so many great responses and tips here - thank you all so much!
I'm hearing a lot about the lockers - And may try to take advantage of this. So here is my question - I don't want it to interrupt early morning touring right out of the gate. How do you pay for the locker? What are the logistics around it and how big are the lockers?
thanks
You just go to the locker area (I know there's one in Main Street, which I found very convenient) and find the area of lockers you want. I think they just have Small and Large? Most are Small, at least. You just touch the screen in the area you want and navigate through. You can pay with cash or credit--I don't know how cash works, but it says you can get change. Using a credit card is nice and quick.
Once you've paid, you'll get a receipt with your code (don't lose it!) and the light on one of the nearby lockers will blink and the screen will tell you what locker you've been assigned (you can't control where it is). Just put your stuff in, close the door (make sure everything's in so it doesn't jam!) and then press the button to lock it, and you're good to go.
I always photographed the receipt, just in case we lost it.
To unlock, just go to the same station you checked out from and tell it to unlock your locker. Enter the code and it'll flash again.
A "small" locker ($7) held 2 coats (one trenchcoat and a coat closer to a pea coat) and a sweatshirt. They were just balled in there and the fit was a touch tight, but not too bad. I reckon there's a good chance we could have squeezed another coat in there if we had folded our clothes instead, and definitely if one had not been a trenchcoat.
The $10 locker easily fit an 18" American Girl doll, a balled up sweatshirt, and I think a couple coats, with room to spare. Not certain about what all we put in there, but that's really a good-sized locker.
The price is kind of steep, but you do get unlimited in-out privileges with your code.
Are there lockers outside the park?
What we did was, wear our warm clothes in the early morning (it was always cool enough for that), and then around 10 or 11, when it started getting warm, we circled back to Main Street to get a locker.
Another option would be to send a Fastpass runner to Space Mountain for a Fastpass while someone else goes to the locker, and meet at Indy. (If you're doing Fantasyland first, you can likely carry your stuff until you're done with the dark rides, at least.)