PM2014: FastPass+ recommendations

ddindy

ddindy

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Staff member
We're feverishly working on the schedule for Pixelmania in October, but there are still lots of details to be worked out. Since the 60-day FastPass+ window will be opening soon, we thought it would be a good idea to release some TENTATIVE recommendations based on the rough schedule we're working on.

Thursday, October 16, Epcot
Soarin at 11:15 am
Illuminations

Friday, October 17, Magic Kingdom
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 10:45 am
Jungle Cruise 12:15 pm
Festival of Fantasy parade

Saturday, October 18, Animal Kingdom
Expedition Everest, 10:00 am
Finding Nemo, 3:00 pm

Sunday, October 19, Hollywood Studios
Lights Motors Action 12:50 pm
Indiana Jones 4:45 pm

These times are all tentative. For attractions, the time listed is the recommended time, but any time +/- 15 minutes of the listed time is acceptable.
 
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Thank you for doing this! I will be down at WDW from Aug 17th until the 23rd so it's going to be hard for me to work it out without your assistance. Now I can just put in the ones that you have figured out will work...

~Joanie
 
Thinking about things I'd like to point out that if you do as many of the FP+ in the morning hours... once you have used all of them up you can go to a kiosk and get a 4th FP+. Conventional wisdom is that by 11:30am or so, At the in park kiosks, pretty much all of the FP+ for the headliner rides will be gone.

A strategy in use is to go to the kiosk for the 4th FP+ and just hop on the soonest available FP+, what ever the ride may be and then head back to the kiosk, book the soonest available FP+ and so on. The key to this strategy is to schedule all of the FP+ in the morning hours, and use your 3 Pre-scheduled FP+ before that 11:30 am time frame so that you have a better selection of 4th FP+ left.

This would necessitate scheduling the first FP+ at or near park opening and then going with choice #2 and then choice #3 back to back time wise.

As an example, for our family August trip we have figured out that we can hit rope drop, run to a headliner first thing (that we do not have a FP+ for) and then still make the time window for that first FP+ scheduled ride.

Since we are a photography group I'm thinking that we are not FP+ mega users so this strategy doesn't not apply to us, still it is good to know how this new system is working amongst the experienced users.

Basically the FP+ schedule for pixel mania is going to appeal to the people committed to attending Pixelmania events. The people that are dropping in and out will probably not want to change their family FP+ selections but the good news is that with FP+ we will be on and off of these rides in a jiffy!
Dennis...anything that you schedule is going to be just fine so go for it!

Magic Kingdom (choose 3):

  • it's a small world
  • Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
  • Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
  • Festival of Fantasy Parade
  • Dumbo
  • Enchanted Tales with Belle
  • Haunted Mansion
  • Jungle Cruise
  • Mad Tea Party
  • Main Street Electrical Parade
  • Meet Anna and Elsa and a Visiting Princess - Princess Fairytale Hall
  • Meet Ariel at her Grotto
  • Meet Cinderella and a Visiting Princess - Princess Fairytale Hall
  • Meet Mickey Mouse - Town Square Theater
  • Meet Rapunzel and a Visiting Priness - Princess Fairytale Hall
  • Mickey's PhilharMagic
  • Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
  • Peter Pan's Flight
  • Pirates of the Caribbean
  • Space Mountain
  • Splash Mountain
  • The Barnstormer
  • The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
  • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
  • Tomorrowland Speedway
  • Under the Sea Journey of The Little Mermaid
  • Wishes fireworks show
Disney's Animal Kingdom (choose 3):

  • DINOSAUR
  • Lion King
  • Expedition Everest
  • Finding Nemo - The Musical
  • It's Tough to be a Bug
  • Kali River Rapids
  • Kilimanjaro Safaris
  • Meet Favorite Disney Pals at Adventurers Outpost
  • Primeval Whirl
At Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios, the attractions are separated into groups that you can choose from.

Epcot Group A (choose 1):

  • IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
  • Living with the Land
  • Soarin'
  • Test Track
Epcot Group B (choose 2):

  • Captain EO
  • Character Spot
  • Journey Into Imagination
  • Maelstrom
  • Mission: SPACE
  • Spaceship Earth
  • The Seas with Nemo & Friends
  • Turtle Talk with Crush
Disney's Hollywood Studios Group A (choose 1):

  • Toy Story Mania!
  • Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage
  • Fantasmic!
  • Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
  • The Great Movie Ride
Disney's Hollywood Studios Group B (choose 2):

  • Disney Junior - Live on Stage!
  • Voyage of the Little Mermaid
  • The American Idol Experience
  • Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!
  • Star Tours
  • Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show
  • Mupet*Vision 3D
  • The Twilight Zone Tower of Terrror

~Joanie
 
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EPCOT notes: Soarin and Illuminations are in the same tier at Epcot so we have to pick one from that tier and two from the secondary tier from Epcot. I think we can get by without a FP+ for illuminations.

Animal Kingdom notes: Do we want to try and also do a Lion King FP+ on the Animal Kingdom day? AK is not a tiered park and Lion King is in a new theater (still with crappy seating unless you are handicapped!).
MK Notes: The festival of fantasy parade locks our FP+ till afternoon parade time but I think that selection is good. Seven Dwarfs Mine train is an excellent choice. Since Peter Pan's flight is ridiculously hard to photograph would that be a better choice than the Jungle ride for a FP+?? Also note that since Anna and Elsa and the Dwarfs coaster opened it is taking the pressure off of Peter Pan so that ride would be a good one to get to first thing in the morning if we can raise our weary bones and make park opening. Jungle ride does have long standby lines in the afternoon along with Pirates because of the FP+ selection crowd shift so there is that to consider...

Generally speaking the fall out from FP+ is that people who are not able to plan ahead are clogging up the secondary attractions with their FP+ selections thus making the waits in the standby lines ridiculously long.

Also note that Disney is really cutting back on LATE night Extra Magic Hours and the MK will probably be open until 1 am on that Saturday and will probably close at 11pm on the Friday that we are going.

Hollywood studios: The great movie ride is seeing huge stand by lines now that FP+ is in town so we may want to consider a FP+ for that, especially since it is in Tier 1.

Indiana Jones and Lights/Motors are both going away and both are tier two attractions so we might need to make them a priority.

So there is my two cents, which with inflation ballooned to two hundred cents. Hopefully I have been of a little assistance with what I have added to this discussion.

~Joanie
 
Dennis, Thank you for posting those Fast Pass ideas to go along with the meets. I have been thinking about these FPs

I booked got these FP+ for MK

Friday, October 17, Magic Kingdom
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 10:30 am
Jungle Cruise 11:35 AM
Festival of Fantasy parade 2:45pm, of course.

What other two for Epcot? We have to make 3.

What about a third one for AK?

When do you think you will have an idea for DHS?

How soon do you think you will know the meet times and places? I may be scheduling a couple different FPs then you and don't want to make them when there is a meet.

Dennis, again thank you so much for where are can start scheduling our FPs.
 
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As I said, these are preliminary guesses. We just started throwing out the attractions that we thought we'd want guaranteed times for. As a result, we totally missed the conflct between Soarin and Illuminations at Epcot. As for picking additional attractions where we've picked fewer than three, feel free to pick whatever you want. We can always change on the fly or just ignore them.

Bear in mind that FP+ has messed up the queue distribution. I've seen the FP+ line on Big Thunder longer than the standby line, but that doesn't take into account that the standby queue inside the building is much longer than the FP+ queue.

And of course, when it comes time to book that fourth FastPass, you MUST stand in line at a kiosk. Depending on the attraction, it may be quicker to just ride standby.

Unfortunately, I don't know when the final schedule will be out. I think some of the folks on the planning board are taking late-summer vacations and the others still think we're going in December. ;) I'd be willing to bet that the schedule will come out mid-September to meet the 30-day FP+ deadline for off-site guests.
 
Since the Illuminations FP location isn't center stage (it's slightly off center), I'd say we should do the Soarin FP+ and grab a spot for Illuminations on the fly
 
As Dennis said, the planning board is working at finalizing the schedule, but traditionally the final schedule isn't ready for distribution until about 30 days or so out. Before that, the park hours are subject to change making it difficult to finalize things.
 
I just wanted to post a heads up to anyone who might benefit from it.
The deal with the FP+ lines being out the door and the standby lines being invisible/"short" is that:
A) there is a choke point at the first external FP+ band scan that makes it look like there is a long FP+line outside of a ride, due to miss- scans and problems
and
B) the standby line is hardly moving at all because ALL FP+ holders get to go ASAP. thereby quickly moving past anyone in standby.

This serves as a warning to guests thinking they can jump in the stand by line because it's short and not think that the 2 hour posted wait time is real.

~Joanie
 
I have a possible FP+ schedule worked out for Sunday at Hollywood Studios.

Keeping in mind that Indiana Jones is definitely done in Jan 2015 and Lights Motors Action can't be far behind how about we do this:

10:45- 11:05 Indiana Jones (Show duration 30 mins) This will get the group to the park later in the day if some of us need to sleep in.
(45 min plus/minus break in between)
12:50- 1:10 Lights, Motors, Action (show duration 38 mins)
(30 min break in between)
2:35 ish -3:45 Great Movie ride

Early Dinner at 2:55pm at 50's Prime Time Cafe (have a reservation for 8 people on Sunday October 19th at 2:55 pm)
I actually tried to get Sci Fi and Mama Melrose's and could not get in.

