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Post by MichyM on Jan 13, 2017 19:10:44 GMT
My adult son and I are meeting in WDW late on March 22 for several days. Neither of us has been in almost 10 years and a LOT has changed in that time!
This quote from the other thread has me a little nervous:
"we did Disney last year, last week of march. It was so damn crowded, way way more so than any of my other visits. I knew it would be crowded but it was even more so than expected with parks at capacity. I will never do Disney again during spring break or other typically busy times."
We're coming up on the time that we can start scheduling fastpasses, clearly they're going to be important if it's that busy! In your opinion, which are the FPs we should do right away? We are buying 4 day passes, not sure right now if they're going to be park hoppers or not.
Thanks in advance for any tips and/or tricks you want to share!
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christinec68
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,129 
Location: New York, NY
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Post by christinec68 on Jan 13, 2017 19:24:23 GMT
We book fast passes at:
Magic Kingdom: Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain, and Peter Pan's Flight. Sometimes we swap out Big Thunder for the 7 dwarf mine train or Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
Epcot: Test Track or Soarin for tier 1. Tier 2 is Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land.
Disney Studios: Toy Story Midway Mania, Tower of Terror and Star Tours. Rock-n-Roller Coaster is great but DH has a bad back and can't go on it.
Animal Kingdom: The safari, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur (I don't care for it but it's popular) and the Rapids water ride.
Eta....check the app at different times of day and see what the waits are for the rides you're going to want to go on most. If something consistently has a long wait, get the fast pass. Some rides move more quickly so it's not really necessary.
I'm sure you know this, but you need to have your tickets purchased and linked to your Disney experience account to make the reservations.
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Post by cade387 on Jan 13, 2017 19:26:44 GMT
Check WDW Prep School for her blog and podcasts about fast passes to pick in each park. Love her site!
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Post by dockmaster on Jan 13, 2017 20:12:32 GMT
Also, once you have used your 3 passes for the day, you can get additional passes 1 at a time.
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Post by stingfan on Jan 13, 2017 21:00:44 GMT
easywdw.com has great recommendations for which fp's to get when at which park. Refresh the app all day long when getting those 4th+ fp's. Accept whatever time it gives you and then keep refreshing until you get the time you really want. Things are always changing, so take advantage of it. We were able to ride all day with fp's that way - minus maybe 1 or 2 rides. Take portable chargers for your phones. They'll get a workout  . |
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iowgirl
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,133
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Post by iowgirl on Jan 13, 2017 21:10:07 GMT
Do you have the dining plan? If so - make your meal reservations now too. We did the medium plan, so only made the reservations for our "sit down" meal of the day. It was so easy to do.
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Post by roxley on Jan 13, 2017 21:33:27 GMT
easywdw.com has great recommendations for which fp's to get when at which park. Refresh the app all day long when getting those 4th+ fp's. Accept whatever time it gives you and then keep refreshing until you get the time you really want. Things are always changing, so take advantage of it. We were able to ride all day with fp's that way - minus maybe 1 or 2 rides. Take portable chargers for your phones. They'll get a workout . We just did this at Christmas time. As soon as we scanned one fast pass I kept refreshing the app to get our next one while we were in line for the current one. We just went from one fast pass to the next all day long. And this was the busiest time of the year! We were really worried about going at Christmas but we didn't even notice because of the fast passes. But you can't do this until you have used your original ones you get now. So make them early! |
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Post by mcscrapper on Jan 14, 2017 0:33:23 GMT
Just got back from WDW last week. We were there for far too long! Four days sounds so much better. We also went during capacity days. We were there over NYE and MK was at capacity by noon. We didn't go to the parks that day because my dd was also there for a soccer showcase and we had a game at 4pm.
I'm sure you have already learned that you can only get one FP per category at a time
Anyway, here's what we did:
MK: (we were there two and half days) Buzz Lightyear, Space Mtn, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (SDMT), Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion. Pirates, Its a Small World
The SDMT will sell out quickly. So will Peter Pan for some reason. We got others as we could if I remember correctly.
HS: Toy Story Mania, Star Wars something or other, and Rockin Roller Coaster. The park was pretty crowded that day and we couldn't get additional FPs the day we were there. We did, however, do the single-rider line for Rockin R'coaster and didn't have to wait long and we did end up getting to ride together.
EPCOT: Soarin and Test Track. This is one park that is difficult to get FPs for because of the category restriction.
AK: Everest and Safari and Its Tough to Be a Bug. We got Festival of the Lion King later I think. **We got to this park about an hour after opening one day and went straight to Everest. I think the initial line wait time was reading 15 mins so we rode it in the regular line. We love this ride and knew we would want to do it again so, instead of blowing our FP straight away, we did the regular line and got to see all of the props and stuff and then used our FP. Even after riding it twice, the line read only a 30 min wait so we went through a third time. The wait time was more like 20 mins so that was nice.
I hated that we missed a few rides this time because of the crowds but we still felt like we got to see and do most of our favorites.
