Trial Club Level Fastpass+ Purchase Program Planning & Discussion

[tobin04]

Wait. What is this? Should I have known about this? We are staying CL beginning Nov 1 and I’ve never heard about this???

 

[Tessaf]

Wait. What is this? Should I have known about this? We are staying CL beginning Nov 1 and I’ve never heard about this???

Disney isn’t actually advertising this trial program. When I called and spoke to DSS they never mentioned it, I had to bring it up first. Honestly, I never would’ve know about the program if it wasn’t for blogs like this.

 

[burger315]

Disney isn’t actually advertising this trial program. When I called and spoke to DSS they never mentioned it, I had to bring it up first. Honestly, I never would’ve know about the program if it wasn’t for blogs like this.

I had to mention this to DSS when they reached out during their initial call. They were able to set a scheduled call to me at 90 days.

My big question now is that we are going Dec 31 - Jan 6th. My tentative plan is to buy 4 days and use for 1 park each day. Should I just start them at 9AM and use all 6 in a row? With the crowds I am not sure that we will get another FP after using the initial 3.

Thoughts?

 

[Tessaf]

I had to mention this to DSS when they reached out during their initial call. They were able to set a scheduled call to me at 90 days.

My big question now is that we are going Dec 31 - Jan 6th. My tentative plan is to buy 4 days and use for 1 park each day. Should I just start them at 9AM and use all 6 in a row? With the crowds I am not sure that we will get another FP after using the initial 3.

Thoughts?

I basically did all mine in a row with my free FP first and CL FP second starting at 9am. I know we probably won’t get a 4th free FP because most of our MK park days are also holiday party days and I’m sure a lot of FP will be gone for the afternoon times.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

I had to mention this to DSS when they reached out during their initial call. They were able to set a scheduled call to me at 90 days.

My big question now is that we are going Dec 31 - Jan 6th. My tentative plan is to buy 4 days and use for 1 park each day. Should I just start them at 9AM and use all 6 in a row? With the crowds I am not sure that we will get another FP after using the initial 3.

Thoughts?

Everyone likes to tour in different ways so that’s a really hard question to answer, but I generally started at 9am and just did them every hour on the hour. Easier for me to remember that schedule.

We did the Extra ones first and regular ones second because I know us too well - we’re ok with a schedule for the first part of the day but then after that all bets are off, so I wanted the ability to change them myself. Calling DSS to tinker with FPs in the park is not my idea of fun (and a quick way to annoy DW). But others do the opposite for various reasons that work for their styles.

We didn’t plan any park hopping... we hop a lot but it’s usually unplanned, so I didn’t try to plan any mixed park FPs.

Good luck!

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

I'm kicking myself for not booking the CL FP for Christmas week. We did it in September and it was not worth it at all due to the low wait times but Christmas is going to be insane! I already prepped our girls that we probably wont be doing SDD or FOP and they're okay with that. We are really planning on morning park days, lunch at the park then resort time. I have all my ADR's booked for lunch and was even able to get The Yachtsman for dinner one night. I really really want to call DSS and see if its still time enough for the CP FP but I went way way over budget for what was supposed to be a "Small, value resort trip". Now that I upgraded to CL at BC my budget is way blown. I did plan on hitting each park with extra magic hours and we are going to rope drop. Hope that works!!

 

[gottalovepluto]

Wait. What is this? Should I have known about this? We are staying CL beginning Nov 1 and I’ve never heard about this???

Tbh you’re too late, but as stated don’t feel too bad because Disney isn’t passing along any info about it if you don’t ask. Imho this needs to be booked by 71 days out minimum because DSS gets the FPs from the regular pool of FPs, therefore everything good for a Nov 1 time trip is prob gone by now making it definitely not worth the $50/person/day, 3 day minimum price. If you want to double check and see if good stuff is still available you could call DSS and ask them about the extra FP program that CL guests can purchase & if there is anything good still left for FP bookings but I REALLY wouldn’t get your hopes up.

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

@Jimmy Mouse
If your other car is the monorail, is your primary vehicle a Minnie Van?
So, enough sass,
I think you'll be fine. You still get fast passes for your trip. I would take the advice of every other smart person on these boards.
Book FoP First, then RD NR,
You get my drift. I think everyone will really enjoy the CL stay, especially since your Epcot and HS days will NOT be spent waiting in line just for buses. What a HUGE timesaver. And you just know that going to the values at the end of a long day is really going to suck the lifeblood out of you! Same for am trips to the parks.
Get what you can, RD what you can't, and hopefully you'll also get some great weather to enjoy SAB pool. (That alone is worth the extra $$$)
You also will not be lining up every day for some CS breakfast, it's truly one of the best perks of CL, having food right there prior to park opening. They also encourage you to grab snacks, so bring along a zip lock bag and save some cookies or rice krispie treats for the long Ines.
And congrats on Yachtsman, you will really enjoy your meal there!

