Off-site Guests Will Have Access to FastPass+ Starting March 31

26 thoughts on “Off-site Guests Will Have Access to FastPass+ Starting March 31”

• As somebody who goes to Disney every few years, I planned ahead and bought a 10 day non-expiring park hopper ticket several years ago. Seemed like a good plan, since the prices go up regularly. I still have several days left on my pass, and plan on going for a couple days in September. (My friends and I have our touring down. We got park hoppers because we do 2 park/day when we go.) So, how do I convert my old passes to the new ones? And, will they stay non-expiring hoppers for the remaining days?

• I was wondering if the MagicBands are transferable? My DD and I have quite a collection due to being part of initial testing and also a couple of times that we’ve stayed at Disney, just using it as a hotel for the night.

  We have friends who always stay offsite so do not qualify for bands. Is there a way for us to give a couple of ours to them to use moving forward without having to purchase them? It’s not only the cost of purchasing the bands but the collection in our drawer might as well be used as opposed to creating more!

• I just returned from a quick trip over the weekend, and thought I would give my input.

  MagicBands are now available for sale for $12.95. I saw them at Pin Trader’s at DD, but I would imagine you could find them just about anywhere. The bands were with all the band accessories for sale.

  Even though I was a resort guest, I was not able to book my Fastpass+ 60 days out b/c I was linking old partially used passes. I had to convert to new RFID passes at guest services, then link the new passes to my account. After linking, I was able to book my Fastpass+. I did all this the night before going to the Magic Kingdom on a fairly busy day during Spring Break (Sun Mar 31). I had absolutely no trouble getting the Fastpass+ selections I wanted — Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, and Peter Pan. Plenty of times to choose from — pretty much all day availability. The day we visited, I did change some of the times using the app — again, plenty of availability. Only Peter Pan came back with limited choices to change to. In retrospect, I would have selected Splash Mountain instead of Space Mountain. We were able to ride Space early and during evening EMH without much wait. It was a cooler day, and we wanted to ride Splash during the warmer afternoon. So did everyone else. By that time, there were no more afternoon time slots left. Didn’t really need to ride Space a third time with the Fastpass+.

  So essentially, in my experience, I wouldn’t worry too much about the 60 vs 30 day window, as I was able to book everything 1 day out.

  Also, BTW, I received an email on our resort arrival date inviting us to participate in a test of Be Our Guest Fastpass (lunch). I have no idea if this is being offered to all resort guests or a random selection.

• Just thought I’d give an update:
  I’m an off-site guest going to Magic Kingdom on Friday and was super excited to hear I was going to get computer access to Fastpass+ before actually showing up the park! I was also nervous…everything in the book indicates guests staying on Disney property and generally spending more money were potentially going to get more FastPass+ reservations than others…
  To my surprise I opened the Disney Experience website and BOOM! 3 FastPass+ reservations for my boyfriend and me! Who knows what the algorithms are behind assigning FastPasses but I’m super excited to use them on Friday!

• Are we able to link the UK-specific 2 week tickets into our Experience account, to allow us to do this? I’m just about to order these tickets for our summer trip, so which format should I order the tickets in – ‘e-tickets’, paper, RFID-enabled media?

• What is “RFID-enabled ticket media”? Is that our ticket to the park?

  • If you have bought tickets and they are paper, then you will need to get them converted to plastic (they look like the old Key to the World cards, same size as a credit card). The only way I know how to convert them is take them to the guest services office in the parks or at the resorts. If you have the plastic card with your ticket credits on it and bought them in the last year then you should be good to go.

    We just returned from staying in a rental house and we converted our No Expiration tickets to the cards at Epcot so we can get them linked to the My Disney Experience and make reservations for our next trips.

• I have been desperately following the Fastpass+ roll out this winter, as my family of 3 kids under the age of 5 is going to Disney this coming Monday for a week. Our first day in Magic Kingdom is Monday, March 31. So this change will roll out as we are there, and we are off-site guests with regular tickets.

  Any tips on how we should utilize the app the first day? Just get there at rope drop and use the kiosks for Fastpass+, as we had planned, or wake early and try to use the system? I’m expecting some bumps along the way… Any tips on how we off-site guests who are there during the change should approach this are greatly appreciated.

  Also, we have 3 adults, 2 young kids, and one baby. From what I have seen, rider swap now only allows one guest to accompany the adult—which means a major tantrum between our 4 and 5 1/2 year olds over who gets to ride the ride again with grandma. Any advice? Are they enforcing this rule strictly or will they allow two young kids with one adult for the rider swap return trip?

  • I would see if you can’t make your reservations that morning, at least for your first day. If all else fails, though, you can at least make reservations for the rest of your week after you’re done in the park on Monday.

    Good luck!

• relieved to see 30 days at least now. staying dolphin which means even though onsite b4 werent allowed advance fastpass (not dis owned though onsite). may i whine please? shades and swan also in this boat. we can at least use emh, which we’ll do 3 out of 5 days. going mid aug w 2 and 4 yr olds, so planning more than ever. also, heard on another blog that people having hard time getting morn passes even when booking ahead?

