We're actually going to Disney World for once. Help! lol

Here's an idea for a two day plan. I have no idea if this fits with your personal agenda or not, which I understand is different for everyone....

Day One -

Rope Drop MK

Go ride Space, then Mansion, Pirates, get out there there...

Head to DAK.

Have FP+ for this day on Safari, Everest, anything else you can grab.

Night time ride on FoP

Maybe have to suck it up and wait for River Journey (It's usually just under an hour of the line is just inside the entrance)

Day two - Rope Drop Epcot...

Have a FP for Soarin and Frozen if you can get one, otherwise go directly to Frozen and hope for the best.

SIngle Rider Test Track.

Spend time eating & drinking (probably mostly drinking) and close out the park with Illuminations.

Another idea would be:

Day One:

DAK all day taking it more relaxed and get in your FoP at night.

Day Two:

Morning at MK similar to what I posted above

Afternoon/Evening at Epcot

If you are able to get a FP for Frozen, FoP, or River Journey that will at least help you out a bit.

ProTop for getting Fast Passes!

1. Do it on the desktop browser. I seem to have better luck that way.

2. Try for ONE person at a time.

3. Keep refreshing and changing the times 30min before/30 min later.

4. Just keep doing this over and over.

5. Once you get one person a FP try to get the other.

6. It seems to be better to get a FP for a time you don't want, and then go back in and try to change the time than it is to skip that FP and wait for a new time.

Example:

We had friends out recently that wanted to ride Frozen. It probably took me refreshing the page 200 times over the course of 30-40 minutes, but they finally popped up! I got them one person at a time. Some of them were not the right time when I first grabbed them, but then I was able to go back in and match up the times close enough to when they overlapped. As long as both of your FP are within the same time, they don't need to be the exact same time.

You have a 15 minute grace period AFTER the expire time to still get on the ride.

GOOD LUCK!

ProTop for getting Fast Passes!

 

1. Do it on the desktop browser. I seem to have better luck that way.

2. Try for ONE person at a time.

3. Keep refreshing and changing the times 30min before/30 min later.

4. Just keep doing this over and over.

5. Once you get one person a FP try to get the other.

6. It seems to be better to get a FP for a time you don't want, and then go back in and try to change the time than it is to skip that FP and wait for a new time.

 

Example:

 

We had friends out recently that wanted to ride Frozen. It probably took me refreshing the page 200 times over the course of 30-40 minutes, but they finally popped up! I got them one person at a time. Some of them were not the right time when I first grabbed them, but then I was able to go back in and match up the times close enough to when they overlapped. As long as both of your FP are within the same time, they don't need to be the exact same time.

 

You have a 15 minute grace period AFTER the expire time to still get on the ride.

 

GOOD LUCK!

Basically just keep clicking on Morning, Afternoon, Evening, or changing times on the drop down menu over and over again and hope something comes up!

Thanks Robb!

I guess I'll plan on getting the 2 day park hopper and just see what the options are based on which Fast Passes are available each day and work backwards from there. I like both of your plans so I'll see what pops up on Fast Pass and pick which one I want to do once I see what my options are.

Animal Kingdom has morning EMH the first day so I'm hesitant to do that on day one, but I guess it might not matter if I don't want to rope drop Pandora anyway.

Worst case scenario if we have to suck it up and wait 2 hours for a ride here and there it's not the end of the world but I'll obviously try my best to avoid it whenever possible. There are worse things than being at Disney World surrounded by awesome theming, standing around drinking a beer while I wait for a kick a** ride. I'll definitely watch that Fast Pass site like a hawk though. I'm glad to know the desktop site works better since I can sit there and refresh it at work while pretending to be extremely productive.

Thanks for all the tips!

Yeah, I mean, I was really busy and I cannot believe you MADE ME take time out of engaging with self-entitled assholes on Twitter. You owe me for my time. I'll send you an invoice.

Animal Kingdom has morning EMH the first day so I'm hesitant to do that on day one, but I guess it might not matter if I don't want to rope drop Pandora anyway.

Yeah, you don't want to go early on a day where there is EMH in the morning. By the night it *probably* won't matter as much, but parks that have EMH tend to be busier because you have THOUSANDS of extra people who will choose to visit that park that day, and then a lot of them just stay there for the duration of the operation hours.

That being said, one of the nights I did my end of the night ride on FoP was also an EMH morning and it ended up being my shortest wait of 35 minutes, so go figure...

