As soon as you enter the line for FP#1, on your MDX app:
YES! We are AP holders (for a few more months anyway) and we did this Thanksgiving (my 3rd trip in 4 months and the rest of families 2nd in 4 months-it is pretty awesome to have a CM in the family even if temporary! Oh I miss the discounts). Stayed offsite at a fabulous Marriott (booked there again for 2nd week of June trip)-we have found we are much better equipped to handle lines/crowds/stress when we have our own space and beds. DH and I also realized we hadn't actually done a road trip that long with a family of 5 (we used to do that all the time when first married and then even after first kid came along). So DH got to be the corny dad calling out states as we passed, making up "facts" about states, sites etc. We will likely drive again in June-unless I can find some fabulous airfare rates.
As a PP said-really depends on the crowd. We hit RD at MK on Thanksgiving day, had FP for late morning and hit nearly all the major rides by 12 ish or so-with lots and lots of FP still available for early afternoon (family of 4 then). DH and I went over NY and -with exception of EPCOT in afternoon of NYE- found tons of ADRs and FP pop up (never saw FoP pop up but did see everything else). But I swear I saw more "first visit" buttons over NYE than I did over the summer! Also I think some of this depends on party size. My DD (who was on the college program) found a same day FP in August for FOP-I think she refreshed for about 20 minutes straight (couldn't make her FoP FP at same time as rest of family as she didn't yet have her maingate pass at the time). I just did a random check and after a couple refreshers found a Navi FP pop up for 3:40 today - party of 1.
Use the touring plans reservation finder. You need a free account to use it
We've always been rope drop to closing ppl (even with the kids were super little). We just got back from a trip and my kids are now 14 and 17 and my 17 yr old was the one who wanted to not do rope drop and come back and take a nap. We did find ourselves slowing down more than we use to and enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong, we were at parks everyday (even did all 4 parks on our last full day); but we did come back to the hotel a lot of times mid day to unwind and hit the parks again after dinner.
My son and I did a four-parks day two weeks ago. We did our five favorite things at each park. It took all day for us (until 11:00) but it was a super, super hot and humid day so we weren't always moving at top speed.
We started at AK, took the bus to HS, took the Friendship Boat to Epcot, and then the Monorail to MK. We spent about three hours in each park. (It could be more if you start at a place that opens before 9:00, but we were too tired for that.)
), we left around 4:30. We then hopped on over to Epcot and rode Spaceship Earth, Soarin, TT and Frozen. Spaceship earth had no wait, we got a FP for Soarin; but had to wait Standby for TT and Frozen. TT was about a 45 min wait and Frozen about 30. We also ate a quick dinner in Mexico at the CS place (always forget it's name). After Epcot, we decided we wanted to ride FOP one more time; but wanted to wait nearer to closing time to get in line. We rode Dinosaur and Everest before getting in line on FOP around 9:20. It so happened that Hollywood Studies had extra magic hrs that night so the park closed at 12:30 so we decided to run over there so we could say we did all 4 parks in one day! We rode TOT 2x, RnR 1x, Star Tours 1x and TSMM 1x. 
Our original plan for the day was only to do 1, maybe 2 parks that day. It was our last full day at WDW and we had been doing rope drop every day. Our schedule was for MK (MK was also closing at 6 for the first MNSSHP) and we had lunch at BOG at noon so we decided to not do rope drop that day since we had already been there a few times in the trip already. So we got to MK around 11:30 and did our first FP (Mine train) and then had lunch. We had planned on staying till close; but the crowds were pretty low and not long waits so after riding everything we wanted to (ie: Space, Thunder, Splash, HM, Pirates, Buzz, Ppl Mover and watched COP to cool down
Basically, just pick your favorite rides to hit at each of the parks (use FPs when you can). For all the years we've been going; this was the first time we did it. It was helpful that Animal Kingdom was closing later (9:30) that day and that HS had it's EMH. Good Luck!
Get those 3 fast passes done asap so you can get number 4, 5, 6...
