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I've never really looked into this much, the timings for when new ones appear is really interesting. https://www.thrill-data.com/lightning-lane-popup

So here's how things went down. I tried doing very early entry for our first few days. But it was exhausting for the kids (who refused to nap during our long mid-day breaks). But we did have some success with it, doing Peter Pan with an 8-minute wait (Seven Dwarfs was down), and getting both Mickey & Minnie's and Millennium Falcon done before park open. But Remy was down at Epcot (for the entire day), so we did Soarin', which is so easy to get as a lightning lane it wasn't worth being so early IMO. We were early for Animal Kingdom but didn't need to be since we were starting on the Dinosaur side. For the second half of our trip we ended up using early entry only to get to our first lightning lane at the earliest possible moment. This worked very well and enabled us to get significantly more sleep. At Magic Kingdom we gingerly made our way towards Pirate's for 8:10am, but seeing that Jungle Cruise was a walk-on we did it first. I made Peter Pan our tier 1 because I knew we'd be able to get Tiana's when they release new lightning lane slots throughout the morning. We also had Seven Dwarfs lightning lane passes. At Animal Kingdom we arrived at Kilimanjaro to tap in exactly at 8am, to allow us to book Mickey & Minnie's at Hollywood studios (Millennium Falcon, Toy Story Mania, Slinky, and Tower are all easy to get on re-releases later in the day, which is why I made HS an afternoon/evening park-hop on 2 of our days). At Epcot we tapped in at Mission Space at 8:55am, and booked Soarin' and Frozen, adding to our existing Remy and Guardians lightning lanes, giving us the ultimate Epcot poker hand. If you want extra sleep I highly recommend using a good lightning lane strategy rather than trying to be first in line for early entry.

So glad you had a great holiday! Thanks for the report! Always good to hear if our advice was helpful (or not for that matter!)

Thanks for the info Ariel! That's kind of how I pictured it going. Keeping one slot open isn't a strategy I would want to use lol.

Oh wow, that doesn't sound great. Thanks for the info. There are a few lighting lanes that rarely become available during the day. Those include Frozen, Mickey and Minnies, Na'vi, and Peter Pan. There's always a slim chance you'll grab one later in the day, but it seems that generally when they're gone, they're gone.

Thank you @Jonny 5 and @Kiran, all helpful points!

I think the best indicator for how busy each park will be is the price of the multipass. Disney knows exactly how busy it will be and prices the lightning lanes accordingly.

We went with an 8 and 11 year old last year, so not too different from yourself. People say that generally Tues-Wed-Thurs are quieter so I guess if there's one park in particular that is your favorite you could do that on those days. That said the parks are busy pretty much every day, so I don't think it really makes that much difference! Obviously the schedule is entirely up to you and your needs, but if it were me I'd be having less break days. Or at least use those days to go back to the parks and do things slightly slower and pick and choose what you want to do a bit more. I actually found it more enjoyable going back to a park the 2nd time because you didn't feel as though you had to try and pack everything in. Also depending on your budget I'd recommend multi pass for all the parks. I found with my family it allowed us to not rush as much and fit in time for breaks (just 30 mins here and there) to get a snack and recharge a bit. You don't necessarily get that time if you in long lines a lot. Hope you have a great trip!

Sounds like you probably won't need Multipass for AK as you'll definitely be able to do Navi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safari during EE. There are a number of animal attractions that are just walkthroughs which would be ideal for young children. With regards to FOP, you'll be able to book 7 days in advance so should be able to get an AM slot for it on the single pass pretty easily.

Yeah me too. I didn't use this service, but it seems like an interesting idea.

For early entry at AK I would go for NRJ before the safari. Mostly because it's more 'on the way" to the safari which is all the way at the back of the park. You will see a LOT of people heading to Pandora at rope drop, but the vast majority will be going to FoP. Keep in mind there is a single rider line for Everest which may work out for you if you don't mind riding one at a time. I love how you are prioritizing the kids on this trip! But you gotta take some moments for yourself amirite? 😉

We do have early entry! We have a 6 and 3 year old and have never been to AK so our priorities there are the safari and Na’vi. So if we rope drop would you do Na’vi and then safari? Everest would be fun for some of the adults but we are really prioritizing the kids this trip. We will buy LLSP for FOP assuming we can get it in the AM.