I highly Recommend the Finding Nemo Musical and would pick it over Lion King but you should really see both

I wanna throw out another idea that might be worth doing especially if you end up not being able to get a FP for Frozen. I know you said the Studios seems like an empty park right now, which is true, but if you were to FP Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, and Star Tours, it would be a great way to break up your EPCOT day instead of dealing with the insane midday crowds at the Magic Kingdom.

Those are three awesome rides you haven't done yet. And even if you do go back after Toy Story and Star Wars open you might not want to use FP on any of those three at that point. Plus I still think that leaves time to get EPCOT done.

You can rope drop Soarin' or Test Track then wait in line for the other. Maybe hit a couple other rides at EPCOT. Take the scenic and relaxing boat ride from EPCOT to the Studios, hit your 3 fast passes over there, and maybe even grab some rando EPCOT fastpasses before heading back there for the rest of the night?

So something like this:

-Rope Drop at EPCOT

-Test Track

-Soarin'

-Living with Land

-Boat to the Studios

-FP Rock n Roller Coaster

-FP Tower of Terror

-FP Star Tours

-Boat back to EPCOT

-Seas with Nemo

-Spaceship Earth

-Spend rest of night drinking/eating at World Showcase

-Illuminations

-Frozen to close out the night

Whether you can do that all in one day will probably depend what time FPs you get for the Studios attractions. Maybe even leave Star Tours out since it's on the opposite end of the park to the other two, but I do think it could be doable.

Only other thing I'd say is as far as food goes I love the quick service on the water in Mexico, if not just for the margaritas, the pretzel shop in Germany is a great stop for a quick beer and snack, and Via Napoli is awesome Pizza/Italian even by New York standards so don't be skeptical.

Glad to see you're checking out Disney's other parks and cannot wait for the amazing report that I'm sure will follow! Enjoy!

I highly Recommend the Finding Nemo Musical and would pick it over Lion King but you should really see both

The Finding Nemo musical is fantastic and not to be missed! The Lion King show is also good but IMO Finding Nemo is better.

Hey All,

Are the lines for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train really still that bad? I keep noticing most people leaving it off their Magic Kingdom lists.

Should I? Sounds like it will put you behind the lines/crowds on all other rides for the rest of the day.

I highly Recommend the Finding Nemo Musical and would pick it over Lion King but you should really see both

 

The Finding Nemo musical is fantastic and not to be missed! The Lion King show is also good but IMO Finding Nemo is better.

I have never seen the musical "Finding Nemo" ~ but I have the original soundtrack of it ~ and I LOVE IT, TOO! So yes, go see that, too!

Hey All,

 

Are the lines for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train really still that bad? I keep noticing most people leaving it off their Magic Kingdom lists.

 

Should I? Sounds like it will put you behind the lines/crowds on all other rides for the rest of the day.

It is still very popular and gets long lines.

Hey All,

 

Are the lines for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train really still that bad? I keep noticing most people leaving it off their Magic Kingdom lists.

 

Should I? Sounds like it will put you behind the lines/crowds on all other rides for the rest of the day.

The lines at SDMT are usually a 90 minute average. Skip if you want, but I'd highly recommend it. It's my favorite coaster in the park not called Space Mountain.

Thanks for the advice on Nemo and Lion King. If we have time we'll definitely check out Nemo. Personally I'm still leaning towards Lion King if we have to choose since we like the movie (it was pretty much the animated blockbuster movie of our childhood) and we don't really care about Finding Nemo at all.

I'm a little late to the discussion here and know your original post said your intended to avoid Studios because it's a mess right now (which is mostly true), but depending on what your final schedule is it's pretty easy to get on Tower of Terror and Rock N Roller Coaster in a reasonable amount of time, especially if you go at opening (on a non morning EMH day). Rock N Rollercoaster has a single rider line and Tower has pretty decent capacity. If you got lucky and landed at FastPass for either Avatar attraction and whatever else you are interested in at Animal Kingdom attractions later in the afternoon, you could pretty easily hit ToT, RnR, and maybe Star Tours in like under 2 hours before heading to DAK for the rest of the day.

So I’m going in February and of all the research I’ve done, it looks like getting to Animal Kingdom early... very early, and doing rope drop for Flight of Passage is a good idea. I’m in The same situation with having to get fast passes only 30 days out. I have not been able to find a fast pass for flight of passage as of yet. My plan is just to get their 90 to 120 minutes early for Pandora and head straight to flight of passage and just wait outside the park until it opens. You should have pretty good luck getting a fast pass for seven dwarfs mine train over at Magic Kingdom though, I see that every day when I check for fast passes. Same thing with frozen, I see fast passes available for that every day that I check 30 days out.

