7th Time's a Charm - November 2021 - Day 4 Hollywood Studios with Genie+
 

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Today was our first Hollywood Studios day. As it was a Saturday we thought it would be a busy one so decided to buy Genie+ for today. I woke up at 6:30am and purchased Genie+ then waited til 7am so I could book our first attraction. I know Slinky Dog Dash is the most popular and runs out the quickest so planned to book that first. At exactly 7am I opened up the app but everything was still unavailable to book - I kept refreshing for about 30 seconds and finally it appeared with the return time 4:50pm so quickly booked that. I was really hoping for an earlier time than this but we'll make it work. I went back on the app at 7:02am and all of the SDD lightning lanes were gone! So if you're planning to buy Genie+ at Hollywood Studios make sure to be ready to go early.

Originally we had planned to get there extra early and just queue for Rise of the Resistance. But J is a huge Star Wars fan and we definitely wanted to get on it today so we bit the bullet and paid for it. A few minutes after booking SDD I bought the Individual Lightning Lane for Rise - when you buy the ILL's you can choose your return time. The earliest available was already 3:55pm so we just chose that time slot. These cost $15 each too so altogether for the two of us we spent $63.92 including tax.

Hollywood Studios was opening at 9am today so early entry was from 8:30am. We scanned in to the park at around 8:20am and headed straight to join the queue for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. We entered the preshow room at around 8:45am so didn't have to wait long at all considering we arrived fairly late. I used to love the Great Movie Ride and was so disappointed when they announced it was closing. But I really enjoyed this attraction. It's just a fun ride and the effects are incredible. We got off this just before 9am and decided to head over to Tower of Terror before offsite guests were allowed in as it was showing a 13 min wait. J doesn't like this ride so I went on solo and was off by 9:20am. We took some Photopass pictures then went to find something quick for breakfast. We each got a Jack Jack's Num Num cookie for around $6 each - these are huge and so good.

It was getting hot now so we went in to One Man's Dream to cool down and have a look around. I wish they still showed the little film about Walt Disney instead of movie previews - it's Eternals at the moment and we didn't bother watching it. Wait times were getting really high and since we had paid for Genie+ we didn't really fancy standing in long standby queues if we could help it. We headed over to to the Frozen show and queued up for the first showing at 10:30am. We enjoyed this and the historians we had were great.

I don't have US data included on my phone so have been relying on the Disney WiFi ... So 11am came and I was ready to book our second lightning lane attraction. The show was just about finishing but I couldn't get on the WiFi, then when I finally did get on the WiFi the app kept showing an error message. I finally managed to book our second ride at 11:07am and the times really weren't looking good. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run was showing the latest so I booked that before it ran out for the day. Our return time was 7:05pm.

From here we went over to Muppet Vision 3D and walked straight in. This killed a bit of time but usually we wouldn't bother with this attraction... It's not great 😂 we got out at around 11:30am and decided to find somewhere for an early lunch. The earliest slot we could get on mobile order was 12:00pm at Backlot Express. While waiting we had a wander round then found some shade to sit in. After lunch we decided to watch the 1pm show of Beauty and the Beast - like I said earlier, it was so busy and the queues were insane so our plan was to do the shows while waiting for our LL's. At 1:07pm during the show I became eligible to book our next ride so jumped on the app and got Toy Story Mania for 6:30pm. After the show we had a look in the shops and took some more Photopass photos.

I checked the app again and Star Tours was showing a 25 minute wait - by far the shortest wait in the whole park so we decided to get in the queue for this. We only ended up waiting around 15 minutes. It had started raining while we were riding so once we came out we decided to find some cover and wait til it stopped. It soon become clear it wasn't going to stop any time soon so we decided to just get wet and carry on with our day. We still had a good hour to go before our time slot for Rise of the Resistance so decided to just have a walk around Galaxy's Edge and take it all in. At 3:07pm I stopped to book our next LL. I wanted Rock n Roller Coaster but it was showing as no more selections available. I spent a few minutes refreshing and luckily it briefly appeared again - I managed to book for 5:45pm. So now this is what the rest of our day was starting to look like

At 4pm we finally got to use our first lightning lane and rode Rise of the Resistance. Once we scanned in we walked straight to the start of the attraction, so zero wait. We avoided all spoilers of this ride and had no idea what to expect. It was just incredible, so immersive and so much going on. Hopefully we will get a chance to ride it again on this trip but won't be paying again! Once we got of this we got some blue milk and sat down for 10 minutes before heading over to Slinky Dog Dash. Again, once we tapped in for our LL we pretty much walked straight through to the loading bay.

