Refresh did NOT work for us

[FairWahine]

Thank you for the clarification! But do you have to use the extra one before getting another?

Yes. Right after you scan into your current FP attraction. Because even with a FP there are a few minutes in line. That's when I go look to add the next one. I think I'm having so much good luck because I'm looking for 1-2 people. It doesn't sound like it works as well for larger groups.

 

[ColoradoMom12]

It usually only works for us at MK, and even then I’ve learned to not expect anything great. We’re at least able to ride things like Barnstormer and Small World with FP. Once I got Peter Pan at 3 in the afternoon so I felt lucky there. Usually with the major attractions, if there’s availability at all, it’s really late.

Sometimes I can’t even look for additional FP because MDE is acting so glitchy...at least when the map location feature is glitchy it’s funny (my DD always gets a laugh out of seeing our location in the middle of the savannah) but when we’re trying to check for FP and it gives me the “get started” screen along with the “please try again” error at the bottom, it’s not funny at all. Here’s to hoping it cooperates in two weeks. I don’t want to waste our time at the FP kiosk.

 

[AngiTN]

Yes. Right after you scan into your current FP attraction. Because even with a FP there are a few minutes in line. That's when I go look to add the next one. I think I'm having so much good luck because I'm looking for 1-2 people. It doesn't sound like it works as well for larger groups.

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

 

[nkereina]

I thought you got your initial three FPS, then when they were used you could get one more? Am I missing something??

That's correct. What people will do is book their first three right in a row in the morning. After they get in line for FP1, they will modify FP2 and move the window up so they can go straight to FP2 after exiting FP1. Then they do the same with FP3, while in line for FP2. While in line for FP3, they will search for FP4. And so on for the rest of the day. I've seen people use 8-10 FPs or more doing this, but success is not guaranteed.

 

[sunsetbeachgal]

Yikes that’s an awful lot of time on your phone. I’m here now and crowds are pretty low. But I can’t tell you how many children I have seen being completely ignored by parents who are glued to their phones. And I think it has more to do with just trying to get more fast passes....

 

[AngiTN]

Yikes that’s an awful lot of time on your phone. I’m here now and crowds are pretty low. But I can’t tell you how many children I have seen being completely ignored by parents who are glued to their phones. And I think it has more to do with just trying to get more fast passes....

I think they are just ignoring their children. I see that when they AREN'T at Disney. So they aren't trying to get more FP

 

[kaytieeldr]

Thank you for the clarification! But do you have to use the extra one before getting another?

You can have three at a time.

 

[pitpat]

But I can’t tell you how many children I have seen being completely ignored by parents who are glued to their phones. And I think it has more to do with just trying to get more fast passes....

They are probably posting on FB about what an incredible time their family is having.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I really didn’t keep trying after day 3 this week. We don’t need FP for much anyway.

 

[richmo]

Had pretty good success in mid-August. I even saw a Flight of Passage pop up, but I had to turn it down since it conflicted with an 'Ohana dinner I wasn't about to give up. Later in the day I think its a lot less likely to see the headliners popup, but I had pretty good success adding additional FP's.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Yikes that’s an awful lot of time on your phone. I’m here now and crowds are pretty low. But I can’t tell you how many children I have seen being completely ignored by parents who are glued to their phones. And I think it has more to do with just trying to get more fast passes....

We were there just a few weeks ago and were able to easily book 10-12 FPs each day for a family of 5. I rarely spent more than 5-10 minutes at a time looking for a decent ride and time. I was able to get everything I wanted in all 4 parks except for Navi River Journey. That's the only standby line over 10 minutes long that we had to wait in.

As mentioned earlier, the best strategy is to pick the first available time for the attraction you want, then refresh a few more times to move that time up. It was amazing how quickly I could get something like Test Track for 8 pm, then click a few more times and move it up to within minutes of the current time.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Hmm. I tried "refresh" for the first time during my trip this past week and was quite successful.
I had 2 people which of course makes it easier than with a larger group.
I think one thing that helps or hurts if what attractions you're looking for.
For example TT is gonna be much harder to get than Soarin'.
SDD is gonna be much harder than TOT.
We had success getting Soarin, TT, Figment, and TOT for times that lined up exactly how we wanted.
It was not difficult at all. we literally just kept hitting the same time over and over while walking and things would pop up.
There was a 15 minute wait for Figment so we stood outside of the line for 2 minutes and one popped up for 5 minutes later so using the 5 minutes grace period we entered the line immediately.
We sat at Canada for a few minutes after having some soup and decided to check for TOT before heaing to HS and within 2 minutes we found a window for it that opened in 30 minutes which was great since that's about how long it would take to get over there and in the park.
The wait for that was 45 minutes and we breezed on by the SB line.
If nothing is available then nothing is available and we are not spending more than a couple of minutes to check. I wouldn't obsess over it or it would put a damper on the trip.