Just FYI....taking the ferry boat is usually a lot faster than taking the monorail. I wish we had not gone during this busy time but we were already there for the soccer event so we went ahead and bought a package. I love riding that monorail but the lines were just WAY too long and we never had to wait more than 10 mins to ride that boat.
I really do want to go ONE time during the off season and enjoy the parks w/out the lines!! I've been the week you are talking about going and it was the Flower and Garden Festival and it was REALLY nice and only moderately crowded. We still had a great time!
Have fun!!!
m
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rickmer
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,123
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Post by rickmer on Jan 14, 2017 1:10:46 GMT
Magic Kingdom: Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain, and Peter Pan's Flight. Sometimes we swap out Big Thunder for the 7 dwarf mine train or Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. Epcot: Test Track or Soarin for tier 1. Tier 2 is Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land. Disney Studios: Toy Story Midway Mania, Tower of Terror and Star Tours. Rock-n-Roller Coaster is great but DH has a bad back and can't go on it. Animal Kingdom: The safari, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur (I don't care for it but it's popular) and the Rapids water ride. yup to this! i am kinda shocked that peter pan ride is always in such demand, in spite of the fact i think it is super-cool, it still surprises me. i might switch jungle cruise for 7 dwarf mine train, just because its tough to get during busy times. disboards has a great forum called "theme park attractions and strategies" and there is tons of great info and people are super-helpful. as previous poster mentioned, you can do your first three fast passes ahead of time and then once used, you can go to a fast pass kiosk or log on to my disney experience (i believe) and book 1 more. |
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Post by kellybelly77 on Jan 14, 2017 1:11:52 GMT
At AK the Everest ride has a single rider line. If you two don't mind being separated to ride use that. You can usually get on the ride much much quicker. Last year I used the single rider line and was basically walking into the ride. You do miss all the cool Everest stuff in the line but I just want to ride! Same goes for HS, rock and roll coaster or whatever it's called also has a single rider line. This one doesn't move as fast but it definitely is faster than the regular line
At MK always get a fast pass for 7 dwarves mine train. It's a cool ride and the passes go quickly, with the regular line being about 75 min long. I've waited in the line and it's not fun!
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Post by betty on Jan 14, 2017 3:21:15 GMT
Test track and Aerosmith's rockin' roller coaster also have single rider lines. The one at Everest seems to move the fastest though.
The new Soarin' is very cool. Check to see if any rides you have your heart set on are closed for renovations during that time.
You can get fastpasses for things like the seating at shows, character meetings and spots to see the parades.
Tip: If you are having trouble booking a ride for all of you..try doing each as a single or breaking up the group for fast passes. YOu can overlap the time slot by 10 minutes or so and get you all on in the 50 minute window that all the fp are valid.
I've had a lot of luck doing it that way.
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Post by mcscrapper on Jan 14, 2017 3:49:32 GMT
Make sure you have the MyDisneyExperience app and the Wait Times app for WDW. Both were pretty accurate when we were there.
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tanya2
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1604
Posts: 4,423
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Post by tanya2 on Jan 14, 2017 6:03:21 GMT
Magic Kingdom: Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain, and Peter Pan's Flight. Sometimes we swap out Big Thunder for the 7 dwarf mine train or Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. Epcot: Test Track or Soarin for tier 1. Tier 2 is Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land. Disney Studios: Toy Story Midway Mania, Tower of Terror and Star Tours. Rock-n-Roller Coaster is great but DH has a bad back and can't go on it. Animal Kingdom: The safari, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur (I don't care for it but it's popular) and the Rapids water ride. yup to this! i am kinda shocked that peter pan ride is always in such demand, in spite of the fact i think it is super-cool, it still surprises me. i might switch jungle cruise for 7 dwarf mine train, just because its tough to get during busy times. disboards has a great forum called "theme park attractions and strategies" and there is tons of great info and people are super-helpful. as previous poster mentioned, you can do your first three fast passes ahead of time and then once used, you can go to a fast pass kiosk or log on to my disney experience (i believe) and book 1 more. You can book more than 1 "more" fastpass, you just can only book them 1 at a time after your first 3 are used up. So yes, book them for early in the day. We were there the first week of May this year - and it was stinking hot! We never were able to get FPs for SDMT or for Toy Story Mania. We braved the line for Toy Story (totally worth it!) but never bothered for the SDMT. Rock N roller coaster & tower of terror are our favourite rides so we used multiple ones for that, as well as utilizing the single rider lines whenever possible. SaveSave |
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Post by MichyM on Jan 14, 2017 16:23:23 GMT
Oh my gosh you guys. The info you've posted is fantastic, thanks! I need to spend some time tomorrow reading the fastpass "rules" on the Disney site, then hopefully this will make more sense to me....and I'll probably be back with more questions then.
Last time I went it was the basic fastpass where you walk over to the ride and get them in person. Hopefully this new system will become second nature quickly.
In the meantime...big, huge thank yous!
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