We had a group of three touring Hollywood Studios on the last day of their vacation. With an afternoon flight home, they needed to leave the park by 11am. They had arrived for Extra Magic Hours (EMH) around 8:15am and the park opened to all guests at 9 o’clock. We had directed them to ride Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror upon entry as the wait times were around twenty minutes each.
The trio actually had scheduled FastPasses at Magic Kingdom for the morning, so our Concierge team cancelled those around 8:15 and secured a 9:15 Toy Story Mania. The only other ride they wanted to do was Slinky Dog Dash, so we set up a Wish List with Slinky as the top priority and Toy Story as the other attraction. At 8:54 we were able to book Slinky Dog Dash with a 9:45 return time. The most difficult of the requests had been fulfilled.
They entered the Slinky FastPass line at 9:45, but with the tiering rules at Hollywood Studios, the group wouldn’t be eligible for another Toy Story Land attraction until two other FastPasses had been used or expired. Since they had to leave in just about an hour, this didn’t appear to be possible so we suggested looking at the standby line for Toy Story. While posted at 40 minutes, the line was backed outside of the entrance which didn’t look good. So we thought out of the box and created a game of “tap and dash.” The idea was for them to quickly “use” two FastPasses so that the family was eligible for another Tier One attraction.
Essentially they would tap into the FastPass line, but not enter the attraction. Mousekepros Concierge booked Journey of the Little Mermaid with a 10:05 return time. At 10:02, they had tapped in and officially used their second FastPass of the day. A few minutes later we booked a 10:10 Disney Jr. Dance Party. They swiftly headed to the attraction and tapped in at 10:08 which allowed us to select ANY FastPass attraction at Hollywood Studios.
Two minutes later we had secured three Toy Story FastPasses with a return time of 10:10! In ten minutes we were able to creatively avoid the standby line for Toy Story Mania. And as a bonus, as they were heading out of Toy Story Land, we booked Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster for 10:40!
Now that’s an action packed last two hours of Disney Vacation Magic!
