How Much Does FastPass Cost at Disney World & Disneyland?
Previously free, FastPass is now paid at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and all of the international parks. This offers a rundown of the line-skipping costs at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, plus California, Tokyo, Paris, and the other international parks. We’ll offer quick tips for how you can minimize your wait times and save hours in line. (Updated October 24, 2022.)
If you’re planning a Walt Disney World vacation for late 2022 or 2023, you need to know that free FastPass+ has been permanently retired and replaced by Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. See our Guide to Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World for everything you need to about the new paid ride reservation system.
Currently, the cost of Genie+ ranges from $16 to $22 per day at Walt Disney World, which is the bundled service that allows for line-skipping reservations to be made one at a time over the course of the day. It’s similar to the old FastPass+ or MaxPass systems, but excludes the biggest attractions in each park. Individual Lightning Lanes for the most popular rides priced at up to $22 each.
It’s the same story at Disneyland, which did away with paper FastPass and the paid digital MaxPass system in favor of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. See our Guide to Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Disneyland and California Adventure for everything you need to know about paid line-skipping at Disneyland Resort.
There, the cost of Genie+ starts at $25 per day…and we don’t yet know the maximum. Disney just introduced dynamic pricing in Late 2022, and so far, the highest daily price has been $30. Our expectation is that peak dates around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s are even more expensive.
Disneyland Paris has replaced free FastPass with a hybrid system for attraction access. In addition to the paid Premier Access line-skipping, there’s also the Disney Standby Pass that combines a virtual queue with a physical standby line. It allows guests to spend the first part of their wait time for select attractions outside of the queue, and then joining the line for the home stretch. In essence, Standby Pass is a mix of (same-day) FastPass+ and traditional queues.
Standby Pass is offered when Disneyland Paris is running out of physical queue space, which is more likely to happen when the priority queues are not in use or are underutilized. (That’s why there are extended queues spilling out into walkways all over Walt Disney World right now, even though physical distancing is long gone.) When available, guests can use the Disneyland Paris app to book the next available Standby Pass time slot to enter the physical queue line of an attraction, return within the allocated 30-minute time slot, present the QR code, and stand in the queue for the remainder of that time.
Disney Premier Access can be purchased via the Disneyland Paris App and costs between €8 and €15 for one-time access to skip the regular queue line for popular attractions, including Autopia, Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours: the Adventures Continue, and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
From anywhere inside the parks, guests can use the Disneyland Paris App to purchase an assigned time slot for the aforementioned attractions. Pricing for Disney Premier Access will be per ride, and is dynamic. It depends upon the attraction and crowds on the day of visit. Think of it like Express Lanes on toll roads, Uber’s surge pricing, or to a lesser degree, Walt Disney World’s date-based ticket and hotel prices.
Disney Premier Access is a new digital paid FastPass service that allows guests to reserve certain theme park attractions by using the app at Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. With Disney Premier Access at Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea, guests will have the ability to select their preferred time and make reservations to experience attractions.
As of Late 2022, three attractions offer Premier Access: The Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast at Tokyo Disneyland, plus Soaring: Fantastic Flight and Toy Story Mania at Tokyo DisneySea. Each cost 2,000 yen, or approximately $15.50 per person per attraction. For the two attractions eligible for Disney Premier Access, Standby Pass is now suspended. However, guests can still experience these attractions as usual by waiting in line.
At Shanghai Disneyland, the upgraded Disney Premier Access offers priority access to popular attractions from the designated starting time to the closing time or reserved viewing area of the entertainment venue anytime during the designated return window of your selected entertainment show.
The upgraded Disney Premier Access is available in a wider range of price options and is available on the Shanghai Disney Resort Official App. The price of Disney Premier Access varies by date, attractions and entertainment shows and is subject to availability.
At Hong Kong Disneyland, paid FastPass is available in various bundles and can be purchased with tickets or as a day-of add-on option. Choose either 8 designated attractions or 3 from a list of 5, and enjoy priority access on arrival. Get ahead of the queues with the Disney Premier Access starting from HK$159.
Premier Access at Hong Kong Disneyland gives you priority access to some of the park’s most popular attractions, including Iron Man Experience, Mickey’s PhilharMagic and Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, saving you time and allowing you to enjoy more rides during your visit.
The good news is that the more things change, the more things stay the same. The most popular and hard-to-score Lightning Lane reservations at Walt Disney World are still Slinky Dog Dash and Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run in Hollywood Studios, Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in Epcot, and Peter Pan’s Flight in Magic Kingdom.
The bad news is that a ton has changed. Jungle Cruise is now incredibly popular as a Lightning Lane reservation, and many attractions are now sold on an a la carte basis as “Individual Lightning Lanes.” These include Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Again, you’ll really want to read our Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World as a lot has changed. Most of the FastPass advice that follows isn’t relevant to the Genie+ system.
