A Quick Lesson in Selecting Fastpasses

A follower of my Facebook page, Top 10 Planning Questions for Walt Disney World, posted to my wall a question about how to pick fastpasses with the new Fastpass + system, and can you adjust the times that you are given when you select them. Here is a quick lesson in what you can do and how to do it. A full, comprehensive answer will be in my upcoming ebook.  When you select your first set of three on the app or website My Disney Experience, they will give you up to four options as to the times you want for your first three fastpases.  The program assumes that you want them as early in the day as possible, because then you can choose other ones afterwards.  But you will need to consider when you realistically are going to get to the park.  The program also doesn't take into account when you might need meal breaks, have made restaurant reservations, are leaving the parks or how long it will take to get from one attraction to another. 

But fear not because you can usually change the arrival window for any attraction to any other available time.  There was only one ride time that we couldn't switch and that was Toy Story Mania at Hollywood Studios.  At first it was only available much later in the evening, and eventually there were no other times at all to move it to.  After all three first fastpasses are used up, you must go to an in park kiosk to change it.  But if you get a new selection at a kiosk, you can change the time from your app or the MDE website.   At one point while shopping in the Magic Kingdom, we were concerned we would be miss the one hour window for Barnstormer, and so I moved the time up about a half an hour and we made it easily. Just a note that shows such as Frozen Sing Along, have a 15 minute window.

You can also pick different Fastpasses for certain members of your party, after the first three are selected.   Always pick the most popular attraction, or a show, for all of you first, and then change those group members to another Fastpass for the other ride or attraction.   The program attempts to give them a time as close to the one it is replacing as possible, but it could differ by a few minutes.  I hope this helps in giving you the basic idea for using the new Fastpass + system.

For more of my Disney World planning tips blog posts click here, and for blog post updates and more planning help, please Like my Facebook page, Top 10 Planning Questions for Walt Disney World.