I’m still in the midst of reporting on our August cruise, but now I’ve also got an October visit to Disney World to cover. In this post, I discuss our travel day and a full day at Hollywood Studios. Let’s get right to it!
Travel and Arrival at Disney World
I wound up booking this trip shortly after I renewed our annual passes. See, the thing about spending all that money on an annual pass is you feel the immediate need to justify it by spending more money.
It’s a 3-day weekend for kids in NYC public schools (Diwali), so flight prices for the best options were pretty high for this trip. We live closer to LaGuardia, but we wound up flying out of JFK instead. We paid $740.91 for the three of us, roundtrip on JetBlue between JFK and MCO.
We were scheduled to arrive into MCO at 9:50PM on Friday night. Then we’d return home, landing at JFK, at 7PM Monday night. The commute is just over an hour, so this was pushing the boundaries of Zoe’s sleep schedule, but we were optimistic based on past experiences.
Worried about potential delays at TSA (even with PreCheck), and with no better way to fill the time between school and the flight, we got to JFK at 3:54PM for our 6:45PM departure. As it turned out, there was no line at all for security, and we were through within a few minutes.
There was an earlier flight to Orlando just about to board, so we swung by that gate. It had a huge standby list already, though, so we didn’t even try to get on it. Instead, we spotted the tail of a “Super Mario” livery and decided to swing around to another gate for a better view.
Zoe wanted to ride it, but I’m Captain Buzzkill and had to explain it was just a random plane we saw from afar, not the one on our flight. We didn’t even know where it was going. We’ve got to learn to not get our hopes up over random occurrences like this!
Anywho, it turned out it was, in fact, the plane we were going to be on. Kid 1, Captain Buzzkill 0.
We chilled by the gate and ate some burgers before the flight, which was overall uninteresting (as David Sedaris says, “there are only two kinds of flights…”). We deplaned at 9:33PM.
I opted for Mears Connect to get to Disney World. I’ve written before that despite an initial bad experience, I keep finding myself on Mears Connect. Even so, I was worried this time. We were landing in Terminal C, which is separate from the “main” A and B building. And we were landing late (well, “late” for us). It took us 17 minutes to get down to the Mears Connect desk and checked in. The wait could be “up to 30 minutes” we were told at 9:50PM.
Then, at 9:56PM, we were told to head out and board our bus! And we happened to be the first stop (of four), so we were in the Art of Animation lobby at 10:25PM. That’s under an hour from deplaning to being in the hotel lobby.
We had booked a Little Mermaid room at Art of Animation for the first two nights, at a total of $681.76 with a passholder discount. At 2:43PM—before the 3PM check-in time—I got a text saying our room was ready in Lion King Building 6.
Overall this was good news—it’s been a while since we stayed in a Lion King Suite, and the extra space is nice. But I had picked a Little Mermaid room because it has been even longer since I was in one of those. I don’t think Zoe would care one way or the other, but if your kid was a Little Mermaid freak you might need to go to the front desk to ask for…a downgrade?…an un-upgrade?...the room you booked.
As it happened, Zoe raved about the theming of the Lion King Suite. Not so much in the “oh I love the 1994 Lion King film so much, it’s an indictment of the Academy that it didn’t get a Best Picture nod!” sort of way, but more in the “look, there’s ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE giraffes over my bed!” sort of way. But yes, the words “it’s so themed!” did come out of my five-year old’s mouth.
For more:
I’ve separately reviewed the Art of Animation Lion King Suite here.
And I’ve separately reviewed Art of Animation resort as a whole and its Little Mermaid rooms here.
We wound up in bed by 11PM, not bad for a travel day without any missed school. We even put on “Can’t Miss Magic” (which we will NEVER stop referring to as “The Must Do”) for a bit.
Morning and Arrival at Hollywood Studios
I was out of bed and running at 6AM. Art of Animation and Pop Century sit on opposite sides of Hourglass Lake, with the Skyliner station in the middle. The loop around Hourglass Lake is about 1.25 miles. I’d banked some miles earlier in the week so I could stick to 5 milers this trip—I tend to run harder outside than on the treadmill, plus I like to get in line for transportation sooner rather than later.
Hourglass Lake around sunset
Reminder, runners: It takes time to acclimate to Florida humidity (87% this morning), even with not-awful temperatures in the low 60s. My Apple-Watch-estimated VO2 max dropped sharply this first day before recovering the next two. (Or, for a more trusty metric, my heart rate was about 10 BPM higher today than the subsequent days.)