Above all else, we strongly recommend buying tickets as early as possible in our Tips for Saving Money on Disney Tickets post. Many of the parks offer paid FastPass as a ticket add-on, and it’s usually a good idea to purchase that. It’s a guard against future price increases, which are common.
Our detailed guide for using FastPass at Walt Disney World has been tweaked numerous times to better help you plan as changes have been made to the line-skipping systems. In addition to recommending the attractions you should prioritize attractions, we cover a variety of different approaches (including the “refresh strategy” and Park Hopping), and other ways to save time by avoiding waiting in standby lines. (Again, Lightning Lanes have replaced FastPass queues. A lot of this works similarly, but what follows is outdated and only preserved for the sake of posterity.)
Before we get to those specific tips, a bit of background is in order. You might be wondering, just what exactly is FastPass? Well, it’s essentially ride reservations. You make a FastPass reservation, and go to the attraction at which you booked the reservation during your allotted timeframe (say, 1:20 – 2:20 pm), enter through the FastPass line, and have a minimal wait in line. It’s like a VIP line, but there is no charge to use FastPass.
FastPass+ is the second generation of FastPass at Walt Disney World, replacing paper FastPass ride reservations. The idea then was to get people out of lines and allow them to do other things while waiting for their ride reservation window. The original FastPass system had its strengths and weaknesses, and could be leveraged to allow those who did their homework a strategic advantage.
There was trepidation about FastPass+ existed when it officially launched a few years ago by those who mastered the old system, but FastPass+ has its own advantages. While FastPass+ can’t be exploited to the same degree as regular paper FastPass, guests who are “in the know” can still save a ton of time. All it takes is a little patience and spending the time to understand how FastPass+ works.
While we can’t grant you patience, we will help you understand the system in this post…
Step by Step FastPass+ Booking Process
There are two ways FastPass+ can be obtained: via the My Disney Experience app or website in advance of visits, or via in-park kiosks for guests who don’t have smart phones or who don’t purchase tickets in advance. The FastPass+ is then stored on the MagicBand or your park tickets. (Note that Magic Bands are not required to use FastPass+.)
FastPass+ can be booked for any hour window during the park’s normal operating hours. FastPass+ cannot be booked during Extra Magic Hours or hard ticket events such as Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party or Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. Additionally, FastPass+ times cannot overlap.
Guests “redeem” FastPass+ by swiping the MagicBand or park ticket against an RFID “Mickey Head” reader outside FastPass+ attractions. Guests are able to book 3 FastPass+ tickets in advance of their vacation. You can be 5 minutes early or 15 minutes late to use your FastPass+ reservation and the RFID readers will allow you to enter. So really, your “hour” window is 1 hour 20 minutes long.
After these initial FastPass+ selections are redeemed, guests can book additional same-day selections, as available. This is now possible with the app in addition to the in-park kiosks.
The advance booking process for FastPass+ is relatively straightforward once you understand it, but it’s one of those things that’s much easier to understand when you can look at something to help you visualize the process, so I’m going to walk you through it and explain some additional things to know.
For this walk-through, I’m using the My Disney Experience website, but it’s virtually the same on the app. Before starting, you’ll want to download the My Disney Experience app, or sign onto your DisneyWorld.com account. While our explanation covers what you need to know, it’s easiest if you just play around with the app and see for yourself. Learn by doing.
When you purchase Walt Disney World tickets in advance and stay at a Walt Disney World resort hotel, you can make your FastPass+ selections up to 60 days prior to check-in for the entire length of your stay. These booking windows open up at 7 a.m. on the 30 or 60 day mark, so don’t wait around until 8 a.m. to do this like you would Advance Dining Reservations! Okay, now time for the steps…
The first step is being up bright and early before your booking window opens at 7 a.m. on your 30 or 60 day mark. Make sure you’re logged into My Disney Experience on your computer or phone, pull up the My Disney Experience menu, click FastPass+, and be ready to go at exactly 7 a.m. Once the clock hits 7, click the “Get Started” button on the FastPass+ page, and select the date and park you plan on attending.
Next, you make your individual selections.
This works differently for the Magic Kingdom than it does Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, as Magic Kingdom does not use tiering and the other three parks do. We’ll cover this in the strategy section below.
After choosing my time, I’m given a confirmation screen…
…After hitting confirm, I receive confirmation, and am asked whether I want another FastPass+. Rinse and repeat. The system via My Disney Experience is pretty easy. (So long as the app doesn’t crash!)
