Anyone use the new fastpass system while staying offsite?

[egoldber]

My only caveat would be that this advice probably depends heavily on the time of year you go. While the crowds seemed huge to me, apparently Feb is one of the lowest crowd times to go. From the little research I did do, it seems as though fast passes become more necessary and harder to get during high crowd times so it would really depend on when you are traveling.

Absolutely. You can't compare a low crowd time to a high crowd time.

If you're looking at the week of Columbus Day, that is a relatively high crowd level time. October has become very popular with the Epcot Food and Wine Festival and the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party days.

[Globetrotter]

We went during probably the busiest week of the year and stayed offsite (on property but not a Disney hotel). I bought tix from undercover tourist and booked fastpasses 30 days in advance. I didn't get the seven dwarfs ride but got everything else. There were more openings later (popping up that week) so either they keep adding slots or people keep Canceling. Don't assume it's gone- keep checking. After all that, I had assumed we would be going early but we wanted to sleep in so I ended up changing the morning ones after we got there!

You really need fastpasses in the early afternoon, when it's most crowded! We ate at odd times so we were on rides during standard meal times.

[egoldber]

It's a good idea about constantly checking. I have also read that they hold some fastpass spaces back until the day of. Then you can check to see if you can either swap to a different time or different ride/attraction.

[newmomga]

We stay offsite. We are going first week of April and got everything we wanted for fastpasses except Anna and Elsa. I set my alarm for midnight and logged on as soon as 30 days out went live. I even got 7 Dwarfs fast pass although not the time I wanted, I got it. We went in December a few days before Christmas and had very old no expiration tickets that we couldn't reserve our fast passes on until at Disney to have them converted to the new tickets. We still were able to get fast passes for everything but 7 Dwarfs. And as someone else mentioned keep checking. We were able to get rock n roller coaster fastpasses midday for evening after there had been no availability. We just kept checking. And a tip no one told me until our last day in December is after you use your 3 fastpasses for the day you can get another but you have to go to a fastpass kiosk. Your disney app will not tell you that as it acts like it is malfunctioning.