How Fast Pass + Works

FAST PASS +

Disney World uses fast pass+ to reserve ride times, so you can skip those long lines.   Fast passes are booked differently at Disney World than the paper ones you get at kiosks around Disneyland.  All guests get to reserve three fast passes at Disney World 60 days in advance if you are staying at a Disney resort and 30 days in advance if staying offsite.   After booking Fast Plus + for the 3 attractions you want,  you will use your Magic Band, or Disney World park ticket to redeem them at the parks. 

OFFSITE vs. ONSITE guests:

One of the big bonuses in staying onsite at a Disney World Resort is the 60 day advance on fast passes.  Offsite guests get 30 days.  This means that the most popular rides are going to be sold out of fast passes for the people that did not book an onsite Disney World Hotel.   

*update alert*  Disney Springs hotels and some select offsite hotels will now be given 60 days advance reservations on fast passes along with Disney World hotels.  However, they are not given any other Disney resort perks (free parking at the parks, airline check in at your resort, Disney transportation, Magical Express, etc.)

FAST PASS+ STEPS

Link your tickets:

You must have your park tickets purchased ahead of time to do this.  Log in to your MyDisneyExperience account (either on the website or app), and enter your Disney park tickets to link them.   Do a practice run of booking fast passes so you can become familiar with the system.  

Have a plan:

Make sure you have written down a plan of which priority attractions you want to book first.  My recommendations on this plan below are for those rides with the longest wait times, and those that sell out first for Fast Pass +.   If you have people in your group that can’t ride those attractions, you can always do rider switch at the park, to avoid waiting in line twice while a little one sits it out.  Rider switch allows everyone in your group to ride the attraction twice, while a parent or guardian sits out with the child who can’t ride.  

 You will want to have each day planned out for your vacation with the 3 attractions at each park written on a paper to reference for booking time.  Some people do spread sheets.  Whatever works, but you need a plan.      For example Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is the most difficult fast pass to get and the longest line at Magic Kingdom.   That should be your number one priority when booking that day.   At Animal Kingdom, Flight of Passage is your #1 priority attraction and the most difficult fast pass to reserve at Disney World right now.   At Hollywood Studios, Slinky Dog Dash is #1 priority.   For Epcot,  Frozen Ever After is your #1 priority.  I have listed below which rides you should prioritize for your 3 fast passes per park based on popularity and wait times.  If your trip is only with babies or toddlers, this list may need to be modified according to your situation.   You may not get your preferred time, but I would aim for a later morning or early afternoon when using Fast Pass+, as long as it doesn’t interfere with any valuable or must do dining reservations already booked.  Make sure to have all of your dining plans written out so you can plan around them.   The reason I don’t recommend booking Fast Pass + for the early morning is so you can enjoy the rides you weren’t able to get fast passes for with the very light crowds of the early morning hours.   The first two hours the park is open are the shortest lines of the day.  Make sure to take advantage of it!     I don’t recommend booking fast passes for late afternoon either, because you can’t book new ride reservations at the park until you use up your 3 Fast Pass + reservations.  So between 10am and 1pm are the ideal times to book fast pass + reservations.  Sometimes that doesn’t work out and I’ve had to book a later time for popular rides, but you can try to modify it later if something earlier pops up.  

Magic Kingdom Plan

Here are my favorite attractions you don’t want to miss, organized by priority for booking fast passes:

1. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
2. Space Mountain
3. Thunder Mountain

If you are unable to get my 3 priority rides listed above, here are the SECOND PRIORITY FAST PASSES:

1.  Splash Mountain
2.  Peter Pan’s Flight 
3.  Enchanted Tales with Belle
4.  Haunted Mansion
5.  Pirates of the Caribbean
6.  Meet Mickey at Town Square Theater
7.  Jungle Cruise

If you are unable to get fast passes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, or Thunder Mountain, make sure to arrive early in the morning to ride them when lines are low. 

Hollywood Studios Plan

1. Slinky Dog Dash (Tier 1), or Toy Story Mania if that is sold out
2. Tower of Terror
3. Rockin Roller Coaster

Epcot Plan

1. Frozen Ever After (Tier 1) but if that is sold out then book Soarin Over the World or Test Track.   All three are Tier 1 rides and Disney only lets you book 1 of them 60 days in advance.  I arrive early to the park to ride whichever ones I don’t get
2. Spaceship Earth
3. Mission Space or Living with the Land

Animal Kingdom Plan

1. Flight of Passage is #1 pick (next priority is Navi River Journey and you will need to arrive before park opening to ride whichever one you don’t get)
2. Kilamanjaro Safari
3. Expedition Everest

*Note:  you can’t use your 3 Fast Pass + reservations for the same ride.   You must book 3 different rides.   