 

[gottalovepluto]

I'm kicking myself for not booking the CL FP for Christmas week. We did it in September and it was not worth it at all due to the low wait times but Christmas is going to be insane! I already prepped our girls that we probably wont be doing SDD or FOP and they're okay with that. We are really planning on morning park days, lunch at the park then resort time. I have all my ADR's booked for lunch and was even able to get The Yachtsman for dinner one night. I really really want to call DSS and see if its still time enough for the CP FP but I went way way over budget for what was supposed to be a "Small, value resort trip". Now that I upgraded to CL at BC my budget is way blown. I did plan on hitting each park with extra magic hours and we are going to rope drop. Hope that works!!

Sounds like a solid plan and what a wonderful resort to really get some good resort time in come afternoon/evening!

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

@Jimmy Mouse
If your other car is the monorail, is your primary vehicle a Minnie Van?
So, e ough sass,
I think you'll be fine. You still get fast passes for your trip. I would take the advice of every other smart person on these boards.
Book FoP First, then RD NR,
You get my drift. I think everyone will really enjoy the CL stay, especially since your Epcot and HS days will NOT be spent waiting in line just for buses. What a HUGE timesaver. And you just know that going to the values at the end of a long day is really going to suck the lifeblood out of you! Same for am trips to the parks.
Get what you can, TD what you can't, and hopefully you'll also get some great weather to enjoy SAB pool. (That alone is worth the extra $$$)
You also will not be lining up every day for some CS breakfast, it's truly one of the best perks of CL, having food right there prior to park opening. They also encourage you to grab snacks, so bring along a zip lock bag and save some cookies or rice krispie treats for the long Ines.
And congrats on Yachtsman, you will really enjoy your meal there!

My primary vehicle is a lifted GMC 2500HD
I also think we will be fine. Honestly, the rides are not the most important part of the trip for us. That said, If our girls want to wait in an hour line then we will do it. I think a lot of good memories are made in line. It's valuable family time But hitting the parks early will insure we do get to do some of our favorites and I will FP what I can. My 7yo is the one that wanted Beach Club. Both girls love to swim and that's what we will do if the weather cooperates. I see that BC has a really nice pool bar also
We totally took advantage of the Atrium Club lounge last month. We had free dining so we ate breakfast daily at the resort which means we didn't have to come out of pocket for anything food related. Breakfast for 4 get expensive real fast so the extra cost for CL is totally worth it. Plus all the beer I can drink
I heard so much about the Yachtsman so I looked on our arrival day and a few dinner times were available. Easy enough!

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

Sounds like a solid plan and what a wonderful resort to really get some good resort time in come afternoon/evening!

We have been the open to close park people and our girls get worn out by mid evening. We are all looking forward to resort time and I think Christmas week will be the perfect week for it!

 

[KateMW]

Can somebody give me the DSS email again? I lost the email I emailed myself with their email on it.

Would love to get the pretty itinerary! Thx!

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Can somebody give me the DSS email again? I lost the email I emailed myself with their email on it.

Would love to get the pretty itinerary! Thx!

Here you go:

disney.signature.services@disneyworld.com

 

[BradChristian]

For anyone who has already completed their CL FPP stay/experience, I would be really interested in feedback on your experience in modifying any of your CL FPP's while in the park. Were you able to modify on the fly with decent selection (i.e. at least as good as you would be able to do on MDE yourself with same day fastpasses)?

I did call from the park to try and modify one of my fastpasses from Splash to Haunted Mansion - it looks like the cast member actually just added a fastpass for Haunted Mansion - the splash one never went away, but I didn't use that because my wife wasn't interested.

 

[jake1year]

Is anyone else having issues with their fp for your regular ones booked when you booked your extras? I can’t change or do anything with them now for 3 days. I’m not in my 60 days yet but I could change times, attractions for a couple days after booking though. Now I can’t do anything.

 

[BradChristian]

Hey Everyone!

Wanted to share a bit of my Club Level Fastpass experience from our recent trip. Having an AP this year - I was able to score some solid WL Club Level rates. Was PERFECT for this adults only trip.

