Refresh did NOT work for us

[LabMouse]

I could never get it to work for anything we wanted on a mid-June trip earlier this year, as a party of 2. Definitely never any headliners. The coolest thing I could get to pop up was that the Illuminations FP came up several times while I was trying for a Soarin' or Frozen at Epcot. Maybe it works better for those who can get their first 3 FPs knocked out early, but completing our 3rd FP around 2 pm like we did, forget it!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Just back from a week at WDW and wanted to let people know that I tried the refresh technique multiple times and was not successful once. I tried for anywhere from 1-7 people in multiple parks and never got any additional FP's to pop up. For example, one day at HS we were at 50's Prime Time (our waitress was insanely hilarious!) and I spent the entire hour and a half we were there refreshing looking for FP in groups of 2, 4 or 5 and the only options were Muppets, Frozen Sing Along and occasionally Fantasmic. This was from 5-6:30pm. Nonstop refreshing with zero results. Repeat at different times, at different parks, all week long. I am aware this works for some people, but I just want people to know it's not a guarantee. It was very frustrating to have such a complete lack of FP options....

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.

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.

I'd like to point out though that you were actually able to get rolling 4th FP according to your initial post. It was however as you said in your later post "nothing of value". That's not the same as saying you were not successful at all. Not successful to me would mean there was never, no matter when you tried, no matter how many people you selected, the MDE app reflected that all FP Distribution was done for the day for all rides.

You were actually successful in being able to book, at least at times, a rolling 4th FP but it just wasn't the one you wanted--what people want always varies. I certaintly sympathize with that as you can for sure get your hopes up and compounded I'm sure by reading about other's stories.

I will agree though with some PPs. Whenever I was modifying I played around a bunch because I knew in advance that the times shown weren't always all the times available. I will add though the later in the day you do your rolling 4th the less likely it becomes available.

 

[ClapYourHands]

Just wanted to say thanks for the post - and thank you to everyone who has posted here civilly with different viewpoints.

We're going in November, and even before this thread, I've been terrified that I won't be able to get refresh to work.

After agonizing over when to schedule my FP+, I went with a combination of late morning, early afternoon, and late afternoon on different days. We got the headliners we really want with the 60-day FP+, we'll use RD and EMH to try to secure the things we didn't get FP+ for, and then we'll try our luck at refresh. Maybe it will work, and maybe not.

I've been reminding myself that Disney, unlike Six Flags, isn't just about the rides. If I can't get a ride with FP+ and the lines are crazy, maybe that's a good time to see a show or get a snack. And now that my kids are older, they probably have better stamina to wait in standby than they did last trip, so that's an option, too, if there's something they really want to do.

 

[Louie7080]

I could never get it to work for anything we wanted on a mid-June trip earlier this year, as a party of 2. Definitely never any headliners. The coolest thing I could get to pop up was that the Illuminations FP came up several times while I was trying for a Soarin' or Frozen at Epcot. Maybe it works better for those who can get their first 3 FPs knocked out early, but completing our 3rd FP around 2 pm like we did, forget it!

That was mostly us - party of 2, went in mid June and don't remember getting any additional FPs that we wanted. We also had the illuminations one pop up but I don't like the FP area for illuminations.

 

[TIME4DIZ]

One thing I noticed is that I’d get different results with the app vs browser. I suggest switching to the other if one isn’t working for you.

Also, grab any tier 1 if it pops up and then modify that. It’s easier to search for Tier 1 FP with this technique because the Tier 1 will be at the top of the returned results.

And, grab any time for the FP you want and then modify. For some reason this works better than searching by time.

 

[DisneyDeb83]

And, grab any time for the FP you want and then modify. For some reason this works better and searching by time.

Exactly what we do. Say you want SDMT and it pops up for hours later. Grab it and then refresh to try to get a better time for earlier. If it is available, it will show up at the top, as opposed to you having to scroll down alphabetically. So it’s much faster.

We’ve been here since Monday and had very good luck with extra FPs for headliners. Three out of our five days we’ve gotten FOP after using our first three passes. Today it popped up 3 times after I took a 5:20 pm slot, but later instead of the earlier time we were looking for. Wasn’t much of a problem, as we hung out at MK and did standby for a couple hours before taking the bus to AK.

 

[Roxyfire]

Just wanted to say thanks for the post - and thank you to everyone who has posted here civilly with different viewpoints.

We're going in November, and even before this thread, I've been terrified that I won't be able to get refresh to work.