When you return to the FastPass+ screen, you’ll see your reservations, have the ability to modify, etc. It’s all very intuitive. If you can use Facebook, you can use this system. Chances are that any question you have about the functionality of the site will answer themselves after playing around with it for 5 minutes.
With all of that said, don’t be afraid to ask questions below, but since the basics of booking FastPass+ are ridiculously easy to understand, I’m going to move onto strategy, which is where the fun begins…
Best FastPass+ By Park
We’ll keep it short and sweet here, in case all you care about is the best choices, and don’t want to read a long explanation as to why (that’s in the strategy below). You can also find more strategy in our Disney Attraction & Ride Guides for Walt Disney World each contain thorough recommendations concerning the best uses of FastPass+ for each park.
Here are the choices that will save you the most time in each park:
Magic Kingdom
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Splash Mountain
- Space Mountain
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Epcot
- Frozen Ever After (Tier 1)
- Soarin’ Around the World (Tier 1)
- Test Track (Tier 1) – single rider recommended instead
- Spaceship Earth (Tier 2)
- Mission: Space (Tier 2)
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
- Avatar Flight of Passage (Tier 1)
- Kilimanjaro Safaris
- Expedition Everest
- Dinosaur
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway (Tier 1)
- Slinky Dog Dash (Tier 1)
- Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster (Tier 2)
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Tier 2)
- Toy Story Mania (Tier 2)
These are objectively the best choices, but they may not be the best selections for you, depending upon which attractions interest you (also note that some of the above have height restrictions, so they may not be the best options for families). The best thing you can do prior to your FastPass+ booking windows opening is looking at Walt Disney World wait times for a little while before your trip, and pinpointing the most appealing high-wait attractions to you.
FastPass+ Strategy
If should come as no surprise that not all FastPass+ attractions are created equally. Some are really difficult to score, and others are seemingly always available (think of them as the “participant award” FastPass+). Let’s start with the difficult ones.
Currently, the most coveted FastPass+ is for Avatar Flight of Passage in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Along with Na’vi River Journey, these are the two new attractions in the Pandora – World of Avatar land.
For these two attractions, Animal Kingdom has gone to a quasi-tiered approach. In this context, you cannot hold FastPasses for both Pandora attractions simultaneously. While both attractions are sure to have long waits, the more popular FastPass+ is Avatar Flight of Passage.
Since this is the E-Ticket thrill ride (whereas Na’vi River Journey is a slow-moving boat ride), it’s likely going to have longer wait times. As such, we recommend trying to score a FastPass+ for Avatar Flight of Passage and doing Na’vi River Journey via the standby line. You can read more about strategy for this new land in our Ultimate Guide to Pandora – World of Avatar.
Many days, FastPass+ for Avatar Flight of Passage will be “sold out” 60 or more days in advance. This is possible because hotel guests have 60 days from the date of check-in. So, if you’re taking a 10-day on-site Walt Disney World vacation, you effectively have a 70-day window for that last day of the trip.
This makes booking FastPass+ for the later days of any long trip easier than the early days. Because of this, always book FastPass+ in order of difficulty. Meaning, if you’re going to Animal Kingdom on day 3 of your trip, start by booking your Avatar Flight of Passage FastPass+ before booking days 1 and 2. It is the most difficult FastPass+ to book, so that means booking your Animal Kingdom day first.
If you want Frozen Ever After, you’ll need to be up bright and early, because Frozen Ever After is still among the most difficult FastPass+ reservations to score in all of Walt Disney World. Standby waits still regularly exceed 60 minutes, and can hit 90-120 minutes on busy days.
A big part of this is because Frozen Ever After is a low-capacity boat ride and demand for it remains high since it’s a family-friendly attraction featuring a movie that is still popular. This is all a recipe for wait times that tend to eclipse an hour, you will want to be up bright and early when your window opens in order to book a Frozen Ever After FastPass+.
The same is true with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway or Slinky Dog Dash at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Even now that Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is open, these are the best options at DHS. Long term, it’s difficult to say which will emerge as the victor, but for now, we’re recommending Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway or Slinky Dog Dash as tied for the #2 FastPass+ in all of Walt Disney World.
If you can’t get either of these, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run is an okay alternative. It has very long lines early in the day, but these fad as the day goes on, and the ride often has a short wait in the evening hours. In fact, there’s more fall off in wait times at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at night than any other park, so it’s not the end of the world if you can’t get your most-coveted FastPass+ at DHS.
FastPass+ Last Minute Refresh Strategy
One final tip for these super-popular FastPass+ attractions: if there’s something that’s an absolute must-do for you, refresh the app regularly, particularly on the day of your visit.