My thinking for justifying the extra $400 was to cancel our Fantasmic Dining Package, Early Morning Magic and the Star Wars Dessert Party because we would have breakfast at the hotel, and open bar with desserts nightly - so no need for Star Wars outside of the reserved area. We had done the HEA dessert party, and didn't want to pay for that again to get a reserved area for HEA so that was the big thing that seemed to justify the money.

I knew that we would be traveling during the least busy time of year, so the fastpasses were more of a safeguard and convenience in booking before 60 days.

As has been stated before on here... The rolling 4th fastpass can be booked as soon as you use your initial 3 - HOWEVER - the earliest possible time for that is 3pm. The special fastpasses are in your MDE, and you can not double book during that time. Now - we ARE talking about the 7th fastpass of the day - which is really unnecessary. However - if you are person who loves to book back to back fastpasses as soon as your first 3 FPs are used... This is very frustrating. I feel like I used that many fastpasses before noon back during spring break when I booked 8am, 9am, and 10am - so I was booking 4th same day at 10:05am from the line!

However - I was trying to be more laid back during this trip - so I forced myself to rest and take in the ambiance while waiting for each FP window to open. However - The HIGHEST wait Space Mountain had was 20 minutes all our magic kingdom day - so that created a sense of wasting the money.

So - This comes back to the value of having reserved seating for Illuminations, Fantasmic, and HEA... We didn't do much AK this trip. You could tell they were winding down the reserved seating because I had he same experience everyone else had when it came to Illuminations and Fantasmic - NO castmembers knew what we were talking about, and the managers didn't have us on their list. I had to show the emails from DSS in each circumstance. Management was very polite and let us in, but it still awkward. Finally for HEA on our last night... I had DSS confirm that we were on the list, and that was nice! We were doing a last minute jungle cruise fastpass at 8:40pm and we still got into the viewing area with time to spare which we needed because they started HEA 5 minutes early due to a storm that was moving in.

So now they have taken away the reserved seating. That makes it REALLY hard for me justify it for your Magic Kingdom days... unless you are traveling during peak season and all party members need to do the headliners same day. However - with EMM being $85 a person... You still save $35 a person and you get to eat breakfast in your club level, and sleep in a little.

Our Magic Kingdom Fastpasses for the first day

By putting Space First - we were able to do Astro Oribtor with no wait at park open and you will notice that we did the fastpasses in a way I was booking the 4th at 11am.

They day that probably provided the biggest value for us was our Hollywood Studios day... Followed by EPCOT:

The parks with tiers give you the most value because the first 3 are impossible in that order and at those times. We opened the day with Walt Disney Presents and little mermaid all in between these fastpasses. The idea was to not have us running all over the park. We didn't even use the ToT fastpass, and I changed that to Muppet Vision - but Star Tours was walk on all that day - so the only value was really Toy Story Land. We were seated in the VIP section for Fantasmic - which was nice and center with nobody around us.


Our EPCOT day was interesting - because we did EMH in Animal Kingdom at 8am - we were delayed by bag check and wound up waiting about 80 minutes for FOP... so by the time we got to EPCOT we missed our Spaceship Earth Fastpass, but I was able to easily get it later in the day after we rode frozen. In retrospect - I would have done a special fastpass for FOP in Animal Kingdom at 9am and taken advantage of the face you can book multiple parks.

Hope this helps you guys!

 

[JLC123]

How long did you wait to book EMM? Do you have to book that right away??

I waited about two weeks after they released the dates. It was a busy weekend and they sold out. I’d just go ahead and get the tickets if you want to do it!

 

[JLC123]

I had to mention this to DSS when they reached out during their initial call. They were able to set a scheduled call to me at 90 days.

My big question now is that we are going Dec 31 - Jan 6th. My tentative plan is to buy 4 days and use for 1 park each day. Should I just start them at 9AM and use all 6 in a row? With the crowds I am not sure that we will get another FP after using the initial 3.

Thoughts?

I would if I were you. I tried to build in a buffer to change times and add more after the initial three and there just wasn’t anything available. It was too busy. It might work on a non-busy time, but this week was too crazy.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

Booked ours at 90 days and got everything we wanted for the exact times we wanted and that alone was worth it to me. I didn't have to sit at the computer waiting for the clock to turn and get frustrated! LOL!

 

[BradChristian]

Booked ours at 90 days and got everything we wanted for the exact times we wanted and that alone was worth it to me. I didn't have to sit at the computer waiting for the clock to turn and get frustrated! LOL!

I can see that for sure... I got antsy at 60 days because I was all - 'I feel like I should be doing something right now'