This is going to be a planning challenge for even the most seasoned WDW veterans.
We are going October 19-26 and have four full days plus our arrival day set for WDW parks. The other two days are for Universal and KSC. Because we will be making FPs before there is any experience with GE, my rough plan for now is:
1. Go to DHS on arrival day, getting there around 5 PM. Get a FP for Star Tours and the best Tier 1 ride available and one for a show that we probably won’t use. Use this time to get our first look at GE in the daylight, with no expectation of doing the Falcon ride.
2. On one of our first full days spent at WDW parks, go to the 6 AM EMH but not get FPs at DHS. By then there will be information on how the crowds at DHS are working, such as how early you have to get there to get on the Falcon ride with a reasonable wait, and how the lines at the other rides build up. My expectation, or at least my hope, is that between the early hour and no FPs, the lines for the other rides will not be that bad before 8:30. If we can get on an off the Falcon ride by 7, maybe we can do the other rides that we didn’t get a FP for on arrival day in reasonably short order. After all, there only are 4 others (SDD, TSMM, RNRC, and TOT) and we’ll only have 3 of them left. We have done the Alien Saucers a few times so they aren’t a priority, and I will be shocked if they have much of a line during EMH. We would leave DHS as soon as it gets too crowded for our tastes and go to the park where we have FPs.
3. If there are things we want to do that we don’t get to the first day, we could do the same thing later in the trip, again probably without FPs.
4. Once GE opens, I’ll be looking for reports and, using our APs, play around with same day FP availability. If it turns out that the tiering makes a lot of same day FPs available for refreshing, we could spend an afternoon at DHS after using FPs at another park.
5. Because we will also be at WDW for marathon weekend, we will be able to pick up whatever we missed then.
I think the 6 AM EMH is designed to encourage at least some resort guests with hoppers to take advantage of those and then clear out of the park early to make way for others. That’s probably what we’ll do.
BTW, for people who want to use FPs early at DHS, my experience has been that refreshing for extra FPs works really well at Epcot. So, one plan might be to make the FPs at DHS and then head to Epcot by late morning or early afternoon. Without spending too much time refreshing I have been able to get FPs for Soarin, Test Track, and FEA within a 3 or 4 hour window. Soarin seems to be pretty easy to get. I am usually looking for a party of 3.