This is done by simply selecting a time for FastPasses in a particular park, quickly scanning what’s available, and if there’s nothing to your liking, selecting another time. The key part of this is toggling between different times–it doesn’t matter what times you choose, as My Disney Experience will show anything that becomes available for previously sold-out attractions.
It can take 10-15 minutes of refreshing (we recommend doing this while you’re standing in line for something else), but you can often score same-day FastPasses for headliner attractions simply with a bit of diligence and persistence in the app.
People cancel FastPass+ reservations all the time, and if you are diligent, getting a Frozen Ever After FastPass+ is possible (particularly for parties of 1-2). We’ve gotten lucky with same-day FastPass+ for Frozen Ever After, Slinky Dog Dash, Avatar Flight of Passage, and numerous other attractions.
This is also a strong approach for your fourth, fifth, sixth (and so on) FastPasses of the day after you’ve used your initial allotment of FastPass+ selections. Even on busy days, you can often keep scoring tough-to-acquire FastPass+ reservations for popular attractions with long lines.
The one caveat here that’s worth reiterating is that this approach works best for smaller parties with more flexible plans. If you’re a party of 6-8 or you can only do a particular attraction at a certain time, you’re probably going to be out of luck.
FastPasses to Avoid
At the other end of the spectrum from highly coveted FastPass+ like Frozen Ever After, Avatar Flight of Passage, and Slinky Dog Dash are the “Participant FastPass+”, Walt Disney World added FastPass+ to many attractions that never had (and never needed) FastPass to make sure there was sufficient capacity in the system so that each guest can book 3 per day without all popular attractions “selling out” of FastPass+ in advance, causing guests to become irritated.
This means that some attractions offering FastPass+ are essentially red herrings, offering FastPass+ not because they will save you time, but so people have something to book in advance if other attractions are sold out. These are typically for shows, for which FastPass+ is almost never necessary.
The idea behind this is that guest satisfaction will be higher if people are able to book FastPass+ (even if those selections save them no time) than they would be if all FastPass+ during their trip are “sold out.” Guests with FastPass+ may get better seats at these shows, but there’s no guarantee of that.
To reiterate: FastPass+ for a show is almost always a waste of a FastPass selection. Don’t do it. These selections are only offered so people don’t feel discouraged when the good FastPass+ options aren’t available. Think of them as the “Participant Award” of Walt Disney World touring.
FastPass+ Timing
We recommend making FastPass+ selections starting about an hour after park opening. Ideally, make your first 3 FastPass+ selections between 10 am and 1 pm, if not slightly earlier. This is because midday is when the wait times are the longest, the weather is the hottest, and you’re going to want to spend the least time waiting in line.
The first advantage to this is that it gives you roughly an hour from rope drop until 10 a.m. to do attractions via the standby line before the crowds really hit, and lines start getting longer. If you’re redeeming FastPass+ first thing in the morning, you aren’t taking advantage of these short standby waits.
Conversely, if you book FastPass+ too late in the day, your options are limited once you redeem your FastPasses and can start making additional selections. Instead, you want to find the right balance between early and not too early, and I think that is around 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Since many guests have no clue what FastPass+ even is until they show up at the park that day (I’d say this describes most guests), you essentially are in a “race” with other guests to use your FastPass+ and start making additional selections before other guests select remaining “good” FastPass+ run out for the day. Think of it as the Hunger Games, except with Disney rides.
In the Magic Kingdom, it is worth noting that many of the attractions that will have high wait times later in the day are located nearby one another, have short ride durations, and can be quickly knocked-out with minimal wait first thing in the morning. So, if park opening is at 9 am, you might be best served by racing to Peter Pan’s Flight, then Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid, and ‘it’s a small world’ first thing. After Fantasyland lines start getting bad, use your FastPass+ for the “Magic Kingdom Mountain Range” after 10 a.m.
This is especially important in the Magic Kingdom, where there are 15+ attractions for which FastPass+ is useful to help avoid waits. For this reason, an ideal strategy in the Magic Kingdom is spending the first hour or so of the day doing popular, short attractions via standby, then using FastPass+ for different attractions, then getting and redeeming more FastPass+ as soon as possible.
Continue that strategy for as long as you’re able, and then do unpopular attractions and/or redeeming additional FastPass+ in the middle of the day. Finally, at the end of the night, you’ll be using standby again at as the crowds and wait times die down. (We always jump into line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 1 minute before the park closes!)
FastPass+ Park Hopper Strategy
An alternate strategy to this if you’re going to be Park Hopping is to not book any FastPass+ for the first park you’re visiting (you can only book FastPass+ for one park per day), staying there until standby lines build, and then hopping to a different park where you have FastPass+ scheduled once things start getting busy.