Straight away I was on the app to book our next LL. Alien Swirling Saucers was showing as unavailable and that was all we had left to ride in this park so I switched to Epcot & booked Soarin at 8:30pm. Alien Swirling Saucers was only showing a 20 minute wait so we got in the standby queue. While waiting this ride did actually become available to book on Genie+ for a 6:30pm return so I cancelled Soarin and booked Alien Swirling Saucers. Once we were done on this ride it was almost time for our 5:45pm Rock n Rollercoaster LL so we had a slow walk over there. Once I had tapped in for this I went back on the app and booked Soarin again for later. We then watched the light show on the Tower of Terror. This was really good, it was nice to just sit down for 10 minutes and watch.

We now had our last 3 Hollywood Studios lightning lanes coming up - all were overlapping so managed to get through them very quickly. First up was Toy Story Mania (J won) and then another quick ride on Alien Swirling Saucers. From here we went back to Galaxy's Edge to ride Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. We walked straight through to the room with Hondo and were on the ride within minutes. We were engineers. I do like this ride but the first ever time we rode it we were pilots - since then we've always been gunners or engineers and just don't find it as fun!

It was now around 8pm and we had finally done everything in the park. We hopped on the skyliner to Epcot and booked another LL for Spaceship Earth on the way. We were getting hungry now so placed a mobile order for Regal Eagle on the way. It was our first time eating here and it was delicious, we will definitely try to come here again during this trip. As it was a Saturday night World Showcase was super busy so we didn't really stop to explore anything and headed straight over to Soarin'. Up until now we found the lightning lanes so so quick, for the majority we walked straight on. It felt like we were waiting a really long time for this ride even with the LL. It was getting late though and we'd had a long day so maybe that didn't help. We decided not to bother with Spaceship Earth and headed to the bus stop after Soarin'. The worst part of staying at All Star Movies is definitely having the furthest possible bus stop!

We got back to the hotel at around 10:30pm for our last night at Movies - tomorrow we check in at the dolphin.

Great write up - thanks for sharing.

Noticeable that you had to pay $64 to enjoy the day which would have been free with the old fast pass system and you would have had better times allocated too!

Great TR, thanks for doing this

Following along- hope you have a great trip. I think we will also buy genie plus for our main HS day- good tips about having to book as early as possible!

I’m pleased you got to do what you wanted in the park even if it was a long day.

I guess it's a sign of the times and my advancing years but I remember when you didn't need a mobile phone and appointments to go round Disney. I'm an aged mobile phone hater anyway (more since I once observed a gentleman in a public loo with his mobile up to his ear with one hand and the other you know where!) so this wouldn't be for me but I hope you have a lovely holiday and it's very enjoyable to read your experiences as an 'early returner'.

Yes definitely, it's 100% inferior to the old FastPass+ system which is a shame considering how much it costs. However because the park was so busy we would definitely have had a miserable time without it I think, and not managed to do half as much. So maybe it was worth it. We will use it every now and then but even with the UK ticket discount I don't think we'll bother adding it on every day in future trips.

Wow, that was a long day, especially as all the G+ slots were so late. If we use it for HS, I think we'll probably spend the morning relaxing and then stack a few before heading to the park. I'm just not very good with days that long - around 5 hours tends to be my max and then I'm ready to put my feet up and chill for a while :d:

If I'd have realised how late all of the return times would have been I think I would have done that myself! We got all of the shows out of the way at least, but it did feel like we wasted a lot of time just waiting around for our LL's. And ended up doing a couple of things for the sake of it instead of because we actually wanted to.

Still a great day though - just a very long one!

eek this makes me nervous for my trip next year, we are planning early-mid Nov expecting it to be "quieter" it's crazy how quickly LL times go and how late the return times are, I was only planning on using it for ROTR and then just queue for the rest but guess it depends how busy it is.