YIKES. It’s (3/12) So busy! Planning and FP are so important.

[bapcap]

We arrive April 11 for 8 days and reading about how crowded it is already...I’m sitting here almost ready to cry. I’m so looking forward to our family trip. My 9 yr old granddaughter has been planning and talking about all the rides she wants to go on. She’s been watching lots of you-tube videos in anticipation. I’ve already scheduled our FPs for our park days.
Please, can anyone help calm me down?

 

[DeluxePrincess]

Honestly, I don't think Disney has a slow season anymore. Just take a deep breath and enjoy your time.

 

[disneyinthespringtime]

We arrive April 11 for 8 days and reading about how crowded it is already...I’m sitting here almost ready to cry. I’m so looking forward to our family trip. My 9 yr old granddaughter has been planning and talking about all the rides she wants to go on. She’s been watching lots of you-tube videos in anticipation. I’ve already scheduled our FPs for our park days.
Please, can anyone help calm me down?

Well you have your FPs so that is good and will mean you won’t be in a bind the way folks are that do not know they can book them even.

The pro’s on here are a font of knowledge on how to maximize your time. That is not me but here is what worked well for us...

I I found that the touringplans.com website’s tool for plotting out your day with expected wait times and ride times was super helpful in stitching together: a) our first hour at rope drop; b) what to do in between fast passes after that for a few hours; c) what might be good bets for doing/riding when we returned in the evening. It also tempered my expectations about what would be reasonable - a few rides each day plus a couple shows/events that their tools gives you the times of - versus thinking we would ride all day. I shared the day plan with my kids ahead of time too to help avoid the “how about we ride this one now??” Questions that would likely pull us into crazy long lines.

 

[yulilin3]

We arrive April 11 for 8 days and reading about how crowded it is already...I’m sitting here almost ready to cry. I’m so looking forward to our family trip. My 9 yr old granddaughter has been planning and talking about all the rides she wants to go on. She’s been watching lots of you-tube videos in anticipation. I’ve already scheduled our FPs for our park days.
Please, can anyone help calm me down?

have a realistic, flexible plan. You got your fps, which is great, the rest will be icing on the cake. The issue nowadays is over planning and expecting to do most of the rides in one day. Make sure , if your family enjoys them, to take in some shows, check out the outdoor entertainment and take some time to let your 9 yr old run around and play. I know, because I've heard it so many times, a lot of parents being angry with their kids because they want to stay and play at the Dinoland play area, or play with the bubble machines, or splash in the casey jr. splash zone, believe me, these are the things that kids will enjoy the most, schedule some time for her to do that.

 

[cel_disney]

We arrive April 11 for 8 days and reading about how crowded it is already...I’m sitting here almost ready to cry. I’m so looking forward to our family trip. My 9 yr old granddaughter has been planning and talking about all the rides she wants to go on. She’s been watching lots of you-tube videos in anticipation. I’ve already scheduled our FPs for our park days.
Please, can anyone help calm me down?

I’m addition to the advice you have already gotten - don’t underestimate the value of rope drop and park close (and don’t believe park close wait times) and bring portable phone chargers.

I took my family of 9 last April (not Easter week though!) and I have everyone access to touring plans to show them why it was important to be strategic in the first hour of the day and not get suckered into things better done during crowded afternoon times and also made sure everyone (and I mean mostly my brother in law and father!!) understood the plan and the importance of not getting side tracked or blowing it off - we reviewed it every night at dinner for the next day and then - we all had iPhones - so I created a shared note file to send to everyone with as many details of our plans and timing as I could so there was no excuse. It helped a lot.

 

[Klayfish]

I agree you need to understand and know FP+ well, but you definitely don't need to plan. We never do, even at Xmas, and have a wonderful time.

cmwade, sorry you're rubbed the wrong way because you couldn't get more FP+ when "signed in" by a CM but can't say I have a ton of sympathy. If you're taking advantage of a CMs "blood, sweat and tears" as you say (which is hyperbole, IMO), and get in for free, then why do you expect to get everything? Not an IT issue IMO, they have it just right.

 

[DumboDash2006]

Ugh, this is making me nervous. We will be there the last week of March. Staying off site, so we only got to make fast passes 30 days out and of course we didn't get SDD or FOP. No 7DMT either but we are doing MK EMM so that will take care of that. We have four days and my husband enjoys Disney but really likes to relax and kick back at the condo so we prefer to get up and go to the parks and then be back at the condo to relax by early/mid evening.

