Personally I don't think they're worth it, I only have them because they came with the dining plan!

I have heard of people doing this, generally I think cast members are too busy with more important things to care but technically you're not supposed to and they are within their rights to tell you not to. FWIW, the refillable mugs are not great to take to the parks, they don't really seal and have to be held upright all the time while full or they will leak. IMO it isn't worth the savings or the potential hassle to use or try to fill them in the parks.

You will have a great time!!! I would ask folks what their absolute top three things are, and then try to prioritize them for the first two days while their stamina is at its highest. That way, if they wear out and want or need to spend more time resting, they already knocked out their top things at least. :) It might be a good strategy to have one group in the "morning shift," then come back to the hotel and swap with those in the "evening shift"? That way nobody gets too tired and you could even split groups according to age or preferences? If you have park hoppers, you could hit one park in the morning and one in the evening? The only downside of this might be less together time as one big group. Sometimes folks don't recommend table service meals due to the time they take up and the price, but if those aren't concerns I very much recommend them, it is soooo nice to sit down out of the heat and not have to worry about fighting anyone for quick service seating (not literally fighting, haha, but it is hard, you gotta watch like a hawk and swoop in when one is free!) We did 1-2 table service meals every day during our trip (one day we even did 3!), and when combined with Genie+ we were still able to do everything we wanted. Table service meals are also a great way for your kids to meet all those characters they want to meet, all at once with no lines and in the AC! Recommend Akershus especially for the princesses. We met Mickey at Garden Grill and Topolino and both were great! One last tip, get Magic Spotter flags for your strollers from Etsy, ours made it so easy to instantly spot our stroller no matter where it got moved. Let us know how it all goes!

I think they're just trying to push the MagicBand+ by failing to mention the increasingly hard to find MagicBand. I do think they are planning to phase out the MagicBand, but they will make a lot of loud announcements before that happens so people aren't caught off guard, 18 days out you are fine! We just went two weeks ago and used MagicBands. :)

From now on... as little as possible, haha! I took so many things the Internet said I would need and I didn't end up needing them. What I did need: -- small backpack -- ziplock bags -- hand sanitizer -- umbrella -- phone (obv!) -- backup battery pack for phone -- whatever you're having characters sign + markers -- hat -- sunscreen -- ibuprofen -- water bottle I didn't bring my whole wallet, I just had my ID and a backup credit card in case my magic band stopped working. We didn't end up using stomach meds or bandaids (thank goodness) but it was probably a good idea to have them anyway. Glasses cases, battery pack, umbrella, and pins/buttons inside a bag are what seem to set off the detector! I do want to reassure people though that at least for me, the bag search took like 30 seconds - a minute, it really wasn't a huge deal or slowed me down much. That said, I wasn't trying to to speed walk to Seven Dwarves or anything. 😅

The ideal scenario is to book a popular ride at 7, and if you can't get a return time right around park opening up front, then try to modify to get it as close to park opening as possible so that you don't have to worry about the "two hours after park open" thing. We did this on our most recent trip two weeks ago and we almost never had a problem backing up even the most popular rides to near park open. The only one we couldn't get that early was Slinky, we got that one back to 3 PM but couldn't get it any earlier, so in that case we had to wait until 11 (2 hours after HS opened that day) to book our next one. I believe the 2 hour after opening rule is smart enough to adjust for different park opening times if you buy Genie+ for that particular park. I am not sure what it does if you buy it for multiple parks. I believe you can book back and forth for different parks but not sure on that, I think there is a video about it though! My own strategy was to book a hugely popular ride at 7 am, and then after that just keep an eye on the times. If other popular rides still appeared to have plenty of availability/early return times, I focused on booking whatever was immediately available so I could ride more things quickly/avoid the two hour rule. If popular rides looked like they might be close to running out/return times were getting later or showing as unavailable, I focused on getting those and modifying earlier if/when I could, even if it activated the two hour rule. Hope that helps, have a great trip!

I don't have any experience with Standby Skipper, so I would lean towards booking #1 and #2 yourself and then letting Standby handle whatever #3 is --and whatever you are able to get for #1 and #2 can inform what kind of search you set up for Standby Skipper? Good luck, hope you have a great time!

Here's the guidelines I use for myself! Refresh when: -- You haven't booked anything yet and you're trying to get better return times to pop up. -- You're trying to modify something already booked and you're trying to get better return times to pop up. Back and forth when: -- You saw a really great return time but when you tapped it, the time changed to something worse. Usually if you go back and forth you can get the original time you wanted or something even better!