Back in the room and out of the shower, Zoe was still sound asleep so I decided to head to rope drop at Hollywood Studios on my own. With Lightning Lane Multi Pass, we’ll often wind up doing separate rope drops (for the blog) but still getting to ride everything together over the course of the day. Maybe an idea to keep in mind if one parent has to ride Rise of the Resistance and the kids would enjoy doubling up on Runaway Railway, for example.
Walking around Art of Animation, I noticed the activity schedules are available online now (see “Activities Schedule” here).
Before sharing this on Instagram, I decided to check at least one other resort. My first thought was Grand Floridian, so I went to that web page, where the activity schedule linked me to a schedule for Saratoga Springs. So, your experience may vary.
The mobile order times for Landscape of Flavors—the Art of Animation food court—were already 15 minutes in the future, but when I got there the only line was for the bakery / specialty coffee. I grabbed a coffee cup at the register and was in line for the Disney Skyliner at 7:18AM, aiming for Early Entry at Hollywood Studios, starting at 8:30AM.
In the morning, there are two lines for the Skyliner—one on the Art of Animation side and the other on the Pop Century side. Cast Members let some in from one line, then some in from the other, and so on. The Skyliner started running at about 7:25AM and I boarded at 7:35AM.
At the Caribbean Beach station, no one was using the right lane for the Hollywood Studios line, so I was on that one at 7:40AM. I was through security and at the Hollywood Studios gates at 7:47AM.
The lines were just all the way back to the ticket windows. Our longtime reader knows I used to be big on being the first in line for the bus / boat / monorail / Skyliner so I could be one of the first at the gates. A few things have changed since those days.
First, I’ve mellowed out a bit. I have a kid now, and I’m rarely going to force the family to be the first in line. When I’m on my own, I’m still moving to the beat of my usual schedule—I’m not going to skip my run or get myself out of bed at 5AM just to save a few minutes.
And that’s the second point—“save a few minutes”. Back when I started this blog, “Extra Magic Hours” were a full hour before the park opened, and the extra time was only at one park each day. This meant (1) morning people converged on that park and (2) there was enough time to potentially get several top rides done if you stayed “ahead of the pack.”
Staying “ahead of the pack” is basically what “rope drop” meant a decade ago. You had a full 60 minutes, and you were only “competing” against one group of people all trying to go on the same rides.
Early Entry at all four parks spreads out the morning crowds, so being first isn’t essential. Shorter Early Entry means that you’re probably only getting in one or two rides before regular park crowds come in and raise waits across the board. There’s no staying ahead of the pack at that point.
When you consider a ride like Rise of the Resistance, which such a long experience time, there’s not much difference between getting to the “start” of the ride at 8:40AM or 9AM—either way, once you’re off, Early Entry will be done.
And nowadays, regular guests are stuck in their own dedicated queues for the rides until park open time. Once that time arrives, their queue becomes the queue, and the wait time immediately jumps. There’s no group of regular guests from the front of the park that you can beat right at 9AM—everyone is already queued.
Finally, it’s probable that the dynamics of FastPass+ vs. Lightning Lanes play into my choices today versus a decade ago, but I’ve wasted enough words on this topic already, so let’s move on.
The gates opened right at 8AM. As our line slowly seeped into the park, I mumbled my refrain of “there’s two tap points.” I was in the park at 8:04AM.
Hollywood Studios Early Entry (“PIVOT!”)
My very sensible plan was to start with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Rise is a Lightning Lane Single Pass ride, not available on Multi Pass, which we’d purchased for the day. With a full day at Hollywood Studios, I had no doubt about my ability to get on every ride with Multi Pass, so Rise was the only point of concern.
Plus, it’s been a long time since I had a good Rise rope drop. I was trying it regularly a while back, but it kept being closed when I got there. If a ride is closed when you get there for rope drop, you’ve almost completely wasted Early Entry (since you’ll have to get all the way to something else worth riding and you’ll be way behind that crowd), and your blog will fail because you can’t give people the precise timestamps from your singular visit that they’ll plan there once-in-a-lifetime visits around.
Disney was lookin’ out for me today, because as I walked in they saved me the walk with an announcement, “Rise of the Resistance is temporarily closed. Please enjoy other attractions.”