I've got our FP's, have set up personalized plans on touringplans and am trying to figure out the refresh trick. I hope we aren't just standing in lines all day, every day.

 

[Klayfish]

Ugh, this is making me nervous. We will be there the last week of March. Staying off site, so we only got to make fast passes 30 days out and of course we didn't get SDD or FOP. No 7DMT either but we are doing MK EMM so that will take care of that. We have four days and my husband enjoys Disney but really likes to relax and kick back at the condo so we prefer to get up and go to the parks and then be back at the condo to relax by early/mid evening.

I've got our FP's, have set up personalized plans on touringplans and am trying to figure out the refresh trick. I hope we aren't just standing in lines all day, every day.

You won't stand in lines all day, unless you chose to. We are offsite also and have never had any issues getting FP+, even during Xmas to New Years. You'll need to know refresh pretty well and use it, but you'll still be able to do plenty. Just have a little patience, a good attitude and you'll be fine.

 

[ryanpatricksmom]

We were there the week of 3/3, and it was the most crowded that I've ever seen it for multiple days in a row. I had one previous experience on Memorial Day weekend that was close, but this trip, every day predicted to be a 5-7 quickly became a 8-10. My nephew qualifies for DAS which helped immensely but it was still very difficult to zigzag across the park while waiting for a return time, given our party's limitations. I was a willing participant but did not plan this trip....DH and I will be returning at the end of August (though the opening of Star Wars in the midst of our vacation has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench in my best laid plans). Imo, the only way to realistically tackle Disney any longer is to plan for multiple days at each park and accomplish about half each day. It's just gotten to be too much for those in larger parties or who don't have a commando touring style. DH also qualifies for DAS, so we get a benefit there, but he can't take the heat for more than 4-5 hours so we'll be limited in that way. We're staying 7 days to do 4 parks. I'm still hoping for After Hours during our trip to be able to experience more attractions.

 

[DoleFloatAddict]

Ugh, this is making me nervous. We will be there the last week of March. Staying off site, so we only got to make fast passes 30 days out and of course we didn't get SDD or FOP. No 7DMT either but we are doing MK EMM so that will take care of that. We have four days and my husband enjoys Disney but really likes to relax and kick back at the condo so we prefer to get up and go to the parks and then be back at the condo to relax by early/mid evening.

I've got our FP's, have set up personalized plans on touringplans and am trying to figure out the refresh trick. I hope we aren't just standing in lines all day, every day.

The last three days, which were so crowded I wouldn't have booked this trip had I known, I saw same day FP for SDMT, FOP, And pretty much everything else except SDD.

 

[WaterLinds]

Honestly, I can go to Disney and not ride a single ride and still have a good time taking in the atmosphere, watching shows, etc. Do I like to ride the rides? Absolutely, but I can still have a good time without doing so.

I think that’s true for a lot of adults—I could, too—but I know both of my kids would be unhappy if we didn’t do some rides and characters.

What always amazes me is the people in the long standby lines, though. They don’t look thrilled about it, of course, but they seem much more patient than my family would be! I’ve totally spoiled my kids, though, they are so used to waits under 10-15 minutes.

 

[WaterLinds]

We arrive April 11 for 8 days and reading about how crowded it is already...I’m sitting here almost ready to cry. I’m so looking forward to our family trip. My 9 yr old granddaughter has been planning and talking about all the rides she wants to go on. She’s been watching lots of you-tube videos in anticipation. I’ve already scheduled our FPs for our park days.
Please, can anyone help calm me down?

If you have your FPs scheduled for the big stuff you should be in decent shape. We haven’t had amazing luck with refreshing this week—I haven’t seen a single top tier ride come up, and very few middle ones—but we’ve still been able to get many same day FPs for smaller rides after we’ve used the big ones up. Make sure you know how to access same day FPs while you’re there to get in that stuff. Plan to either rope drop or close some middle tier rides that could be hard to FP.

Allow yourself plenty of time between rides to navigate, it is crowded and it can be stressful if you’re trying to hurry. Plan to walk slowly and take it all in. Plus, it may be hot (we’ve had temps in the 80s most of the last week, which feels really really warm when you’ve come from the dead of winter!), so you may want frequent water/ice cream breaks, or just to sit in the shade for a few minutes.

