiently waiting for 6 am on day T-180, then bragging to all your friends & family how you got BOG ppo and CRT as they shake their heads thinking you’re crazy.
I third this! Party of 10, plus little kids who are early risers so we wanted PPO breakfasts and dinners as close to or slightly before their regular (popular!) time of 6pm (8 or 9pm not gonna work) meant there was a huge difference in what our options were when I logged on at 7am vs when we had to start adjusting at 7:15am. Seriously, that fast.
Fastpasses weren’t such a big deal, but we went before Pandora and TSL opened. So it was just 7DMT and FEA, which weren’t nearly as popular by the time we went.
Basically, if you can be a true liner and zig when others zag, you’re spot on. If you inherently have less flexibility, the 180+ and 60+ days matter a lot.
