The Top 10 Attractions on Which to Use Disney World's Fastpass+

June 8, 2015, 11:11 AM · Visitors to the Walt Disney World Resort can reserve ride times on Disney's attractions 30 days in advance of their visit with Disney's Fastpass+ reservation system. (It's 60 days in advance if you're booked at stay at a Walt Disney World on-site hotel for your visit.) But with a limit of three advance reservations per day of your stay, which rides and shows should you book?

For this "Weekly Top 10" list, we are not including more than three attractions per park, since that is the most number of Fastpass+ reservations you can book per day in advance. Nor are we including more "Tier 1" attractions that Disney allows you to book for one day. (In Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios, Disney sorts the attractions into tiers and limits the number of reservations you can make in each.) Consider this your Fastpass+ Top 10 for a base, four-day, one-park-per-day Disney World visit.

Obviously, we're looking for rides and shows with the longest stand-by wait times, to maximize the value of your Fastpass+ reservations. When standby wait times are comparable, we're going with the attractions that have the highest reader ratings from Theme Park Insider readers.

Finally, we are sticking with attractions where Fastpass+ is your only free option for skipping the main line, so we are not including those WDW attractions with single-rider lines. (Those are Epcot's Test Track, Expedition Everest in Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Rock n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith in Disney's Hollywood Studios.)

Fire up your browsers at midnight Eastern time 30 or 60 days before your visit, log into the My Disney Experience website, and try for these popular reservations.

10. Kali River Rapids
Disney's Animal Kingdom

Kali River Rapids

Three of the first four attractions on our list are from Animal Kingdom, where your Fastpass+ selection can be driven as much by your personal preferences than actual need to avoid the killer queues found in other parks.

9. Dinosaur
Disney's Animal Kingdom

Dinosaur

If you're not in the mood for a body-shaking jeep ride in the dark, skip this one in favor of a reserved space in the queue for one of the park's highly-rated live musical shows.

8. Mission Space
Epcot

Mission Space

The "orange" side is a high-speed centrifuge ride that simulates weightlessness. The "green" side doesn't spin, which strips this simulated mission to Mars of its thrills. You'll need to pick which side you want when you make your reservations.

7. Kilimanjaro Safaris
Disney's Animal Kingdom

Kilimanjaro Safaris

This is Animal Kingdom's top, must-see attraction, so why not save yourself wait and worry by securing a ride time in advance?

6. Festival of Fantasy / Splash Mountain
Magic Kingdom

Festival of Fantasy

Why the choice here? If you're visiting during the summer high season, having a reserved place to watch the popular afternoon parade can give you some extra flexibility to hit additional, high-capacity, shorter-than-average or average-wait attractions in the hour or two before the parade, rather than staking out a place on the route. But if you're visiting during a time of year where you can see the parade without having to wait on the route more than 20 minutes in advance, go for the Splash Mountain FP+ instead. (Tip: The parade route gets crowded on Main Street long before it fills up in Liberty Square and Frontierland, so try watching the parade there if you don't get the Pastpass+ reservation for the parade.) The Magic Kingdom offers the most high-value Fastpass+ reservations, with so many highly demanded attractions, so many visitors choose to spend more than one day in this park to see them all.

5. Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Disney's Hollywood Studios

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

You can find times where Tower of Terror's standby line isn't too bad, but a Fastpass+ reservation allows you an extra ride with little wait, and with a different drop pattern nearly every time you ride, most fans want to ride this favorite more than once.

4. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Magic Kingdom

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Disney's newest coaster routinely draws standby waits in excess of an hour, making this a great line to skip.

3. Toy Story Midway Mania
Disney's Hollywood Studios

Toy Story Midway Mania

How valuable is a FP+ here? Well, let's just say that more than one person has joked that somedays it feels like it'd be quicker to fly to Southern California and ride the version at Disney California Adventure (which doesn't have Fastpass are rarely draws a huge wait) than it would be to wait in this standby line, which can stretch for hours on busy days.

2. Soarin'
Epcot

Soarin'

Disney's spending millions to build a new Soarin' theater to try to help reduce the wait times for Epcot's longest queue.