Thanks for the advice on Nemo and Lion King. If we have time we'll definitely check out Nemo. Personally I'm still leaning towards Lion King if we have to choose since we like the movie (it was pretty much the animated blockbuster movie of our childhood) and we don't really care about Finding Nemo at all.

I can relate to this, actually. While Nemo probably is the better show (arguably) I too like the Lion King show better just because it's a property that I like more. Nemo didn't really have any "music" in the movie so it was weird IMO they made a "musical" out of it. And while I do like the new songs that the Lopez's wrote for it, none of the music will be familiar to you the first time you see it, while Lion King on the other hand is very relatable.

Here's my thoughts on this...

I wanna throw out another idea that might be worth doing especially if you end up not being able to get a FP for Frozen. I know you said the Studios seems like an empty park right now, which is true, but if you were to FP Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, and Star Tours, it would be a great way to break up your EPCOT day instead of dealing with the insane midday crowds at the Magic Kingdom.

This is not a bad idea, especially if you are doing an open to close Epcot day. But...

-FP Rock n Roller Coaster

-FP Tower of Terror

-FP Star Tours

There is no reason to get a FP for Rock N Roller Coaster since it has a single rider line that, even though is probably the worst single rider line on property, is still better than waiting in the standby line, and you can get an FP for Toy Story Mania, which still gets crazy lines.

-Spend rest of night drinking/eating at World Showcase

-Illuminations

-Frozen to close out the night

You cannot do the "short line at the end of the night ride" on Frozen and Illuminations together. You have to choose one or the other. Unless you just want to suck it up and get in line for Frozen at about 7:30, assuming it will take an hour-ish, and then you can be done with the ride and quickly find a spot for Illuminations.

But really, if you are rope dropping the park, assuming there is no early EMH, just go right to Frozen. It shouldn't be that bad even with the character dining breakfast people they let in early. Then do single rider on Test Track, suck it up and wait in line for Soarin (which with the third theater now isn't as bad as it has been in the past) and get on a few other things. Another ProTip: Soarin in the evening has had much lower waits. In fact, we just rode it about a month ago without a Fast Pass around 7:30pm and we waited 20 minutes.

-Boat to the Studios

-Boat back to EPCOT

I am personally not a fan of the boat. You can actually WALK much faster, even by taking a relaxed pace walking, from Epcot to Studios and back. The boat (which you have to wait for) also has to make stops at Boardwalk, Yacht Club/Beach Club, Swan/Dolphin and THEN goes to Studios. I probably do this walk at least 2-3 times a month (just did it the other night) and I'm always impressed how quickly we can get from International gateway at Epcot to the turnstiles of Studios.

And if you walk back, you can always stop into Big River Brewing for a beer since you have to walk right past it!

Via Napoli is awesome Pizza/Italian even by New York standards so don't be skeptical.

It's even good by Italy standards!

^Thanks for clarifying those things, i haven’t been since Frozen opened and am not too knowledgeable on single rider lines.

I agree the boat is obnoxiously slow I just thought to walk both ways was gonna be a lot of walking for one day. Hopefully the sky liner is a faster option eventually. If you time it right, walking to the Yacht and Beach Club and hopping on there could cut down the length of the boat ride a little bit. And yeah an added bonus of this would be getting to see the Boardwalk/Yacht and Beach Club resort area. I know you’d be on a tight schedule but it is my favorite resort area on property and a really cool area to walk through.

I understand if you have no intentions of doing this haha. I just think that Hollywood Studios is the perfect park hopping park in it’s current state before it becomes a bona fide full day park.

I agree the boat is obnoxiously slow I just thought to walk both ways was gonna be a lot of walking for one day. Hopefully the sky liner is a faster option eventually. If you time it right, walking to the Yacht and Beach Club and hopping on there could cut down the length of the boat ride a little bit. And yeah an added bonus of this would be getting to see the Boardwalk/Yacht and Beach Club resort area. I know you’d be on a tight schedule but it is my favorite resort area on property and a really cool area to walk through.

It's my favorite area as well. I just prefer to walk because you get to see more and the walk really isn't that bad. I'm always a person that prefers efficiency and the boat most certainly isn't!

Thanks guys!!! I just got the tickets! Can't wait!

We have 2 day park hoppers so our options are wide open and our plan might depend on when we can get Fast Pass. We still have a few days before our booking window.

