Just back from a week long trip - it was wonderful! Here are the highlights:
* We stayed at the Grand Floridian in Boca Chica. They are doing some roofing and painting work, but we didn't find it to be disruptive. Boca Chica was nice, but I hated walking around the pool to get to the main building. It only adds a minute or two to your walk, but when you're late to the bus, it makes a difference!
* We rope dropped SDD during 7am EMH at HS. We caught the bus from GF at 5:59am (eek!), and were able to get on SDD with about a 10 min wait and then ride Aliens, TSMM, and move onto RnRC. We rode RnRC 5 times with no wait, until our bodies couldn't take the jostling any more. If you're willing to get up early, you can get a ton done very quickly.
* We used the refresh strategy for fastpasses, and it worked great for us! We were able to move FP times earlier, get new FPs through late afternoon with minimal refreshing. I did have to do significant refreshing (maybe 100 times?) to move our SDD and SDMT fast passes, but I was able to do both while waiting in line. Other fastpasses took 2-10 refreshes to get. I found it was best to pick a non-optimal time for the ride I wanted, and then modify again to get the time I wanted.
* Crowds were definitely low while we were there (touring plans had some days rated as a 1), especially for MK on mornings/early afternoons before the MNSSHP. It made getting FPs easier, so your refresh mileage may vary when the park is more crowded. Yay for August!
* We did EMM one morning and were able to ride SDMT 8 times and Peter Pan once. It was more crowded than when we had done it two years ago, but still very fun. Breakfast was great!
* We stayed at the Grand Floridian in Boca Chica. They are doing some roofing and painting work, but we didn't find it to be disruptive. Boca Chica was nice, but I hated walking around the pool to get to the main building. It only adds a minute or two to your walk, but when you're late to the bus, it makes a difference!
* We rope dropped SDD during 7am EMH at HS. We caught the bus from GF at 5:59am (eek!), and were able to get on SDD with about a 10 min wait and then ride Aliens, TSMM, and move onto RnRC. We rode RnRC 5 times with no wait, until our bodies couldn't take the jostling any more. If you're willing to get up early, you can get a ton done very quickly.
* We used the refresh strategy for fastpasses, and it worked great for us! We were able to move FP times earlier, get new FPs through late afternoon with minimal refreshing. I did have to do significant refreshing (maybe 100 times?) to move our SDD and SDMT fast passes, but I was able to do both while waiting in line. Other fastpasses took 2-10 refreshes to get. I found it was best to pick a non-optimal time for the ride I wanted, and then modify again to get the time I wanted.
* Crowds were definitely low while we were there (touring plans had some days rated as a 1), especially for MK on mornings/early afternoons before the MNSSHP. It made getting FPs easier, so your refresh mileage may vary when the park is more crowded. Yay for August!
* We did EMM one morning and were able to ride SDMT 8 times and Peter Pan once. It was more crowded than when we had done it two years ago, but still very fun. Breakfast was great!