Gearing up to make my first preselections since the switch to LLMP and that got me to wondering how best to go about balancing ride desirability versus return time desirability. I have already organized the Tier 1 and Tier 2 rides by my family's priorities/preferences. But on that fateful morning at 7:00am Eastern, if I am confronted with higher priority rides with later return times versus lower priority rides with earlier return times, how should I net those two factors in comparing my options?
I fully appreciate that the answer is ultimately a subjective judgment on my part. It's not like I can easily quantify the desirability of each ride and then apply some kind of discount rate for each hour after opening that the available return time happens to be. But I wonder if there are specific factors I should consider, something to give me a rough rubric for evaluating Ride A with an afternoon time versus Ride B with a morning time. I'd love to know what goes into everyone's thinking when having to make that choice.
So far, one factor I have identified is the likelihood of return times being available on the day of visit. I've been looking over Thrill Data to get a sense of which attractions are more likely to still have LL availability on the day of visit, and which ones I should assume can only be reliably had as preselections.
The other big factor I would presume is the general usefulness of opening a LL slot early on the day of visit. I'm of course well aware of the popular strategy of booking a Tier 1 and one Tier 2 based solely on ride desirability and then devoting the other Tier 2 slot to a "burner" with the earliest available return time. That seems sound, but only on the premise that there will be desirable LLs still available to book day-of. I worry about whether that premise will still hold true during high demand times, such as my upcoming April 14-18th visit the week ahead of Easter. I'd hate to, for example, forego an early afternoon LL for something I wanted to ride in favor of having a burner early in the morning only to find I can't get anything better that day.
Are there other considerations that you factor in when choosing your preselections?
It really comes down to your specific priorities. If you can provide your list I can make some recommendations and give an explanation for each recommendation. I did a ton of thrill-data analysis on this.
It's definitely a tricky balance, I think for pre-booking I'd go with my top priority rides regardless of the times so I knew I had them. Then before the trip try modifying to see if I could get anything better and if not possibly sacrifice one of the three to go for an early burner ride depending on which park it was for.