This strategy works really well for doing a second park in the late-afternoon after some other park in the morning. Now that Disney’s Hollywood Studios has changed its FastPass+ tiers, we’d strongly recommend not using this strategy to hop to DHS. You’ll be at a huge disadvantage if you do, as you can only hold a FastPass for one of its headliners, and you won’t be able to do Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at all.
I know this is a lot to digest about line-skipping and the costs at each Disney theme park, especially considering how intuitive and easy to use the system really is, so I’m going to cut this paid FastPass guide off here. Like so many things related to Walt Disney World, it’s intimidating at first, with a lot of superficial complexity. However, also like a lot of Walt Disney World trip planning, it’s surprisingly simple to understand. There are some complexities that do make it difficult to master, and I think I’ve covered most of those.
If you have specific questions or are interested in park-by-park guides for FastPass+, please feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to answer in the comments below. Also, keep in mind that, although much of the dust has settled, the Genie+ paid FastPass system is still in its infancy, and very much in flux. I’ll do my best to keep this guide updated, but some things may change…please let me know if you notice any outdated info!
If you need help booking your Walt Disney World vacation and would like the assistance from a professional, click here to get a quote from a recommended, no-fee Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. They get their commission from Disney, so there is no charge to you for them to book your trip, help you plan, and even book your FastPass+ ride reservations for you!
If you are planning a first trip to Walt Disney World or your first trip since all of this My Disney Experience stuff launched, make sure to check out our Disney Tips & Tricks page for a lot of helpful tips to outsmart the masses. Also check out our dining reviews to find the best restaurants and our trip planning posts to figure out what to pack, where to buy Walt Disney World tickets to save money, which discounts to look for, and all the other ins and outs of a trip to Walt Disney World, all of which are covered extensively in our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide.
Your Thoughts
Have you used paid FastPass at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or beyond? What did you think? Was it worth the money? Which Lightning Lanes did you find the most difficult to score? How much did you spend in total to buy line-skipping access? Have you had luck securing ride reservations for popular attractions? Any tips of your own to add? Any questions you have about paid FastPass that this guide didn’t answer? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Hi, is it already possible to book fast passes for July 2020. Or are the most attraction be blocked because of the current situation?
Happy March! I have a question about linking FastPasses with friends & family. I understand HOW to do it, so the question is more administrative.
When the head of my group links me on FastPass, does he do it for each attraction, or is it the case that once the FastPasses are linked, they remain linked for the duration of the stay?
For example, let’s say all of my group is doing MK on Monday, so we link our FPs for the day.
But let’s say on Tuesday, the rest of my group is doing AK, but I am going to go to Epcot and not visit AK on that day. Will I be able to use FastPass for my day at Epcot, or will I be required to stay linked to the group as a whole?
Thanks!
Once you link on MDE you don’t need to link again. For each fast pass, the person doing it picks individual s for that activity. The problem is if some of party booked in one park, I don’t think others can be booked in another, but I am not sure. I do know that when you book ahead, you can’t only do one park a day. So happy to see you thinking ahead for happier magical times! Will look for better answer for you, maybe from Tom or Sarah who are the best sources! Love their information.
Hi, is it already possible to book fast passes for July 2020. Or are the most attraction be blocked because of the current situation?
Hi, hoping you can help me out w/ my first Disney trip at 38 years old! I have some unused vacay time I was planning on using mid-March, which is only about 21 days away… meaning I’ve missed the 60 day booking start date for fast passes. Is it still worth going? Will there be anything good left, or is it better to try to book fast passes 60 days ahead? (I was planning on staying at Port Orleans which had some good dates for the 3/17-3/21 dates I had in mind.) Thanks in advance for your help, I’m a Disney newbie!
I’d say book whatever fast passes you can and keep going back on site to try to modify and try to pick up something you want more. Rides drop all the time. I think is easier to change than not do anything and try that day. If not, enjoy what you have and try to pick up at kiosk there or even go in line. However, I believe that is suppose to be a busy time. Good luck.
We employed a FP+ strategy using rider swap. I wonder if it’s still a viable strategy. Our kids are 9 years apart and the young one is in the 99% for height. We can’t really use height restrictions to judge appropriateness of a ride. So we booked our FP+ in pairs for rides with rider swap. Older child and 1 parent ride and made the decision if younger child would be ok. If so, all 4 of us rode on the rider swap pass. If not, older child got to ride twice with other parent. It worked really well and meant we were able to have more headliner FP+. For example, our MK FP+ line-up was 2BTMRR, 2Splash, 2Space, 27DMT, and 4 Peter Pan. Is the child swap process still the same that this will work?
