If Things Go Awry on Your Disney Vacation

Toy Story Midway Mania

We all want our Walt Disney World Resort vacations to be magical, and luckily most of mine have been.  Unfortunately sometimes things don’t go quite the way we had planned.  Although that can be frustrating, there are some things you can do to help get the magic back.  Before I give you those tips, here’s a story:

My mom and I had just returned from our favorite place.  On our first day, we had FastPass+ reservations (FP+) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 9:10 for Toy Story Midway Mania (TSMM), 10:25 for Star Tours (ST), and 11:25 for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (TOT).  We arrived at the park around 9, and after going through bag check we wandered towards TSMM.  Once there, we were informed that the ride was down and they weren’t sure what time it would be back up.  I asked about our FastPasses, and was told that we’d get both an email and a notification in our My Disney Experience (MDE) app that would explain that we would have a new FastPass that could be used at any time until the park closed on most rides/attractions.  We were also told that TOT was not running at that time either.  We were a little disappointed, but hey, we were on vacation and we figured that by the time our Fastpass for TOT came around it might be up and running.  As we were walking, I checked my email and found this:

FastPass+ Change Notification for Toy Story Midway Mania

It was helpful that they listed what experiences I could choose from if I didn’t want to wait for Toy Story Midway Mania (TSMM) to come back up.

We decided to walk around and do some shopping before heading over to Star Tours for our next FastPass.  We arrived at Star Tours – and were told it was also down!  The Cast Members there explained about the “all-day FastPass” for later, and we laughed and said that we knew all about it from TSMM.  We asked about TSMM and Tower of Terror and they said they were both still down.

We decided to do some more shopping (did I mention that my mom loves to shop?) and have a snack while we waited a little longer.  I checked my email again, and found this:

FastPass+ Change Notification for Star Tours

What is really interesting is the difference in what experiences I could use for each replacement FastPass+.  For the Toy Story Midway Mania one, I couldn’t use it for The Great Movie Ride, Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage, For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration, or Fantasmic!  For the Star Tours one, I couldn’t use it for Tower of Terror, TSMM, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster Starring Aerosmith, or Fantasmic!

I decided to check the My Disney Experience app and see what it said.  The two replacement FastPasses were there, and the original one for TOT was still there too.  Unfortunately for us, we had planned our day to include shopping and lunch at Disney Springs, and our late afternoon/evening to include Epcot and later the Magic Kingdom.  I decided to cancel the TOT fastpasses, because by this time if the other two rides came back online before we had to leave for lunch we wouldn’t have time to do them and that one as well.  Then I decided to try a hunch.  I tried to make new FP+ selections at Epcot – and it worked!  Apparently, once the third Fastpass was cancelled, it was as if I had never made any FP+ reservations at all, so I was able to get three at Epcot for that night.  It seems that the replacement “all-day” passes do not affect other Fastpasses.

TSMM and ST never came back up before we had to leave for lunch, so we went on our way.  And although it was a little frustrating, we were happy that we had additional FastPasses for later that day.

And now here are my recommendations for when things go wrong:

1. Attitude is everything.  Yes, if you have your heart set on a certain attraction, it is very disappointing and frustrating when you aren’t able to experience it.  But please don’t let that ruin your trip.  Like I discovered, there may be something good that comes of it.  If we hadn’t had lunch reservations at Disney Springs, we would have been able to use our replacement Fastpasses PLUS the three new ones I made for Epcot that night.
2. Be flexible.  I know this can be the most difficult thing for some of us uber-planners, but changing attractions around to suit your itinerary may be better all around for everyone.  You may not get the experience you originally wanted, but you do get other options.  Maybe try something that you haven’t done before – you might love it!
3. Take a deep breath.  Exhale.  As Elsa says, let it go.  After all, you’re in Walt Disney World.  You could be at work!

DIStracted Tip:  If you receive replacement FastPasses for an attraction that is down and you’re going to be at that park all day and night, hang on to it and plan to use it for your original ride when it is operating again.  If you had a FastPass for TSMM and you use the replacement for TOT, you then will not be able to experience TSMM when it is back online because that replacement has been used for something else.

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