I wouldn’t get this marvelous sight today.
Some of you are thinking, “well, it’s still 30 minutes until Early Entry starts, so maybe you should go there anyways!” And yes, while “temporarily closed” and “we don’t know when it will open” will sometimes mean it opens in 5 minutes, a Cast Member announcement at the front gates, 30 minutes in advance, is a pretty solid sign it will be opening very late and they don’t want guest complaints about it. It wound up missing all of Early Entry and didn’t start running until 9:10AM.
If Rise of the Resistance isn’t operating, it’s time to pivot, and Slinky Dog Dash is the obvious go-to (if you haven’t already walked all the way to Rise, that is). With Lightning Lane Multi Pass, we already had an evening time booked for Slinky Dog Dash. If our family were there together, there would be some value in riding Slinky now so we’d have the freedom to modify that time slot, but I also love Slinky Dog Dash at night. With a Slinky Dog Dash time in hand, I went for an oldie-but-goodie rope drop—Tower of Terror.
Heading down Sunset Boulevard takes you to both Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. This is always a good rope drop strategy—even if it isn’t the best—for two reasons:
You’re heading to two popular rides, and if one is down you have the other as a backup.
In a best case scenario you’ll even get on one right after the other. This will save you some stress and steps later, as you can basically ignore Sunset Boulevard until you decide to come to one of the two shows down this way.
Cast Members were checking for Early Entry eligibility about halfway down the street, and then there were two queues for the two rides. I got in the Tower of Terror queue, which moved a little, then a little more, and eventually I basically walked right onto the ride at 8:29AM, just before the official start of Early Entry. The library scene was not running, which is sort of a bummer and a reminder that Early Entry has its costs.
Back on Sunset Boulevard at 8:38AM, I figured I’d try for the Sunset Boulevard Double, and headed next door to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. With regular guests now queuing for the rides (left, below), the Early Entry check was closer to the ride entrance. There was a short wait, but I boarded at 8:46AM. I’m getting old, but that ride is just so bumpy (or maybe it was the last row, specifically).
On my way out, I swapped a FuelRod at one of the new swap stations. If you use these, know that the sound of the FuelRod dropping into the machine to be replaced is the same as the sound when it gets dropped into the “Please Try Again” bin, and there’s no “Please Try Again” notice on the screen. You do NOT need to call FuelRod support to complain about the machine eating your FuelRod until you check the “Please Try Again” bin.
Regrouping and Lightning Lane-ing
Emily and Zoe had started at Toy Story Mania, so I made my way over there. I passed by the construction walls for the upcoming The Magic of Disney Animation. I was pretty surprised to see the old archway completely gone, and it turns out that this was indeed “breaking news” this morning, but I missed my chance to publish the scoop. You can still access The Little Mermaid show around the walls.
While I headed into Toy Story Land to meet Emily and Zoe, I tinkered with our Lightning Lane times. The original lineup was:
2:05PM – Tower of Terror
5:55PM – Toy Story Mania
7:35PM – Slinky Dog Dash
This is a fine lineup of rides, but you’d ideally like to have one at an earlier time. Again, once you tap into any Multi Pass Lightning Lane, you can use / modify your three Lightning Lane slots for any three Multi Pass Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World, including all the Tier 1 rides and rides at other parks (this still has nothing to do with the Single Pass rides, though).
So, we want to use a Lightning Lane for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, but it’s a Tier 1 ride and we have Slinky Dog Dash booked. At this point, we’d have to wait until at least 2:05PM when we tap into Tower of Terror to start trying to get a time for Railway. That’s later than I’d like.
With Emily and Zoe already on Toy Story Mania, and pretty confident I’d be able to snag it again later, I swapped Toy Story Mania for a 9:25AM time on Star Tours. Yes—Star Tours often only has 5 minute waits in the morning, but that’s not the point. The point is that as soon as I tap into Star Tours, I can book a Lightning Lane for a Tier 1 ride like Runaway Railway.
Meeting Emily and Zoe right around 9:20AM, we saw Alien Swirling Saucers had just a 5-minute wait. Zoe’s a fan of the ride, so we got in line, boarding at 9:28AM.
“It’s The Vibes, Dad”
While in line, I put together a mobile order at Ronto Roasters. It’s just mandatory for me at this point to order either the Zucchi wrap or the Triple Suns breakfast wrap when I’m at Hollywood Studios. I like them both, but at this point I just like the tradition more than the food.
