Just wanted to make sure you only woke up once for LLMP / SP since you can make LL selections for your entire length ticket starting at 3 days before? Wasn’t clear from your phrasing (also not sure if you had a multi-day ticket or multiple one-day tickets). I get that you had to wake up each day for VQ, and I agree that sucks. LLMP day I had to get up at 5am (4am in the summer 
).
Also one hack is to book a date-based ticket that starts earlier than you actually intend to go so you can get a few days head start on booking. The longer your length of ticket, the more days this can buy you beyond 3+.