Jeremy

We always had a Disney vacation on our radar, but due to Angie’s travel schedule we had to make this one a last-minute impulse. By the time we ended up booking the vacation, we had just about one week to get all of the details put together for our three day Disney trip.

It was not fun.

As you will soon be made aware, the number of details that go into crafting the perfect Disney itinerary is massive. So massive that you could likely spend a year researching and still not get the perfect itinerary. But we only had a week, and we were in a rush.

So if you are in the same boat as us when putting together your Disney trip, we have a simple answer for you (especially if you do not have kids): give up control.

Seriously!

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Prior to our visit to Disney World, we thought the FastPass+ system would simply be a novel way to beat the lines at a couple of attractions each day. We put a bit of strategy into it, made our reservations, and thought nothing of it until we got to the park.

As it turns out, the simple strategy we used in planning really helped us out in the long run as we were able to use five or six Fast Passes each day simply by optimizing our riding times and park experience. Ultimately this allowed us to walk on a large number of rides, only wait in three hour-plus lines, and in our brief weekend trip we were able to ride all but just a few rides we wanted to get on (and those were not high on our priority list). 

In this one, we wanted to share some of the simple strategies we developed in order to get the most out of your Disney World FastPass!

Please Note: FastPass+ rules can and do change over time. As such, after reading this guide we recommend checking out the official Disney policy to ensure no terms have changed since publication. As long as the system is similar to our outline below, these strategies should apply (or with slight modifications). 

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We booked our trip to Walt Disney World in December 2019 on a whim. In fact, it wasn’t until after we booked our tickets that I learned that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance was opening, quite literally, the very next day.

As our trip to the park was just about 10 days later, I was torn on whether or not I’d risk the crowds and the early morning wake-up to try and get a ride. It wasn’t until the day before visiting the park that our hotel concierge gave me some great tips on how to get a good boarding time, and emphatically encouraged me to do so. 

I set my alarm for 4:10 am the following morning, took an Uber to Hollywood Studios, and somehow managed to be on the first ride of the day for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. 

In this one, I want to share how I did it and what the ride is like in order to help those who are visiting do the same. 

Note: This article is broken into two sections. The first section features the steps I took in order to, quite literally, walk on the ride after opening. It will only contain photos from the public areas of Galaxy’s Edge. The second section will feature a review of the ride itself and will feature some spoilers both in text and images as I got to take a few shots while on the ride.

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