Hollywood Studios / Epcot Plan ~ Your thoughts please!

[MySweetLoves]

Your thoughts and experience would be so appreciated in planning what will work and the best way to go about it for our day at Hollywood Studios & Epcot…

On February 5th, we have Hollywood Studios reserved, early entry access, will purchase Genie +, have park hopper tickets, will purchase $ILL, plan to be early for rope drop and willing to run …

We would lIke to ride Rise of the Resistance, Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Smuggler’s Run and have a reservation at Ooga’s Cantina at 10:45am.

We plan to leave via shuttle around 1:15 pm and head to Epcot. Of course, we’d love to ride Guardians. Knowing we can’t reserve Virtual Q for either at 7am or 1pm, bc it’s not our reserved park, I plan to try to purchase $ILL at 9am (3 adults).

I have researched myself silly but know being there is a whole different thing! The last time we were at Disney my 23 yr old daughter I’m planning this trip with was in 4th grade!

 

[Thesliprocks]

Sounds like an awesome day!
I would be careful about the 1:15p plan to jump over to epcot. Even if you rope drops rise, on a quiet day you may be in line for 30 minutes, and it's also a 16 minute ride. Once you get out you can hop over to smugglers run but again, that entire experience (wait times mostly but ride time too) may take an hour. This puts you at 10am when you get out and you have 45 minutes to maybe run to a short wait ride before your reservation.

When we did ogas we spent close to an hour in there and it felt like 15 minutes. Great atmosphere and awesome drinks (I love the poweraide one).

After that is over your close to 12pm with two big rides (rnr and htt) to go. Each one of those may be a 1 hour wait, unless you buy genie for the day your still pushing it close.

My experience lately has been that of those 4 rides, one seems to always he broke down so that can increase ride wait times across the park.


I think it's going to be very close and you may want to plan for a hokywood studios exit that can be closer to 2 or 3 pm. Otherwise it sounds line a fun day and a lot of speed walking. YOU CAN DO IT!

 

[Silvermist999]

I’m not sure how busy it will be during your trip, but we were at DHS during the first week of January, had Genie+ and found by the time it was mid morning, no more Genie+ were available for some of the rides like RnRC and ToT. So not sure if your mid morning ADR would affect you being able to ride everything you want. We actually added in a second park day at DHS for this reason because standby lines had crazy long wait times. The only ride I noticed that had Genie+ available to book constantly was Star Tours, and also standby was low wait. We rode it 3 times for this reason.

 

[loves to dive]

You never know about crowd levels but it's certainly doable. My only advice would be make sure you make your guardians for later in the day in case you don't get what you want to do done. I'd walk to epcot or take the boat to at least boardwalk, it's quicker for me. You don't mention anything else you want to at epcot or how long your trip is, but you could always go back over to hs after guardians if you want. The good thing about hoppers is it gives you the freedom on any given day to go back to a park you feel you need more time at and to get out of a park that might be too crowded.

 

[MySweetLoves]

Sounds like an awesome day!
I would be careful about the 1:15p plan to jump over to epcot. Even if you rope drops rise, on a quiet day you may be in line for 30 minutes, and it's also a 16 minute ride. Once you get out you can hop over to smugglers run but again, that entire experience (wait times mostly but ride time too) may take an hour. This puts you at 10am when you get out and you have 45 minutes to maybe run to a short wait ride before your reservation.

When we did ogas we spent close to an hour in there and it felt like 15 minutes. Great atmosphere and awesome drinks (I love the poweraide one).

After that is over your close to 12pm with two big rides (rnr and htt) to go. Each one of those may be a 1 hour wait, unless you buy genie for the day your still pushing it close.

My experience lately has been that of those 4 rides, one seems to always he broke down so that can increase ride wait times across the park.


I think it's going to be very close and you may want to plan for a hokywood studios exit that can be closer to 2 or 3 pm. Otherwise it sounds line a fun day and a lot of speed walking. YOU CAN DO IT!

Thank you!!! This is the reality check on timing we need. We will now definitely extend our day at DHS and look for a late ride on Guardians. Looking forward to Oga’s even more now!

 

[MySweetLoves]

I’m not sure how busy it will be during your trip, but we were at DHS during the first week of January, had Genie+ and found by the time it was mid morning, no more Genie+ were available for some of the rides like RnRC and ToT. So not sure if your mid morning ADR would affect you being able to ride everything you want. We actually added in a second park day at DHS for this reason because standby lines had crazy long wait times. The only ride I noticed that had Genie+ available to book constantly was Star Tours, and also standby was low wait. We rode it 3 times for this reason.

