Being there when the rope drops. Why bother?

[DisKim]

I tried a new strategy on this past trip (beginning of July). Last year, I did EMH almost every day and we were all ready to drop. If my family consisted of just me, I could do EMH every day. I'm an early riser. My kids, especially my DD8, take after my DH. I wanted them to enjoy our trip without being exhausted this time, so I decided to avoid EMH and do regular openings at non-EMH parks. It worked great! The crowds were very thin in the mornings and I noticed that it really wasn't bad as the time approached noon. As far as touring plans go, I kind of make my own. I consider the attractions that are important to my family, look at which ones are fastpass and get an idea of where we are headed. We had a lot of success. We rode every attraction we wanted at least once and never waited more than 10 minutes and that was over the 4th of July.