With the addition of the incredible Toy Story Land, Hollywood Studios is now well worth squeezing into your busy Disney World itinerary. The theming and technology in this Land are super impressive and make you feel like one of Andy’s toys.
However with a new Land comes crowds, so master the Hollywood Studios FastPass tiers and formulate an awesome FastPass strategy to ensure you have a wonderful day here.
Contents
- Hollywood Studios at Disney World
- Hollywood Studios FastPass Plan
- 3 best rides at Hollywood Studios
- 3 best Hollywood Studios shows
- Our Hollywood Studios itinerary
- FastPass strategy
- Rope drop
- Full day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 9am-8.30pm
- Rope drop Slinky Dog Dash
- 11am Toy Story Mania! (FastPass)
- 12.30pm Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith (FastPass)
- 1pm Lunch at Hollywood & Vine with Minnie & friends
- 3pm Meet and greet with Olaf
- 3.30pm Star Tours – The Adventures Continue (FastPass)
- 4pm Star Wars show
- 5pm Beauty and the Beast show
- 6.30pm Dinner
- 8pm Fantasmic! fireworks
Hollywood Studios at Disney World
There are far less attractions at Hollywood Studios than at any of the other Disney World parks, but with Toy Story Land increasing park visitor numbers, this can mean each attraction has mega queues.
But this park is more about shows and experiences than rides, so there’s still plenty to easily fill in a day. And once the new Star Wars Land opens later in 2019, Hollywood Studios will be even more amazing.
Sunset Boulevard and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Hollywood Studios FastPass Plan
What are FastPasses?
FastPasses let you skip the ride and attractions lines. They are generally super effective, so you will often walk straight onto a ride or only wait a few minutes. Even when the standby line is hours long.
At Disney World FastPasses are electronic and can be booked 30-60 days in advance. If you’re not a planner, then this might be a challenge, but holding FastPasses for key rides will radically improve your park experience, so it’s worth giving them some thought.
Sorcerer Mickey at Fantasmic!
When you can book your FastPasses depends on whether you’re staying at a Disney hotel (60 days) or not (30 days).
There are other benefits of staying on-site like Extra Magic Hours when you have early access to the park. We are big fans, despite the relative expense. Find out more here.
You can book three FastPasses per person per day and they all need to be at the same park.
You will have an hour from the time you select to use your FastPass and these hour blocks cannot overlap.
To be ready to book your FastPasses, make sure your Disney World entry tickets are linked in My Disney Experience. If you have a Disney hotel booking, make sure that’s there too.
Now put your booking date in your diary. Just type “60 days before 3 April” or whatever your date is into Google. You can book on the My Disney Experience website or app, although the website is easier. And be ready at 7am Eastern (New York) time.
Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away stage show
Hollywood Studios FastPass tiers made easy
FastPasses at Hollywood Studios are tiered. You can choose one from Tier 1 and two from Tier 2 of the Hollywood Studios rides list below. The most valuable of the Hollywood Studios FastPass tiers are the Tier 1 rides.
Tier 1 rides/attractions –
- Slinky Dog Dash (ride)
- Toy Story Mania! (ride)
- Alien Swirling Saucers (ride)
Tier 2 rides/attractions –
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith (ride)
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (ride)
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue (ride)
- For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration (show)
- Voyage of the Little Mermaid (show)
- MuppetVision 3D (show)
- Disney Junior Dance Party! (show)
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! (show)
- Fantasmic! (evening light show)
- Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage (show)
Hollywood Studios wait times half an hour after park open during our visit
Best Fast Passes for Hollywood Studios
Tier 1 FastPass
If you can possibly get your hands on a Slinky Dog Dash FastPass then grab it! We missed out even though we were staying onsite so booking 60 days in advance. The line was already 110 min when we arrived 10 min before official open and the line was 180 min long for most of the day. Crazy!
Toy Story Mania! is the next best option if you miss out on Slinky Dog Dash. It consistently has longer lines than Alien Swirling Saucers.
Incredible theming at Woody’s Lunch Box food outlet
Tier 2 FastPass
For Tier 2, definitely book Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith as it has a super long queue. If you’re keen to ride The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror then make this your second Tier 2 FastPass. Tower of Terror looked a bit too scary for us, so we booked Star Tours – The Adventures Continue instead.
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
3 best rides at Hollywood Studios
We haven’t been on every ride, because after waiting almost 2 hours for Slinky Dog Dash we stuck with rides for which we had FastPasses to avoid any more waiting. That meant we gave Alien Swirling Saucers a miss. And, as already mentioned, we thought The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror would be too scary for us.
But these three rides were awesome!
Slinky Dog Dash in Toy Story Land
Slinky Dog Dash
Toy Story Land is the absolute highlight of Hollywood Studios right now and Slinky Dog Dash is the jewel in the crown of that Land.
This is a beautifully smooth, thrilling but not scary coaster with fabulous theming. Feeling as though you’ve been shrunk down to toy size, Andy has put together his Mega Coaster Play Kit and Slinky Dog zooms you around this wild ride. It is pure joy.
It has a minimum height of 97 cm (38 in).
Slinky Dog Dash in Toy Story Land, Hollywood Studios
Toy Story Mania!
Toy Story Mania! is also located in the relatively new Toy Story Land. With no height restriction it is fun for the whole family. Compete against each other to see who can score the most points.
This is a 3D ride where you use your spring-action shooter to take your best shot at an array of moving targets as your car spins and slides along past a number of electronic simulations of traditional games. Pop balloons with darts, throw balls and toss rings with Toy Story characters galore.
I LOVE this type of ride. It’s similar to Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom, but the graphics in this are really impressive. Very interactive and super fun.
