FastPass Strategies That Will Work for You

So you know you can book your FastPasses up to 30 or 60 days in advance, but maybe you don’t know what times to shoot for each FastPass, or maybe you don’t even know which park to visit on which day.

Before you go to book your FastPasses, you’ll need to know who you are, as well as what kind of day you are wanting to have at the parks.

When helping clients book their FastPasses, here are some questions I ask beforehand:

ARE YOU MORNING PEOPLE?

Don’t book FastPasses for 9am if you want to sleep til noon 😳

Toddler lying down on curb at Disney World's Hollywood Studios — Not a morning person 👆🏼

DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EXTRA MAGIC HOURS?

If you aren’t familiar with Extra Magic Hours (EMH), I highly recommend reading this post here. I also highly recommend this post to decide if EMH are even a good fit for you.

Crowds walking into Disney World's Toy Story Land at Hollywood Studios — The early crowds headed to Toy Story Land

If you have a base ticket (1 park per day) and you plan to take advantage of EMH, then you will probably only have one option of which park you will be attending each day – the park with EMH. If that’s the case for you, then planning has become much simpler. Go ahead and book your FastPasses for that park. You can find which parks have EMH on the Disney website or the My Disney Experience app.

If you have a Park Hopper ticket and you plan to take advantage of EMH, then take advantage of that EMH and your FastPasses and then get the heck out of that park! Go ahead and decide if you will want to book FastPasses at the park with EMH or would you rather book FastPasses a little bit later for the park you will be visiting after?

If you do not plan to take advantage of EMH, then avoid that park with EMHs all together since Disney is encouraging ALL of their resort-staying guests to go to that park.

I repeat, do NOT go to a park with EMH if you are not actually going to be there for the EMH. Disney has over 30,000 resort rooms, and they are encouraging all of those families to head to that park with EMH. Many of those resort guests will not have Park Hopper tickets, and will therefore stay at that park for the entire day.

DO YOU WANT TO TRY TO FIT IN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE?

If you want to complete as many attractions as possible, then get FastPasses for the first 3 hours the park is open. Once you use those FastPasses, you can book another FastPass. Once you use that one, you can book another. And you can do this again and again, until the park closes or until they run out of FastPasses.

CONS TO THIS STRATEGY

3 Women in front of Disney World's Test Track at Epcot — No time for pictures with this strategy

You will probably be running all around the park. The likelihood of all the FastPasses being in the same area are slim to none. The likelihood of you even wanting FastPasses for 3 attractions in the same land are also slim to none.

There won’t be much time to site see and enjoy the atmosphere and street entertainment. This is probably setting you up for a little bit (or maybe a lot) more stress.

PROS TO THIS STRATEGY

The plus side is that you use up all 3 of your FastPasses pretty early and then you can start searching for and using more FastPasses. If you are trying to do as many attractions as possible, this is probably the plan for you.

ARE YOU WANTING A MORE LAID BACK FEEL AT THE PARKS?

If you want to have a more laid back day, spread your FastPasses out. Maybe shoot for getting the first one in the park’s opening hour. Get your second one a couple hours after that. And get your final one a couple hours after that.

PROS TO THIS STRATEGY

You can relax a little bit more! You have more time to do the following:

Enjoy the Disney magic
Watch street shows
Pin-trade with cast members
Grab snacks or meals
Go the bathroom
Take pictures

You don’t have to rush from one attraction to the next!

3 year old boy riding star wars craft at Disney World's Hollywood Studios — Time to stop and have a little fun as you go

CONS TO THIS STRATEGY

If you want to book more FastPasses after you used your first 3, you are kind of “behind the game.” To clarify, many people have already used their first 3 FastPasses. And they have now grabbed many of the remaining FastPasses that were available for the day.

Just prepare yourself that you will not be able to accomplish everything with this strategy. Honestly though, even with the “fit in as much as possible” strategy, you can’t do it all 🤷🏼‍♀️

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVANCED DINING RESERVATIONS?

Entrance to Disney World's Be Our Guest Restaurant at Magic Kingdom — Be Our Guest restaurant (and now Oga’s Cantina) are currently the only quick-service restaurants that require a reservation. All other dining reservations are for table-service restaurants.

For those of you with Dining Reservations, we need to plan your FastPasses around those. If your Dining Reservation is in a park, then it usually makes sense to get FastPasses at that park.

IF YOU ARE BOOKING A FASTPASS RESERVATION before A DINING RESERVATION

Give yourself plenty of time to wait in the FastPass line and ride the ride. Some rides last 15+ minutes, like Flight of Passage. Also take into account your travel time from the ride to the restaurant.