We did this two years ago. We had one cast member (I’m guessing a supervisor, in plain clothes) give us a hard time about it at Seven dwarves because “that’s not how it’s meant to be used” but they let us do it “just this once.” No one else gave us a hard time, but I’m not a big roller coaster person so I booked other, lower demand fast passes for the baby and I. So, I’m not sure. I get that maybe isn’t fair on one hand, but then think about the other side that a family of 4 with one non rider would book fast passes to the big rides and then what? The younger non rider could theoretically have fast passes for for something like else, but they aren’t allowed to ride on their own so an adult it going to have to wait in the stand by line? I get no fast pass is needed for tea cups, Prince Charming carousel, etc as the standby line is seldom long, but what about Peter Pan? Winnie the Pooh? I’ve never been able to get to the bottom of if the fast pass/ride me swap strategy is “allowed” or not.
We also had this issue at 7DMT and my kids were legit to little to ride (3 & 1). I politely asked the cast member how my child was supposed to use her fastpass without an adult to ride with her and they did it. That was the only attraction that gave us a problem.
How do you refresh? Can you try for FP on day, then another day and keep toggling around booking for trip 60 days out or should you do one day at a time?
Hello all,
Quick question….
Let’s say I have a FP+ for Slinky at 1pm (+2 others booked). I decide to rope drop it instead.
Does this mean I can book a new 3rd one immediately after cancelling my 1pm one ?
Yes, but options may be limited.
See the recent response to a similar question. You can select “modify” on the app/website for your Slinky FP+, and then you can make a different selection. Then after you have your new selection, it will cancel your Slinky FP+.
Or 3rd option: ride it twice! 🙂
On a practical note though, if you’re going to Hollywood Studios anytime in the near future I would advise against trying to rope drop Slinky Dog. The Rise of the Resistance has completely changed how rope dropping works at that park, since so many people show up at park opening to try and score a boarding group and then immediately go to the popular attractions. If you aren’t at the very front of the group waiting outside Toy Story Land – which would mean arriving an hour or more before the park opens – you’re looking at at least an hour wait first thing in the morning (and probably more like 2 hours).
Any advice ? other than same day checks and refresh.
I went in with my 69 day window at 7am and there were no fast passes for Smugglers Run or Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad ride . I am checking every day just need 1 for smugglers run and 3 for the other.
This may be a dumb question but Im new to FP. You say to keep checking FP ahead of your vaca to see if a ride opens up but if you already have your 3 selections how do you do that? It doesnt show whats available or Im doing it wrong.
You can do this from the app or from the website. I find it works better on the website. Go to My Plans, View or Update FastPass – this will bring up a list of your FastPasses. Click on one, click Modify, select all the people in your group that you want to change. This will give you available times for your existing FastPass as well as other FastPasses you can switch it to. You can click on the different times across the top to see other times that are available. You can click on a time repeatedly to keep refreshing it to see if other times or other attractions come up. I call that fishing and it can sometimes work when trying to get those rare FastPasses like Avatar.
I cannot stress enough the importance of being persistent with managing fast passes. On the 60 day or 30 day mark, grab the best ones that are available. Then you can go in and modify them to either upgrade to better fast passes or move them up in time. We like to go to the parks early, so my goal is to line them up first thing in the morning.
I find that using the website is much better for this than the app, now that the app has been modified. So I will keep the website open on my phone throughout our trip.
It seems to me that fast pass availability loosens up on the day of, not sure if more are released or if it is from people modifying them, but I start on it first thing (7am) and have had success while still in our hotel room or even on the bus on the way to the park.
Another tactic that I use is when we scan in for a fast pass, I immediately (while walking through the line) hop on the website and try to move our next fast pass into the now vacant time. For example: I have a fast pass for Space Mountain at 10:00 and for Buzz Lightyear at 11:00. I scan into the fast pass entrance to Space Mountain right at 10:00, then, before I even get on the ride, go in and try move the Buzz light year up to maybe 10:30, then go to the next fast pass and try to do the same, which would be 11:30 at the earliest. Then after riding Space Mountain, scan into the Buzz Lightyear fast pass, then go to whatever is next and try again. It doesn’t always work, but when it does it allows you to move through your original 3 fast passes quicker and start in with your next one-at-a time fastpasses.
Between Runaway train, slinky dog dash, and smugglers run, which one would you not get a fast pass for and try your luck in the standby line.
Runaway train is a definite must if you want to do it, slinky dog can have some pretty sort waits later in the day but millennium falcon moves people through faster. If you really need to do both I suggest slinky dog for FP+ and do standby or same day FP for millennium falcon
I would skip the fast-pass for smugglers run. The outdoor line for Slinky dog can be brutal temperature-wise even in the “shaded” portions, whereas the other two lines are indoors. We’ve skipped Slinky dog with “only” an hour wait because it wasn’t worth it to boil that long. Fast-pass is absolutely the way to go if Slinky dog is a must-do.
