What is the Walt Disney World FastPass grace period?
The good news is that there is a grace period both before an after your scheduled FastPass time. You can get into the FastPass line up to 5 minutes before and 15 minutes after your scheduled time window, so you can breathe easily!
What is the Walt Disney World FastPass grace period?
It’s happened to us all.
Lunch runs a little long.
The line at Casey’s Corner moved slower than expected.
The transportation from your resort to the Magic Kingdom took a lot longer than you thought it would.
And if you’re not familiar with how the Walt Disney World Resort handles FastPasses then you might be in an all-out panic thinking you missed your window.
But you can slow down and take a breath and not get yourself worked up into a frenzy.
Disney will let you into your attraction, and even after your time window has expired – 5 minutes before, and we’ve seen up to even 15 minutes afterward during our trips.
And we learned this the hard way.
Disney FastPass Grace Period
One time years ago, we had FastPasses for Thunder Mountain Railroad and we were almost literally sprinting from Tomorrowland to the back of the park to try and make it on time.
Despite our best efforts to make it, we were still a few minutes late.
But to our very pleasant surprise, we were able to still get in line!
Here’s something that’s also true: to the best of my knowledge, there isn’t an official policy on a FastPass grace period, so if it’s a super busy time in the parks it’s possible that this may not apply.
We’ve been told these times by cast members and have experienced both the early arrival grace period, and the late arrival grace period, so this info is pretty solid.
But you don’t want to plan your entire Walt Disney World vacation around these grace periods, so what should you do?
How to avoid missing your FastPass times
Here’s something that most new Disney visitors understand:
It takes a lot of time to move from one place to another.
Even if you’re taking a Minnie van via Lyft from your resort (which is much faster than traditional Disney transportation!).
What most don’t take into account is the security check at the entrance to the park you’re trying to get into, the line to get into that security check, the line at the ticket gate, and the number of guests in the park that you have to navigate through to get to your destination, among other things!
To avoid missing your FastPass times make sure that you allot plenty of time to get from where you are to where you’re going.
I’m talking at least an hour if you’re going from a resort to a park! Maybe even more.
Spread Out Your Disney FastPass time windows
One rookie mistake we made years ago was to plan things too closely together.
We had stuff stacked up one right after the other from dining, to FastPass times, to shows.
And we suffered.
We ran the entire time and needed a vacation from our vacation!
One of the tricks we learned was to space out our FastPass times so that we weren’t in a constant rush.
It’s true – you can book more FastPasses after you’ve used your third FastPass for the day.
But the really high-popularity rides like Soarin’, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Flight of Passage, etc. are already gone for the day so the likelihood of you getting a FastPass on those is virtually zero anyway.
So space out your FastPasses, slow down and enjoy the park!