We spent about 20 minutes wandering around Galaxy’s Edge and its stores before making our way toward Star Tours. Pluto was greeting with a relatively short line between Galaxy’s Edge and Star Tours, so Zoe met him.
We didn’t have a signature book with us. We used one once in Disneyland, but despite lots of character greetings on cruises and in the parks over the years, the book never became a staple. But also, Zoe isn’t always into characters. We asked about this a few days later when Mickey and Minnie had a short wait at Animal Kingdom, but Zoe had no interest. The answer was, more or less, “vibes.”
Specifically, the cruises (and watching movies on Funnel Vision) come with big character vibes, where I guess the parks just have more ride vibes. It’s weird the traits we pass onto our kids. This blog had no character content on it for the longest time because we didn’t often meet characters before Zoe was around. Now as Zoe gets older, I seem to have passed on the “rides first” perspective on theme parks.
Zoe’s review of Star Tours (not the first time on it, but first in a while) was “for the first half of that I had, like, no idea what was going on.” I was able to pretty easily grab a 3PM Lightning Lane for Runaway Railway.
Explosions, Lunch, and Digestion
Exiting Star Tours about 10:15AM we decided to make an early arrival to the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, showing at 10:45AM. When I’m solo or on a “gotta do everything” day, if I’m visiting the first showtime it will be right at the start, hoping to sneak into a last seat without “wasting” any time in my day. But we were pretty chill today, so grabbing a good seat 25 minutes in advance was fine.
We hoped Zoe was at an age (and interest in all things fighting / explosive) to appreciate the stunt show, but I guess the realism was still a little too much. In hindsight, grabbing a rear seat at the last minute maybe would have worked out better in every way—maybe wait until the kid requests a front and center view before arriving early to secure one.
The stunt show has changed over the years, too. Back in my day, there was audience participation, a great gag involving a fake audience member, and fake swords instead of batons. Somehow there’s still gunfire and explosions, but other little things have mysteriously been cut, to the detriment of the show. A quick look at YouTube confirms these changes were made sometime between 3 and 5 years ago. But also, BlogMickey has this great article about it.
We followed up that show with something a little lighter, the Vacation Fun film at the Mickey Shorts Theater. This is always a hit with our family, and I appreciate the central location. It’s a great option to easily throw in before or after the Indiana Jones show, the Frozen Sing Along, or Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
After the film, on the way to lunch, we passed by one of the two new streetmosphere shows at Hollywood Studios, HollyGroove Swinging.
Lunch was at Roundup Rodeo BBQ, which is our go-to table service meal at Hollywood Studios. I’ve reviewed Roundup Rodeo BBQ separately before and will probably update the review with a few small notes.
Overall, this is a good meal for vegetarians, and meat-eaters I know also enjoy it. I think the overall experience falls a little short, and the lighting in the restaurant can feel odd, but we’ve never had a bad meal here.
We were done eating around 12:45PM. With a 2:05PM Lightning Lane for Tower of Terror (and the attending prospect of losing that pricey lunch) looming, we opted to spend the next hour walking, shopping, and digesting.
Here’s Toy Story Land crowds, midday.
Jiminy Cricket is one of the newer greetings at Hollywood Studios.
Walt Disney Presents… is home to a new model of the upcoming Tropical Americas land at Animal Kingdom. There’s also concept art for Monstropolis and Piston Peak.
Back in the hub of the park, we ran into the other new piece of Streetmosphere—“That’s a Record.” Captain Buzzkill has no interest in shenanigans like this, but Zoe wanted to watch, and it’s not like I could pretend we were on a tight schedule.
As it turns out, the show was really a ton of fun, and Zoe absolutely loved it. Kid 2 - Captain Buzzkill 0. As I write this, it still hasn’t made it into the Entertainment schedule in the app, so you might need to do some digging to find showtimes.
Bops, Memes, and “A Salute to All Hard Workers, But Mostly Cast Members”
Tower of Terror had a 95-minute standby wait, and we waited 23 minutes in the Lightning Lane. I was able to grab an 8:30PM time for Toy Story Mania, which I modified to 7:20PM and then 5:10PM within about half an hour of intermittent attempts while we drank coffee and browsed the stores on Sunset Boulevard.
