How did you lay out/select FP's with nap times?

[HRHPrincessAriel]

I'm not sure if this is the better place or the FP+ section.
Our window to make FP's is opening up in the next few weeks and I'm at a loss of how to put them/make them. *shakes fist at WDW* Paper FP would have been so much easier in my mind for all this.
We are taking our 3.5 year old in June. I KNOW we will go back to hotel mid-day for nap times etc. I got a park hopper because the past(pre kiddo) I've always hopped parks.
I was thinking about making FP's for when we return after naps but not sure if I keep them at the same park we WERE in or select an different park. From reading other posters troubles of FP availability when trying to switch I'm even all the more annoyed by the entire process.
help?!

 

[GeekDad]

When you park hop do you know what park you are planning on going to after your mid-day break? If so the FP+ Has some upsides over paper FP. What we did was setup our FP+ for whichever park we were planning on being in for the afternoon/evening. Sometimes that was the same as the morning and others it was not but we had a general idea of what park and made our FP+ selections for that park. Some days that park changed last minute and other times it took longer then expected to get back out to the parks and we had to adjust and were able to. However we weren't there at a peak time so you may run into a harder time changing your selections for the harder to get FP+ attractions like soarin' and TSMM.

However we loved knowing that even though we were at Epcot one morning we still had TSMM FP+ for that evening. With paper FP you had to be at the park early enough to get you FP ticket before they were all gone and hope the return time wasn't durning your planned nap time or dinner reservation.

 

[Weather_Lady]

I'm not sure if this is the better place or the FP+ section.
Our window to make FP's is opening up in the next few weeks and I'm at a loss of how to put them/make them. *shakes fist at WDW* Paper FP would have been so much easier in my mind for all this.
We are taking our 3.5 year old in June. I KNOW we will go back to hotel mid-day for nap times etc. I got a park hopper because the past(pre kiddo) I've always hopped parks.
I was thinking about making FP's for when we return after naps but not sure if I keep them at the same park we WERE in or select an different park. From reading other posters troubles of FP availability when trying to switch I'm even all the more annoyed by the entire process.
help?!

Try to rough out a touring schedule first, keeping in mind which parks have EMH and when. (For example, my family tries to avoid the parks with EMH because they tend to have a slightly larger crowd, unless we're there during a high-traffic time like Easter or Christmas, when using EMH is more of a necessity. but we always start and end with MK regardless. If we do make use of morning EMH at one park, then in the afternoon after our naptime we hop to a park that has no EMH that day. We never keep the kids up late for evening EMH, but we avoid the park that has them when we decide where we're going on a particular evening.)

Once you have an idea of what your "evening" park will be every day, I would suggest making all of your FP+ there. (Obviously, if you have dinner reservations anywhere, this will answer that question for you!) If you arrive at your morning park at rope drop and hit the headliners first, you won't need your FP+ in the morning. (Of course, if you're taking an evening "off" to swim or see a dinner show -- we often do this on our HS day, because we can't fill a whole day there -- then by all means use your FP+ in your morning park).

FP+ has changed our touring plans in one sort of significant way: we used to make several evening "hops" to Epcot for dinner reservations. However, Epcot FP+ are tiered in such a way that you only get one FP+ of any value. Now we're more likely to visit Epcot over two mornings (one where we head to TT first and one where we head to Soarin' first), and hop to the MK on those days, where there are far more FP+-worthy attractions, and no restrictions on how to use our 3-FP+ allotment. This means fewer dinners in Epcot, but more chances to explore TS dinner venues in the MK and at the monorail resorts.

Good luck!

(If it helps, this is how my family has typically scheduled our trip with small children -- I added FP+ where we used to use the legacy FP -- and it worked well). For anything that my then-4-year-old was too small (or too scared) to ride, my DH just took her to a nearby M&G or a more benign attraction. (e.g., Pirate's Adventure scavenger hunt in Adventureland instead of Splash Mountain, Tomorrowland Speedway instead of Space Mountain, Triceratop Spin instead of Expedition Everest...)

Day 1 - Travel/MK (Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, w/FP+ for Splash, Big Thunder, Jungle Cruise)
Day 2 - HS (FP+ or rope drop for TSMM, RnR, ToT, Star Tours) / Naps / Hoop-de-Doo Revue or another special dinner outside of a park
Day 3 - AK (whole park, rope drop for Kilimanjaro Safaris and Expedition Everest) / Naps / Epcot (Future World, FP+ for Soarin')
Day 4 - Epcot (rope drop for Test Track, Character Spot, Sum of All Thrills, then proceed to World Showcase) / MK (Tomorrowland and New Fantasyland, w/FP+ for Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Enchanted Tales w/Belle)
Day 5 - HS (rope drop for Jedi Training Academy, then see the shows missed on Day 2) / Naps / MK (finish Fantasyland, FP+ for Princess Fairytale Hall, Peter Pan, Pooh)
Day 6 - revisit MK for favorite attractions before departing (FP+ for Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan)

 

[HRHPrincessAriel]

When you park hop do you know what park you are planning on going to after your mid-day break? If so the FP+ Has some upsides over paper FP. What we did was setup our FP+ for whichever park we were planning on being in for the afternoon/evening. Sometimes that was the same as the morning and others it was not but we had a general idea of what park and made our FP+ selections for that park. Some days that park changed last minute and other times it took longer then expected to get back out to the parks and we had to adjust and were able to. However we weren't there at a peak time so you may run into a harder time changing your selections for the harder to get FP+ attractions like soarin' and TSMM.

