“Refresh” is my new favorite strategy

[TBGOES2DISNEY]

THose of you that are able to play around with FP, do you have an AP? I can only look for FP within my trip dates, so I obviously can't practice looking for availability ahead of time during the day.

 

[mamamelody2]

I am here today and refresh was amazing. Granted, I am traveling by myself, but I hit three parks and got what I wanted everywhere. In AK this morning I was able to get safari and Navi after using my first three. Then I moved to MK after lunch, where I rode my favorites pirates, Ariel, Winnie, and haunted mansion. I saw thunder and space, but I wanted all my fast passes starting within the next 5 minutes of tapping the last one, so I was being picky. Last I moved to Epcot where I got test track, Soarin twice, Frozen, and then Space Ship Earth.

I am solo again tomorrow, so I cannot wait to see what I can ride again.

Wow, sounds amazing!

 

[JETSDAD]

THose of you that are able to play around with FP, do you have an AP? I can only look for FP within my trip dates, so I obviously can't practice looking for availability ahead of time during the day.

My AP expired in May but I have 4 tickets I can play around with that are in my account for family members for our trip in December (when I'll likely get another AP).

 

[brianphill77]

Finished our very first trip yesterday, and this strategy has worked pretty well all week. Thanks to this thread and the other info on this board for all the tips and advice on this strategy!

One thing I found out almost too late is that, at least for me, the web site in a browser was much faster than the app. All week I’ve just defaulted to the app, and it’s a bit slow on each refresh. Selecting a new time takes several seconds before new options pop up. Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about this thread and the discussion of app vs. web site and decided to try the web - and I wish I had so much earlier! It was way faster, the time it took to refresh dropped to just a couple of seconds. I was able to get 2-3x the attempts in the same period of time, which increased my success in finding new options, especially when I had a FP already and wanted to move up the time. I would not have guessed the web site would be so much faster, I just assumed the app would be faster.

This was on an iPhone 7, using the standard Safari browser. Was looking for 4 people, very rarely tried splitting our group, that just felt like a hassle.

One other odd thing I noticed, that occurred to me because of the previous discussion of trying on wi-fi vs. cellular. 2 days ago I was trying to get Test Track around 2pm, just could not get it. Tried many hundreds of times over 45 min or so, then gave up. Same yesterday, around 1pm tried hundreds of times over 25min, nothing. Then we got on the bus, so put the phone away until we pulled away. All other attempts (yesterday and the day before) had been on park or resort wi-fi, but on the bus I was now on cellular. Very first attempt on cellular, Test Track pops up. Probably a coincidence, and only one data point. It just seemed odd that the of all those attempts, the first one that’s on LTE works. If I were here longer I’d try more switching between the two to see if it made a difference.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Finished our very first trip yesterday, and this strategy has worked pretty well all week. Thanks to this thread and the other info on this board for all the tips and advice on this strategy!

One thing I found out almost too late is that, at least for me, the web site in a browser was much faster than the app. All week I’ve just defaulted to the app, and it’s a bit slow on each refresh. Selecting a new time takes several seconds before new options pop up. Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about this thread and the discussion of app vs. web site and decided to try the web - and I wish I had so much earlier! It was way faster, the time it took to refresh dropped to just a couple of seconds. I was able to get 2-3x the attempts in the same period of time, which increased my success in finding new options, especially when I had a FP already and wanted to move up the time. I would not have guessed the web site would be so much faster, I just assumed the app would be faster.

This was on an iPhone 7, using the standard Safari browser. Was looking for 4 people, very rarely tried splitting our group, that just felt like a hassle.

