FP and hotel recommendations

[jenna288]

asking for a friend! We've done DLP once before but just went on a day ticket 7 years ago and i'm only familiar with WDW. Do they do FP in the same way WDW do? are they free with the park ticket? Any recommendations on the best disney hotel to stay in? thanks

[derenstar]

Hi, it’s not quite the same as WDW in that you can’t book using the app. They have machines near the rides that offer it where you scan your magic pass and you get a paper fastpass.

[jenna288]

Originally Posted by derenstar

Hi, it’s not quite the same as WDW in that you can’t book using the app. They have machines near the rides that offer it where you scan your magic pass and you get a paper fastpass.

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ah great thank you - how many do you get per day?

[kk20]

You get as many as you can get. Each FP has a return time and a time you can get another FP from another machine.

[Elodie]

As above, it’s as many as you can get. Your friend can get a new one either once they’ve used each current one, or two hours after picking up their latest current one (whichever comes first).

At busy times, eg August, the park is open 13 hours a day, so they could potentially get 7 fastpasses, based on two-hourly collections, and so long as there is still availability somewhere. At quieter times, they could probably jump on an almost unlimited number of fast passes, using them almost as fast as they could collect them (but they probably wouldn’t need to - my brother has just been and said everything was 0-5 minute queues anyway.)

Depending on the hotel / room level, there are also hotel fastpasses that give you extra fastpasses per day.

Best hotel obviously depends on budget and what appeals to them. We’ve done Santa Fe at £600 including 4 x 5 day tickets, during school holidays, so that was a very low budget holiday. I don’t think we could have beaten that price staying off-site, as tickets are so expensive bought separately. It was very basic, but we were in the parks / village from early until late, so we only needed the room to sleep in, and it was a nice walk to the parks along the river.

We’ve also done Cheyenne when it used to be the cheapest hotel - great theming, the girls loved the Chuck Wagon breakfast (although we did take our food to eat outside at the picnic benches, to avoid the packed restaurant.) Again, a lovely walk to the parks along the river.

At the other end, we’ve done the Disneyland Hotel, which cost us twice as much as Santa Fe the week before Christmas. It was magical though. We all loved eating in Inventions every morning (and used the dining plan for a couple of character meals in there in the evenings too), we were lucky enough to have a park view from our standard room, and the children loved going back into the hotel through the secret door, just a few metres from the exit turnstiles. It’s closing next year for refurbishment, though, so it depends when your friend is visiting.

We’ve also loved walking around Newport Bay and having a meal in Cape Cod - I would have planned to stay there next, but we’re staying in Beach Club in WDW, and the theming is very similar, so that’s been ticked off my list now.