Septbride2002
04-26-2014, 02:28 PM
Me: Age 34 :drama:
DH: Age 36
DD: Age 7 (celebrating her Bday while in Disney)
DS: Age 5
Friend D (FD)
Friend T (TD)
It has been many trips since I've done a trip report but I thought I would share our Fast Pass + experience on this trip due to the fact that we are going as a big group AND we will be going during Peak Season.
We finally hit our window to make our Fast Pass + selections. A few days before I had sat down and jotted down which rides I would like to get Fast Passes for at each park. We are breaking this Trip up a bit so our time at the parks is limited - which I think actually makes the Fast Pass selection a bit easier.
Wed: Driving up from Vero Beach - arriving on site sometime in the afternoon. We will probably just hang at the resort. THis is our first time staying at AK with the kids so I know they are going to want to explore all the animal viewing areas. This will also give me a little time to unpack and get organized. We have 7pm reservations at Sanaa.
Thurs: Disney Studios
I knew I wanted Toy Story Mania and and Tower of Terror. I wouldn't have minded Fantasmic either. But now with the grouping I couldn't do both Toy Story and Fantasmic which is a bit of a bummer. The picks ended up being:
Toy Story Mania
Tower of Terror
Star Tours
Now the "Best Match" were all afternoon times. In fact every option given were all in the afternoon. My children are natural early risers. If they sleep till 7 am we are excited. I haven't slept till 8am in almost 8 years.:shake:
I figure out that if I went in "modify Fast Pass time" that many time options were available. But you have to do it for each Fast Pass so it becomes time consuming. What we ended up with is this:
Toy Story Mania 9:10 to 10:10
Tower of Terror 10:10 to 11:10
Star Tours 11:35 to 12:35
We will be skipping any of the outdoor theatre shows due to it just being to HOT in June. I figure we will probably see Muppets 3D in there but then we are pretty much done with the park. We will probably mosey over to the Boardwalk area and grab lunch over there. The Boardwalk is our Home Resort and Beach Club is our friends Home Resort so we always pay the area a visit when we aren't staying there.
After going back to the room to chill out and maybe some pool time we will head over to EPCOT about 7pm and walk around World Showcase and see Illuminations.
Fri: Magic Kingdom and Birthday Celebration
This is where Fast Pass + got tricky. Because if your DD is as excited about meeting Anna and Elsa as mine is then you know that fast pass was the priority. That being said - I found out that I could only get Fast Passes if I choose 2 at a time. If I added a 3rd person suddenly no fastpasses were available. So I had to go and make Fast Pass selections for myself and DD and then match them as best as I could to the other 4 people in our party. We decided that my son and the other adults didn't really care if they saw Anna and Elsa.
Myself and DD are seeing Anna and Elsa at 11:00 to 12:00.
We have reservations at BBB for 12 for my DD and Pirate Legue for DS at the same time.
2:30 Reservations at CRT
Story time with Belle 1:35 to 2:35
Dumbo for DS,DH,DF,DT at 3 to 4 - DD and I are either are going to wait in standby depending on the wait or go get a treat while everyone else rides.
Buzz Light Year 4:30 to 5:30
We will be staying at MK for Fireworks.
Saturday: Epcot
The picks we wanted were Soarin, Test Track and Spaceship Earth but due to grouping Soarin and Test Track are in the group where you can only pick 1.
Again the "Best Options" Were all in the afternoon hours. So I had to go into each pick and change the times to earlier in the day.
Soarin: 9:10 to 10:10
Mission Space: 10:15 to 11:15
Spaceship Earth: 11:20 to 12:20
I doubt we will actually go on Mission Space - but my husband enjoys the ride so it is nice to have if he wants to go. More then likely we will ride Soarin then Imagination, then head down to Nemo until our time at Spaceship Earth is ready. Then we will either grab lunch in the World Showcase or head back to the hotel and spend the afternoon in the pool.
We have Fantasmic Dinner Reservations at 7pm for Mama Melorose and then will see Fantasmic which is my son's all time favorite.
