Fast pass+ - How do you book yours?

[BH-D]

Hi all,

I have a trip coming up in October to Disney World any my fast pass+ window opens in August. My last trip was 5yrs ago so very familiar with how it works however, since then there are new/ very popular attractions which I didn't have to worry about back then.

My question is when your 60day window opens, for rides like FOP would you look for availability towards the end of your trip and work backwards or would you just look from the start of your trip.

I am guessing there would be greater chance of availability towards the end of the trip but welcome your views/ tips .

thanks,
BH-D

 

[nickys]

Hi all,

I have a trip coming up in October to Disney World any my fast pass+ window opens in August. My last trip was 5yrs ago so very familiar with how it works however, since then there are new/ very popular attractions which I didn't have to worry about back then.

My question is when your 60day window opens, for rides like FOP would you look for availability towards the end of your trip and work backwards or would you just look from the start of your trip.

I am guessing there would be greater chance of availability towards the end of the trip but welcome your views/ tips .

thanks,
BH-D

Definitely start with the hardest to get rides. Slinky, FoP, Mine Train, FEA, etc. If you get Slinky, then choose a different day and get FoP and so on. Then fill in the gaps later on.

Depending how long your trip is, ideally AK and DHS would be days 4 or later to get Slinky and FoP.

 

[BH-D]

Thanks

Our trip is 15 days as travelling from the UK (group of 5). We have a loose plan on which days we’d like to do the parks based on DDP reservations but flexible so will look to book those rides in say the 2nd week of the trip and then see what I can get week one.

 

[nickys]

Thanks

Our trip is 15 days as travelling from the UK (group of 5). We have a loose plan on which days we’d like to do the parks based on DDP reservations but flexible so will look to book those rides in say the 2nd week of the trip and then see what I can get week one.

In that case, you really don’t need to worry!

As you say, pick a day for each of those parks in the 2nd week for those rides. And if you have another day at DHS earlier you could get Aliens or Toy Story; the latter has been available as a 4th FP since TSL opened. Ditto with AK and the Navii River ride. Most rides will be easy to get anytime.

It’s more of a problem for those who are there for 5 days. We have the luxury of time on our side, which will be great when Star Wars opens. DH tells me I’ve just to book those two rides on alternating days next time!

 

[BH-D]

In that case, you really don’t need to worry!

As you say, pick a day for each of those parks in the 2nd week for those rides. And if you have another day at DHS earlier you could get Aliens or Toy Story; the latter has been available as a 4th FP since TSL opened. Ditto with AK and the Navii River ride. Most rides will be easy to get anytime.

It’s more of a problem for those who are there for 5 days. We have the luxury of time on our side, which will be great when Star Wars opens. DH tells me I’ve just to book those two rides on alternating days next time!

Thank you I'll definitely take a look.
Star wars will be our next trip but will let the dust settle first before booking .

 

[MissMaryEli]

I just book for our in order of the days we’ll be there. I just booked mine two days ago and the only ride I couldn’t get was slinky dog. Fortunately that’s not an issue for us. My brain works better in a linear fashion so I do that instead of bouncing around.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

I do it this way too. I pick my park days based on park crowds,and then set up my fp's. If there is one that I definitely want but is not on a day I've planned for, I just set it up and work around my schedule. I have to think linear too

 

[JIMINYCR]

We look at several crowd calendars to get a feel of what predicted best parks/ days might be. It has gotten harder to determine which direction to take. Once we have a plan, we book the most desired, hard to get FP's first. Sometimes locking in the days farther out will give you a better chance, but that isnt always the case. The competition to grab those newer attractions has become fierce. The best tip is to have your list of choices ready, and get on line as soon as it opens up. I always get on line the day before to go through the process as a dry run so on the day of booking Ive familiarized myself with what Im going to do.

 

[Rsj88]

There are a few rides that are priority that I book first, then I will start back at the first day and fill in what’s left. We get park hoppers so if I don’t get FoP on our desired AK day I will continue to check for the rest of the days. This year I will probably book FoP first, then SDD, SDMT, and PP.

 

[networkpro]

We pick based on ADRs, EMH, and tiering. On capped parks, we'll grab the tier 1 and move on to another day.

 

[crxbrett]

I always make a prioritized list note on my memo app of all my FP+ goals with the Day# and date as well as desired times included to help me while glancing at it. (I use TouringPlans to make plans beforehand). This year, I made Flight of Passage, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers and Frozen Ever After my top 5 priorities. After those it was Space Mtn, Peter Pan's Flight, Splash Mtn, Big Thunder, Tower of Terror, Rock N Roller Coaster and the Kilimanjaro Safaris. Everything else is usually fairly easy to obtain, so I left those for last on the list to book.

I just had my 60-day FP+ window this past Sat morning and highly recommend trying this for those that like to plan. It saved me a ton of time and made picking FP+s sooooo much easier for me to select this year. I was on Disney's site right at 4am and was finished booking 14 days worth of FP+s (42 total) by 4:45am. I think I spent more nearly 2 hours last year, and I only had to do 27 bookings!


So after selecting my 3 desired attractions each day, I prioritized and sorted which ones I knew would be harder to get and important for me to snag. To get an idea, here is what my list I used to book FP+s sort of looked like on my phone:


Flight of Passage - Day 04 (09/07)
19:25 - 20:25

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - Day 01 (09/04)
18:40 - 19:40

Slinky Dog Dash - Day 02 (09/05)
19:30 - 20:30

Frozen Ever After - Day 03 (09/06)
21:00 - 22:00

Flight of Passage - Day 07 (09/10)
19:00 - 20:00

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - Day 05 (09/08)
09:15 - 10:15

Alien Swinging Saucers - Day 06 (09/07)
17:25 - 18:25

Tower of Terror - Day 02 (09/05)
18:00 - 19:00


It might seem like it was a lot of work, but it was well worth it and made my FP+ reservation morning seem effortless!

 

[BH-D]

Thanks everyone, some really useful tips and ideas! really appreciate you sharing these and I will make use of these