It is Tier 1 and if it's a must-ride for you, use it. We just got back from WDW, and were at Epcot on the 24th. It was a 3 hour wait in stand-by all day, and the ride was down frequently. The FP will save you a ton of time, and the other Tier 1 rides are much easier to rope-drop. We actually got on Soarin' with a 20-minute wait the day after the new film started showing, and this was over an hour after the park opened.