One other odd thing I noticed, that occurred to me because of the previous discussion of trying on wi-fi vs. cellular. 2 days ago I was trying to get Test Track around 2pm, just could not get it. Tried many hundreds of times over 45 min or so, then gave up. Same yesterday, around 1pm tried hundreds of times over 25min, nothing. Then we got on the bus, so put the phone away until we pulled away. All other attempts (yesterday and the day before) had been on park or resort wi-fi, but on the bus I was now on cellular. Very first attempt on cellular, Test Track pops up. Probably a coincidence, and only one data point. It just seemed odd that the of all those attempts, the first one that’s on LTE works. If I were here longer I’d try more switching between the two to see if it made a difference.

Thanks for the first hand reports. Yes, what works best seems to change dynamically so always good to switch things up if you aren't getting what you'd like.If you go back, next time consider the Chrome or Firefox browsers for your Iphone as another option.

Glad that overall it worked well for you.

 

[Aron1012]

Was standby more than an hour?

Actually it was 85 min the day I was trying. Very surprising......but most importantly that hour spent refreshing was in a comfy chair at Poly pool in shade with a frozen beverage.

 

[LadyDiznee123]

You'd be very surprised at how little the average Disney World guest knows about Fastpasses. I helped a family plan a Disneyland trip and emphasized probably 10 different times the value of Fastpasses. I checked in with them after day 2 and they hadn't even made a single one.

Wow. Wouldn't common sense dictate how valuable the advise of an experienced visitor is for ANY vacation destination. Wow. I guessed they favored standing in lines.

 

[LadyDiznee123]

I always book 3 FP's that I would most want (hardest to get) just in case. Really though, the 1st FP is the important one to me. We typically start modifying as soon as we tap our first FP. For the most part we don't hop all over the park....we will choose an area and then just get FP's for that area....when we decide to move to another part of the park we start looking for FP's there. There are certain rides that we will take anytime and make a special trip across a park for (FOP being the obvious one right now). My wife's favourite ride is TSM so we will ride it 3 or 4 times in a row. At EPCOT we often do the tier 1 FP's twice in a row before moving on (after using our first 3 FP's asap). There are times when I get nervous dropping certain FP's and risk not being able to find them again but I trust the refreshing system. I do know that others find it more difficult so I would never tell anyone to not book 7DMT or FOP (those will normally be my 1st FP in those parks) especially for people who may not visit very often. Play around ahead of time to see what sort of results you have and then at some point just give it a shot.

Thanks for your more detailed post. Hoping others will also post some more
examples.

 

[Klayfish]

Was in MK today and had mixed results. It rained, so that put a monkey wrench in things. Got Space, Haunted, BTMRR (we were literally the very next people who were going to board the train when they shut it down for weather...rats). Tried BTMRR a second time via a last second FP+, and yep...rain again. That one turned into an anytime FP+. The system must have been having issues because after we used the anytime FP+, it still showed. Used it again, and it STILL showed. So we got a few freebies.

 

[garthbarth1]

I wondered that, walking past an hour long line at TT where I had gotten an FP 20 min earlier.

To those who haven't tried this yet, please be a little bit cautious here. Don't ditch your RD plans and sleep in on your FP booking day just yet. Refreshing is a variable experience. People don't seem to have the same experience with how easy it is to get the harder to get FPs. It blows my mind to see people saying 5-10 for everything including headliners. I've been refreshing for the last two trips during May (definitely not a crowded time) and my experiences is 5-10 mins for everything expect for 7DMT, FEA, FOP, Navi, and KS at dusk. Some of the M&Gs were more like 15 mins of refreshing. I also have difficulty in the morning getting times that are earlier than afternoon I was not able to move up things like EE). I was able to get FPs I listed after about half an hour of refreshing so the pps warning about spending too much time on the phone was something I felt came into play sometimes. I spent half an hour at dinner trying to get FEA for DS5 and DH (so party of two) because DS really wanted to go on it again. I was happy to do it that once but I don't want to spend half an hour each meal doing that.