Let me divert from topic for a moment to talk about Mama Melorose - which my family discovered for the first time on our last trip. The food is awesome. No it is not the most authentic Italian food and if you are from the East Coast which has a plethora of authentic Italian options - I can understand why you would turn your nose up at it. But for park food it is more then decent. The restaurant décor is nice and the staff is wonderful. A real hidden gem as I had always read just so-so reviews.
Sunday: Breakfast at Boma - check out and go home.
The dilemma:
I don't like that you either have to make everyone's fastpass at once or you have to break it up. Our group of 6 stays together we don't break off and do our own things. So we have 6 Fastpasses for Tower of Terror when only 2 or 3 of us will go on it. My kids certainly won't. So that waste a fastpass opportunity for them. Yes I could get a fastpass for something else that my husband could take them to but we should get through Tower of Terror pretty quickly.
The grouping really ***** because it eliminates the ability to get the fastpasses you really want in one day. I wanted Fantasmic Fastpasses but also Toy Story Mania - thankfully there is a resolution in doing the dining package but it really shouldn't be that complicated. I want Soarin and Test Track - but can't do that either unless I burn through my 3 fast passes and hope a Test Track One is available later in the day - but we won't be there later in the day so what is the point.
The Elsa and Anna things is a real PITB too. Our party of 6 can't go together? What if it was just My DH, ME, DD, and DS and DS wanted to see them 2 then I'm having to get 2 sets of fastpasses close together in time to make it work. Why can't I just get 4? However I'm just grateful I won't have to stand in a 3 hour line that this last one is really more a nuisance then an actual issue.
All in all the experience of setting of the Fast Passes weren't bad once I figured out what the tricks were. I got almost everything I wanted with the exception of Fantasmic and Test Track. We are lucky in that we just went on Test Track in Dec so not the end of the world.
I did find that making reservations was a whole heck of a lot easier and a lot more times available this time around then in the past couple of years. The fact that I booked CRT at only 60 days is saying something. Granted it is at an off time (2:30 PM) but we like to eat late lunches and then snack our way through dinner. In fact there wasn't one dining reservation that I didn't get. Maybe the days of getting up at 6am with 2 cell phones and a laptop to get CRT or Le Cellier are over!:cheer:
DH: Age 36
DD: Age 7 (celebrating her Bday while in Disney)
DS: Age 5
Friend D (FD)
Friend T (TD)
It has been many trips since I've done a trip report but I thought I would share our Fast Pass + experience on this trip due to the fact that we are going as a big group AND we will be going during Peak Season.
We finally hit our window to make our Fast Pass + selections. A few days before I had sat down and jotted down which rides I would like to get Fast Passes for at each park. We are breaking this Trip up a bit so our time at the parks is limited - which I think actually makes the Fast Pass selection a bit easier.
Wed: Driving up from Vero Beach - arriving on site sometime in the afternoon. We will probably just hang at the resort. THis is our first time staying at AK with the kids so I know they are going to want to explore all the animal viewing areas. This will also give me a little time to unpack and get organized. We have 7pm reservations at Sanaa.
Thurs: Disney Studios
I knew I wanted Toy Story Mania and and Tower of Terror. I wouldn't have minded Fantasmic either. But now with the grouping I couldn't do both Toy Story and Fantasmic which is a bit of a bummer. The picks ended up being:
Toy Story Mania
Tower of Terror
Star Tours
Now the "Best Match" were all afternoon times. In fact every option given were all in the afternoon. My children are natural early risers. If they sleep till 7 am we are excited. I haven't slept till 8am in almost 8 years.:shake:
I figure out that if I went in "modify Fast Pass time" that many time options were available. But you have to do it for each Fast Pass so it becomes time consuming. What we ended up with is this:
Toy Story Mania 9:10 to 10:10
Tower of Terror 10:10 to 11:10
Star Tours 11:35 to 12:35
We will be skipping any of the outdoor theatre shows due to it just being to HOT in June. I figure we will probably see Muppets 3D in there but then we are pretty much done with the park. We will probably mosey over to the Boardwalk area and grab lunch over there. The Boardwalk is our Home Resort and Beach Club is our friends Home Resort so we always pay the area a visit when we aren't staying there.
