*2020 has been really different for Disney World trip planning! Currently there are no fastpasses available to book. You must however reserve a spot for the day at a park when you purchase tickets. No park hopping is currently allowed! Stay tuned for more info on Fastpass when it comes available!

Whether you love them or hate them, FastPasses are here to stay at Disney World. Using these tips and tricks will hopefully help you have a more enjoyable and stress free Disney experience. We have been Disney Passholders on and off for several years now and have learned how to master the FastPass system…. So let’s dive in!

The very first thing you need to do is download the My Disney Experience App on your smartphone. Once you have the app dowloaded, you need to link your account and tickets for each person in your party. You can now begin booking FastPasses for your group! If you don’t have a smart phone you can make FastPasses online and also use the FastPass kiosks throughout each park while at Disney. *Note – FastPasses at Disneyland work differently than at Disney World! This is a guide for Disney World only!

What Even Is A FastPass?

A FastPass is a way for you to skip the standby line for any attraction at Disney World (this could be rides, shows or meet and greets). Every person who has a ticket for the day starts with three FastPasses. This is something that is part of your park admission, no up charge at all. It is amazing how many people go to WDW and do not realize this and because they don’t want to pay more they miss out on this perk.

Once you use your three FastPasses you are eligible to get more the day you are in the park! You can get these one at a time. Once you use the fourth, you can get the fifth. There is no limit on how many FastPasses you can get in a day.

It is important to know that just because you have a FastPass for an attraction it doesn’t mean that you will not still have a wait. For some of the more popular attractions the FastPass wait time can reach up to 20 minutes. One thing we hear from guests all of the time when they come to a longer FastPass line is the complaint “This is the FastPass line!?” Don’t be that person. This is still way better than a 2 hour wait. Sometimes the FastPass line even looks longer than the standby. Don’t be tempted to switch lines, you will ALWAYS get through the FastPass line before the standby line.

How Far Out Can I Make My Selections?

It depends on where you are staying. If you are staying off property, you can make your selections 30 days out. If you are staying at a WDW resort you can make your selections 60 days out. This is a major perk of staying on property. If you are staying at a deluxe resort at the Club Level you can make your selections 90 days out. We have never done this because of the price, but that option is out there.

You can start making FastPass selections at 7 am EST the day you are in that 30 or 60 day window. Make sure you have the app open right at that time because the good times go pretty quickly. Disney lets you plan all FastPass selections for the whole length of your stay (if you stay on property) on the first day of your window.

This leads to a HUGE TIP! When you are staying on property, always book your FastPasses starting with your last day and moving backwards. If you are staying for 7 days, you can book 60 + 7 days out. So, go day 7 then day 6 then day 5 all the way to your check in date. You won’t get great FastPasses for your first couple of days, but you will get GREAT ones most of the time for the end of your trips. Most people go to Magic Kingdom the first day anyway, and there are a ton more FastPass options there than the rest of the parks.

What Time of the Day Should I Book My FP?

We like to plan our FastPass selections as early in the day as possible. We do this because as soon as you are done with your initial three, you can make another selection. As soon as you use that one up, you can get another one.

If a park opens at 9 am, we try and get our first FastPass from 9-10, second one from 10-11, and third one from 11-12. If you do this, you can rope drop the park (be there when the park opens), ride a couple of rides stand-by until 9:55 – because there won’t be any lines (or the lines are significantly shorter) – then ride your first FastPass. We would typically ride the next FastPass right after so we can be ready to ride the third one right at 10:55 (they give you five minutes before and typically 10 minutes after your slotted time). As soon as you scan your third FastPass you are eligible for another. You are getting to the FastPass reserves before most people have even used one or two of them!

How Do I Modify My FastPass?

The most important thing to take away from this whole post is how to modify your FastPass. This is a game changer and will help you get whatever attraction you want and most of the time during the time you want it, even the day of. This is a lot easier to do with smaller groups. Anything above 4 and it gets significantly trickier. If you have a larger group it is better to break that group up into smaller groupings and modify separately.

I just grabbed my phone, logged onto the My Disney Experience App, and tried it out. I started checking at 3:37 pm and by 3:43 pm I had a Flight of Passage FastPass for 4:05 pm that day. There is a good chance you can score great FastPasses the day of your visit!

Because people are constantly changing their FastPass selections during the day, this works best on the day you are in the park. If you learn this, there is not a park you cannot ride every ride in a day if you wanted to. I used this technique to ride 43 attractions in one day at WDW. It works and it is simple.

Steps for Modifying FastPass:

1. Open your MDE app

2. Select the FastPass you want to Modify and choose “Modify”

3. Next, Select the people you want to Modify for and press continue

4. You will then be able to choose a different time or experience – what most people do is they settle for whatever comes across on that first screen. Don’t settle for the first option the app gives you! Most of the time there are many other options and times available, you just have to take the time to find them. Simply select a different time slot until your desired time pops up!

Its always good to move your FastPass up every time an earlier time slot becomes available. Just keep moving and moving the time closer. Many people refer to this technique as “pounding the app” and it has worked well for us over and over. There are even times when the app will give you a message that all of the available FastPasses were done for the day when in fact we continued to modify and found a new time show up. We never trust the app and Modify until we get it.

There are a few ride exceptions…newer more popular rides can be difficult at really busy times of the year. For us the two rides that we have had issues finding day of FastPasses for are Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Slinky Dog Dash. So we make sure to book those in advance.

What Attractions Should I FP?

Here is a list for each park on what attractions we feel like are best to FastPass with your initial three. After that – go where you want.

Magic Kingdom – Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Epcot – Frozen, Test Track and Soarin’ (Epcot is a tiered park so you can only choose one of these as your original 3 FastPasses).

Animal Kingdom – Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris

If rides aren’t your thing you can always choose meet and greets for your FP…some characters are only available at certain parks so check on those before you go! We have found that getting a FastPass for shows is a waste of a FastPass. Most of the time you don’t have much of a wait for shows and you get a decent seat anyway.

Hollywood Studios – Starting August 29th you will only be allowed one FastPass choice for your original 3 from these selections (which is pretty much every ride at this park and seems super annoying to us) – Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers, Toy Story Mania, Rockin’ Rollercoaster, Tower of Terror and all the rides at the new Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. Our guess is Galaxy’s Edge will be a tough one to get so we would start there! Otherwise, our favorite rides to FastPass are Slinky Dog Dash and Rockin’ Rollercoaster because these seem to be a little harder to get day of.

Takeaways

Whew, that was a lot! Once you start using the app it gets familiar and you will catch on quickly! The main takeaways we want you to know –

• FastPasses are included with every park ticket!
• Get the My Disney Experience App and use it!
• Choose your 3 FastPasses before you go
• Modify, Modify, Modify until you get the time you want!

If you have any questions we would love to be of help to you! Please shoot us a message or comment below with any questions you might have! If you have any more valuable tips to share we would also love to know those as well!