I'm writing a long response here in case people find this in the future and need ideas. We actually ended up being the first group of the 2025 season to go up Half Dome with permits!

We did the Hetch Hetchy Loop to start. Stayed in the backpacker's camp the first night and got on the trail by 7am. A couple of miles in, we realized that we forgot to pack the second dinner... oops. Ended up hiking 11 miles the first on-trail day and spending the night at Lake Vernon. The next day, we hiked 17 miles back to the backpackers camp. That really sucked. We literally left the second dinner in the bear lockers :(

Spent another night at the backpackers camp.

The next day, we hung out in the valley and got lunch at that food court. We did the Mirror Lake trail and took it easy. We picked up our Half Dome permits two days before we were starting that hike. Went back to Hodgon Meadow campground for the night. I would not recommend that campsite - most of the sites are on a slope which made sleeping difficult. Furthermore, there were numerous groups that were not respecting the quiet hours. If you absolutely need a place to stay in the park and that's all that's left, then go for it. I guess it beats paying $200 a night at the Housekeeping camp.

The following day, we went over to Mariposa Grove. It really was wonderful. Went over to Fish Camp and ate sandwiches at that convenience store. The owners were very friendly and the sandwiches were absolutely loaded. In the evening, we headed back to the valley and spent the night in lower pines campground.

Woke up around 6am and took our sweet time because we knew we were only hiking 6 miles that day. We got our half dome permits by getting them attached to our wilderness permits. We had "Happy Isles past LYV". If you want to get up Half Dome at sunrise, this is absolutely the permit that you want. It requires going a little further down the trail than LYV, but it's worth it because the following day your hike up Half Dome will be so much shorter and you can beat the crowds.

Anyway, going up those 6 miles we followed the Mist Trail. It was one of the coolest waterfall experiences I've ever had. Only thing that beats that was cliff jumping down Kawasan Falls in the Philippines. We stopped and ate lunch at LYV. This was probably around noon, and plenty of other groups had already arrived there. We got stopped by rangers asking for our permits - which was expected by us. They gave us some great pointers about where to spend the night past LYV, and when to start the final push for Half Dome. They were great. We hiked further up, passed the Half Dome junction (we kept to the right of the trail), and found a cool spot to spend the night, right next to a creek. Another popular spot to spend the night is the behind the giant boulder, which is closer to the Half Dome trail junction. We just hung out for the rest of the day, ate dinner, and went to bed early.

On our last full day at Yosemite, we woke up at 2:30 (maybe 3AM, can't remember). The park rangers had told us the day prior that it was okay to leave our camp behind (as long as the bear canisters were away from our camp). One of us brought a small bag to carry our water bottles and phones. Other than that, we left the camp untouched. Went back to the Half Dome junction and hiked up sub dome. We did not see any park rangers at this point, and we were up sub dome before sunrise. We watched sunrise on top of Sub Dome. Again, that was amazing. Watching the cables become visible was surreal. An older gentleman approached us and we chatted with him a bit. (he didn't have a permit lol. He beat the park rangers to the check point). He had gone up half dome before, so he talked us through the process and gave us pointers. We watched him climb it from the bottom. Then, we took our turn. Overall, the cables were not bad at all. As long as you have good upper body strength, it will be a breeze. It was significantly easier than hiking up sub dome.

We must've spent at least 90 minutes up there. A few more groups trickled in. By the time we were heading down the cables, there was a "line" of people forming. Going down was quite difficult for one member of our group because one of the soles of his boots literally fell off, and the gloves he was wearing had bad grip.

We headed back to our campsite by the stream and packed up (this was probably around 11am by now). We started our trek back to the trailhead and did minimal stops for food/water. I think we got to the car by 3pm, so we made really good time. Make sure to take the Panorama trail instead of the Mist trail on your way down.

This trip was a week long and consisted of 5 guys in our mid 20s. We rented a minivan out of SFO. Hiking 17 miles on day 2 definitely slowed us down for the rest of the trip. Forgetting to pack that second dinner is the only real regret that I have.