Overall FP Strategy for Early September

DisneyDeb83

Mouseketeer
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Wondering what ideas you guys may have for choosing FP. We arrive late evening on Friday, September 6th. Normally I would be checking out all the crowd calendars to decide which parks on specific days, not that it was always reliable. Now with Galaxy’s Edge opening, is there really any logical way to plan?

I was considering totally avoiding DHS, not really in to Star Wars, and with most of the attractions being tier 1 I’m not sure it’s worth doing 3 FPs there. May try for a fourth or fifth day of, being I do love ToT and TSM.

Anyway, besides working around the Halloween parties, is there any other things I should be thinking of? We will be there for 8 nights. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
I arrive exactly one week after you, and was kind of wondering the same thing. Like you I had been considering totally avoiding DHS. I had originally planned 3 days of enjoying the F&W festival and Epcot. But now with all the construction and changes in FW, I might go to DHS after all. However, since I'm not into Star Wars, I just don't know what to do. Should a non-Star Wars fan even attempt to battle the crowds in DHS?
 
Interested to hear more from those going. I will be there 9/8-15. I also have no idea how to plan for crowds or if there will even be crowds. It does sound like early September is the perfect time to go. I decided not to do the HS 6am EEMH - I am not a morning person. At. All. Especially on vacation. My strategy is DHS in the evening on our arrival day with a 6:00 HBD dinner reservation and a SDD FP (I will make 2 throwaway FP for that morning so that I can make another FP after tapping in to SDD) - then we'll see how successful refreshing will be to get other FP or how long the standby lines are. We may or may not try to check out SWGE crowd dependent. If HS is too crowded our salvation is staying at BCV - we will walk home and stop at Jellyrolls or somewhere on the boardwalk for entertainment and cocktails. We will do HS again on our last day for SWGE - our flight doesn't leave until 8:30pm - if HS is too crowded again we'll spend the day by the pool or at a waterpark. Our week is broken up with parks in the morning, afternoon pool, then dinner and another park for the evening. I made a very laid back, flexible schedule which I think will work beautifully and will be able to adapt to crowded conditions or hopefully - expand for low crowds at other parks. My one question is whether it might be better to try SWGE during the week rather than on a Sunday.
 
It will be a huge or tiny problem to deal with crowds (depending on how diehard the star wars fan is) and FP in my opinion since Disney has confirmed that they will NOT offer FP for Galaxy's Edge for a few months after opening. I think this will cause the huge crowds to either A. Not do any fastpass and wait the supposed 10 HOUR wait for Smugglers run, leaving more for the other or B. get everything quick so they can have as much time to wait for Star Wars. However, if Disneyland is any comparison, according to my research, GE is a crowd vaccum and now most of DL is empty due to everyone going to GE. So really its your call.
 


We are arriving late August and staying through September 10th. The good thing is the parks, with the exception of Epcot, are opening super early. Our plan is to arrive as early as possible in the mornings and hope we can hit a few rides before using our FPs. I did make FPs starting around 9:30 or so to use up the FPs early so I can reserve more during the day. We do want to walk through SWGE at least once. HS is not our favorite park so hoping the other parks will not be as busy. But, who knows. We are just hoping to go with the flow and things will be fine. Hope you enjoy your trip!
 
We will also be there for a short weekend trip. We are there specifically for SW and Star Wars fans... but DHS just can't take crowds and DHS FP's are a waste with the tiers. We are getting up very very early for one morning of EEMH and then hopping away from DHS to AK where we will use our FP for that day. If we have the strength we will close the day with Food and Wine Fest in Epcot. Our 2nd Day is MK with FP and AM EMH likely followed by another round of Food and Wine Fest at Epcot... All of our crowd trackers indicate outside of DHS will be pretty low crowd wise, if you can get to MK or AK for 7AM Rope Drop I figure you can get a lot done before most are out of bed.
 
Thinking we will get to MK and AK for 7 am opening at least two days each, starting fast passes around 9 and then hanging out as long as we can get extra passes once we are done with the first three. Head back to hang out at OKW and then either Disney Springs or another Park after dinner. But, I have a feeling that getting up early may not happen!

DH does want to at least see Galaxy’s Edge, so I’ll probably try to get a fourth pass for one of the TSL rides and head over. We hate waiting in lines, maximum time I am willing to get in line for is 30 minutes, so we definitely won’t be doing anything in GE besides walking through.
 


I booked for my anniversary before they announced the early opening of GE and scored free dining. While very nervous at first about crowd levels, i'm starting to feel much better as the days go on. My FP selections opened for my upcoming 09/09-09/16 trip this morning and I had no problem getting a SDD on 09/11, FOP for 09/09 and 09/16, Test Track on 09/10, FEA on 09/12, and two SDMT and Peter Pans Flight on 09/12 and 09/15. Will be eating at Garden Grill on my Epcot days with both reservations at 8AM so will just head to Soarin in the morning when we are done. All FP for 2 people. I was on at exactly 7 AM and there was plenty of availability for all the hard to get rides. I only plan on trying to get into GE on 09/11 utilizing EEEMH and being at the park at 4:30AM. I'm as big a Star Wars fan as they come but would content with hitting Smugglers run, building a Light Saber, and then just walking around the land for 2 hours. I used my FP selections for SDD, Star Tours, and Muppets 3D starting at 10AM and will try to score one for RNRC and TOT after those are used up. I was actually looking at the After Hours event for MK on the 12th but with all the availability I figured it was just a monumental waste of money after scoring both for SDMT . But the way it seems to be shaping up right now things are looking pretty good for September..Maybe Disney will offer some more deals for fall but lets be honest, at this point most people aren't planning a big Disney trip 2 months out no matter how good the deal. Too many kids back in school and not enough time. Should be interesting either way
 
I was actually looking at the After Hours event for MK on the 12th but with all the availability I figured it was just a monumental waste of money after scoring both for SDMT .

If anything, do a MNSSHP instead of the After Hour night for Magic Kingdom. Not as empty but vastly different atmosphere with the Halloween stuff.

Had an easy time myself for fastpasses for my trip 9/6-9/15. Think only Monday 9th Slinky Dog's earliest time was 4pm, but on Wednesday 11th I could have had a morning Slinky Dog, but with having the Halloween Party night before, got it for 2pm to sleep in. I did however put the tier 2 selections earlier so after Slinky can refresh to hopefully find other Tier 1's after.
 
Going for a week 9/7 - 9/14. I’m going to utilize the EEMH’s like I never have before. I didn’t even make any FP’s for HS. I’m hoping that getting to the front gate at HS before 6am will allow me to do everything I want ride wise in the first couple hours. I have no reason to step foot in GE. I’m an AP at Disneyland and have already experienced everything the land has to offer. Except for RotR of course (jealous of you Florida ppl getting it a month before us). So I want to do TSMM, SDD, RnR and ToT. Then I’ll park hop over to the park I made my FP’s for.
 
It will be interesting to see what happens week one, should help me in deciding whether we would even attempt a 6 am rope drop. Not worried about being able to get up, just don’t know if I’m game for joining in with all the crazy people heading over there! If we do, we will also avoid GE and try to get the tier ones done.

I have no FP scheduled there, but still planning on trying for a fourth later on in the day.
 
We'll be there 9/8-9/14...I did book FPes for the Studios for 3 days (we all want to ride SDD, TSM and RnR), but we also had enough time to book FPes at AK (FOP), MK (7D and SM), and Epcot twice (Soarin' one day and Test Track the other--aside: I do hate the tiers--especially at the Studios!)...we're mostly going for R&R, F&W (my DS and DDL) and just being at Disney...the rest of the FPes don't concern us overmuch...as for Galaxy's Edge--we all want to see it and if we can, ride Smuggler's Run--and w/3 days of Studios FPes (including one early morning FP and one evening FP) we're just hoping that between EEMH (we are early morning people--I typically get up at 4 a.m, AND we're staying at BCV so we can walk over pre-dawn) and unpredictable crowds we'll get a chance to do so...it's awfully hard to tell right now, and the DL experience is so unexpected--makes one wonder if any of us can predict what will happen at WDW...
 

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