Lightning Lane with Park Hoppers question

[txcorey]

We will be in Disneyland next week! We will have 3 park days-Thursday October 16, Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th. We have park hoppers and lightning lane. The plan for Thursday and Saturday will be to start in DCA because we are staying off property and then hop over to Disneyland at some point. Since Thursday is an Oogie Boogie Bash day I figured we'd stay at DCA til around 2 or 3 then hop. Friday we will start at Disneyland and stay most of the day there. For Thursday and Saturday, I'm just wondering what our strategy for lightning lane should be. Would you try to stack lightning lane for use at Disneyland later in the day, or would you use it at DCA and then maybe start stacking later in the day for DL? This is my first trip in 10 years, so I'm not sure what the strategy should be. I've watched lots of youtube videos, but can't seem to find any on this particular topic.
Thanks,

 

[Aspencreek]

Do you have must-do big ticket attractions like Guardians, Indiana Jones, Space Mtn, Haunted Mansion, etc.? And are you planning on rope-dropping or coming in a bit later?

 

[txcorey]

We will be rope dropping. I'd for sure like to do Haunted Mansion and Indy. I'm not a fan of Guardians or Space Mtn. I'm traveling with my sil and 7 year old niece, so I'm thinking the attractions for kids will be our focus, although she would probably be fine with doing the roller coasters, etc.

 

[kmill99]

Are you familiar with the concept of drop times? They are super clutch, so you can anticipate when more slots open. Set a timer and grab the newly released time slots.
Message me if you want more info.

 

[Aspencreek]

We will be rope dropping. I'd for sure like to do Haunted Mansion and Indy. I'm not a fan of Guardians or Space Mtn. I'm traveling with my sil and 7 year old niece, so I'm thinking the attractions for kids will be our focus, although she would probably be fine with doing the roller coasters, etc.

It might depend on just how busy it is at DCA on those days that you start there, but since you are rope-dropping you generally have at least a few hours of it not being too bad. That means you can get through a lot of the rides pretty quickly doing standby or using some LLs for very quick rides and then immediately booking another LL. So if it was me then I'd probably use the first couple hours to do the more popular DCA rides (excluding Guardians or whatever your crew doesn't want to do) using a mix of standby or super-quick turnaround LLs. Then around 10 or 11 start checking out the DL big ticket LL return times and begin stacking those once you can. Indy and HM are the ones that seem to book out/sell out quickest, so I'd get those stacked first. You can book them before the 11am park hop time, but the LL return time has to be after 11am. Not sure if I'd stack more than those two, but maybe also keep an eye on Runaway Railway, Matterhorn, etc. Anyway, not sure if that helps much but hope you have a good time!