Since we’re only an hour away, we’re lucky. Last weekend, we went just to Hollywood Studios because we got Slinky Dog Dash Fast Passes.
We rode that one ride, and ate at Chicken Guy and went home.
But frequently, we’ve gone to the parks and ridden all the good rides with passes we made the morning of.
Making Fastpasses
A ton of Fast Passes open up the day of and the day before. There’s honestly not much movement prior to these days. If you can book 60 or 30 days out, great! You’ll probably score something good. But at 1 or 0 days, we’ve gotten tons of passes for high value rides like Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog, and 7 Dwarves Mine Train.
Just smash the refresh button in the app – if you keep looking and are persistent, you can hopefully get some good passes. Schedule less valuable passes around the good passes you get.
Eating
We tend to prefer the Disney Quick Service restaurants, especially on short notice trips. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to get a reservation for a restaurant, but – you might be able to walk up. We’ve also seen signs and cast members around at different parks offering day of reservations.
Rope Drop
If you don’t have great passes and still want to ride 7DMT, or Avatar FOP – get there early.
If you arrive before Rope Drop, you can rush to those rides and be among the first to ride. This will help you avoid the extremely long wait time that will build up during the day.
A great way to take advantage of Rope Drop and fast passes is to Rope Drop one park, and use your fast passes at another. If we Rope Drop Animal Kingdom, we’ll ride flight of passage, Everest, and Kilamanjaro Safaris. Then we can use our fast passes at Hollywood studios and ride slinky dog dash without the 90 minute wait.
Planning
While it’s important to plan – it’s also important to just enjoy yourself. As you get used to the flow of things, everything will be easier to plan and flow easier. Remember, you’re local. You can always come back if something doesn’t work out or you miss out on something. The park will be there!