Also, smugglers run has an incredibly high capacity compared to Slinky dog, so even a standby line with tons of ppl in it might move pretty fast.
As long as I am only booking one park per day, can I jump between days while booking? For instance, (attempt to) snag Frozen Ever After for a Thursday at Epcot , then book the safari ride for AK on the Monday of our trip, then return to booking the Epcot Thursday?
Yes you can always book the hardest to get ones first.
Yes! I did this and had great success; I booked the hardest to get FastPasses at each park first (Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog, Frozen Ever After, and Seven Dwarfs in that order), then circled back around and filled in the rest of the days. I had all of my passes booked in by 7:10 am that morning and it felt awesome knowing I had the hard to get ones taken care of right off the bat.
When you booked Flight of Passage was it 60 days out? I’m just curious because if I can’t get that booked I fill like I’m going to have to cancel the trip ;-). Also what time of year were going? Thanks!
Even with a larger party, the same-day FastPass+ refresh game can be quite productive. My family of 6 was at WDW in mid-January, which was surprisingly crowded. Nevertheless, we were able to avoid any truly long waits being very aggressive booking and modifying FP+ reservations in the app. In all cases, our original 3 FP+ were scheduled during the morning so that we still had most of the day to get more same-day passes.
For a larger party, it helps to try to book 1 or 2 people at a time. Since you have a 1-hour window (actually 70 minutes) to use your FP+, you don’t all have to be scheduled at the exact same time to ride together. You just need for your 70-minute windows to overlap a tiny bit, which is much easier than trying to schedule a single FP+ for a larger group.
If you have multiple app users simultaneously working different subsets of your group, that can help too. It also seems to work better if you just book anything, even if it’s not at the time you need, then try to change it. Seems like you get different time availability when modifying than when making the initial reservation.
It required tenacity and persistence, but we were able to hack our way through each day in the parks stringing same-day FP+ reservations together and alternating them with other attractions that didn’t have long waits.
I’ll probably get some grief for this, but in one case, I was only able to get a FP+ reservation for only 5 of the 6 of us for Toy Story Mania. I pled my case to the FP+ attendant, and she just waved us all through. It seems like most Cast Members will try to help you out if you are polite and respectful, so it never hurts to ask. (I probably wouldn’t have done it if I had fewer than 5 of the 6.)
Another tact we (my wife does the talking) have used is to show up early for a fast pass. I don’t mean hours early, but maybe 30 minutes ahead. Usually works and we are on to the next thing a bit early.
I’m taking a group of 8 to Disney in the first week of March (all weekdays). Allegedly a good week to go to Disney with lower crowds. We knew going into FastPass planning that we were at a disadvantage because we weren’t staying on Disney property so we booked 30 days out. I woke up early for three consecutive days to book exactly at 7AM. NONE of the premier rides were available at any park. I would have taken a single one for any park, but NONE for three days straight had available fast passes. Even those rides I was able to get (SAFARI, ROCKIN ROLLER COASTER) were usually for later times in the day (3PM-5PM) meaning we’re not going to be able to take advantage of the 4th fast pass until much later. I even broke the groups up trying to book smaller groups to try to find rides.
I’m trying really hard to stay positive about this trip, but I cannot help but see Fast Pass as a total failure. Knowing we’re going to have to just commit to being in line all day, and then possibly have to decide whether to stay in line for a ride, or leave to go to a Fast Pass reservation, has just totally bumbed me out. I’ve been visiting the site multiple times a day to check for any newly available earlier times but no such luck. I’m also leaning heavily on your post about leaving room for spontaneity at Disney, and my sibilings and I are looking at the closest alcohol to rides so at least we can have a beer while we’re standing in line.
I really appreciate your posts about how to try to make this work, but Disney just cannot handle the crowds or this entire process is just designed to create a sense of value without any real value.
I agree the FP+ system is broken…. the paper FP system was overall preferable.
They just don’t have the capacity needed to handle FPs for the attendance they have.
But I would suggest… looking for alternative time saving measures. There are some other short cuts, though some may cost some money.
For example — reserve Be Our Guest Breakfast before park open — Eat breakfast, and then be among the first to ride Mine Train, without having to do a rope drop throng of people.
Pick a headliner each night, and do it right at park close, when lines really aren’t so bad.
If you have the time, take a DVC tour… they will give you “anytime” FPs in return. They will be restricted from the most popular headliners, but will include some of the tougher FPs (I believe Test Track is included, for example).
