I really appreciated the recent Ear Scouts video on Epcot early entry because Rob suggested a way to take advantage of early entry without having to get up super early and spend a lot of time in line. Similarly I appreciated the Animal Kingdom multipass strategy video because it did not involve getting to the park early.
My goal is to not spend time in lines (including to get into the park for early entry), and I'm willing to purchase single and multi pass lightning lanes to make that happen.
So here's what I'm thinking for each park, let me know if this makes sense.
Animal Kingdom: replicate Rob's day where he starts in Dinoland and pre-books Na'vi for late in the day, getting into line for Avatar at park close. Early entry could be used to have some extra time before the park opens to just enjoy the park rather than trying to get in lines for popular attractions.
Epcot: We'll be using the international entrance, so I'm thinking we'll go to Frozen during early entry and pre-book a Lightning Lane for Remy. In the Ear Scouts video from a year or so ago, Rob does Frozen as a walk-on after having done Remy by arriving super early. I'm hoping that if we arrive at the beginning of early entry we can do Frozen without a long wait at the gate or at the ride. I'm assuming I won't have trouble booking Soarin later. We probably won't do Guardians because it might be too intense for my youngest kid.
Hollywood Studios: we plan to do Mickey & Minnie's during early entry. There's an "all the bells and whistles" hs video where Rob does Tower of Terror and then Mickey & Minnie's as a walk-on. Similar to the Epcot strategy, I'm thinking of pre-booking tower, and going straight to what was Rob's second ride as a walk-on. I'll pre-book Slinky, and buy single passes for Rise. Note we won't be doing Rock n Roller Coaster because of height requirements.
Magic Kingdom: this is the hardest to figure out. I'm thinking we'll do Peter Pan in early entry, and hoping that if we show up at the beginning of early entry (without lining up super early), the wait for Peter Pan still won't be too long, and that after riding it we'd be able to get to Jungle Cruise before that queue gets too long. I'll pre-book Tiana's, and buy single passes for Seven Dwarfs. I might use Aladdin to tap in early (en route to Jungle Cruise), to book Space Mountain. Note we won't be doing Tron because of height requirements.
Do these strategies make sense? Any other suggestions?
Wow it sounds like it went really well, I think you could release your own strategy guide with that sort of planning!
I definitely know what you mean about doing very early entry. We did it a number of times when we were there, but its definitely not something you can do every day. Using it to get to your first lightning lane on time is a very good tip.
So here's how things went down. I tried doing very early entry for our first few days. But it was exhausting for the kids (who refused to nap during our long mid-day breaks). But we did have some success with it, doing Peter Pan with an 8-minute wait (Seven Dwarfs was down), and getting both Mickey & Minnie's and Millennium Falcon done before park open. But Remy was down at Epcot (for the entire day), so we did Soarin', which is so easy to get as a lightning lane it wasn't worth being so early IMO. We were early for Animal Kingdom but didn't need to be since we were starting on the Dinosaur side. For the second half of our trip we ended up using early entry only to get to our first lightning lane at the earliest possible moment. This worked very well and enabled us to get significantly more sleep.
At Magic Kingdom we gingerly made our way towards Pirate's for 8:10am, but seeing that Jungle Cruise was a walk-on we did it first. I made Peter Pan our tier 1 because I knew we'd be able to get Tiana's when they release new lightning lane slots throughout the morning. We also had Seven Dwarfs lightning lane passes.
At Animal Kingdom we arrived at Kilimanjaro to tap in exactly at 8am, to allow us to book Mickey & Minnie's at Hollywood studios (Millennium Falcon, Toy Story Mania, Slinky, and Tower are all easy to get on re-releases later in the day, which is why I made HS an afternoon/evening park-hop on 2 of our days).
At Epcot we tapped in at Mission Space at 8:55am, and booked Soarin' and Frozen, adding to our existing Remy and Guardians lightning lanes, giving us the ultimate Epcot poker hand.
If you want extra sleep I highly recommend using a good lightning lane strategy rather than trying to be first in line for early entry.
Rob said something in the Early Entry Epcot video about when everyone is going "zig" he tries to go "zag". That's actually pretty tricky in Epcot due to the limited number of top attractions, but you can certainly do it in the other parks.
AK: Large majority will go for Flight of Passage, going the opposite way will allow you to do Everest and Dinosaur with little wait and you won't have to be there super early.
HS: Majority will go Rise or Slinky, so Mickey & Minnies (as you suggest) to Tower are good options.
MK: Most will go to Mine Train, so your idea of Peter Pan is a good one.
Sounds like you've got some good planning in there already! Best of luck.
I think you have a lot of good plans! Just a reminder you can buy single pass for Flight of Passage in case you don’t want to stay until closing, but the regular queue is pretty cool! Epcot sounds good, just remember to take a left toward the UK and follow the path around the lagoon to Frozen. Hopefully you will beat anyone coming from the front gates. Your MK and HS plans sound good to me! I usually skip Pan and Jungle Cruise, but that sounds like a good way to attack.
There’sa great video just posted about early entry at Epcot and how, if you start with Soarin’, you probably don’t need get there super early (bit guess it depends where you go). They basically knocked off Rémy, Frozen and Soarin’ in about 2 hours.
Appreciate your post as I’m also trying to work out a strategy for my visit