All that said, I still loved rolling FPs, it worked great for us for everything other than the hardest to get rides. I did also get FOP after 10 mins of refreshing once which was awesome but the second time I got it, it was more like half an hour so I feel like I just got lucky that first time. So for us, I really need to prebook FPs for those hardest to get rides or I would either have to spend a ton of time on my phone to get them or be disappointed. There are also reports here of people not having luck with the mountains and other popular but not top of the tier rides. So try it out before you bank on being able to get anything you want If it works great for you and 5 mins is all it takes then cancel all your FPs and sleep til noon. If not, you're at least covered with good pre-booked FPs and you should at least get a lot of good middle tier rides at a mnimum by refreshing and you'll probably do better than that.

Oh and we're a family of 5 with not everyone being a thrill seeker so sometimes I'm looking for 5 and sometimes as few as 2.

 

[garthbarth1]

great info!! If there are no FP available, then this method does not work, correct? It only works on rides with availability??

 

[bryanb]

great info!! If there are no FP available, then this method does not work, correct? It only works on rides with availability??

If a ride has availability, you can grab a FastPass for it immediately. Then, refreshing is faster because that attraction is listed at the top and you don't have to scroll down with each refresh. But it can still work to snag a hard-to-get attraction where the FPs have been fully distributed. You just have to work harder to refresh, and be lucky that you've loaded the screen at the same moment someone else's reservation was released.

 

[Mome Rath]

great info!! If there are no FP available, then this method does not work, correct? It only works on rides with availability??

No, that's the great thing; if is says it's out for the day you don't have to believe it. It doesn't always work, but it's worth trying.

 

[garthbarth1]

If a ride has availability, you can grab a FastPass for it immediately. Then, refreshing is faster because that attraction is listed at the top and you don't have to scroll down with each refresh. But it can still work to snag a hard-to-get attraction where the FPs have been fully distributed. You just have to work harder to refresh, and be lucky that you've loaded the screen at the same moment someone else's reservation was released.

great thank you!!!

 

[garthbarth1]

No, that's the great thing; if is says it's out for the day you don't have to believe it. It doesn't always work, but it's worth trying.

thanks so much!!

 

[goofygal531]

I’ve done the refresh/modify at 60 days out to get the exact time I’d like. However, I never knew you could repeat FP+ after the first three. Years ago, when the FP+ system was introduced, you could not get a 4th FP+ on an attraction you have already had a FP+. This is new to me! This is what my kids have always wanted!

After you use your initial three FP+, each additional is still one at a time? Regardless of tier?

 

[disneygirlsng]

I’ve done the refresh/modify at 60 days out to get the exact time I’d like. However, I never knew you could repeat FP+ after the first three. Years ago, when the FP+ system was introduced, you could not get a 4th FP+ on an attraction you have already had a FP+. This is new to me! This is what my kids have always wanted!

After you use your initial three FP+, each additional is still one at a time? Regardless of tier?

I don't remember that ever being the case. I went when they were testing FP+ and very shortly after it fully started and both times I was able to get repeat rides.

But yes, still one at a time.

 

[Love Tink]

I don't remember that ever being the case. I went when they were testing FP+ and very shortly after it fully started and both times I was able to get repeat rides.

But yes, still one at a time.

For the first several months after the system launched, you could only get three per day.

 

[Mrspeaks]

I have always booked my first FP after lunch into the afternoon. I see now I need to change my strategy. I still think when things are walk on right at rope drop it makes sense to ride them then, but I also see the need to get through them now! I’m torn with when to start! 10ish?

 

[jwolfpack]

I have always booked my first FP after lunch into the afternoon. I see now I need to change my strategy. I still think when things are walk on right at rope drop it makes sense to ride them then, but I also see the need to get through them now! I’m torn with when to start! 10ish?

I've had a similar strategy in the past. This time, I'm thinking we'll ride everything we can 9-10 on standby, then have our first FP 9:15-10:15 or so and ride at tail end of that window. We'll use our 2nd FP (10:15-11:15) on the front end of the window and then try to refresh to pull FP#3 forward.