We are going to Disney at Christmas...also known as the single busiest time at the parks. We've done it before so we know that and go in with low expectations. That said, when we went 3yr ago at that time they still had regular fastpass where you sprinted to fastpass machines and printed out your tix and then could get more frequently throughout the day. We picked parks to attend on the days they DIDN"T have extra magic hours and went at rope drop and really were able to ride everything we wanted to. They switched to the new online reservation system and tier system a month after we visited. We don't stay on property because ILs live 15min from the parks and we stay with them. BUT we are open to considering a short stay on property if the 60 day FP+ reservation window over the 30 day window of off property people will make much of a difference. We googled and can't seem to find an answer about whether at peak times the on property people fill up all the FP+ spots. If we stay off property and have to wait until 30days out to reserve our FP's will we be completely closed out?

We plan to be in Orland for 7 days and think we'll do 1 day at each park plus one day at Harry Potter World at Universal. Just trying to think out the best strategy given the fact that the parks will be at capacity when we are there (Xmas Eve through NYE).