Another note - I just noticed on the dates you are here that Magic Kingdom closes at 8pm. That's really unfortunate. I hope some of those hours get extended. The nights that MK is open until 11pm or later are some of the best nights at the park.

Well that's awesome news because they did! Magic Kingdom now has a midnight close on Saturday and we plan to take advantage of it.

Another note - I just noticed on the dates you are here that Magic Kingdom closes at 8pm. That's really unfortunate. I hope some of those hours get extended. The nights that MK is open until 11pm or later are some of the best nights at the park.

Well that's awesome news because they did! Magic Kingdom now has a midnight close on Saturday and we plan to take advantage of it.

YES! I totally forgot to post about that when I saw it but I was super happy that the park extended hours. It actually was the difference of me upgrading my pass to be not blocked out during Christmas even. As crazy as the parks can get during that time, as a local I know that between 9:30 - Midnight (post fireworks) MK can be so much fun to hang out at. As a non-local though, I'd still recommend coming in to do Happily Ever After!

Here's what I love about MK midnight closings. Tomorrow is a freaking SATURDAY during the holidays, it's going to be INSANELY packed during the day... BUT...I just made these three FP+ for tomorrow night RIGHT NOW...

Before the new FP system if someone had asked me "Hey, do you want to go to Magic Kingdom on a Saturday night of a holiday weekend?" I would have told them they are out of their f**king mind and shot them in the face with a nail gun to remove their stupidity from the gene pool. But now, even if it is totally packed, I know I can get on at least three major rides without much hassle or wait, and also walk around the park and just enjoy it.

People will be dumping out of the park after fireworks as I'll be walking in.

I'm hoping that during your visit, which isn't a major holiday weekend, you'll have at least some pretty good luck getting FP+ even if it's day of after you've exhausted your other FP from whatever else you choose that day. And if not, the crowds shouldn't be *too bad* in those final couple of hours.

That's awesome to hear! I was (amazingly) up at 7 as soon as the bookings opened, but no luck on Flight of Passage on Saturday (yet).

I kept refreshing and screwing around with it but eventually realized that I could get Frozen Ever After so I booked the Epcot fast passes for Saturday instead (which is an EMH dat at AK anyway so I was leaning towards this plan unless I somehow saw a Flight of Passage Fastpass become available).

I left the morning open so we could rope drop either Soarin or Test Track (we might rope drop Test Track since we DO want to ride together), then knock out the other one and just suck it up and then we have about 1 fast pass per hour starting at 12:15 (Mission Space), 1:15 (The Seas with Nemo & Friends... I feel like Brit's going to make me ride this anyway) and 2:55 (Frozen Ever After).

Is that a decent plan? The rides I didn't book that we really want to ride are Living with the Land (again... Brit) and Spaceship Earth but everything I see says that if we ride Spaceship Earth on the way out in late afternoon lines shouldn't be a problem anyway.

After that I'll see what's available that evening at Magic Kingdom.

When I was looking to book my Fast Passes 60 days out for AK the tuesday after you're there only the end of the day for FotP was available and this was the first day I could sign up.

I've been trying to get Flight of Passage fast passes everyday at the opening of the 30 day window for like that past month and have yet to find one available. Sometimes I even look on week days when I know I can't go just to see and still no luck. I guess the only way to get one is as a resort guest booking 60 days out.

Sometimes I wonder to with the fast passes for newer attractions if they just considerably limit the number they distribute as way of just managing the crowd better while an attraction is still insanely popular. When the Frozen ride opened I remember waiting in the standby line once when it was posted around 120 minutes but only took like 50, and during that time there were barely any people entering through the fastpass line. This was also when it was impossible to get fastpasses in the 30 day window, but now there are plenty available 30 days out (just booked some today). Maybe flight of passage is kind of in the same situation for now, maybe not who knows?

I did get Navi River Journey 30 days out and we're planning to standby for FoP at the end of the night, so hopefully we can finally get on that thing.

Is that a decent plan? The rides I didn't book that we really want to ride are Living with the Land (again... Brit) and Spaceship Earth but everything I see says that if we ride Spaceship Earth on the way out in late afternoon lines shouldn't be a problem anyway.

Sounds like a good plan if the weather is good. If it's raining, I'd hit Soarin' first and then immediately head to Test Track when it stops raining. But in all my trips to Florida, most of the rain I've had is in the afternoon and not the morning.

I've usually hit Living with the Land in the late afternoon/evening and have never encountered a wait for it.