Hollywood Studios/Galaxy’s Edge - update w recap

[lessel]

I’m surprising DH with a trip on Dec 23. I’m fully prepared for it to be chaos, but it’s just the two of us (my parents are watching the boys for the day).

I’ve got a few FPs for random stuff in the park, not even sure if we’ll do it though as the primary purpose is just to see Galaxy’s Edge. I’ve got a 10:05 booking for Oga’s (only thing I could snag back in October) and a reservation to build a droid at 12:30. I was going to do the lightsaber thing to, but hell nah to the $199 price tag. I also got a 5:00p dinner reservation at the 50s Prime Time Cafe. Other suggestions? I was going to splurge on the Brown Derby but kind of meh on the menu.

I’m figuring we should rope drop either Smuggler’s Run or Rise of Resistance? I feel like whichever one we don’t rope drop will be an insane wait.

Any other ideas or tips?

[nsl]

Having ridden Smuggler's Run, I'd rope drop Rise of the Resistance. Smuggler's Run felt like a less-fun version of Star Tours to both me and my BFF when we rode it last month, and while the queue and getting to go inside the Millenium Falcon were genuinely fun, the ride itself wasn't.

Oga's was easily my favorite part of our Hollywood Studios day. Enjoy it!

[curbsideprophet]

I absolutely think Rise will have a longer line, so I would consider rope dropping that. Unfortunately I think you will just have to wait for the ride to open to get more info. End of the evening can also be a good time to ride. I would try to see the land in both the day and the night if you can.

Overall I think your plan sounds good. Some things to consider...how early can you get there? How late can you stay? Are you willing to wait hours in line?

[lessel]

Nov 23, 2019 17:46:39 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

Overall I think your plan sounds good. Some things to consider...how early can you get there? How late can you stay? Are you willing to wait hours in line?

We can definitely be there before the park opens. Maybe 7:30 or so?

Not sure about how late. Depends on how the boys are doing with my parents and if they seem to be in a good spot to handle dinner and bedtime without us.

Willing to wait for awhile but not like 3hrs.

[curbsideprophet]

I would also keep an eye on park hours. We are going next week and they are still changing times.

[alleinesein]

Honestly, just wait until ROTR opens in a few weeks and see how the crowd reacts. If every day has super long waits while SR stays consistent, then make the decision to beeline straight to ROTR for rope drop.

The other option is to ride it at the very end of the night but if your kids can't stay up that late, it wont work. If you do go for this option, get in line as close to park closing as possible b/c as long as you are physically in line when the park closes, you will get to ride it.

[lessel]

For rope drop, does the line start to form outside of the front gate and kind of stay in tact until the line forms at the ride? Or is it kind of bedlam with people sprinting to the ride? Because if it’s the latter, I’m chubby and going to lose the race. 🤣

[mccallister84]

Nov 24, 2019 8:50:10 GMT -5 lessel said:

For rope drop, does the line start to form outside of the front gate and kind of stay in tact until the line forms at the ride? Or is it kind of bedlam with people sprinting to the ride? Because if it’s the latter, I’m chubby and going to lose the race. 🤣

H did the 6 am early opening in October. From what he said there was a person standing with a sign in Star Wars Land that said end of line for smugglers run. He didn’t describe a bedlam but it was also before 6 am so maybe no one had enough energy haha. But they were allowed in to Star Wars Land before the park officially opened at 6 am and the line formed there.

[bardenbellas]

ROTR opened Thursday and by chance we had planned months ago for that to be our only day at Disney, and specifically to see Galaxy’s edge. We arrived at 7:30 before an 8 am opening, and walked right through line into park. Not sure when they actually started letting people in- it was not an early magic hours day. Once you had scanned into park, you could use app to join virtual boarding group for ROTR. We were put into group 79 (out of 100) and our group was finally called at 4pm. You had 2 hours to ride from your boarding call. By 8 AM the boarding groups were full, I heard.

In the morning, lines for smugglers run were >90 minutes, but at 2:20 pm we got into standby line estimated at 60 minutes and were in and done in about 45 minutes.

Both totally worth it. Ogas cantina was fun, we did droid builds which my kids also enjoyed but it was an expensive 15 minutes!

[alleinesein]

bardenbellas the people in my star wars group said they started letting people in around 6 am and quite a few of them managed to ride multiple times because of how the boarding group system works; they got a boarding pass at 6 am, rode the ride around 6:30 am, got another boarding pass, rode the ride and managed to grab a 3rd boarding pass right befoe they ran out.

[Covergirl82]

bardenbellas, alleinesein, so is the virtual boarding group for ROTR something different from a FP? I was just curious so I know if we need to plan to be at HS all day in case we get a late boarding group as well. Our trip is in early April 2020.

[curbsideprophet]

Dec 9, 2019 9:46:13 GMT -5 Covergirl82 said:

bardenbellas, alleinesein, so is the virtual boarding group for ROTR something different from a FP? I was just curious so I know if we need to plan to be at HS all day in case we get a late boarding group as well. Our trip is in early April 2020.

Yes, boarding groups are different then fastpasses. You can not pick a time and can only get one once you are in the park day of. Everyone in your party who wants to ride can be signed up as a group by one person but they all must be in the park. For now boarding groups are all being distributed first thing in the morning.

If you open your MDE app you should see the area to access boarding groups. You can go in and see what groups currently have access. You can click on the join group button from home if it is active but then if will give you a message about not being in the park. Right now the join button is grayed out because for now they have given out a groups for the day.

No one knows if they will still be using them in April so I would keep checking in.

Overall they seem to be going well (except for the EMH yesterday).

[lessel]

Quick review/recap of today...

We got to the line outside the park at 6:15a. Pouring down rain and packed with people. They started letting people in at 6:30 but didn’t open the boarding groups for Rise of the Resistance until 7. We got through the gate at 7:05. Took a few minutes to register in the app but then we were in boarding group 72.

We went to Smuggler’s Run and it was allegedly a 60 minute wait but I think it took less than that. Super fun. After that we were hungry and split a breakfast wrap at Ronto’s Roasters.

We walked around the area for a bit and then did Oga’s Cantina at 10:05. We started to walk into Toy Story area after that but got our boarding group called at 11:15.

Holy crap y’all, that ride was amazing. It had little mini-ride half-way through the line. It’s such an immersive experience. Worth standing in the rain for 45 minutes in the morning. The boarding group thing really worked well for us. Zero wait when we got to the ride.

DH built a droid after that and just did a few more things here and there in the park. Toy Story land was a crush of people today, so we didn’t hang there much. The Christmas decorations there were suuuper cute though. We did Tower of Terror—I hadn’t done it since I was a teenager because I have an elevator thing and it was as fucking terrible as I remember. Which is to say DH loved it.

It started to rain in the afternoon again but between about 8-4 we had perfect sunny/slightly overcast weather with 70s breezy temps—perfect weather.

We had dinner at 5 at the 50s Prime Cafe. Pretty good, no complaints. Then we did a lap through the park at night to see everything at night.

Overall super amazing day. DH loved it so I earned some good wife points.

[jaycee]

Great review, lessel. I appreciate your details (times) as it gives me a good idea of the experience. We're considering going in 2021. Glad you had a great time.

[curbsideprophet]

Sounds like a great day! Glad it all worked out!