Whether or not you agree with Walt Disney World’s decision
to implement their MyMagic+ initiative, if you want to maximize the number of
attractions you can experience and minimize the time you’re spending in line, it
behooves you to understand the ins and outs of the FastPass+ ride reservation system
and how to use it to your advantage. The
intent of this guide is to help you navigate your way through the system and
provide you a few tips for taking full advantage of this line reducing benefit.
Overview
The FastPass+ system allows everyone with an admission
ticket to reserve a specific return time for a ride or attraction before even entering
the park. Once in the park, you simply
go to the attraction during your reservation time period, scan your Magic Band
or park ticket at the ride’s entrance, and then make your way through the designated
line, nearly bypassing the entire standby queue.
Guests can reserve an initial 3 reservations 30 days in
advance. For those staying at an onsite
Disney hotel, guests have the added benefit of booking 60 days in advance. Annual passholders are given a 7 day window.
Each reservation lasts for a one hour window. If you do not use your FastPass during this
window, or do not change the time of the reservation, your FastPass may be
cancelled. You cannot use another
FastPass until your previous one has been used or expires. Additional FastPasses beyond your initial 3
must be reserved at designated kiosks throughout the parks, and if you plan on
park hopping, the initial 3 passes can only be used at a single park and you
cannot reserve additional passes at another park until the original 3 are used,
expired, or cancelled.
Getting Started
The first thing you need to do is sign up for a
My Disney
Experience account. This will allow
you to link all of your information such as hotel reservations, dinner
reservations, theme park tickets, and FastPass+ reservations for you and
everyone in your party in one central location.
It’s also recommended that you download the My Disney Experience app on
your smartphone in order to change or modify your FastPass+ reservations on the
fly.
The next thing you need to do is link your theme park
admission tickets and/or Magic Bands to your account. This is also a good time to link the tickets
for all members of your party. If your
group plans on sticking together while in the parks, having all of your tickets
linked together will allow a single person to control the FastPass+
reservations for everyone. This comes in
very handy when reserving additional passes at the in park kiosks.
Now that you’ve created your account, you’ve downloaded the
app, and you’ve linked all of your tickets to your account, it’s time to
reserve your FastPass+ reservations. In
the following sections I will outline my recommended reservations for each park
and will give you some tips on how to maximize the FastPass+ system for you
benefit. My recommendations are built
upon the assumptions that your main interests are the rides and attractions,
and that you intend on obtaining additional fast passes beyond your initial
three selections.
Magic Kingdom
Of all four of the parks, the Magic Kingdom is where you
gain the most benefit from using FastPass+ because it has the most attractions
and also has the highest crowd levels.
The time savings can be substantial for the headliner attractions, but
even skipping the lines for the second and third tier attractions adds up to a
large chunk of time that you can spend doing other things besides standing in a
line. You’d be amazed at how many guests
don’t use the FastPass+ system at all, and among those who do use it many don’t
know how to obtain additional passes to maximize the experience.
Here are a few suggestions for your first three
reservations:
- Space Mountain
- Splash Mountain
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
If you are able to be at the park at rope drop, you may be
able to knock some of these out without a fast pass. Take advantage of this if you are able to do
so, and then change your passes for another attraction using the My Disney
Experience app. It these attractions are
not available for the first three hours that you’ll be at the park, choose other
attractions. You will not be able to
book additional passes until your first 3 are used, expired, or cancelled, so
it works to your advantage to use your first 3 passes as early as possible and then
obtain additional passes at the in park kiosks.
TIP: After you use your first pass, go into the My
Disney Experience app and try changing the times for your second and third
reservations to an earlier time if possible.
This way you won’t have to wait an hour after your first ride and you’ll
be able to burn through your first 3 reservations more quickly.
After you’ve used your first 3 passes, make your way to one
of the FastPass+ kiosks scattered around the park and reserve your next pass. If your tickets are linked like I recommended
above, one person can reserve additional passes for your entire group. After you’ve used your additional pass,
simply go back to the kiosk to reserve another.
Rinse, wash, and repeat. The idea
is to get as many passes as possible and then use the time in between
reservation times to wait in the standby lines for other attractions.
Good choices for additional passes include the following:
- Haunted Mansion
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Jungle Cruise
- Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid
- Tomorrowland Speedway
TIP: If you can’t get a fastpass for an attraction
that you really want, try booking a pass for something else and then changing it
within the app. In my experience,
sometimes the available fast passes shown at the kiosks don’t always match up
with what’s available in the app.
