DH just happened to have a conference in Orlando during Oct. last year. DD8, DD5 were at home with the grandparents. We had DD18months with us. After his conference let out we decided to go, got there right at 7:00. We loved it. It was so much fun. We rode pretty much everything in Fantasyland and did Buzz before eating at Cosmic Rays around 8:00. After that we watched the fireworks which were awesome, and then rode Pirates and watched the parade. We were pretty worn out after that, so we went ahead and left around 11:00. It was worth every penny, even the guilt I felt that my oldest 2 DD's weren't there!

I second what the other poster said about being able to get in at 4:00 with just your
MNSSHP ticket. If you wanted to sleep in and rest by the pool and then hit the park at 4:00 you would get your monies worth for sure. You also get a free photo of your group. If you are going to be there during several days, I would pick a weekday over weekend, because a lot of locals come on the weekends and I think they tend to be more crowded than the weeknights. The 31st always sells out early, I think we were there Sunday the 17th. We bought our tickets the day before as I wanted to make sure that the weather was going to be decent, since they are nonrefundable.