What should I do for the best experience in rooms 7 and 8? Check for snakes and then thieve in both, or do room 7 checking for snakes only and then do snakes+looting in room 8?

I seem to recall checking and then thieving in the two highest you can do is the best.

Ive found it quicker to just search the urns without checking for snakes. if I ever fail an urn 3 times in a row, I just skip it and move on. I carry an antipoison pot & 2 monks.

 

I try to do at least 4 urns in room 7 + the chest, all the urns in room 8 + the chest and open the sarcophagus if I have time for shiggles.

 

I can almost always get 15,000 xp per run this way. With a conservative 9 runs an hour, that comes out to 135,000 xp/hr.

 

I get slowed down more by people resetting the doors than anything else.

I found that if you just check the snakes in room 7, then you'll have too much leftover time in room 8. I usually search 6-7 urns in room 7, check snakes for the rest of them and move on. Unless you get really unlucky with failing the urns, you should be able to search all the urns in room 8.