After agonizing over when to schedule my FP+, I went with a combination of late morning, early afternoon, and late afternoon on different days. We got the headliners we really want with the 60-day FP+, we'll use RD and EMH to try to secure the things we didn't get FP+ for, and then we'll try our luck at refresh. Maybe it will work, and maybe not.

I've been reminding myself that Disney, unlike Six Flags, isn't just about the rides. If I can't get a ride with FP+ and the lines are crazy, maybe that's a good time to see a show or get a snack. And now that my kids are older, they probably have better stamina to wait in standby than they did last trip, so that's an option, too, if there's something they really want to do.

I think its really important to keep that bolded part in mind. There's a lot of different ways to do FP, some want to pick their three favorites (regardless of popularity), others want to strategize to spend the least amount of time waiting, others want to secure headliners so whatever works for you and your family will be fine. And there's nothing wrong with a standby line, especially early in the morning or later at night.

As an aside, I tried various combinations of times and found (for us, but mostly me) that I like to schedule them at a certain time each day and take a break for a few hours to rest/ice my knees (nagging injuries). When we do this, I'm a much happier person. My son also enjoys going to the pool or hanging out at the resort. So we've moved away from trying an all day style to a more relaxed style. But not so relaxed that we don't make plans or anything like that. I try to have an idea of what we might do but ultimately, anything past late afternoon/dinner might be up in the air.

Bottom line, I think after a couple days you'll figure out your style once again. With your kids being older that changes things a bit too. Don't be afraid to adjust, after all it's supposed to be fun. All the planning is speculative, and plans are made to be broken.

 

[Mamapapa]

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

We were there 8/29-9/1 so we did indeed overlap! And your post is exactly my question - why do some people have luck and others don't?!! I never tried for our entire party of 7, but even trying for 4 people, down to 2 people and then one person, I still got nothing of value. Maybe this is where I should mention that we've gone four times in the last 10 years and I've also never gotten a PIN code!!

I'd like to point out though that you were actually able to get rolling 4th FP according to your initial post. It was however as you said in your later post "nothing of value". That's not the same as saying you were not successful at all. Not successful to me would mean there was never, no matter when you tried, no matter how many people you selected, the MDE app reflected that all FP Distribution was done for the day for all rides.

I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. To me, when all I can get to pop up is Muppets and Star Tours which each have a 5min posted wait (which we all knows means it's a walk on) then yes, I see that as not successful since a FP for a walk on ride is utterly useless.

One thing I noticed is that I’d get different results with the app vs browser. I suggest switching to the other if one isn’t working for you.

Great advice - except the app was down all week! We were in line behind a Disney Travel Agent at one point and she was moaning about the app, she said tons of her clients had been contacting her the last few weeks voicing complaints as the app was down 90% of the time. For us the website worked great - but only when the wifi was actually working!!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. To me, when all I can get to pop up is Muppets and Star Tours which each have a 5min posted wait (which we all knows means it's a walk on) then yes, I see that as not successful since a FP for a walk on ride is utterly useless.

Well, with all due respect, it's useless to you (probably many others too) but it's still an available FP to get.

When we're talking about the ability to get a rolling 4th FP there's a difference in getting exactly what you want for the times you want for the amount of people you want and an attraction being available period as opposed to FP distribution being done for the day. From a technical system standpoint there's a big difference. From a personal wants desires/standpoint those available FP meant nothing to you.


More or less my comments were aimed because you said you never got additional FPs to pop up for you. At least at times it was that they popped up for you it just wasn't FPs for attractions you wanted or the ride was listed as too low of a wait (which I totally get I experienced that myself last year).

I'd add that sometimes a FP, even for a walk on, can be advantageous ,depending on the person of course, if the amount of walking is reduced significantly depending on the particular ride For Fantasmic! the FP gets you a reserved area in the front (left hand side) section so someone may prefer that viewing section. I'd like to note for Fantasmic! I went during Irma the crowds were insanely low.........but the line for Fantasmic! was crazy and I mean crazy long I was shocked. Unfortunately it was rained out but I had been able to snag late FPs for it myself and would have been glad too given that line that people were lining up for well in advance.