After going back to the room to chill out and maybe some pool time we will head over to EPCOT about 7pm and walk around World Showcase and see Illuminations.
Fri: Magic Kingdom and Birthday Celebration
This is where Fast Pass + got tricky. Because if your DD is as excited about meeting Anna and Elsa as mine is then you know that fast pass was the priority. That being said - I found out that I could only get Fast Passes if I choose 2 at a time. If I added a 3rd person suddenly no fastpasses were available. So I had to go and make Fast Pass selections for myself and DD and then match them as best as I could to the other 4 people in our party. We decided that my son and the other adults didn't really care if they saw Anna and Elsa.
Myself and DD are seeing Anna and Elsa at 11:00 to 12:00.
We have reservations at BBB for 12 for my DD and Pirate Legue for DS at the same time.
2:30 Reservations at CRT
Story time with Belle 1:35 to 2:35
Dumbo for DS,DH,DF,DT at 3 to 4 - DD and I are either are going to wait in standby depending on the wait or go get a treat while everyone else rides.
Buzz Light Year 4:30 to 5:30
We will be staying at MK for Fireworks.
Saturday: Epcot
The picks we wanted were Soarin, Test Track and Spaceship Earth but due to grouping Soarin and Test Track are in the group where you can only pick 1.
Again the "Best Options" Were all in the afternoon hours. So I had to go into each pick and change the times to earlier in the day.
Soarin: 9:10 to 10:10
Mission Space: 10:15 to 11:15
Spaceship Earth: 11:20 to 12:20
I doubt we will actually go on Mission Space - but my husband enjoys the ride so it is nice to have if he wants to go. More then likely we will ride Soarin then Imagination, then head down to Nemo until our time at Spaceship Earth is ready. Then we will either grab lunch in the World Showcase or head back to the hotel and spend the afternoon in the pool.
We have Fantasmic Dinner Reservations at 7pm for Mama Melorose and then will see Fantasmic which is my son's all time favorite.
Let me divert from topic for a moment to talk about Mama Melorose - which my family discovered for the first time on our last trip. The food is awesome. No it is not the most authentic Italian food and if you are from the East Coast which has a plethora of authentic Italian options - I can understand why you would turn your nose up at it. But for park food it is more then decent. The restaurant décor is nice and the staff is wonderful. A real hidden gem as I had always read just so-so reviews.
Sunday: Breakfast at Boma - check out and go home.
The dilemma:
I don't like that you either have to make everyone's fastpass at once or you have to break it up. Our group of 6 stays together we don't break off and do our own things. So we have 6 Fastpasses for Tower of Terror when only 2 or 3 of us will go on it. My kids certainly won't. So that waste a fastpass opportunity for them. Yes I could get a fastpass for something else that my husband could take them to but we should get through Tower of Terror pretty quickly.
The grouping really ***** because it eliminates the ability to get the fastpasses you really want in one day. I wanted Fantasmic Fastpasses but also Toy Story Mania - thankfully there is a resolution in doing the dining package but it really shouldn't be that complicated. I want Soarin and Test Track - but can't do that either unless I burn through my 3 fast passes and hope a Test Track One is available later in the day - but we won't be there later in the day so what is the point.
The Elsa and Anna things is a real PITB too. Our party of 6 can't go together? What if it was just My DH, ME, DD, and DS and DS wanted to see them 2 then I'm having to get 2 sets of fastpasses close together in time to make it work. Why can't I just get 4? However I'm just grateful I won't have to stand in a 3 hour line that this last one is really more a nuisance then an actual issue.
All in all the experience of setting of the Fast Passes weren't bad once I figured out what the tricks were. I got almost everything I wanted with the exception of Fantasmic and Test Track. We are lucky in that we just went on Test Track in Dec so not the end of the world.
I did find that making reservations was a whole heck of a lot easier and a lot more times available this time around then in the past couple of years. The fact that I booked CRT at only 60 days is saying something. Granted it is at an off time (2:30 PM) but we like to eat late lunches and then snack our way through dinner. In fact there wasn't one dining reservation that I didn't get. Maybe the days of getting up at 6am with 2 cell phones and a laptop to get CRT or Le Cellier are over!:cheer: