Fastpass for Offsite Guests?

[merlinmagic4]

Hello

We are annual Disney visitors....but we stay offsite at the Sheraton Vistana Resort. I have to say that I am totally confused about the new fastpass system and what it means for offsite visitors. Will we be able to get fastpasses at all? Since going back to teaching full time in December of 2011 I just cannot keep up with all of this! Thanks for any help!

[faline]

Currently, for off site guests, the new fastpass+ system is only available on the day you arrive at the park. There are kiosks set up around the park and you can make up to 3 fastpass+ reservations for the day - all for one park.

[mrte62]

Question - when making your FP selections, can you choose your times or only the attractions?

[mickclub1955]

Question - when making your FP selections, can you choose your times or only the attractions?

You choose the three attractions that you want and if times are available it gives you a, b, or c on a group of times and you pick what works best for you. Then you should be able to go back in if you need to tweek it more and only if there are more times available.

[Jillirose]

We were just there at the Dolphin. Overall, we found the FP+ system to work well for us. We got to parks early, spent the mid day at pool, and used FP in the evening. However, it was not a very busy week. I CANT IMAGINE how difficult it will be to line up to get to a kiosk to make selections before you start your day at Spring Break or Christmas.

If you are offsite, there are a few things to keep in mind - you won't be able to use the My Disney Experience App to make adjustments to your FP selections. At least that was our experience - I could see my reservations once made, but could not modify. So, you will need to visit a kiosk everytime you need to make a reservation/change.

Also, if you are park hoppers like us, you will need to physically go to the park you need the FP at to get them. In other words, if you want to go to DHS in the evening and get a FP for Toy Story, you need to go there in the AM for your PM passes and hope there are some left (after all disney hotel guests have reserved).

In all fairness, there are a few things that Disney could do that would improve the experience of off site guests. One, enable use of making FP reservations the day of on the mobile app. At this time, if you can't link to a Disney hotel ressie, you can't complete FP reservations from app. This would also address my second issue which is that we like to park hop. At this point you have to physically go to a park to make FP selections. So, if you have dinner at DHS and want to ride Rockin that night, you have to get there in the AM to try to get FPasses.

Again, we were not there on a peak week (week before President's) and our main selections were already unavailable in the afternoon. Who needs a fast pass for Maelstrom, Figment, and Nemo?! We did find that with some persistence the CM gave us a special FP at Epcot because Soarin and TT were already gone. I don't know how they will handle this at peak times.

Lastly, the CMs working the kiosks were all very friendly, but often did not know how/why things weren't working -- we talked to at least 10 before we came across one that could tell us that we wouldn't be able to use our mobile apps as an offsite guest. (They all TRIED to help me use the app!) Everything I had read online had indicated we could.

We are seasoned Disney folks, and have stayed off site and on many times. As I said, we were able to figure things out, but I would not have had the knowledge or expertise to do this my first time out. I feel sorry for first time visitors staying off site this Spring Break.... Hopefully, they can make some adjustments by then.

[merlinmagic4]

Thank you! We are going the week after Easter (arriving on Easter), so I am thinking this may be the year to do Discovery Cove/Sea World or Universal. I don't know if I can NOT do Disney, but it sounds like it will be a nightmare to get on rides. I'll have to look at the crowd calendar and see what the crowds will be like and then make a decision.

Did anyone go who stayed offsite this week (President's Week and northeast school vacation week)? What was your experience?