It's neither here nor there in the end I'm just giving my opinion of your comments It's a good thread to keep people's expectations open about rolling 4th or ability to adjust the FP time

 

[crazedprincess]

We were there Aug 21-31 and refresh worked like a charm for us, party of 4. It did not take much time on my part, less than 5 minutes usually, and I loved doing it. It felt like a fun game to me. The only time we had to stand in a stand-by line was for SDD and it was 45 minutes. I just couldn't get a FP for that one. Oh and for some reason I couldn't get a Na'vi River one either so we stood in line for 30 minutes for that. But both were fun queues and the wait flew by. Other than those 2, we always had FPs or the rides/attractions were walk ons. I usually used Chrome browser for refreshing.

 

[LabMouse]

Well, with all due respect, it's useless to you (probably many others too) but it's still an available FP to get.

When we're talking about the ability to get a rolling 4th FP there's a difference in getting exactly what you want for the times you want for the amount of people you want and an attraction being available period as opposed to FP distribution being done for the day. From a technical system standpoint there's a big difference. From a personal wants desires/standpoint those available FP meant nothing to you.

To be fair, the people happily posting in the "Refresh is my new favorite strategy" thread aren't talking about getitng Muppets and Star Tours FPs, they're talking about Test Track, 7DMT, riding FOP 3 times in one day, etc. Those are just a few posts on the first page of that thread. I don't think those of us who have been unable to get such rides to pop up on refresh are engaging in hyperbole to say the strategy doesn't work for us.

 

[pitpat]

Is anyone who doesn't have luck with it an AP or able to mess around with same day FPs? I'd love for a few of us to pick a time to spend 5-10 minutes trying for same day FPs. We could pick a park and see what happens. I'd be up for it around 1 or 2pm.

My belief is with the same method at the same time, people should have the same luck, but only one way to find out.

 

[pitpat]

To be fair, the people happily posting in the "Refresh is my new favorite strategy" thread aren't talking about getitng Muppets and Star Tours FPs, they're talking about Test Track, 7DMT, riding FOP 3 times in one day, etc. Those are just a few posts on the first page of that thread. I don't think those of us who have been unable to get such rides to pop up on refresh are engaging in hyperbole to say the strategy doesn't work for us.

Even the people who have good luck with it admit FOP, SDD and 7DMT are much more rare. But yes, we certainly get much better options than the Muppets. Soarin, Toy Story Mania, Space Mountain, even Frozen Ever After are all fairly common with a little persistence.

 

[JPM4]

You basically have to spend a ton of time with your nose in your phone. I was there from Aug 23-31 and was getting things like splash and Btmrr at MK pretty regularly. At DHS TSMM was fairly easy changing the times around. I do agree that modifying an existing fast pass even for a ride you don’t want for whatever reason had more rides pop up. However it is very time consuming and I missed about the first ten minutes of the Indy show trying to get a toy story ride as well.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

To be fair, the people happily posting in the "Refresh is my new favorite strategy" thread aren't talking about getitng Muppets and Star Tours FPs, they're talking about Test Track, 7DMT, riding FOP 3 times in one day, etc. Those are just a few posts on the first page of that thread. I don't think those of us who have been unable to get such rides to pop up on refresh are engaging in hyperbole to say the strategy doesn't work for us.

I know I was in that thread for a while..

As I said I was responding to the OP saying they never got additional FPs to pop up for them. They did for the most part just wasn't the FPs they wanted. I think you're reading more into my comments--speaking towards the hyperbole part as I never talked about those rides.

I wasn't able to get FOP (outside of my pre-selected one for one day) when I was there with exception to September 9th when WDW released a bunch of FPs for FOP and NRJ as Irma was about there. Unfortunately I had my pre-selected FPs at MK that we were hopping to in the afternoon. Had I known the crowd levels I would have abandoned that plan and switched my FPs to AK but alas hindsight was 20/20 that day. But I got it other rides. But honestly? I wasn't uber choosy. FP refresh worked great for my husband and I but we were there during Irma. Just about everything was a walk on but I got those rolling 4ths a good amount. I def. passed on some FPs that were available because they weren't what I wanted-they were still ones that were available. I got FPs for rides that were walk ons if it meant I didn't have to walk through the whole queue- it's a small world for one. I got a rolling 4th FP for Winnie the Pooh when no one was in line, I got a rolling 4th for Under the Sea when no one was in line (and it was for a few minutes later), etc. Are those considered valuable to most people especially with a 5 min posted wait time (which normally means walk on)? No but I still was able to get the rolling 4th. JMO

 

[hiroMYhero]

Now that this thread has resorted to people booking ‘Day Of’ FPs from their homes a few thousand miles away and reducing ‘Day Of’ FPs for those who are actually in a park, closing this ‘best strategy ever that doesn’t work’ thread.