A Disney-Dumbo Plans Her First Trip
[Part 2: FastPass+ Reservations]
I stared at my phone. 5:59. As soon as the digits flipped to 6:00, I yelled, "Go!"
I heard Dan's fingers flying on the keyboard behind me while I worked busily on my own PC. Dan was easily able to log in and begin his first FastPass+ reservation, but I continually received error messages telling me that I needed to wait until the correct day and time to begin my reservations.
"But I'm logged in over there!" I argued with the stubborn machine.
"What?" Dan asked calmly. "I'm on to my second reservation. You need to make sure you remove Theodore from the reservation because he's too little to need one."
"I can't even get in!!"
[30-second pause]
"Onto my second," Dan announced.
"How are you on your second? I can't even get in!" I glared at the mocking screen.
"Do you want me to help you?"
"No! Keep going!"
Wasting precious time, I logged all the way out and tried again. "I'm in!" I declared triumphantly.
"On to my third!"
Good for you. Typity-type-type. "Ach! It won't let me continue with the reservation!"
"Did you remove Theodore?"
"Oh, yeah..."
You get the idea by now, right? Dan was calm and efficient, and I was a useless lump that slowed him down. I eventually was able to make my FastPass+ reservations (Dan was in charge of our two days at Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and I was in charge of Hollywood Studios and Epcot), BUT I was so flustered, I forgot that I could click on "More Options" to see additional times, so I chose inconvenient times that didn't fit with our plan. Dan had to go back and redo my reservations anyway. Like I said, useless lump.
To find out how to be like Dan (what to do) and how to avoid being a useless lump (ahem) when making your FastPass+ reservations, read on!
1. Do your research.
If you're a Disney pro, you may not have to do this step. However, Dan and I are total newbies when it comes to everything Disney World, so we had to study up. A few months ago, I didn't even know which rides existed, let alone which ones (a) we wanted to ride and (b) we should book FastPasses for. (Case in point, I knew Shane wanted to see the Hall of Presidents, and I kept looking for it at Epcot. It's actually at Magic Kingdom.)
Not only do you need to have an idea of which rides and shows you want to experience on your Disney World trip, but you also need to (or should) consider the layout of the park as you loosely plan your day, so you're not zig-zagging all over the place. We are traveling with young children, so we want to be walking as little as possible.
We went into the research process armed with a few tools. We used:
While the book is incredibly helpful, the Touring Plans website is worth its weight in gold. (Hmm. A website doesn't actually weigh anything, so let's pretend that it's the heft of a 7-ton elephant.) It gives members access to touring plans for all kinds of groups. We clicked on the touring plans suggested for families with small children, and then we looked at their choices and decided if the rides or shows were something we wanted to add to our own plan. (The beauty of the Touring Plans website is that you can be as lazy or hands-on as you want. We used their premade plans as a guide and then used it to personalize our own plans.) To create our own plans, we simply inputted our dining reservations, desired rides and attractions, hit the magical OPTIMIZE button, and then the computer powers-that-be created an optimized plan for us! Sometimes the plans were nearly perfect, other times, Dan would roll his eyes and say, "Well, that's dumb," and make some adjustments. Another amazing thing about the Touring Plans site is that it can factor in variables such as "Rider Swap." Since Theo will be too young/short to ride many of the rides, Dan and I will have to use "Rider Swap" quite a bit. The Touring Plans accounts for this when figuring out our timing!
Spatial visualization is not one of my gifts, but Dan is a wizard with maps and he enjoyed the process of plotting out our tours of each park. I like researching the rides and attractions, but I'm more than happy to leave the logistical details to my hubby.
2. Create a plan.
Using our touring plans as a guide, Dan and I made our top 3 FastPass choices for each park. Some of the parks are complicated in that they organize their FastPass rides into tiers, and you can only choose so many rides from a particular tier. For example, we wanted to get FastPass reservations for both Toy Story Mania and Slinky Dog Dash at Hollywood Studios. BUT! Both of these rides are "Tier A," and only ONE of your three FastPass reservations may be from Tier A. Therefore, even though we actually want to ride Toy Story Mania slightly more than Slinky Dog Dash, we chose to make a FastPass reservation for Slinky Dog Dash because it seems to be more difficult to obtain a FastPass for this ride. We are still very much hoping to ride Toy Story Mania, but we'll either grab an additional FastPass later in the day (you can get more once you've used up yours when you're at the park), or we'll bite the bullet and wait in line.
When we had our top 3 choices for each park (we also chose 1-2 back-ups in case our first choices weren't available), we also penciled in the ideal times (ish) that we would try to book our FastPasses.
I'll be honest, we put hours and hours AND HOURS of planning into this. I stressed about the process more than a little. I was pretty happy with our choices for all the parks except our second day at Magic Kingdom. It just seemed like our FastPass choices were a bit underwhelming, especially compared to the first day. I kept asking Dan, "Can't we get a FastPass for Big Thunder Mountain or Enchanted Tales with Belle the second day?" He would (figuratively) pat me on the head and say something along the lines of, "Those are on the opposite side of the park. We will get to those. Just because we don't have a FastPass for something, doesn't mean we won't get to do it." He had to remind me that a lot, actually.
Before I reveal our FastPass choices, I am going to familiarize you with some Disney lingo. If you don't have a FastPass reservation for a popular ride, and you want to decrease your wait time, you can "rope-drop" it. That means that you arrive at the park about a half-hour before they are scheduled to open, and when they open the park (drop the rope), you maintain as much dignity as possible while speed-walking toward your ride of choice. For example, on our Epcot day, we are rope-dropping the ride Soarin'. We could only choose one Tier A ride (we chose Frozen Ever After, for which it is difficult to obtain a FastPass, and the lines are insane), so we are rope-dropping Soarin', another Tier A ride we want to do.
We actually got everything we were hoping for, except for one of the Avatar rides at Animal Kingdom. (We could have gotten a FastPass for it, but we would not be riding at our ideal time.) We had been debating between the two Avatar rides anyway, though, so it wasn't a big deal for us to switch to Navi River Journey.
Here are our choices:
EPCOT
Rope-drop Soarin'
Frozen Ever After
The Seas with Nemo & Friends
Spaceship Earth
ANIMAL KINGDOM
Rope-drop Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail
Kilimanjaro Safari
Expedition Everest
Navi River Journey
MAGIC KINGDOM - DAY 1
Rope-drop Enchanted Tales with Belle
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Peter Pan's Flight
Splash Mountain
HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
Rope-drop Jedi Training sign-up
Slinky Dog Dash
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Star Tours
MAGIC KINGDOM - DAY 2
Under the Sea
Space Mountain
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
3. Make sure you have the dates listed clearly on your plan.
Oh my goodness, I cannot believe we forgot to do this. After all the hours of preparation we put into our FastPass reservations, we neglected to write the date we would be at each park on our plan list. I was SO frustrated that we forgot something so obvious. When Dan asked me which date we would be at our second day of Magic Kingdom, I (useless lump-style) told him I was too busy still trying to log in, so he would just have to figure it out. He made the reservations for the wrong day, so he had to go back and switch them later.
4. Wake before the sun!
If you are staying onsite at Disney, you can make your FastPass reservations up to 60 days in advance. Reservations can be made as early as 6:00 CST, so we were up at 5:00.
Full disclosure--we woke ridiculously early for our dining reservations, and those went very smoothly, so I was a little more chill with our FastPass reservations. I should not have been! Not only did I hit the SNOOZE button a few too many times, but Theo also woke up at 5:30 that morning, so I had to choose between letting him cry or getting him up and happy for the morning. I thought his crying would be distracting, so I nursed him, changed him, read to him, etc. I also got dressed, put on my makeup, made myself a cup of coffee, and, before I knew it, it was time to make our reservations and WE DIDN'T HAVE THE DATES WRITTEN ON OUR PLANS. Palm to forehead.
Don't do what I do. Resist the urge to hit the SNOOZE button. Hire a nanny to care for your demanding little ones. (Haha, KIDDING! I have no good advice on how to deal with that situation.) Make sure you are FULLY prepared before you do anything else.
5. Ask for opinions . . . or don't.
My Disney-savvy friend added me to a Facebook group called "disboards on facebook!" This group has more than 53,000 members and can be super-helpful. I asked a question about a double-stroller, for example, and ended up making a reservation for two single strollers based on all of the amazing advice I received from seasoned Disney-ers. (Is that a noun? It is now!) I also posted our initial thoughts about our FastPass choices for Hollywood Studios, and my phone blew up. All. Night. I got sooooooo many answers (some of them were kind of rude!) that I was totally overwhelmed. Some people also started disagreeing about some intricacies regarding the Rider Swap policy, and I never even read that because, as I mentioned, #overwhelmed. In the end, I decided that I prefer searching the group for specific questions I might have or, better yet, asking my real-life friends for advice and their opinions.
Well, there you have it! My five tips for making FastPass reservations. I have to tell you, I'm so relieved that our dining and FastPass reservations are made. Not knowing much about Disney World, those were extremely intimidating to me. Up next, I will be working on our packing list and trying to decide if Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party is a good fit for us. (I'm already worried about Theo exploding into an exhausted two-year-old mess, and the tickets start at around $100 each ON TOP OF the daily park admission.)
For more Disney planning tips, check out my first Disney post where I cover:
- staying onsite vs. staying offsite
- the length of our stay
- where we are staying
- how many days we are spending at each park
- dining reservations
- My Magical Express
XOXO,
Kristin
