I just wanted to say thank you everyone for their advice and help getting us to MK the morning of our EMM on our very first WDW mini trip! We went last Tuesday the 20th and it was fantastic! We did manage to get all 12 of us out of the house by 6:39AM (were shooting for 6:30), but we hit a snag going into MK and ended up not arriving to the park until 8:00. First, we were running super ahead of schedule and then manage to miss the MK parking entrance and ended up going back the front side of TTC and going all the way around past the Grand Floridian and wedding pavillion. How? Yes, that was my question to the men driving too. I know to regulars it might seem insane but there were zero cars going into the MK parking and tons going on the turn off so he followed them. The detour back to parking was a mess and took like 15-20 minutes. Then we arrived at TTC (around 7:30ish) only the resort monorail was open, not the express or the ferry, so we had to wait a couple go rounds. Finalllly, we made it into the parks and checked into EMM right at 8:00. It was everything we needed it to be, empty walkways, walk ons for the 3 rides plus the carousel and a great meal.
Bottom line, I am so glad I took everyone's advice and went for it. The rest of the day was
insane in the parks and it really saved our day I think. Although, I have to say I don't get the SDMT hype, I'd take BTMRR over it any day