As I said earlier, my recommendations are built upon the
assumptions that your main interests are the rides and attractions. If this is the case for you and your group,
then do not waste your first 3 (or any additional) reservations on parades,
meet and greets, shows, or the fireworks. There are some rides that you should
never waste a reservation on as well, such as the following:
- It’s a Small World
- Mad Tea Party
- Magic Carpets of Aladdin
- The Barnstormer
In case you’re wondering what to do about the very popular
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, instead of using a fast pass for it I would actually
recommend either hitting it first thing in the morning at rope drop or saving
it for last. FastPass+ reservations are
difficult to come by for this attraction, and even if you’re able to snag one
it might be for a sub-optimal time slot.
Waiting in the standby queue when the crowds are at their lowest is a
better optimization of your time.
EPCOT
Now that you’ve made it through the Magic Kingdom, using
FastPass+ at the other 3 parks will seem like a breeze. There are only a few attractions at EPCOT that
garner long lines, which means that maximizing your use of FastPass+ does not
take much effort. The only road bump with
your EPCOT reservations is that the park uses a tiered system where the most
popular attractions are in Group A and the less popular attractions are in
Group B. For your first 3 reservations,
you are allowed to choose 1 attraction from Group A and 2 attractions from
Group B. Here are a few suggestions for
your first three reservations:
- Soarin’ (Group A)
- Mission: SPACE
- Spaceship Earth
You may not even need a fast pass for Mission: SPACE and
Spaceship Earth, but get them and use them anyway so that you can book an
additional pass for a Group A attraction. Good choices for additional passes
include the following:
- Test Track
- Living with the Land
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends
Honestly, the only two rides with substantial wait times are
Soarin’ and Test Track, and if you want to bypass the standby line for both you
will need to use fast passes for attractions that may not even need them due to
the tiered nature of the EPCOT FastPass+ setup.
TIP: If you can’t get a fast pass for Test Track,
utilize the single rider line to save some time.
Although I don’t
recommend using a reservation for the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, it would not
be a tragedy if you used one for IllumiNations at EPCOT. Even though you can get a good view of the
show from anywhere around the World Showcase lagoon, there just aren’t enough other
attractions in EPCOT that warrant the use of a fast pass. If you can get an IllumiNations reservation
as an additional fast pass after your initial 3 choices, that’s even better.
Disney's Hollywood
Studios
It’s almost laughable to even recommend FastPass+
reservations for this park since there are only 5 total rides. If you can get to the park at rope drop, then
you can easily hit all of the rides with minimal waits. You can then utilize
FastPass+ for re-rides of your favorites or for priority seating at your
favorite shows. Hollywood Studios uses a tiered system like EPCOT, and here are
a few suggestions for your first three reservations:
- Toy Story Midway Mania! (Group A)
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Group B)
- Star Tours (Group B
TIP: Ride The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror as
much as possible. It’s my favorite
attraction in all of Walt Disney World, and I have no idea why it’s considered
a second tier attraction in the FastPass+ system.
If you can’t get these within your first three hours in the
park, then don’t sweat it. In order to
hit all of the attractions in the park, you don’t really need to get your first
reservations out of the way in order to be able to book additional passes. There just aren’t enough attractions that
need them. But if you decide to maximize
your fast passes, a few good choices for additional passes include the
following:
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
- The Great Movie Ride
- Fantasmic!
I actually think that Fantasmic! is a great use of an
additional FastPass+ reservation since the amphitheater tends to fill up quickly,
especially on busier days.
Disney’s Animal
Kingdom
If there’s a park that doesn’t require FastPass+ at all, it’s
probably Disney’s Animal Kingdom simply because the focus is on the animals instead
of the rides and attractions. That being
said, you can utilize FastPass+ to your advantage to give yourself plenty of
time to explore the jungle trails. Here are a few suggestions for your first
three reservations:
- Kali River Rapids
- Kilimanjaro Safaris
- Dinosaur
- Expedition Everest
TIP: Utilize the single rider line for Expedition
Everest and use the FastPass+ reservation for something else
It’s not likely that you’ll need any additional fast passes
and there’s no nighttime show to use a reservation on, so I recommend you don’t
worry about maximizing your FastPass+ reservations while in the and instead
just sit back and enjoy the atmosphere.
So there you have it.
These are my tips and suggestions for getting the most out of your
FastPass+ experience while at Walt Disney World. If you have any additional tips, feel free to
leave a comment. Thanks for reading!
Additional Resources