1. Princess Fairytale Hall: Meet Anna & Elsa
Magic Kingdom

Anna & Elsa

The Holy Grail of Fastpass+. If you have little girls who want to meet the Frozen duo (yeah, I'm assuming on gender there, but, hey... data), best of luck to you on your quest. Minimizing the number of people visiting for this one might help your chances (one grown-up and the girls), or you also might just try to get a single FP+ reservation for seeing Anna & Elsa, then copying in the girls after that, if you're successful.

Let's fill out the "second 10" Fastpass+ reservations to get, in the comments, for people visiting each of the parks more than once during their Walt Disney World visits.

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Replies (14)

June 8, 2015 at 11:29 AM · If you're not planning on riding in the single rider line, securing a FP+ for Expedition Everest is far more important than Dinosaur or Kali. Until they open the second track of Toy Story, that would be above Soarin' for me.

Also, what about TestTrack? How did Mission Space, that rarely has standby lines over 30 minutes, jump ahead of TestTrack? Same with Rock 'N Rollercoaster....It's well known that you cannot reserve for both Soarin' and TestTrack or TSM and Rock N' Rollercoaster, but the alternate Tier 1 attraction should rank ahead of second tier attractions in the same park.

I tend to avoid visiting during the summer season, but I would still avoid making early FP+ reservations for parades and shows. Experience and reports for guests suggest that reserved parade and show seating FP+s are relatively easy to come by once you use you first three FP+ reservations earlier in the day. Now if you get stuck with a 8 PM Soarin' reservation, you might want to go ahead and grab an Illuminations FP+ reservation if getting primo viewing is important, if not, that Spaceship Earth FP+ reservation is getting more valuable by the day as standby lines are regularly over 30 minutes for an attraction that not worth more than a 5 minute wait.

June 8, 2015 at 11:38 AM · I recommend Fastpass for Safari and Everest at Animal Kingdom. You don't need it for Dinosaur at all. Kali isn't so bad after a rain shower.

At Epcot, it's either Test Track or Soarin'. Either would be a good choice.

At Magic Kingdom, a photo with Elsa or Anna is the golden ticket!!! Besides Seven Dwarfs coaster, Space Mountain and Splash Mountain are high demand attractions.

June 8, 2015 at 11:47 AM · You don't need it for Dinosaur or Mission Space. You do need it for Peter Pan and Enchanted Tales with Belle.

Seven Dwarves and Anna and Elsa are very hard to get.

June 8, 2015 at 12:05 PM · The Princess Meet and Greet lines are something I can not understand.

You can't build a second Splash Mountain.

You can certainly hire two (or four, or six...) more actresses to be Anna and Elsa. Just have the queue go into a building where it splits off into a few different rooms, so the no one can see a paradox of four Annas being in the same place at the same time.

It's a trivially easy (and cheap) solution that I just can't understand why Disney hadn't implemented.

John

June 8, 2015 at 12:23 PM · I was just wondering, this whole magic band was sold to customer that they should spend less time in line. Sure for the rides where you have FP for you go quick but are the other queues of rides shorter, the same or longer then before magic band?
June 8, 2015 at 4:51 PM · I personally think that a FP+ reservation for Splash Mountain would be a much better deal than the parade during the summer.

Remember, this is Florida we're talking about, the state where it gets so hot during the day that bringing a bottle of sun block when you step out of your house is never a bad idea. When the wheather's like that I'd rather be on a refreshing water ride than be sitting down on the hot pavement.

Grant it, you could probably be lucky enough to get a spot under a tree, but there's also a chance that you won't. Besides, Splash Mountain is always closed during the winter months, so you'll have more opportunity to see the parade. Lastly, the beauty of parade floats is that they're tall enough to see over people's heads.

I guess I should've expected 2 MK attractions to be tied. They're's so many lengthy queue lines in that park that you can literally give them their own list and still have a couple left over.

June 8, 2015 at 5:43 PM · Although I haven't actually used it, these seem like good choices for most of the parks. For Magic Kingdom, however, almost every recommendation I've seen is different but not a single one recommends Festival of Fantasy and Splash Mountain isn't that frequent. In addition to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Princess Fairytale Hall, Peter Pan's Flight is the next most popular choice and I see Enchanted Tales with Belle, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain, and even the Jungle Cruise recommended more often than Splash Mountain.
June 8, 2015 at 6:25 PM · Can someone explain why Toy Story Mania has such long lines at Hollywood Studios? I'm a DL regular, and while TSM at California Adventure is popular and has longish lines, it just seems impossible that it would ever become THE attraction to not miss.
June 8, 2015 at 8:40 PM · How is Peter Pan not on this list, the line is never less than 60 minutes throughout the day.