• As an annual passholder that lives out of town and stays onsite when visiting Disney World, I think this is great for people staying offsite. Not everyone can afford to stay onsite and I don’t think they should be penalized or have to spend a lot of their day waiting in line for a kiosk in order to make Fastpass+ reservations. Especially since just a few short months ago, all of us were getting our Fastpasses the day of our visit! What I would love to see is a tiered system for those of us who do chose to spend extra money at Disney World. How about 75 days for DVC Members, 60 days out for onsite reservations, 45 days our for Annual Passholders and 30 days out for offsite visitors with day passes? This is really not unlike the tiered system that Disney already uses on their cruise line for the priority in which we get to book dining, excursions and onboard activities. The more cruises you take with Disney the higher your membership is and the sooner you get to book things.

• I am thrilled about this news! We are going in just a week and I was trying to plan out our days but having trouble because of not knowing when we would get out FP+’s…..now I should be able to hopefully log in Monday and plan it out! I am thrilled we can avoid the mad rush to the kiosks and the wait there!

• Maybe I don’t understand how this works, but if you only have a day ticket, how does Disney know when you are going to arrive? You don’t have dates on the tickets, do you? How do they determine when 30 days prior is?

  • Laura – You’re right. Disney has no idea what day you are going to use your ticket and there is no date on it. Here’s how it works. Once you link your ticket to your MyDisneyExperience account, the system will allow you to make Fastpass+ reservations for the next 30 days. Without a ticket linked to your account, you cannot make Fastpass+ reservations. That 30 day availability will continue to roll each day until you use that linked ticket. Hope this helps!

• This is great news! Our family is going for the first time in February and I was starting to stress about having to find the least-crowded kiosk as soon as we walked in. I’m so glad we’re being given a little extra magic even though we aren’t staying onsite.

• I know this sounds harsh… but if I’m staying onsite I would like the option to change parks and FP’s the day before or night before (due to weather issues or fatigue etc) With off site guests now making fp’s 30 days in advance, I wonder what my options will look like in that scenario in mid June.

  I’m afraid my FPs will be “use or lose” because of lack of, or terrible availability.

  I think Off site guest should be able to make fp’s the day of their trip, after midnight while driving in or before they leave.

  What do you think?

  • You make it sound like offsite and onsite are us vs. them. We all have to buy tickets, right? And you still have the option to change so it’ll all shake out in the end.

    • No, I just think the Perk for staying onsite is diminished if everyone can book 30 days out… I realize on site still has 30 extra days… but the day before change option is gone or at least greatly weakened.

      I still feel that AP should be 30 days, but day visits should be that day with early morning reservations allowed… I don’t believe they should have to do in park kiosks like they are doing now… but I think giving the same perk as AP’s is wrong.

      But, what do I know I live out of state and visit once every few years… My vacation is not more important than anyone else but there should be a perk or two to stay onsite.

      From where I sit …. they just took one away

    • I don’t think it will be as bad as you worry, because I think the majority of people aren’t going to use Fastpass+ until the day of, or at all. There will always be people who choose to wait in standby lines, or don’t know better.

      Also, speaking as someone trying to help their family who is staying at Shades of Green (you know, where ‘you’ll get every perk that Disney resort guests get— except for this one’), this is extremely welcome news. Also for families that can’t afford onsite, or local families that can’t afford to invest in annual passes… I think it’s more like, a lot of people were being unfairly cut out, and have finally been allowed a chance back in.

  • I think you’re absolutely right … that sounds harsh. I’m not sure how many other people would agree that it’s OK to prevent others from making advance FP+ reservations because who knows, you might be tired …

  • I am sure it will be different if you go at a busy time of year, but I didn’t have any trouble changing FPs to another park basically in the time it took to change parks.
    First, we had not used any FPs in the first park. But we did have a day where we got to a park early (AK) and rode everything we wanted with little or no wait. So we never used the FPs I had reserved. We switched to MK and I moved all our FP reservations to MK.

• So AP holders get treated the same as someone who bought a 1-day pass. Basically, it’s “WDW to AP holders: drop dead.” Sad.

  • Well, I can see your point. Guests who stay on-site get perks that extend beyond what all other guests do, including AP holders. I don’t see it as AP being told to “drop dead,” but as giving an extra benefit to those who pony up the money to stay on-site. Otherwise, if AP holders got the 60 day FP+ benefit, it would quite possibly be more cost effective for a family to purchase APs and stay off-site (although they would lose the Magic Hour benefit). Perhaps you are suggesting that AP should get the 30 day window and all non-on-site, non-AP holders should get 14 days. Regardless, I’m interested in seeing what this change does to the kiosk lines.

• This is great news. I took my family there in January for our first Disney trip, and it was the week all four parks switched to FP+. It would have been really nice to be able to avoid the kiosks.

  Has there been any news about allowing advance FP+ reservations at multiple parks for folks with parkhopper passes?

  • All 4 parks did not go FP+ only within 1 week.

    Animal Kingdom went FP+ only sometime in December.
    MK went FP+ only on 1/14.
    DHS went FP+ only on 1/21.
    Epcot went FP+ only on 1/23.

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