Thank you!! That’s good to note about Genie+ ~ I wish now we would have pushed Oga’s out a bit now, but we’ll see where we are after rope dropping Rise. Almost thinking $ILL Rise later and start w RRC & Tower. Then Oga’s & end w Star Wars rides instead. I would love to extend our stay but we only have 2 days. The first day we plan for Animal Kingdom, hopping to Magic Kingdom with no real plan. What wouldn’t you miss in the evening there?

 

[MySweetLoves]

You never know about crowd levels but it's certainly doable. My only advice would be make sure you make your guardians for later in the day in case you don't get what you want to do done. I'd walk to epcot or take the boat to at least boardwalk, it's quicker for me. You don't mention anything else you want to at epcot or how long your trip is, but you could always go back over to hs after guardians if you want. The good thing about hoppers is it gives you the freedom on any given day to go back to a park you feel you need more time at and to get out of a park that might be too crowded.

Thank you!!! I love your thoughts on walking or taking the boat. We all are walkers/runners so knowing that option is viable, & quicker than the bus, is great. The rest of Epcot will be maybe Soarin’, Spaceship and going ‘round the world’ with drinks/snacks. We’re definitely going to talk about returning to DHS after if we have time. What other rides are ‘must do’ you at Epcot?

 

[bluedolphin32]

On February 5th, we have Hollywood Studios reserved, early entry access, will purchase Genie +, have park hopper tickets, will purchase $ILL, plan to be early for rope drop and willing to run …

...Knowing we can’t reserve Virtual Q for either at 7am or 1pm, bc it’s not our reserved park, I plan to try to purchase $ILL at 9am (3 adults).

Is there a reason you plan to wait to buy your ILL? As an onsite guest you can purchase ILL starting at 7 am (you can purchase 2 ILL/day) for any park. Park reservations don't determine when you can buy ILL, only onsite/offsite determines this, so I wouldn't wait! Buy it right at 7. Have a great time!

 

[MySweetLoves]

Is there a reason you plan to wait to buy your ILL? As an onsite guest you can purchase ILL starting at 7 am (you can purchase 2 ILL/day) for any park. Park reservations don't determine when you can buy ILL, only onsite/offsite determines this, so I wouldn't wait! Buy it right at 7. Have a great time!

That’s awesome! Thank you for responding to this specifically. I spoke to a DW customer service cast member and she let me know that only Deluxe hotel or Reserved Park day could purchase at 7am.…that I’d have to wait until 9am. I will definitely reserve ILL for Guardians at 7am if the app allows.

 

[loves to dive]

Thank you!!! I love your thoughts on walking or taking the boat. We all are walkers/runners so knowing that option is viable, & quicker than the bus, is great. The rest of Epcot will be maybe Soarin’, Spaceship and going ‘round the world’ with drinks/snacks. We’re definitely going to talk about returning to DHS after if we have time. What other rides are ‘must do’ you at Epcot?

I always walk it and I'm not a young person. If the boat is right there I'll ride it to YC or BW and walk from there sometimes.

 

[bluedolphin32]

@MySweetLoves this is a great thread on ILL if you haven't already read it:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/e...lightning-lane-please-read-posts-1-7.3856734/
Post #4 has the ILL basic info. There are tons of good questions in that thread. You can also skip to the end for more recent experiences.
The CMs are as helpful as they can be, but they don't always know all the right answers to everything. I think yours was mistaken on this, or maybe misunderstood the question. It is one of the perks of staying onsite to be able to but ILL before park open. Any Disney Resort, plus the Good Neighbor hotels, I believe.

 

[Prince John Robin Hood]

If you rope drop Rise and get ToT with Genie+ you should be able to make your plan work. The earlier you get to HS the better though. If you are one of the first groups on Rise you could potentially do Smugglers during early entry as well. Your ToT return time could easily be before Oga's if you book right at 7:00 and that would leave you with just RNRC on your way out of the park.

 

[MySweetLoves]

If you rope drop Rise and get ToT with Genie+ you should be able to make your plan work. The earlier you get to HS the better though. If you are one of the first groups on Rise you could potentially do Smugglers during early entry as well. Your ToT return time could easily be before Oga's if you book right at 7:00 and that would leave you with just RNRC on your way out of the park.

Thank you!! That’s definitely our plan and would be best case scenario. Hope it works!