They do not generally check in before 7:00. We got in line about 6:15 because I had heard to get the best seat you needed to be there about that time. We were second in line. It was a long wait but worth it because we got the best seats! They started checking us in a few minutes early because there were so many lined up we were blocking the path! Funny, because the cm said they had never seen the line so long so early ever before. Guess we all had read the same page and were going to beat each other to the front row! After that we were free to leave until about 8:30.
Still something of a wait but nothing like camping out for 3 hours. My DH liked our seats so much he decided we would have to do it each trip.