So what do you think?

Remember that at 12:01 am THIS Saturday (Really Friday night) we can start to book our FP+. The 7 dwarfs Mine Train will be the most elusive FP+ and can generally only be booked that first night with out encountering difficulty.

~Joanie
 
Put me down for the dinner at Prime Time

The FP+ times above don't exactly fit in the schedule the planning board has been tossing around. I'll bounce the ideas off the board and see if we can come up with solid FP+ times for DHS before the window opens tomorrow night
 
For reference, here are the FP+ reservations I have made. (I'm arriving at WDW on October 11, so my window opened a little earlier.) Bear in mind that all times may change once the schedule is finalized. And from past experience, things can (and will) change on the fly during Pixelmania.

October 16, Epcot
Spaceship Earth 9:40 - 10:40
Soarin 11:10 - 12:10
Mission Space (non-Pixelmania) 12:15 - 1:15

October 17, Magic Kingdom
Mine Train 10:15 - 11:15
Jungle Cruise 12:00 - 1:00
Festival of Fantasy - 2:45 - 3:05

October 18, Animal Kingdom
Everest 9:30 - 10:30
Nemo 2:30 - 2:50
Safari 4:40 - 5:40 (non-Pixelmania; may be changed)

October 19, DHS
Toy Story 9:05 - 10:05
LMA 12:50 - 1:10
Indiana Jones 4:45 - 5:05
 
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Festival of Fantasy is already full for 10/17, so we'll have to grab spots for the parade instead. Feel free to use your 3rd FP+ however you'd like. I grabbed a ride on Big Thunder at 5:30-6:30 with mine.
 
FP+ Update: For DHS, the Planning Board recommends the following FP+ reservations (schedule subject to change, etc.):

12:50PM Lights Motors Action
4:45PM Indiana Jones

Feel free to use your 3rd FP+ however you'd like. I grabbed Toy Story at 9:15am with mine.
 
i grabbed some fastpasses, similar/same times as dennis and michael. but i had to call and do it over the phone line, apparently since i have an ap, and am staying on dvc points, i didn't book anything through disney travel, so therefore they had to manually enter my fast pass choices by calling them on the phone, and the rep didn't really have any solution to the fact that if you are in my category of disney guest, you apparently cannot make a fast pass over the computer until 30 days out, at which time many of my choices would have been filled?? really, i'm out about $2500 a year for 2 dvc monthly costs and 2 ap"s and that's how i'm treated??? really disney, really??? apparently when we went in january, because i paid for the family that doesn't have ap, that booted karen and i out of the cheap seats and into the preferred customers???, and the computer system still doesn't want to let me make fp+ for myself, it keeps trying to make me book for my whole party (tim) this system is still not very smooth
 
It sucks that the AP side of the site hasn't caught up yet.

The system still has problems, but I noticed that the site layout and functionality has improved significantly since last December. It no longer takes 1000 clicks to change the time of one FP+.

Let's look at the bright side - at least you have Tim's FP+ squared away for him!
 
well no i don't, i haven't heard from our fearless leader in awhile, i don't know what his fast pass plans are, if he were to get ahold of me i could give him the res number and he could make fast passes, or i could add him to mine, maybe i'd better do that so he at least has some, it appears that i can now at least view my fast passes, although i can only view 1 day at a time, each day requires its own logging in and out
 
Joanie Eddis-Koch said:
I have a possible FP+ schedule worked out for Sunday at Hollywood Studios.

Keeping in mind that Indiana Jones is definitely done in Jan 2015 and Lights Motors Action can't be far behind how about we do this:

10:45- 11:05 Indiana Jones (Show duration 30 mins) This will get the group to the park later in the day if some of us need to sleep in.
(45 min plus/minus break in between)
12:50- 1:10 Lights, Motors, Action (show duration 38 mins)
(30 min break in between)
2:35 ish -3:45 Great Movie ride

Early Dinner at 2:55pm at 50's Prime Time Cafe (have a reservation for 8 people on Sunday October 19th at 2:55 pm)
I actually tried to get Sci Fi and Mama Melrose's and could not get in.

So what do you think?

Remember that at 12:01 am THIS Saturday (Really Friday night) we can start to book our FP+. The 7 dwarfs Mine Train will be the most elusive FP+ and can generally only be booked that first night with out encountering difficulty.

~Joanie
Click to expand...

Put me down for Dinner at Prime Time. Jackie
 
mSummers said:
Festival of Fantasy is already full for 10/17, so we'll have to grab spots for the parade instead. Feel free to use your 3rd FP+ however you'd like. I grabbed a ride on Big Thunder at 5:30-6:30 with mine.
Click to expand...

I was able to get at FP for 2:45 for Festival of Fantasy already since my window opened earlier.
 
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