However we loved knowing that even though we were at Epcot one morning we still had TSMM FP+ for that evening. With paper FP you had to be at the park early enough to get you FP ticket before they were all gone and hope the return time wasn't durning your planned nap time or dinner reservation.

no, the last time I pulled up to see where the smallest waits were and switched that way.

 

[HRHPrincessAriel]

Try to rough out a touring schedule first, keeping in mind which parks have EMH and when. (For example, my family tries to avoid the parks with EMH because they tend to have a slightly larger crowd, unless we're there during a high-traffic time like Easter or Christmas, when using EMH is more of a necessity. but we always start and end with MK regardless. If we do make use of morning EMH at one park, then in the afternoon after our naptime we hop to a park that has no EMH that day. We never keep the kids up late for evening EMH, but we avoid the park that has them when we decide where we're going on a particular evening.)

Once you have an idea of what your "evening" park will be every day, I would suggest making all of your FP+ there. (Obviously, if you have dinner reservations anywhere, this will answer that question for you!) If you arrive at your morning park at rope drop and hit the headliners first, you won't need your FP+ in the morning. (Of course, if you're taking an evening "off" to swim or see a dinner show -- we often do this on our HS day, because we can't fill a whole day there -- then by all means use your FP+ in your morning park).

FP+ has changed our touring plans in one sort of significant way: we used to make several evening "hops" to Epcot for dinner reservations. However, Epcot FP+ are tiered in such a way that you only get one FP+ of any value. Now we're more likely to visit Epcot over two mornings (one where we head to TT first and one where we head to Soarin' first), and hop to the MK on those days, where there are far more FP+-worthy attractions, and no restrictions on how to use our 3-FP+ allotment. This means fewer dinners in Epcot, but more chances to explore TS dinner venues in the MK and at the monorail resorts.

Good luck!

(If it helps, this is how my family has typically scheduled our trip with small children -- I added FP+ where we used to use the legacy FP -- and it worked well). For anything that my then-4-year-old was too small (or too scared) to ride, my DH just took her to a nearby M&G or a more benign attraction. (e.g., Pirate's Adventure scavenger hunt in Adventureland instead of Splash Mountain, Tomorrowland Speedway instead of Space Mountain, Triceratop Spin instead of Expedition Everest...)

Day 1 - Travel/MK (Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, w/FP+ for Splash, Big Thunder, Jungle Cruise)
Day 2 - HS (FP+ or rope drop for TSMM, RnR, ToT, Star Tours) / Naps / Hoop-de-Doo Revue or another special dinner outside of a park
Day 3 - AK (whole park, rope drop for Kilimanjaro Safaris and Expedition Everest) / Naps / Epcot (Future World, FP+ for Soarin')
Day 4 - Epcot (rope drop for Test Track, Character Spot, Sum of All Thrills, then proceed to World Showcase) / MK (Tomorrowland and New Fantasyland, w/FP+ for Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Enchanted Tales w/Belle)
Day 5 - HS (rope drop for Jedi Training Academy, then see the shows missed on Day 2) / Naps / MK (finish Fantasyland, FP+ for Princess Fairytale Hall, Peter Pan, Pooh)
Day 6 - revisit MK for favorite attractions before departing (FP+ for Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan)

This helps a lot! Thanks =) I've taken my 40+ member dance teams MULTIPLE times and it seemed way easier than planning for the 3 of us. LOL

I've got a spreadsheet with park hours/ADR's working already. I think I know what I'll be working on next week during hall duty on state mandated testing.....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[popsicletrees]

Back in October I met up with my parents and niece and nephew on a quick WDW trip. I had my own room and was not able to make my fp+ reservations until about two weeks after the rest of my party had made theirs. Basically, I took their reservations and selected the same attractions and days for myself. It gave me times that I begrudgingly accepted. Fortunately from there I was able to click on each fp+ reservation individually and change the time that I wanted to match up better with theirs. It was a pain and time consuming, but it worked. I was able to make my reservations as early or as late as I wanted. It just took some time and some patience.

 

[Disvillain63]

On our recent trip, we went to the park that had EMH in the morning and did not use FP+. Then we returned to the resort for a nap after lunch. We used our afternoon/evening park for our FP+ and it worked great. It does take a bit more planning. However, we changed our park one afternoon and had no problem switching our FP+ choices.