Refresh did NOT work for us

[Disneylover99]

We were there Aug. 15-31. We had some success refreshing for the four of us and I had a bit better success refreshing for two people. No big headliners though. Refreshing worked much better for us last summer.

 

[Mamapapa]

Through refreshing - over the course of about 2 minutes just managed to grab a 1:50 Soarin' FP for 2 people, which I successfully modified to a 1:30 fastpass for Soarin' (and then dropped it for someone else). Next, I scored a 4:40 Frozen FP for two people, which I managed to modify into a 1:30 Fastpass for Frozen (that I again dropped for someone else). I'm tempted to try my luck at AK and DHS, just to see what is possible at those parks. But my limited takeaway is that there is availability via refresh with limited effort.

This is simply not how it worked for me last week. I just want to make sure people don't read posts like yours and assume they will be equally as lucky, as it might not happen. Obviously I hope everyone is as lucky as you are! But last week, we were not, and I had false expectations of "refresh" based on the non-stop posts from people saying they could get everything they wanted (except headliners at times) in a matter of a few minutes of refreshing. It simply doesn't work like that for everyone.

 

[Bork]

We were there from Aug 25-Sep 2 for 4 people. I had good luck with refresh without spending a lot of time on my phone, just while waiting in line or waiting for the family at bathrooms. We got FOP twice, 7DMT once and many other headliners. FOP was the only one that took a while to get. But you won't have much luck the last few hours before closing. It seemed to be easier on rainy days when many people left or during Food and Wine (People seemed to be in world showcase, so future world rides were easy to get, even Test Track).

We probably used 6-8 FPs a day, to avoid the longer lines.

The other thing I found is that if you want a 4th FP+ for a ride, take any time you can get. It was much easier to move earlier once you get it.

 

[gharter]

[QUOTE="
And this is exactly why I posted this thread - so people would understand that this is simply not the case for everyone. Some of you are lucky and get FP's in a matter of minutes, some of us tried over multiple days and got nothing. After reading so much about this on Dis, I never thought I would get absolutely nothing of value to pop up in 7 days, but that was what happened. I agree with the person who said it was 98% luck!!![/QUOTE]

We have tried this on several occassions. I agree it is a lot of luck. Some trips, we have had great success, others, not so much. It really depends on how many people are cancelling other FPs. It seems to work better on busy days, as obviously more people there to cancel and change FPs.

 

[Christine]

This is simply not how it worked for me last week. I just want to make sure people don't read posts like yours and assume they will be equally as lucky, as it might not happen. Obviously I hope everyone is as lucky as you are! But last week, we were not, and I had false expectations of "refresh" based on the non-stop posts from people saying they could get everything they wanted (except headliners at times) in a matter of a few minutes of refreshing. It simply doesn't work like that for everyone.

Good to put this out there. I was at Disney late July/early August (busy time) but had no success (or at least not for what I wanted). I spent a LOT of time trying.

 

[goodeats]

We had some luck with refreshing, but not enough to make me want to keep my face in my phone through out my vacation. I almost walked into a wall a couple of times!

For us we generally used our first three FPs by 2:00 and then took a break. I did not have luck moving up our headline FPs that we prebooked so we were stuck waiting around. I would be able to find a 4th FP for when I knew we were coming back, but rarely a headliner. 5th, 6th FPs were also doable at MK, but all the headliners were gone at that time of the night. Jungle Cruise, Pirates, HM, Buzz, etc were all doable but I had no luck getting BTMR (even though the queue was never very long for this), Splash, Space, or 7DMT.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

That must be it. We never look for more than 3, and that's when DGD is with us. It's normally just DH and I. There are never days when we can't find 4th, 5th, 6th, etc FP. Without keeping our noses in the phone. I'd say almost every single time I have our next FP done by the time we enter the ride we just scanned in for. So we'd not be doing anything else anyway, other than walking through a line

This is exactly what I did. I pulled our TT FP+ while waiting for the bus back to our resort from AK. Snagged Soarin' while waiting for the design room at TT and snagged FEA while waiting to be loaded for Soarin'. It's usually just me and DS10, so refreshing while standing in line talking with him is easy.

 

[Roxyfire]

This is exactly what I did. I pulled our TT FP+ while waiting for the bus back to our resort from AK. Snagged Soarin' while waiting for the design room at TT and snagged FEA while waiting to be loaded for Soarin'. It's usually just me and DS10, so refreshing while standing in line talking with him is easy.

Same here, I usually just hand the phone off and say "find something" and sometimes it's good, sometimes he trolls me with something awful. All in good fun though.

 

[icesk8abc]

I think flexibility has a lot to do with it too. Sitting here at the hotel while the kids nap, I spent about 5 minutes trying to get us FP+ for TSMM. I’m that time I had refreshed with nothing of value, some slinkies, some aliens, and several TSMM. Problem being we are sitting here having nap. I was able to get the time we wanted in about 5 minutes, but someone with more flexibility could have gotten many more options. I think it’s worse if you are looking for something specific rather than “let’s see what we can get.”

 

[AngiTN]

Not only could I bot get 4th FP, it couldn't even move my first few passes forward due to no availability. I started with the moving forward option, when that didn't work I tried the 4th FP after tapping for the 3rd FP and still got nothing. The one day in my example it was later in the evening, but other days it was earlier and I never had any success.
And this is exactly why I posted this thread - so people would understand that this is simply not the case for everyone. Some of you are lucky and get FP's in a matter of minutes, some of us tried over multiple days and got nothing. After reading so much about this on Dis, I never thought I would get absolutely nothing of value to pop up in 7 days, but that was what happened. I agree with the person who said it was 98% luck!!!

Here's what's odd. You say last week? If you mean "last week" as in some time starting 8/29 and going through 9/4, then we were there the same exact days. If it was earlier than that, then I guess it was just different those days. If it was overlapping days, and we did find more FP, so what was different?
The numbers in our party is all I can think of
Heck, we weren't even looking early in the day since DH and I do not rope drop. We didn't start to look for additional FP till after 1, 2 in the afternoon.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Well, for me it does have a big impact on my enjoyment of my trip. I love doing it - for me it's like playing a game. My kids get into it too; they love showing me up by grabbing the time we want on their first refresh when I've been trying for five minutes. I would say it definitely adds to our fun.

I guess if just depends whether one sees it as a chore/hassle or a game.

If you enjoy playing the game (I totally get it because I'm like that with my initial FP+ selections) then I can see how it can be enjoyable but clearly there are people that are not enjoying themselves and its because they don't find refresh to be fun but frustrating and that is making or breaking their trip.
My point is you can't make it the end all be all tool and get miserable if it doesn't work.

 

[MinnieMom85]

Just to throw in my experience from 9/3 (Labor Day). We had a party of four. Before our trip I was able to snag a 3 pm Peter Pan along with Belle and Pooh FP. We were not able to get a Mine Train before. All day I tried to refresh to move Peter Pan up and had no luck. It was fin, we enjoyed lunch at BOG and went about our day. After we rode PP, I was not able to get any of the headliners because I think the Halloween Party crowds starting coming in by 4 pm.

 

[MrBill64]

Here is my 2 cents. While there from August 17th-29th, we used refresh many times for 2 people. It worked great for us. Our last night, August 28th, I was sitting in the hotel room around midnight. I thought about trying to see if I could get FOP for August 29th in the morning, since we had a late afternoon flight the that day. I was able to snag FOP for 11:30am after about 5 minutes of refreshing. During the rest of our trip, I was able to get SDD, Soarin, TT, FEA, TSM, Alien Spin, Na'vi River for the same day after the rest of our FP's were used in the early afternoon. Can't say how it worked for MK as we didn't need to use it there. I must say I have a limited attention span, so if I didn't get a FP ride I was looking for within about 5 minutes, I would stop. Luckily that hardly ever happened

 

[AngiTN]

Just to throw in my experience from 9/3 (Labor Day). We had a party of four. Before our trip I was able to snag a 3 pm Peter Pan along with Belle and Pooh FP. We were not able to get a Mine Train before. All day I tried to refresh to move Peter Pan up and had no luck. It was fin, we enjoyed lunch at BOG and went about our day. After we rode PP, I was not able to get any of the headliners because I think the Halloween Party crowds starting coming in by 4 pm.

Sure. There's your answer. You were trying for an impossible situation.
On a Halloween Party day the FP distribution stops at 6:00 (or was it 5:00?). If you rode PP at 3:00, then there was no more time in the day to book FP left. Or not enough to have any pool to work with. That's not a fair comparison. I'd bet just about anything that if that was a normal park closing day, say 10:00, you'd found plenty FP.

 

[pitpat]

I find the different experiences interesting. Starting at 5pm (5 minutes ago) for 3 people, I have found Swirling Saucers twice and Toy Story Mania 3 times. That was in about 15 refreshes.

Star Tours, Indiana Jones, Frozen, Voyage of Little Mermaid and Muppets have come up just about every time. Fantasmic and RnRollercoaster have come up several times.

I can't understand trying for over an hour and "nothing" coming up.

 

[FairWahine]

Well, for me it does have a big impact on my enjoyment of my trip. I love doing it - for me it's like playing a game. My kids get into it too; they love showing me up by grabbing the time we want on their first refresh when I've been trying for five minutes. I would say it definitely adds to our fun.

I guess if just depends whether one sees it as a chore/hassle or a game.

It's like playing an electronic slot machine with a cool attraction as the prize.

 

[Roxyfire]

If you enjoy playing the game (I totally get it because I'm like that with my initial FP+ selections) then I can see how it can be enjoyable but clearly there are people that are not enjoying themselves and its because they don't find refresh to be fun but frustrating and that is making or breaking their trip.
My point is you can't make it the end all be all tool and get miserable if it doesn't work.

You make a good point and everyone has to judge on their own. Some people don't like advance FP+ at all because they feel it wedges them into a plan. It's all a matter of perspective, I see it as an option or a guarantee that if nothing else we can do these three things. If we find we don't want to or can't do these things, we don't have to. Perhaps an issue is that some are already mentally exhausted before they even arrive because they're worried about making everything perfect for everyone. I only go with two, I can't imagine a large group with multi generation or various families. If you want to do more, the option is there. If you don't, great, do what makes you happy. My only complaint is when people get somewhat judgey on others how they spend their time. If something doesn't work out for one group but does for another, it doesn't mean someone has their priorities out of line (too much time on their phone, ignoring their family, etc).

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

You make a good point and everyone has to judge on their own. Some people don't like advance FP+ at all because they feel it wedges them into a plan. It's all a matter of perspective, I see it as an option or a guarantee that if nothing else we can do these three things. If we find we don't want to or can't do these things, we don't have to. Perhaps an issue is that some are already mentally exhausted before they even arrive because they're worried about making everything perfect for everyone. I only go with two, I can't imagine a large group with multi generation or various families. If you want to do more, the option is there. If you don't, great, do what makes you happy. My only complaint is when people get somewhat judgey on others how they spend their time. If something doesn't work out for one group but does for another, it doesn't mean someone has their priorities out of line (too much time on their phone, ignoring their family, etc).

Totally agree about people being mentally exhausted from trying to make everything perfect.
I like to keep everyone happy in my day to day life but at Disney when I'm with 10-14 people I plan stuff and if people don't like it they can feel free to venture off and do their own thing. I'd rather that then go crazy over the details trying to make it all work for everyone at all times.
Its a pity that people get so overwhelmed by it because it really is fun to me.

 

[Bork]

I think the key is planning ahead. We never bothered to move our first 3 FP+. Those were typically headliners, and I had a general touring plan based on those times (to limit walking). Once the first 3 were done, then I would get more and usually our 3rd FP+ wasn't until noon or 1 PM, so we weren't trying for 4th FP+ until the afternoon. Since headliners were done early when waits were short or using our first 3 FP+, we didn't need to refresh for headliners too often. But we did get them at times (Navi came up all the time and Soarin is pretty easy to get now).

The only one I really worked for was FOP. Staying offsite, had no chance at getting a FP+ before we arrived. Rode it once at rope drop and we weren't doing that again, so our only hope of riding again on our trip was getting a 4th FP+. And it did feel like winning the lottery when it finally came up. We called it the mythical FOP FP+ because we had never seen one in over a month of trying.

 

[Babs1975]

I think this thread is just as important as the one that says refresh is their new best friend. The truth is, it sometimes works and you may get lucky with a headliner, but you also may not. And it is very important to those of us that only have a trip to WDW say every two years like I do. I really have to think how I am going to make my FP'S at 60 days out. I can't just rely on thinking that the refresh strategy will definitely work and plan all FP's for the morning because I'll be able to get some of those headliners later. I might be able to. But I just can't risk that! Not when I only have one day in that park. So I think it's a great strategy to try and we do use it with some success some days but other days not so much.