TIP:  To really maximize the most of your 60 day advance Fast Pass + reservations, you can book all the high priority rides first, and then go back after to fill in the remaining 2 fast passes at each park.  This gives you a jump start at getting those rides that sell out the fastest.   When you hit that 60 day Fast Pass + date, you are able to book all of your vacation days for the week.  So you actually get more than 60 days advance booking on the remainder of your trip.  This is advantageous on getting those rides that sell out quickly. For example, I would go in this order when booking my fast passes:

Day 1 Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Magic Kingdom

Day 2 Slinky Dog Dash at Hollywood Studios

Day 3 Frozen Ever After at Epcot

Day 4 Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom

I intentionally planned my 4th day at Disney World for Animal Kingdom because Flight of Passage can be a tough Fast Pass to reserve.  My chances of getting it are much higher further into my vacation since it’s 63 days in advance instead of 60.  After getting those high priority rides booked,  I go back in to each day and reserve the remaining 2 fast passes at each park.  

Set your alarm:

*When booking fast pass +, you will need to set your alarm 60 days in advance (if staying in a Disney World hotel or participating hotel) and be ready to book them by 7am eastern time.  I live in California, and had to wake up at 3:45am to be ready by 4am.     

MAGICAL TIPS:  Make sure you re-log in to your Disney account a minute before that 7am eastern time mark, and have a back up ready to go on your mobile device, in case there are any problems with your computer.  Sometimes there are glitches, and you want to be sure your account did not log out.  Always have an additional back up ready to go so you don’t miss this important window. 

You won’t be able to see you have 60 day access to book those fast passes until the clock strikes 7 am Eastern time  (4:00 am Western time).    It gave me a bit of panic after I logged in and wasn’t able to access the calendar past 30 days.  

The most important tip I can give you is to call ahead of time and speak with Disney’s internet help desk to make sure all the accounts are properly linked and ready to go that you need fast passes for.  I had a few duplicate accounts that were not linked, and they had to delete them off my reservations.  Some people were not showing a Disney resort hotel access on their linked ticket, so that was another issue we had to fix.  You do not want to find out on reservation day that accounts were not linked to yours or it will be too late by the time it’s fixed.  Call ahead.  The best way to detect any duplicate Disney accounts is to make sure each person has an Avatar chosen for their profile picture.    A duplicate account will not have a chosen picture.  Here is an example below of the Avatars we chose for our family:  

MAGICAL TIP

I was able to book fast passes for my entire week at Disney World on my first booking window of 60 days ahead.  (several cast members told me I wouldn’t be able to do this when I called)  This means that getting high priority rides further into the week of my 7 day trip was much easier because it was actually more than 60 days ahead.    It also meant I didn’t have to get up at 3:45am for 7 days in a row to book fast passes.    I can’t promise this will continue, but it was a sweet surprise!   Because of this perk, you need to have all of your Fast Pass+ plans written down for each park you plan to visit for your week at Disney World.  

As an example, this was the time option for me on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train booking 60 days ahead: 

I preferred to have a late morning reservation, but 4:10pm was the earliest one left that day.  The reason that matters is that you can’t book additional fast passes at the park until you use up your 3 Fast Pass+ reservations.    My second day at Magic Kingdom was much easier to get my preferred time because I was  allowed to book it 65 days in advance:

Additional Fast Passes

Once you arrive at Magic Kingdom and redeem your 3 Fast Pass+ reservations (using either your Magic Band or park ticket),  you can book a 4th fast pass.  After that one is used, you can book a 5th fast pass, and so on. 

This is a snapshot from our My Disney Experience account showing a day of our Fast Pass + reservations.  I recommend screen shots of all your reservations and plans for the day, and setting them as your home screen on your smartphone.  It was an easy way to reference our plans throughout the day, and keep it all organized.    *Sidenote:  We have 4 Fast Pass + reservations on this screenshot because a person in our group could not ride Space Mountain, so they chose Enchanted Tales with Belle instead.

This next screenshot is of our extra Fast Pass+ we booked after redeeming our first 3 (we were done with our Fast Pass+ rides by 1pm)  .   That shows you why it’s important to book your 3 advanced Fast Pass+ reservations for late morning and not late afternoon.   Splash Mountain would have been sold out of fast passes had we booked it much later.    

*NOTE:  Ride plans will need to be modified based on the ages or desires of the children.   When dealing with a child fearful of rides, they might want a day plan focused more on character attractions, and shows.  It’s important to be flexible and open to changes with your children should unexpected issues arise.  Most older children will want more intense rides and less characters.   Patrons of Disneyland may want to skip the rides that are the same in California and focus their day plan around attractions unique to Magic Kingdom   My one day guide is based only on our favorite attractions and popular rides that have the longest lines.