Here now! Time to pay it forward after months of scouring these boards for tips!
Family of 5 with kids aged 8+ | Yacht Club | 6 nights | Genie+ all days | Traveling with another family of 5, not linked on
MDE | We hate lines >30 min!
Day 1 - Sun, May 29 - MK hopping to EP with midday break - Memorial Day weekend, very crowded!
7:00 am - from resort bus stop, used 3 phones logged in to same MDE to book $ILL Guardians for 7:05-8:05 pm (no time shift), $ILL SDMT for 2:15-3:15 (shifted by 15 min), and LL for Splash 9:15-10:15 - the other family booked the same and we had no trouble getting all to overlap
7:35 - boarded first MK bus leaving Yacht Club for 8:30 EE, crowds were big already at MK when we arrived
8:30 - rope dropped SDMT (took 25 min)
9:00 - planned to rope drop BTMRR when full park opened, but it was down, so rode Haunted Mansion instead (walk-on)
9:20 - Pirates (35 min posted, 15 min actual)
10:05 - Splash LL - booked next LL for 3 on Space for 2:30-3:30 and 2 on Buzz for 11:10-12:10 (because of differing interests)
10:45 - Tea Cups (15 min) - split up after so 2 with early LL could redeem
11:10 - Buzz LL - booked next LL for 2 on Speedway 12:00-1:00
11:35 - Carousel of Progress (walk-on)
12:05 - Speedway LL - all 5 of us became eligible to book next LL because group of 2 tapped in and it had been 2 hours since group of 3 booked, booked Small World for 1:45-2:45 as it had best return window with ADR and afternoon plans
12:35 - Crystal Palace lunch
~1:30 - Small World LL converted to Multiple Experience pass beginning at 1:45 because ride went down
1:55 - Used Multiple Experience passes to ride Splash and BTMRR (our group split due to interests), booked next LL for Soarin' for 6:30-7:30 pm
2:15 - SDMT $ILL converted to Anytime pass valid for the day because ride went down; since we were leaving MK soon, we went to blue tent and they moved the pass to a different day of our trip (to be used anytime that day)
2:45 - Space LL
3:15 - left park for break
3:55 - from room, checked Epcot availability and saw nothing we were interested in had a late enough return window for our evening plans. I noticed Living with Land was down with a 4:10 return time, so I booked it hoping that it would convert to a Multiple Experience pass.
4:05 - It worked! Living with the Land LL still down, so got the Multiple Experience AND our booking eligibility reopened. Noticed Spaceship Earth was down with a 4:50 return time, so I tried the same thing again.
4:50 - It worked again! Now I had 2 Multiple Experience pass AND our booking eligibility reopened. Living with the Land still down with a 5:10 return, so I tried again. Living with the Land did come back up a few minutes later, so this didn't work, but I lost nothing in trying for it.
We have spent a couple of hours in the pool and resting, and we'll be off to Epcot shortly with Soarin LL for 6:30-7:30, Guardians $ILL for 7:05-8:05, and 2 Multiple Experience passes we can use to catch some of the lower tier rides like Spaceship Earth, Mission Space, etc.
All in all, a great first day despite rides going down! I applied so much of what I learned reading here these last few months, and we never waited more than 30 minutes even on a very busy day!