 

[Louie7080]

I've never had much luck with refreshing either despite looking hard for large chunks of time while waiting in line or to being seated at a restaurant. I went in June (when crowd levels were about a 6 and I don't think they were doing any extreme staff reductions or lowering of capacity) and can't remember seeing any good fastpasses after my first 3 early ones were done. I was checking late morning through late afternoon. I have a really low end phone and though that probably isn't why, sometimes I wonder if it is because maybe it isn't fast enough? I know little about today's technologies and only use a cell phone while on a Disney vacation so don't know and probably am doing the refresh thing wrong too.

 

[monkyby87]

As everyone has mentioned, it’s never guaranteed and nobody knows the formula for when it will work and when it won’t. Just don’t give up on it, it does work at times.

 

[Robo]

Thank you for the clarification! But do you have to use the extra one before getting another?

You can have three at a time.

But, NOT “three-at-a-time” AFTER the initial first three.
After that, it becomes “one-at-a-time.”

 

[pigletgirl]

It's really the luck of the draw. You never know what will pop up and when.

 

[vinotinto]

We had some successes in the afternoons in July with a party of 2. My theory is that people changed their plans when they realized it was face-of-the-sun hot and they just wanted to relax in A/C somewhere/back at the resort/at the pool, so they changed their afternoon FPs for FPs in the evening. This opened up availability for that same afternoon.

If everyone sticks to their plans, then you won't see much; it'll be the same availability that you saw a few weeks before

 

[AngiTN]

Hmm. I tried "refresh" for the first time during my trip this past week and was quite successful.
I had 2 people which of course makes it easier than with a larger group.
I think one thing that helps or hurts if what attractions you're looking for.
For example TT is gonna be much harder to get than Soarin'.
SDD is gonna be much harder than TOT.
We had success getting Soarin, TT, Figment, and TOT for times that lined up exactly how we wanted.
It was not difficult at all. we literally just kept hitting the same time over and over while walking and things would pop up.
There was a 15 minute wait for Figment so we stood outside of the line for 2 minutes and one popped up for 5 minutes later so using the 5 minutes grace period we entered the line immediately.
We sat at Canada for a few minutes after having some soup and decided to check for TOT before heaing to HS and within 2 minutes we found a window for it that opened in 30 minutes which was great since that's about how long it would take to get over there and in the park.
The wait for that was 45 minutes and we breezed on by the SB line.
If nothing is available then nothing is available and we are not spending more than a couple of minutes to check. I wouldn't obsess over it or it would put a damper on the trip.

Right. It doesn't take much time at all. Seconds, less than 5 minutes of time at a time. I really think people are misunderstanding how long it takes

We were there just a few weeks ago and were able to easily book 10-12 FPs each day for a family of 5. I rarely spent more than 5-10 minutes at a time looking for a decent ride and time. I was able to get everything I wanted in all 4 parks except for Navi River Journey. That's the only standby line over 10 minutes long that we had to wait in.

As mentioned earlier, the best strategy is to pick the first available time for the attraction you want, then refresh a few more times to move that time up. It was amazing how quickly I could get something like Test Track for 8 pm, then click a few more times and move it up to within minutes of the current time.

Which is why I think it's way more to it than simply folks dropping FP
You'd have to see the refresh in action to get it but once you do, and you see the times pop up, come and go, you see it is not simply from people dropping FP.
Not the way the times come up in 5 min increments, especially when you are picking your initial FP at 60 days. The FP system simply does not show you every single available FP with every search. It's not possible that it does. No one will be able to convince me otherwise. Not with the way I've had results show up on my searches. I mean sure, sometimes it does but not 100% of the time.

 

[reluctantredhead]

I went in June (when crowd levels were about a 6 and I don't think they were doing any extreme staff reductions or lowering of capacity) and can't remember seeing any good fastpasses after my first 3 early ones were done. I was checking late morning through late afternoon.

We're a party of 2, we were also there in June, and had the same experience you did. But when we were there in April, we had fantastic luck using refresh...even got same day FOP, and one day at MK we got 12 and walked on rides pretty much one after the other, all with FPs. That made us unrealistically hopeful for June, I think. We don't know how optimistic we should be about our chances for our trip that's coming up in 2 weeks -- we weren't able to get FOP for 60+2 (this is unfortunately a short trip), but I keep hoping we may get it with refresh while we're there.

 

[1nonly]

THis is not exactly correct. Initially, you have three at a time. These are you initial selections. Once those three are used up, you are allowed to make another fastpass selection. But the caveat is that you only make one at a time from that point on. So once you use your three, you can get one more (the 4th). Once you use that 4th one you can get one more (the 5th)...and so on.
So, no, you don't always have three, just initially. But putting in the work, I'm sure you can seemingly have an endless amount, but it takes luck and perseverance.