Tip for everyone that has an AP preview scheduled: My experience
My time was from 3-5 on Saturday. I went up to the area at about 1:30 just to get some info from the cast-member up front. He told me that there was no need to rush, that some people were coming in well after their scheduled time, that wait times were reasonable etc. So because of that, we didn’t line up super early, and it began raining pretty heavily about 2:45. We walked up to Pandora at about 3:05, while it was still pouring, and entered anyway.
We walked to the boat ride first (partially because it was the closest to get us out of the rain). The posted wait was 30 mins, and it was actually about 20. After that, we headed over to FOP, and here’s where it got interesting. I was told that you had to have a FP to ride (no standby), and that they had a “limited amount” that they handed out at the front when you entered. (As a side note, these were hardly FP’s, I think they were just giving times out to try to stagger and try to ensure the majority was only riding once). I, of course, was confused and quite irritated. As we were never handed fastpasses, and I had just spoken to someone that said there was no need to rush and never mentioned them.
After speaking to 4 different people, each one shuffling me off to someone more in the front of the land, I finally made my way back to the very front, where a lady was holding a huge stack of tickets. I informed her that we never received anything coming in, and she very quickly handed me our 3 tickets. It seemed that there was some confusion once the rain started, and for whatever reason the tickets were covered/hidden/etc. so they wouldn’t get wet. I’m not sure why this was never communicated to the CM’s at the front of the ride, as I’m sure it would have limited a lot of confusion and frustration for both parties.
I think that wasted almost a half hour, and we probably were in line for FOP longer than we would have been had we been in line earlier, but it was well worth the wait. By the time we got out of the ride, it was nearly 6:30, and grabbed some food at the QS. We could have done the boat ride again, but we were wet and tired.
Just make sure they give you a FP even if it’s raining, or don't somehow miss them when walking in! I’m not convinced waiting in line early is worth it, as the CM’s actually told me they were discouraging it due to lack of room to have people wait. However, it sounds like some others here had a different experience with the FP availability later in the day so... better safe than sorry?
