JETSDAD
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2016
Just got back from another great trip. I was nervous going into this one because I rely heavily on refreshing for FP's night before and day of but normally for only 3 people....this trip was 7 people so I didn't know what to expect. Here are some pointers from my trip.
Absolutely break it up into groups of 3 & 4 when refreshing and go for overlapping times when looking for anything popular. Stuff like Dumbo just look for 7, it will be fine. I usually work on the group of 4 first as it will be a bit more difficult and then do the group of 3 to match/overlap.
Will this work for rides such as FOP & SDD? YES! I had the start of the days all nicely laid out with FP's selected and AK planned for 2 days near the end of the trip. After 2 days everyone decided they wanted to do AK the next day! My heart kind of sank a bit knowing that FOP would be the highlight and assuming the odds would be low. That night I was able to get overlapping FP's for the 7 of us for an AM time slot for FOP. One of the things I personally wanted to do this trip was ride SDD at night but of course I was not willing to hold up an entire day of refreshing for 1 evening FP. During the rain one afternoon I managed to get SDD for that night for the 7 of us. The only ride that I didn't look to add day of was 7DMT because we did it once standby right before our MVMCP night and everyone preferred other rides. All other rides we were able to add with reasonably short waits (sometimes we would just go watch a show or grab a snack to fill some time).
It does take more patience and more flexibility than refreshing for a smaller group but it does work.
Now to the Hollywood Studios FP drops. I posted about it a few weeks ago but kind of tucked it away into another thread....didn't want to jinx it for my trip. It is something I watched for weeks leading up to my trip and now can say that for at least 5+ weeks it has worked including during my trip. Every day that I have checked I have noticed 2 FP drops for HS for all of the TSL rides. Same times every day. At 9:31AM it opens up a lot of FP times for all TSL rides including SDD for FP's between 11-12 (start times). At 2:31PM it drops FP's for TSL for 4-5. We used these drops both times one day for SDD. Again we broke it up into 3/4 because I didn't want to risk it not working on a larger group so I do not know how well it works for groups larger than 4. I watched again this morning at 9:31 and it worked. To note, if SDD is down in the morning there is a chance it might not be included in the FP drop (noticed this 1 time a couple of weeks ago). I also do not guarantee this will continue to work but it has been consistent and it did work for us.
I just wanted to post because I do tend to promote refreshing as a great way to plan a trip but also know that many groups are larger than my normal group.
Absolutely break it up into groups of 3 & 4 when refreshing and go for overlapping times when looking for anything popular. Stuff like Dumbo just look for 7, it will be fine. I usually work on the group of 4 first as it will be a bit more difficult and then do the group of 3 to match/overlap.
Will this work for rides such as FOP & SDD? YES! I had the start of the days all nicely laid out with FP's selected and AK planned for 2 days near the end of the trip. After 2 days everyone decided they wanted to do AK the next day! My heart kind of sank a bit knowing that FOP would be the highlight and assuming the odds would be low. That night I was able to get overlapping FP's for the 7 of us for an AM time slot for FOP. One of the things I personally wanted to do this trip was ride SDD at night but of course I was not willing to hold up an entire day of refreshing for 1 evening FP. During the rain one afternoon I managed to get SDD for that night for the 7 of us. The only ride that I didn't look to add day of was 7DMT because we did it once standby right before our MVMCP night and everyone preferred other rides. All other rides we were able to add with reasonably short waits (sometimes we would just go watch a show or grab a snack to fill some time).
It does take more patience and more flexibility than refreshing for a smaller group but it does work.
Now to the Hollywood Studios FP drops. I posted about it a few weeks ago but kind of tucked it away into another thread....didn't want to jinx it for my trip. It is something I watched for weeks leading up to my trip and now can say that for at least 5+ weeks it has worked including during my trip. Every day that I have checked I have noticed 2 FP drops for HS for all of the TSL rides. Same times every day. At 9:31AM it opens up a lot of FP times for all TSL rides including SDD for FP's between 11-12 (start times). At 2:31PM it drops FP's for TSL for 4-5. We used these drops both times one day for SDD. Again we broke it up into 3/4 because I didn't want to risk it not working on a larger group so I do not know how well it works for groups larger than 4. I watched again this morning at 9:31 and it worked. To note, if SDD is down in the morning there is a chance it might not be included in the FP drop (noticed this 1 time a couple of weeks ago). I also do not guarantee this will continue to work but it has been consistent and it did work for us.
I just wanted to post because I do tend to promote refreshing as a great way to plan a trip but also know that many groups are larger than my normal group.
