FP+ if I have to drop a couple days

[BSS]

We are going again in October. B wants to go a little longer this time, but it will depend on his schedule and the syllabi for his classes. He won't know for sure until school starts at about the 40 day mark. If I make a reservation for the entire length that we want to go and make my FP+ at 60 days and then have to drop a day or two because he can't go for that long will all my FP+ for the days we keep stay the same? I assume they would, but I'm just checking to see if anyone has had any problems with this. I will be booking our hard to get FP+ for days we will definitely be there and I would hate to lose those just because I had to drop a different day or two from the reservation.

 

[bnoble]

If you cancel the FP+ reservations on the days you are dropping before you drop them, I would think there won't be an issue.

You probably know this but: You need valid admission in hand before making FP+ reservations. The only way to do that such that you can easily downgrade the number of days later is by buying a package. If you drop the cost of your package after your final payment is made (must be at least 30 days before check-in) there are fees that amount to $65. So, you've got a narrow window to make changes. If you don't want to be tied to a package and its more restrictive rules, you can buy a shorter ticket and upgrade it from home if you can go longer as soon as you know that. This way you can't make the FP+ for the "extra" days until you add them, but if you are making the hard-to-get FP+ for the days you are sure of anyway, this is no big deal.

I also seem to recall that dropping days on resort reservations is no longer trivial; you'd have to be able to re-book as a new reservation, which isn't always possible. Maybe one of our Disney TAs can advise.

So, if it were me, and assuming there isn't also some big package discount you are taking advantage of, I would book two room-only reservations one for the longer stay the other for the shorter stay. You need different lead guests on these two, IIRC, but as long as you have two or more adults going, that should be fine. Then I'd buy tickets for the shorter one. Once I knew the length, I'd cancel the room I didn't need, and extend the tickets if I needed to.

 

[BSS]

Thank you. It's been many years since I needed to drop days and I was also thinking it wasn't as easy as it used to be.

So, if I understand you correctly, I can book one room-only reservation in my name with B as my guest and one in B's name with me as his guest and Disney will allow me to keep both of those?

Part of me says we should just stick with the shorter trip, but B really wants to do the longer one and it's his senior year in college so this could be the last of these trips for me and him. Also, the longer one would extend the less crowded part of our trip which would be really great.

 

[kristenb]

We are going again in October. B wants to go a little longer this time, but it will depend on his schedule and the syllabi for his classes. He won't know for sure until school starts at about the 40 day mark. If I make a reservation for the entire length that we want to go and make my FP+ at 60 days and then have to drop a day or two because he can't go for that long will all my FP+ for the days we keep stay the same? I assume they would, but I'm just checking to see if anyone has had any problems with this. I will be booking our hard to get FP+ for days we will definitely be there and I would hate to lose those just because I had to drop a different day or two from the reservation.

We recently had to cut the first three days from our reservation (package) for the week between Christmas and New Year's. I always book a package just to keep it simple for myself so I can't comment on alterative options with room-only but for us, it was simple and there were no FPP issues.

I cancelled/confirmed cancellation for FPs for those first three days before I modified our resort stay (shortened it). It did require telephone CM aid regardless of the "modify reservation" button that appeared in MDE. No issues. I maintained the initial ticket purchase (7 days) even though the on-site stay was cut to only four days. I didn't know if we could extend the trip at that point, but because we were within 50 days of check-in/knowing FPP availability for high demand attractions would be nil during the holidays, I went ahead and made FPP reservations for the other/last three days of tickets still available to me in MDE - just pushed those three ticket days to the end of the week. I at least had "peace of mind" that if we could extend, we would have a jumping off point for park plans even if they weren't stellar. At that point our resort had no availability for those last three days so I started looking at split-stay options.

About a week later we figured the logistics out and added back three days to the back end of the trip. FPPs were already in place, but the resort had no availability. I booked room-only at another resort and kept checking back. A week later was finally was able to add three days/two nights to our initial package (without it being a split stay) and canceled the room-only reservation. No change ever occured to FPPs beyond what I did in cancelling the first three days of plans and moving "FP eligibility" to the three days at the end of the trip. In our experience, as long as we maintained tickets for max desired length of stay and an on-site check-in, we had some flexibility in moving those FP plans around and figuring out the end of the week.

 

[BSS]

Thank you, Kristen. This is very helpful! We generally book a package so your experience gives me hope that if I need to drop the days it will all be okay.