At 3:06PM, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway had a posted wait of 50 minutes. We waited 17 in the Lightning Lane. FWIW, here’s how long the line was when we got to the tap points:
This will happen sometimes, but it’s rarely indicative of an actual long wait in the Lightning Lane. Usually it’s just a few people at the tap point have held up the line, or people who didn’t even know they were in the Lightning Lane queue. I envy the people with such chill vacation brain that they’re able to make it to 3PM and still have no idea why they’re being asked to tap their ticket at an entrance before being told to go wait in the standby line.
After Runaway Railway (always a hit), we just missed getting into the 3:30PM Frozen Sing Along. So, step count be darned, we decided to take yet another trip down Sunset Boulevard, this time to see Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After. This was a new show for Zoe. It’s fun enough, and the main song is a real bop…aaaand putting it on now, actually (thanks, Spotify). I also like the Once Upon a Dream version, which I’ll listen to next before returning (ironically) to This Is Lana Del Rey. I was glad to see no line for this one.
After the show I went through a whirlwind of emotions. I discovered a restroom outside Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster that I’ve never seen before—despite this being my favorite ride as a teenager and my being a supposed “expert” on the parks. When I went inside, though, I was met by something much less than magical. The sort of thing the teenage boys inside were taking pictures of and snickering about. A custodial Cast Member came in and cleaned it up. I thanked him, but beyond that, God Bless these Cast Members.
Now it was just before 4:30PM and we were in a great position to make it to Frozen Sing Along, where we got a great seat with very low crowds.
Frozen Sing Along is truly fun for guests of all ages, and they do a good job of keeping the references fresh (Travis and Taylor is expected, but the 6-7 was a surprising touch).
All the Dinners, All the Rides (Except The One I Want to Ride)
After Frozen Sing Along, it was time to wrap up our day with some Toy Story Land Lightning Lanes and dinner. Toy Story Mania had a posted wait of 45 minutes at 5:10PM, and we waited 9 minutes in the Lightning Lane. Zoe and I practiced coordinating some of the “secrets” in the ride (they’re easier with two people, but I don’t know them all). But that’s still a work in progress.
We couldn’t all agree on a dinner spot, so we compromised. Zoe got pasta at Docking Bay 7, while Emily and I separately rode single rider at Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. While we have a general policy of nudging Zoe to retry rides every so often, Smugglers Run isn’t on the top of our list. For a small kid who winds up an engineer or gunner, it’s sort of just cramped, chaotic tossing around hitting buttons and hoping you make it home in one piece.
We each waited about 7 minutes (basically no single rider wait) versus a posted 45-minute standby wait. You might recall changes are coming to Smugglers Run next year, and they might impact my beloved single rider line.
After that, we walked over to Backlot Express where Emily and I each got a kids’ Teriyaki Tofu Bowl with a side of Buffalo Fries.
We made our way back over to Toy Story Land, where Alien Swirling Saucers had a 30-minute wait. We waited 5 minutes in the Lightning Lane (I didn’t note when I grabbed this one, sorry).
We had about 20 minutes before we could tap into Slinky Dog Dash, so Zoe and I got Mickey Ice Cream Bars, and the three of us hung out near the entrance watching the second launch. The posted wait was 80 minutes when we tapped in, and we waited 14 minutes in the Lightning Lane. Slinky Dog Dash at night is perfection.
Afterward, I told Zoe we could do any standby wait in the park. My secret hope was that the kid who has repeatedly turned down chances to ride Rise of the Resistance would suddenly have a change of heart and decide to wait 80 minutes for it, but instead we wound up with the much more reasonable 10 minute wait for our third ride on Alien Swirling Saucers. I rank Alien Swirling Saucers as the worst ride at Walt Disney World, but I guess even great minds can sometimes disagree.
We wrapped up our time in the park with a lap through Toy Story Land, then back through Galaxy’s Edge and out the park. Zoe didn’t have any interest in watching the projection show (Wonderful World of Animation), and Fantasmic wasn’t on our radar today.
This park is a real nighttime delight.
It took us 19 minutes to get back to the hotel via Skyliner, arriving just before 9PM. Zoe got to spend some time in the arcade, which has a pretty deep game lineup—maybe even better than our beloved Times Square Dave & Buster’s.
Getting back to the hotel room just before 9:30PM, we watched a few minutes of the Must Do and dozed off.
That’s All for Day 1, Check Back Soon for More from This Trip!
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.