Ooh, another option, rather than spending a full day in the Park, do an after hours event. For the first week in March, they have regular after hours in MK on the 2nd, After Hours in AK on the 5th, and Villain After Hours on the 6th. https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/after-hours
On March 3rd, you can do a Early Morning Magic at the Magic Kingdom, but that event does require a full day admission in addition to the event fee – https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/early-morning-magic/
All of these events, just like the perks for staying on Disney property, are meant to drive up income for Disney, but at the same time, tickets to these events are limited, making it easier for guests to get more done in the short amount of time you’re in the park for the events than you could do in several regular operating hours.
A lot of those rides don’t even have availability to book FastPasses at 60+2 days, meaning, if you were staying on site, you’d have to schedule the park that ride is in for your 3rd day or later in order to get the FP. That’s a perk of staying on site at Disney World.
Watch the park opening hours closely. If the opening time moves up, they typically add more FP+ to go with it. Once we tried to get Flight of Passage, but there was no FP+ availability. The park moved to 8am opening from the original 9am, and we were able to get an 8:50 FP+.
March and April are usually busy months because of spring break. My suggestion is to keep trying to modify your FastPass plans at various times throughout the day and during your stay. It will be harder to get 8 people all on the same ride at the same time, but you may be able to do it. Something may open up because people change plans, especially the night before. Good luck!
Pst… You missed updating this line:
“and as noted above, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run doesn’t offer FastPass+ at all. ”
As an extension of the park hopping FP strategy… I’ll add it might work well in the context of using it in combination with EMH. FP’s aren’t even available during EMH… So for example..
Magic Kingdom EMH morning: 8-9am, hit headliners. 9-10, hit the second tier rides that still have manageable standby lines. 10-11, 3rd tier attractions like Hall of Presidents.
Then break after 3 hours of solid touring, saving your FPs for the evening…. example, Animal Kingdom 6pm safari, 7pm everest, 8pm FOP.
Also if you’re not a morning person, combing FPs with EMH *evening* can be a good strategy. Taking Epcot as example — Yes, you only get 1 tier 1 FP….. But then you can hit another headliners with low wait by the end of EMH. 6pm Spaceship Earth. 7pm Mission Space. 8pm Test track. 9pm, start of EMH, and lows of crowds watching fireworks… and there is a reasonable standby line at Soarin. 10pm, EMH Frozen.
DHS at EMH night — 6pm Runaway Train. 7pm Tower of Terror. 8pm Toy Story Mania. 9-11 EMH should let you get in Slinky Dog and Millenium Falcon. (Of course, you can’t get Rise of the Resistance if you are showing up at DHS in the evening).
I used to be in the camp of get all your FPs for the morning, so you can get more 4th+ fastpasses. But with increasing crowds and more people knowledgeably booking their fastpasses… there seems to be less and less day-of FP availability. I’m always booking for 4-8 people, further restricting the FP availability. If I’m likely to be limited to 3 FPs anyway, I may as well use them when I most want to use them.
But here is food for thought — Has FP+ undermined most of the advantages of an early morning rope drop?
Pre-FP+… there were no fastpass returns at rope drop. As a result, lines were always reasonable at almost every ride for the first hour or so. Now, with FP returns starting right at park open, long standby lines build much more quickly than they used to.
Pre-FP+… You had to be in the park to get FPs. So an early start guaranteed you the FP of your choice, and also gave you the best chance to maximize FPs. Today, an early start still gives you the best chance of a 4th FP, but there are no guarantees. I remember pre-FP, a 10 minute line at the Toy Story Mania FP KIOSKS… but if you did rope drop, you basically at least guaranteed yourself a TSM fastpass.
Today, you get your FPs 60/30 days in advance… no advantage in rushing in at rope drop to get a FP (except for ROTR boarding groups)
FInally, pre-FP+, if you skipped the morning entirely, you had no chance at a desirable paper FP. Today, you can start your touring in the evening, and still start with 3 FPs.
“Has FP+ undermined most of the advantages of an early morning rope drop?”
Some, but not most. There’s definitely some of what you’re describing, but crowds are still significantly smaller in the mornings. Between that and most people with 9 to 10 am FPs not redeeming them right at 9 am (or potentially at all if they don’t make it into the park in time–I’d bet the redemption rate on morning FastPasses is lower than midday ones), I think there still is an advantage.
Good call with the rest of your strategies (and thanks for the heads up on the Smugglers Run line in the post).
Are you saying you cant book a FP+ for Smugglers Run after you have used up your first 3 for that day? Ive been debating between Slinky Dog or Smugglers Run for our tier 1, then trying for a 4th FP+ in the evening for whichever fastpass I didnt get. But if I cant get Smugglers Run as a 4th option, then I would make it my first choice. My kids need to have thier Star Wars fix and I wont plan on getting on ROTR.
thanks!