Approach to tackling Hollywood Studios

[DisneyDose]

Agree with penguin19. Go later and stay til park close. The crowds always thin out and waiting times always fall. My days of rope dropping are gone as I need my I much prefer to arrive later and watch the crowds thin out.

[sully301]

When we were there it was a competition between slinky dog and ROTR. I'd buy ILL for ROTR and rope drop SDD. Sweet spot is being at gate around 30 mins before early entry. You can come earlier but then you're waiting as long in line. Better to have that extra time in bed 😂

[kk20]

Originally Posted by DisneyDose

Agree with penguin19. Go later and stay til park close. The crowds always thin out and waiting times always fall. My days of rope dropping are gone as I need my I much prefer to arrive later and watch the crowds thin out.

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We sandwich the day. Rope drop with a light breakfast, pool from 12 till 5 having a midday snooze and proper meal, back in for the last 3 hours or so.

[Ingram01]

A little tip of ours is if you see that a popular ride is 'Temporarily Closed' on MDE, go and hang around outside it for a little while. Chances are it won't be down for long and you'll be one of the first in the queue when it reopens.

We tried this in November on Slinky and ROTR (twice). Each time we waited outside for no more than 20mins before they opened up the queues again.

Once in the queue we only waited 15mins for Slinky, so overall a 35min wait for Slinky.

On ROTR we walked straight to the pre-show without stopping. Unfortunately it broke down again both times before we actually got on the ride so we didn't get to ride, but at least we got to see the whole queue

Obviously this is a a risky strategy and you need a bit of good luck, but if you have some time to spare its worth a shot.

[loldis]

Originally Posted by Ingram01

A little tip of ours is if you see that a popular ride is 'Temporarily Closed' on MDE, go and hang around outside it for a little while. Chances are it won't be down for long and you'll be one of the first in the queue when it reopens.

We tried this in November on Slinky and ROTR (twice). Each time we waited outside for no more than 20mins before they opened up the queues again.

Once in the queue we only waited 15mins for Slinky, so overall a 35min wait for Slinky.

On ROTR we walked straight to the pre-show without stopping. Unfortunately it broke down again both times before we actually got on the ride so we didn't get to ride, but at least we got to see the whole queue

Obviously this is a a risky strategy and you need a bit of good luck, but if you have some time to spare its worth a shot.

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This is actually a pretty good tip for RotR given how frequently it goes down.

[Spike101]

Originally Posted by DisneyDose

Agree with penguin19. Go later and stay til park close. The crowds always thin out and waiting times always fall. My days of rope dropping are gone as I need my I much prefer to arrive later and watch the crowds thin out.

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Hmmm the more I read posts like this the more I think I may have to change my strategy for my one day at DHS, for the longest time I was going to do rope drop, but now think maybe get there after lunchtime and stay til close.

Then following advice posted elsewhere, get the skyliner to a resort and get a LYFT (I dont drive) from there rather than from the park.

[loldis]

Originally Posted by Spike101

Hmmm the more I read posts like this the more I think I may have to change my strategy for my one day at DHS, for the longest time I was going to do rope drop, but now think maybe get there after lunchtime and stay til close.

Then following advice posted elsewhere, get the skyliner to a resort and get a LYFT (I dont drive) from there rather than from the park.

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At the moment, HS doesn't have much evening entertainment so doesn't have the huge exit rush that a park like MK does. May change when Fantasmic is back.

So you'll probably find the wait for and trip on the Skyliner longer than the Lyft wait. Especially if you're planning on getting into a queue at closing, any crowds should have thinned out considerably by the time you're out of the park.

[disney1st timer]

Thanks so much everyone, lots of food for thought. Maybe we will try both ways….a rope drop day and a day until closing.

[Viola13]

This may be a daft question but if the park closes at 9 is that when the queue closes? So getting there at 8.45 would mean we could still ride? I have never taken notice before as we planned using FP so managed to do what we needed. Like you Disney, we may do one early, one late 🙂

[loldis]

Originally Posted by Viola13

This may be a daft question but if the park closes at 9 is that when the queue closes? So getting there at 8.45 would mean we could still ride? I have never taken notice before as we planned using FP so managed to do what we needed. Like you Disney, we may do one early, one late 🙂

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Yes generally the queue closes right at park close. There are some exceptions (e.g. safari closes earlier) but for the most part, you should be able to jump in line right up until a minute before.