It’s worth noting that all these strategies are good for edge cases and absolute maximization.
For most people most of the time, the following is all you need to remember:
1) Get your first LL at 7am
2) Get another LL every time you tap into a LL, even if you’ve just gotten one
3) Try to get another LL if it’s been 2 hours since you got your last one
Yes, there are nuances with park opening, return windows closing, 2-hour rule straddling, etc. But if you follow the above, 90% of the time you’ll have about as many LL reservations as you can get to in a day. At MK on a slow-ish day, if return windows are immediate or near immediate, the 2-hour rule won’t even come into play. Your biggest problem will be leaving breaks for meals, bathroom, and shopping.
Take heart, Liners! It’s only complicated if you want to squeeze every last drop out of this system.
I’ve searched the news and blogs and can’t find any confirmation, but I heard last week that the increased prices were “weekend” prices. So I presume they came back down. If anyone knows for sure, let us know.
I don’t think I could do the most advanced of these taps and scheduling with my family in tow. I also think that this form of touring calls for more relaxed mornings and busier evenings. As my kids get older, this would work for us, but our last trip (under FPP) we had really busy mornings and slow afternoons.
Not sure what strategy we will take this next trip, yet. I don’t really want to be running.
I think for a more relaxed pace, especially if starting in the morning, I would just grab whichever LL attraction is available soonest or at a convenient time if you need a break. You may not get on all the headliners, but you’ll get through a lot of attractions that way, and can decide whether to suck it up and wait in line toward the end when you have headliners only left (or try to hit one or two at rope drop).
Oh, I’d probably still plan around hitting most of the headliners. I do have a bum hip. So I’m also not likely to pickup a LL for anything across the park at the end of the day. I’m usually too achy by then. (Although I did hike it back for a dole whip with rum at AK, so apparently I will endure aches for important things.)
Today’s G+ selections seems to be going fast. I checked around 7:30 and lots of things posting several hours out at MK. The TP crowd levels seem ok even with today being Halloween. Have the weekends just been more competitive? I’m super curious to see how useful or useless G+ Becomes on very crowded days.
The 5 minutes grace period before your window is automatic and super helpful.
There can be decent lines for LL because people haven’t learned how to use the system. There are two taps on either side but they’re not spaced very far apart so families using one almost always block the other.
Refreshing to look for other times is often not worth it. They’re rare and half the time don’t match the time that pops up on the next screen.
It’s great to stack times for later in the days but also challenging. For example, if you don’t plan to hop until 5, things in the last 2 hours of the day don’t show up until decently into the morning and go super fast. I suspect this is a combination of fewer times being given (don’t want lines building up at closing) and people grabbing them when they see they’re close to running out. We tried to time SDD for 7 pm almost every day and only got it once.
Lastly, though it may seem counter to my previous point, morning times are gone very quickly and then things lag for a while. So again, decently hard to time if you are aiming for specific return windows. The best strategy is to use it for a park you plan to stay in all day, or stack for the evening with the expectation that you’ll be in the park starting at 2 pm on the dot.
Can I post this in chat as there are many people getting overwhelmed and this is a great summary for anyone wanting to maximize while not having to over think it.
Just confirming this again. I just completed a after resort survey and they asked if I purchased any ILL at 0700 and/or if I knew I had that option. I had a BG for Remy and was offered an opportunity to buy the ILL at $11.