Entry to Toy Story Mania! in Toy Story Land
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
This is an exciting, 3D simulation ride where you feel like you’re flying and doing battle in a Star Wars ship with C-3PO and R2-D2. It has a minimum height of 102 cm (40 in).
There’s a variety of stories, so you are likely to get a different one each time you ride, but there’s sure to be plenty of Star Wars characters involved.
Cool Star Wars photo opportunities around the park
3 best Hollywood Studios shows
Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple
We didn’t do the Jedi Training because we were about to board a Disney Star Wars Day at Sea cruise and had booked free tickets to the Jedi Training on that. But it was completely awesome on the cruise and this looked very similar, so I highly recommend it.
It is only for kids 4-12 years old and runs for 20min many times throughout the day and evening. It’s first come first served, so prioritise registering your kids as soon as you arrive in Hollywood Studios. Find out how to register here.
Your kids will be trained how to use the Force to wield lightsabers, practicing as a group and then taking on a Star Wars villain in a one-on-one battle.
Fantasmic!
This is a large-scale, open-air nighttime musical water and light show. Sit in tiered bench seating for a great view, but consider booking the Fantasmic! Dining Package like we did for brilliant seats without the queues.
Mickey is the sorcerer’s apprentice with the power to control water, color and magic. Many Disney characters appear with more than 50 live performers.
Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage
This is an all-singing, all-dancing condensed version of the romantic Beauty and the Beast story, which I really enjoyed. The costumes and colourful set were wonderfully vibrant.
Make sure you get there early for a seat. We found that people started queuing up to an hour before showtime. It takes a while to fill the open-air theatre so you are let in quite early and then at least can sit in your seats while you wait for the show to start. A great opportunity to rest your legs!
Our Hollywood Studios itinerary
FastPass strategy
We only had one day scheduled for Hollywood Studios. We did our best to get a Slinky Dog Dash FastPass, but sadly missed out, so we went with –
Tier 1 – Toy Story Mania!
Tier 2 – Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith and Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
Rope drop
Rope drop is the term given to when they let people onto the rides. It is typically up to half an hour before official park open time. They let you into the park and close to the rides, but hold a rope up which is dropped at the magic time.
On the day of our visit, official park open time was 9am. We intended to arrive earlier, but didn’t get there until 8.50am. The park was already open when we arrived, plus there had been Early Morning Magic since 7.30am, so it was already super busy.
Early Morning Magic is not the extra hours that onsite guests have, it is a paid pass for Toy Story Land typically available on Mondays and Wednesdays. More information here.
Army men marching through Toy Story Land
Full day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 9am-8.30pm
Rope drop Slinky Dog Dash
First up we headed straight to the queue for Slinky Dog Dash. We waited 110min and set a new record for the longest we’ve ever waited for a ride. Such a fabulous ride though.
We had hoped to tick off Slinky Dog Dash and Alien Swirling Saucers in quick succession at rope drop, but it didn’t work out that way. By the time we got off Slinky Dog Dash we had to run to make it to our Toy Story Mania! FastPass.
After an hour of waiting we’re about to go through the entry gate!
11am Toy Story Mania! (FastPass)
Fortunately we all made it to Toy Story Mania! with only a minute or two to spare on our FastPass. Thank goodness we did because this is such wonderful family fun. We always come off this type of ride laughing and comparing scores and wishing we could go straight back on again.
We finally had a chance to relax and wander around Toy Story Land afterwards, although it was very crowded. Checked out Alien Swirling Saucers, but with a 60min wait time we decided we could live without it.
The green army men marching and shouting are super cool and we spied Woody and Jessie heading to a meet and greet.
Jessie and Woody heading to a meet and greet
Next we went to the 3D Muppet movie, which was fun, but not as good as PhilharMagic at Magic Kingdom.
12.30pm Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith (FastPass)
Thank goodness we had a FastPass for this because it was running a 205min line when we arrived. Even with a FastPass it took about 15min of queuing to get in.
Half of us loved this ride (the boys) and the other half didn’t. It was too fast and jerky for me. I love our ride photo though – taken when they shoot you out at the start. I think I screwed up all orifices as instinctual protection!
Classic ride photo as we’re shot out crazy fast at the start of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
1pm Lunch at Hollywood & Vine with Minnie & friends
This was a fun character meal with Minnie, Mickey, Daisy, Donald and Goofy. It was lovely to sit down and relax in the air-conditioning on this unseasonably hot January day.
My full write-up on Minnie’s Seasonal Dine at Hollywood and Vine is here.
3pm Meet and greet with Olaf
Olaf is one of my kids’ favourite characters so we joined a short queue to have a fun meet and greet with him. Olaf hasn’t learnt to write yet, so will give you a small souvenir handprint rather than an autograph.
3.30pm Star Tours – The Adventures Continue (FastPass)
Star Tours is a fun ride as detailed above, but we were particularly keen to get on it here at Hollywood Studios. We went on Star Tours at Disneyland Paris, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun in French. This time I had some clue what was going on!
4pm Star Wars show
Watched the cast marching through the park then stayed for the Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away show on the main stage.
5pm Beauty and the Beast show
Arrived early to make sure we got in after missing out earlier in the day. Lots of waiting, but once we sat down inside we really enjoyed it. Such wonderful music!
6.30pm Dinner
Took a wander down Sunset Boulevard to enjoy the light show along the road and on the Tower of Terror. Then grabbed a pizza quick service dinner at the Sunset Ranch Market.
Looking down Sunset Boulevard to the Tower of Terror
8pm Fantasmic! fireworks
We were so thankful at this late stage of the day to have the Fantasmic! Dinner Package vouchers. These enabled us to bypass the queues and head straight to centrally located seats with a spectacular view of the evening fireworks, water and light show.
Fantasmic!
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