On the 24 hour at MK my son & I visited Ana & Elsa first thing as the plan was to do every single activity at MK in one day. We shortly got gifted two tickets and my wife and daughter joined us. While on the My Magic app we got Ana & Elsa fast passes for 8:40pm for my daughter. Still in shock that we got them on the actual same day.

June 8, 2015 at 9:12 PM · "Can someone explain why Toy Story Mania has such long lines at Hollywood Studios?"

DHS doesn't have nearly enough popular rides as DCA. DCA has Tower of Terror, Soaring, Grizzly Rapids, and the newest Radiator Springs Racers. These rides make Toy Story and Screaming into a minor attractions. Notice that Soaring is highly popular at EPCOT. According to the latest TEA report, DHS has 2 million more people attending per year. That makes for a crowded park.

Funny that before Carsland, DCA was a mediocre park that Soaring and Toy Story could not satisfy the public.

June 9, 2015 at 4:35 AM · Is Frozen really that popular that you need a fast pass to get a picture with characters that are 2 years old
June 9, 2015 at 6:30 AM · From my own personal experience, Toy Story Midway Mania's standby line draws the longest waiting time in all of Walt Disney World.
The same attraction also has similar distinction of having the longest standby waiting time in the whole of Tokyo Disney Resort.
June 9, 2015 at 7:30 AM · When we went to Disney World last summer, it had been 16 years since our last visit, so we wanted to use our Fastpass+ reservations wisely. This list is really good. We actually used Fastpass+ for 8 attractions on the list. We skipped Kali River Rapids (we'll do that next time), and meet & greet with Anna and Elsa (no little ones in our group). I would definitely add Peter Pan and Enchanted Tales with Belle (my girls, 18 and 20 even enjoyed that one), and Spaceship Earth. Those lines fill up really fast.
June 10, 2015 at 3:13 AM · I disagree with Fastpass for Soring!

Do that at the very first - getting to the Entrance 15 min before opening and line up where they let in the Breakfast People. Kindly tell the CM that you like to wait on the Side and you'll be the first in Line when they prepare to let people in. In Summer you must arrive 30 min before opening

In January that worked very well for me - been on the first Show

then go to Nr 15 Lifing with The Land

maybe grab a Sunshine Seasons Breakfast Panini with Eggs, Bacon, Roast Pork, Cheese, and Breakfast Potatoes served with Breakfast Potatoes for $7.99 if you hungry

9:58: Nr 16 next door: Circle of Life

10:20 get out, turn right:
Nr 17 Journey Into Imagination With Figment
Choose 10:05 AM to 11:05 AM FASTPASS-Window for that

10:45 JAMMitors » Trash Can Percussion
11:00 Nr 18 Captain EO (nebenan)
Refresh Yourself at Nr 25 Club Cool - Cola Samples

11:45 Nr 5 Test Track Fast Pass / Single Rider 22 Min
11:15 AM to 12:15 PM FASTPASS WINDOW

12:15 Nr 3 Mission: SPACE - Orange - Future World - 21 / Candy helps against getting ill..
use your 3.rd FASTPASS for this

13:15 Advanced Training Lab

Outside the Mission: SPACE entrance: NEW FASTPASS RESERVATION
Reserve for Nemo!

13:30 Nr 2 Ellen's Energy Adventure

14:30 Spaceship Earth 16

15:05 Project Tomorrow: Inventing the Wonders of the Future exhibit at Spaceship Earth.

15:20: Nr 12/13 "The Seas With Nemo and Friends Pavilion"

16:00 Mexico Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros Mexico
sest on left

16:30 British Revolution » U.K. Classics Cover Band

17:10 Italy: Sbandieratori Di Sansepolcro » Flag Waving Performers

17:30 Sergio » Juggling Act

18:00 Nr 35 The American Adventure USA

China:
18:40 Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest und Reflections of China

19:15 The Jeweled Dragon Acrobats

20:40 IllumiNations: from bridge between England and France

PS Splash Mountain was open in early February

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