Where did you get this chart from?
Well, if I'm reading this right, and I like to think I am, this is probably what it means. SB Max means how long the standby wait is max during that time period; for example, the Pooh ride is a 60-90 minute wait time for standby at any time during the day, max. Continuing with the Pooh ride, if you get a fastpass for it at 9 am (left most column) then you can expect a return time at 10 am. If you get a fastpass for it at 10 am then expect a return time of 3 pm (15:00). If you get a fastpass 11 am then expect a return time of 6 pm (18:00) and so on and so forth. As you can see, there is nothing across getting a fastpass at 1 pm (13:00) because it most likely ran out by that time. These are all estimates but you can still use it.
So are FP rules the same as WDW/DLR legacy Fps, i.e., one FP at a time until the return time opens or two hours passes, whichever happens first?
My park days at TDL/TDS are 12-14 May. According to the crowd chart below, those are days with light crowds (Green, Blue, Blue).
My next question, from the same website. How do I read this chart?
Is it safe to assume that the first hour or two in each park will have relatively light crowds (especially in mid-May, a "slow" time) where you can hit some headliners at rope drop with little to no wait? I know TSMM will fill up quickly because it's a slow-loader and extremely popular, but what about fast loaders like BTMM and Splash? How quickly do the TDS-only rides load? 20,000, Journey, etc?
Also, if I'm reading those charts correctly, after the first FP return window opens, every FP after that will give me a two-hour return window, right?
I think that list is a good indicator of FP priorities.
Not sure if you've seen it, but on the same website, they provide the past attendence/wait times for the last few years.
http://www15.plala.or.jp/gcap/disney/jam.htm
If you go down the page a bit, it shows the real wait time at 3:30pm for each day of that month. That'll give you the idea which ones are popular so you should hit them first thing in the morning, and which ones are anytime filler.
I'm not familar with DL, but I've been to WDW a few times. First 2 hours of Magic Kingdom is diffinitely different from TDL. Even the busiest time of the year, MK is pretty easy to tour in the first couple of hours, but TDL is not that easy. I think it won't be as easy but you'll probably do fine because Mid May is a slower season. The key difference between them is most people in TDL know how to take advantage of FPs and early hours.
Well, you mentioned that you will be staying at a Disney hotel, so the 15 minute early entry to the both parks will help you quite a bit for touring.
Love the historical data, but not sure how to interpret them. I mean I can see that there are wait times, but I can't interpret any of the attraction names, even after English translation.
Signed,
The Ugly American
Google translate sort of messes up the name of the rides at the top of the chart so you will have to hover your mouse over the rides names to see what it's actually called (with the actual name or close to it). I'm using Chrome to do this. For example, after the weather and temperature in the 2nd and 3rd column is the Omnibus in the 4th column followed by Pirates of the Caribbean in the 5th column.
So, to add more complications to the planning, here is one more data point.
Realtime Wait time
This shows the actual wait times + real FP distribution time table in a 30 minute increment for the day you clicked on. If you click on a ride name, you can see the realtime data by 30 minute increment for the whole month to compare. Very powerful tool.
Yep, right before and right after the Golden Week is always a great time to go!