If you’ve been going to Disney for a long time, you may remember keycards to open your resort room and enter the parks, and having to physically get “fast passes” for the rides you didn’t want to stand in line for. Your options for planning tools were the paper park map and the How To books that are produced each year. Some people long for those days, and claim they had more freedom with their vacation back then. In true Disney fashion though, an evolving application was created to combine all of these experiences in one place at your fingertips in an effort to save the guest valuable time that they can spend doing other things in the park. Here is my list for why you should using My Disney Experience, and the great things it allows you to do.
The Fastpass+ system and Advanced Dining Reservations are an important part of the Disney trip planning process. It only takes one visit to Disney to recognize the truth to this, after the family has spent the entire vacation standing in ride queues and eating quick service – all because they weren’t aware how much planning is necessary for a successful trip. Not planning well, or not planning at all, results in those Disney nay-sayers that question why some of us continually keep going back. Their trip was not a fun experience, and they couldn’t find the Disney magic.
ADRs can be made 180 days before the vacation, at 6am EST. Fastpass+ can be made 60 days before at 7am EST. These are important times to remember, as the most popular rides and dining venues will go quickly. Plan accordingly. Both of these are done through the My Disney Experience app or website, and is a very simple process. A few tips to make the process go smoothly:
- Before the 180 mark, have a credit card on file in your account. You will need this to “hold” a reservation, as there is a charge per person for no shows. Some dining venues will also charge up front, such as Cinderella’s Royal Table, Hoop Dee Doo and dessert parties.
- Make sure your resort confirmation # and park tickets are entered in your account, as that is going to be the trigger that allows you to book 60 days before the trip instead of 30 days.
- Make sure all of the parties traveling have set up My Disney Experience accounts and “friend requests” have been sent via email and accepted. You want everyone you’re traveling with to show up in the Friends and Family list of your account.
- Have a general plan of where you will spend each day of your vacation, but be flexible and prepared to change it on the fly. This is especially important with the Fastpass+ system. Vacations that are in progress when you arrive will most likely overlap the start of your vacation, so those guests have already had the opportunity to grab the fastpasses of the popular rides for the days in the beginning of your trip. As a rule of thumb, I start backwards. If getting on Flight of Passage is a must for me, then I start with the last day of my trip and make that my Animal Kingdom day. Those are the least likely days to have been picked over.
- Your Travel Planner is willing to help you – or the right one should be. I will gladly pour the coffee and do the clicking for my clients if they would like me to. There is nothing wrong with taking this route. Some, though, find that this is exciting and keeps the enthusiasm high months before the trip.
The process of obtaining the reservations is quite simple. Via the My Disney Experience app, choose Get a Fastpass+, choose the people in your party, your day, your park, and if you choose to do so, the time of day you are looking for to narrow it down the selections. You can have 3 fast passes to start with for the same park, and get additional fast passes one at a time, at any park, once those 3 are used. A similar method is used for Advanced Dining Reservations, and let’s not forget the new Rise of the Resistance boarding groups – My Disney Experience is going to be your path to getting one of those after you’ve checked into Hollywood Studios for rope drop.
Once your Fastpass+ are chosen, they will display in an itinerary
My Disney Experience can help you get that Smuggler’s Run Fastpass+!
During your trip, the My Disney Experience app is your key to the World, starting at your resort. By completing the Resort Online Check In, you will receive a text when your room is ready. Convenient if you get in early on check-in day and want to hit the parks. Once the text comes in, you can head directly to your room number when you’re ready and can bypass the check-in desk completely. A new feature on the My Disney Experience app is the use of your phone to electronically open your room door. I haven’t used this feature, but instead always opt for my Magicband – so YOU can tell ME if it works well!
Another useful resort feature that I do use often is the bus times. On My Disney Experience, guests can see what time each bus is scheduled to arrive at each bus stop of a resort, and the expected time of arrival at that park or Disney Springs.
No need to wait at the bus stop for 15 minutes – just check the times!
While enjoying your day at the park, you will want to keep My Disney Experience handy. Need to find the closest restroom? You can! Want to make an additional Fastpass+ or modify what you already have? You can do that too! Want to know the times of the parades or the nightly fireworks? Right at your fingertips! Check the wait times for Space Mountain while you’re in Frontierland, instead of walking all the way over there to look at the display.
Recently, I’ve started to use the mobile order feature on My Disney Experience. While the rest of the crowds – or what feels like the rest of the crowds – is standing in line for lunch at Pecos Bills or Satuu’li Canteen, your My Disney Experience app lets you bypass all of that. Order and pay for what you want while walking from one end of the park to the other, and when you get close choose the option for “I am here”. You get a notification when your food is ready and you can pick it up from another window with NO LINE!
If you have the Photopass package, you will love My Disney Experience for accessing those photos. Photopass is included in my annual pass, and checking the pictures taken by photographers in live time while in the parks is one of our favorite uses of the app. You can also check the map for all of the Photopass Photographer locations on that particular day.
If your only option to experience Flight of Passage or Seven Dwarves Mine Train is to wait in that queue for a couple of hours – no judgement, I’ve had to do this before for that must-ride 1st time – you may be interested that you can access the Play Disney Parks app. Play Disney Parks is interactive games and activities that recognize when you are in certain areas of the parks. If you have children and are in for a long wait, access to this app may be a great thing for you to know about.
The world is made up of people who love technology and those who loathe it. I believe I belong to the first group, although I may not always be GOOD at it. However, I’ve had few troubles with the My Disney Experience app and using the features in it. There are so many uses for this app that can make your trip to Walt Disney World work in your favor, and I’ve only gone over some of the big ones. Embrace the app, get familiar with it, and PRO TIP: take a rechargeable battery pack to the parks with you because you will need it after using this app all day.
