RSR is a crap shoot- you never know when it will be running. We've gone to DCA probably 10 park days now at open time, 3 during EE and probably 1/2 the time RSR was down at open, and 90% of the time it was down at some point during the day for multiple hours. We've never tried to do RSR at EE start or rope drop - too much of a zoo but it's possible depending on the luck of the day you'd get through it fast. We prefer this strategy for EE days - we did this last August:
1. Soarin (first show - get it out of the way with no line)
2. Toy Story (line is still pretty short)
3. I did Screamin' single rider (walk on) while DH and DD5 did the carousel next door
4. Now it's 15 min to open - DD went to get RSR fast passes, Mickey's fun wheel was just opening so DD5 and I went there
5. We met DD at Goofy's sky school just when rope drop happened and it opened - for 8am EE we had a 10:20 RSR FP time
6. Did a bunch of other rides until our RSR fastpass time - Zephyr, Silly Swings, Ariel, Monsters, 1-2 bugs life, etc. Then we went to our FP return time. Luckily it was up but it had been down already so we had some expired FP return FP folks in line with us so it probably took 30 min to get through the FP line and ride. IF RSR goes down for multiple hours that day (which is common) we often just give away our FP as the FP return line is over an hour as anyone who had a FP that day can return anytime if the ride was down on or near their FP return window. RSR is a great ride but now we treat it like something close to winning the lottery as to whether we get to ride it. For us it's probably 50% per FP that we actually get to ride it. I'd be much more frustrated if I had been in a regular line when the ride went down.
Yes, they can park during their check out day -did the package include parking? If no, they'd have to check to see what time the parking expires - I think it may depend on what time they arrived. At that point they'd probably charge per hour or per day depending on how many hours you go over. Other advice is if they are coming early and staying somewhere else the night before, they can check in at GCH as early as 6AM and do EE/MM if they wanted. We did that once when we did a split stay at HoJo's the night before- we walked from HoJo's to GCH at 7am, checked in, went to 8am EE at DCA, then went back to HoJo's at 11 to check out and took a cab to GCH to bring our bags where they were in storage until our room was ready around 4.
I'm jealous of your neighbors too - GCH is a wonderful place. We're getting ready to head down this weekend to do the Neverland 5K and will be off site- that extra EE hour would have come in handy!
I think Wed July hours are typically a 7am EE which I've never done - for that if RSR is running it may be worth trying to do that first as I'd think 7am stops a lot of folks from taking advantage of EE. But again, be ready for disappointment if it's down.