If the budget allows a hard ticket special event, consider one. We’ve done two and they’ve really helped us relax and enjoy some of our time, but obviously budget is a factor and it’s not always realistic. If you are able to swing an EMM or DAH for whatever park has your preferred rides, it can reduce stress a lot.

And then have a few chats about your expectations so everyone goes in prepared. I’ve had to manage my older son’s expectations a few times, he has insanely long lists of stuff he wants to do (I get it, I do too!) and we haven’t gotten to all of it. I’ve worked with him on prioritizing and making sure we hit his top choices, even if we have to give up a few things in the list. I figure it’s probably a good life skill for him!

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

We went to MK the first week of Nov. last year. The crowds were so thick you could barely maneuver down Main Street. We stayed long enough to ride people mover ( 25 min. wait) and left. We have been going to MK since 1972 and that last time ruined it for us. We will avoid it from now on.

 

[maranara]

There are lots of people who don't plan in advance. We have friends that showed up during spring break a couple of years ago & bought their one day tickets when they arrived. She asked about FPs when she bought the tickets and was told by the CM that they were unavailable so she never even checked. They waited in standby the entire day. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people just like her. I read tons of posts here before we went 2 years ago, knew that I could get more FPs after our initial 3, and still didn't manage to get more then 1 or 2 extras each day because I don't think I fully understood how to refresh/search/modify. (hopefully someone will teach me before we go next year!)

 

[Mango7100]

How has recent luck been with refreshing? We are going next week, and I am nervous about the crowds. Our last week trip was November 2017 when crowds were minimal. From what I have read about the refresh, it basically sounds like you just keep hitting time slots over and over again until one pops up that works? Is it a different method for adding a new fast pass compared to modifying an existing one?

 

[pitpat]

We went to MK the first week of Nov. last year. The crowds were so thick you could barely maneuver down Main Street. We stayed long enough to ride people mover ( 25 min. wait) and left. We have been going to MK since 1972 and that last time ruined it for us. We will avoid it from now on.

Was it a day in between Xmas parties? We were there the last week of October and weren't bothered by crowds at all.

 

[pitpat]

How has recent luck been with refreshing? We are going next week, and I am nervous about the crowds. Our last week trip was November 2017 when crowds were minimal. From what I have read about the refresh, it basically sounds like you just keep hitting time slots over and over again until one pops up that works? Is it a different method for adding a new fast pass compared to modifying an existing one?

You hit the times until the ride you want comes up at any time, then take it. Then you can modify until a more convenient time comes up. Still works when it's crowded.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I remember going in March in 2008 and 2009 and the crowds were very low, as long as it didn't coincide with Easter week. Even with it being "spring break."

 

[Searc]

And this is exactly why I keep saying moving to a FP structure like Disneylands (without the paying for Maxpass part) would work much better. All FPs would be day of only, you don't get to pick a time slot, you get what ever return window is available for the attraction you want to go on at that time and you can only book a FP after entering one of the parks for the day. You could through the app book a FP for another park, but only if your tickets have park hopping entitlements.

This would actually make everything far more fair and since there would still be no paper FPs, they could even stop distributing for say an hour for a particular attraction, then distribute again to ensure that people who arrive later in the day have a fair shot at FPs.

You must be new to Disney.

 

[LSUmiss]

Sounds like one of the ones who knew nothing about FP. It usually irritates me as I go how can you NOT know. But to read she was crying and saying her kids didn't get to ride anything makes my heart hurt. The planning involved in going to Disney is no joke. I LOVE doing it, but there are others who wing it and just pay for the tickets and hotel room and nothing else. Those are the ones who aren't quite as lucky as we DISers are or others who visit Disney forums out there and know what's involved. Because of who I am, I would have had to stop the mom and talk to her and give her the break down. There is no way I could have let her leave that miserable when I know she could have done something to fix it. She may not have been open to my advice being as upset as she was....but it wouldn't hurt me to try.

I also wonder the age of the kids too? Little kids can’t wait 75 min for small world. If mom didn’t know about FP or there weren’t anymore available that would be hard for them. I think more & more ppl are catching on to FP+ so the availability of same day FPs is dwindling. It’s also hard with little kids when food & snack lines are obnoxious everywhere you go. That’s why we only do table service lately. I feel like WDW is becoming less & less little kid friendly.