I've been fortunate enough to make it into the hotseat several times with 2 or 3 of the times being on the fastest finger question. But I've been
unfortunate enough to miss the 500,000 point question once

and the 1 million point question twice

. I've also fallen out on the 16,000 point question

. I have also seen 2 different people win the cruise on the same day. And I can't remember who they were, but I've seen one or 2 posters here on the DIS post that they won the million point cruise.
My biggest tips are:
-Push the button (the correct one

) rapidly with your finger or thumb over and over again until it accepts your answer.
-If you are positive that A, B, and C are wrong, start punching D even before they tell you what it is.
-Do NOT wait for the keypad to light up or you will have virtually no chance of getting into the hotseat. Once you know what the answer is, start punching it.
-Act quickly, but really do try on those fastest finger questions. It is possible to get it right by actually knowing it. I have done it 2 or 3 times with questions as simple as "Put these Simpson family members in order of age starting with the youngest". I think there are patterns of ABCD that people tend to randomly choose, and if it is not one of those patterns then someone who actually knows it will get it right. Sometimes not even 10 people out of the 600 get the answer right.
-NEVER walk away. The chance of winning a cruise is well worth losing a few pins over.
-Use the "phone a complete stranger" early. Usually they don't know high level questions anyway, or they just can't hear you clearly enough to be of much help. I was a "phone a stranger" once, and I could just barely hear the person ask me the question because the phone was so bad.