Hollywood Studios Taking a Full Day?

[MouseketeerKelsey]

Hi everyone!

I have only briefly been to Hollywood Studios. I am going fully for the first time in 19 days (yay!!!).

My question is, do I need a full day for the park? I am not into thrill rides so I won't be doing TOT or RR. We have dinner reservations at 50's Prime Time and I have wanted to go there for years so we will be there for dinner around 4:30pm. I have seen the show already but my mom hasn't and I assume we will just stay at Hollywood Studios until it closes at 8pm. We are staying at the Pop Century and Extra Magic Hours are 8-9am at Epcot. I was thinking maybe about going from Epcot from about 8-noon and then heading over to Hollywood studios (I think our first Fastpass there is around 12:45?)

My question is do you think that will be enough time to get in all of the park? Or will I be wishing that I had gone in the morning?

Thanks!

 

[MissEllie]

It depends on how much of a priority you have for seeing all of the shows/ experiencing some of the smaller attractions.

I personally would commit a full morning/afternoon to the park and then park hop once I've seen everything I wanted to. That way your worst case scenario is that you spend the entire day in the park vs. running out of time.

 

[disneygolfer1985]

You will be able to spend a nice part of the evening at the Osborne's Lights. I would definitely recommend seeing that. I believe they start at 6 pm back in the Streets of America.

 

[msmama]

If you want to see all the shows, it can take awhile and you may end up waiting quite awhile between things with specific times. That said, there's plenty to do between those times, too.

I'd say if you want to see EVERYTHING, yes, it's an all day park. If you're willing to pick and chose and leave stuff out, then perhaps not.

And I do think HS is the one park that you could get pretty close to seeing everything.

 

[Mikie]

In the past I only ever did half day at DHS, but this trip we spent from rope drop through fantasmic. . .

Here's what we did: sign kids up for jedi training academy at rope drop while part of the group rode RnR , join for a second RnR, Toy a Story FP, Star Torurs for some while others did Frozen singalong, Muppets, quick service lunch, wait out a brief rainstorm (would have been shopping at Oaken's, but ended up just finding a dry overhang to shelter under) Tower of Terror FP while some saw Lights Motor Action, little mermaid show, great movie ride, some went to Indiana Jones wjile I checked the kids in to Jedi Training then everyone joined us to watch Jedis, shopping for Star Wars souvenirs, H&V dinner, little bit of shopping (mainly to buy ponchos) on our way to 7:30 fantasmic. Park close was 8:30, but we exited straight from fantasmic due to pouring rain!

Hopefully that helps give you an idea what a "full day" at DHS might look like. We were never dashing from place to place, but also never really sitting/observing/lolly gagging except during meals.

 

[SarahKate]

HS is never an all day park for us. Your plan sounds just fine to go to Epcot for a half day (so long as you have another day to visit - it's a huge park and has a lot to offer!) and then HS in the afternoon/evening. You're going at a time where HS will have the Osborne lights, which are AWESOME. We were just there last week.

 

[Mikie]

If you want to see all the shows, it can take awhile and you may end up waiting quite awhile between things with specific times. That said, there's plenty to do between those times, too.

I'd say if you want to see EVERYTHING, yes, it's an all day park. If you're willing to pick and chose and leave stuff out, then perhaps not.

And I do think HS is the one park that you could get pretty close to seeing everything.

I agree, it can easily stretch to a full day f you're more into shows than rides - they take longer and only occur at specific times. Even if you're not doing all rides or other things in between, you'll spend some time at least waiting for your next show to start.

 

[richmo]

I like your strategy. My feelings are if you're like me and not doing ToT and RnRC, its better to go in the afternoon/evening than the morning. Many of the "shows": Indiana Jones, American Idol, the car show, etc. tend to not really get going until the afternoon. And especially this time of year, do not miss Osborne Lights!

 

[Frozen2014]

Depends on what you're interested in but we did a full day....from opening at 9am to end of Fantasmic.

DH and DS did things like Star Tours, Jedi Training, Indiana and Light Motor Action shows, Toy Story, Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground.

DD and I did thinks like Little Mermaid, Disney Jr and Beauty and Beast shows, Frozen sing along, Muppet Vision show, met Sophie, Toy Story, Great Movie Ride.

We didn't end up going, but the Animation building looks kind of neat.

We all met up for dinner at 5ish and finished with 7:30pm Fantasmic show.

PS - We did not do any of those thrill rides either (just Star Tours for DS)

 

[Leader of the Pack]

We spent the day at HS on the 9th. It's my favorite park. I'm a child of the old musicals so love the atmosphere, music and achchitecture very much. We spent entire day.
Ended the day with Osborne Lights. The lights are quite beautiful and we got many great pictures. After viewing lights we stopped at Holly Brown Derby Lounge and had a quick dinner. It was lovely sitting outside, crowds had thinned considerably, relaxing in the quiet part of the day.
We had no trouble staying for the day. Arrived for rope drop and walked out maybe 1/2 hour after park closing.

 

[sharonabe]

I think you need to take a look at all the little extras in HS:

Animation drawing class
Characters in the Animation building (and fun little things inside too)
Street performers

Our boys have been too timid for RnR and ToT in the past, and we've still found plenty to fill up a full day. As others have said, just fitting in all the different shows will be difficult with only a half day.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

It's been awhile since I've spent more than half a day in DHS but I don't do things like Disney Jr. and RnRC.

But this upcoming trip, I started on my preliminary plans and wanted to see alot of the shows. That is when I realized I'll probably be there all day. It should be fun to see how that works for me this time.

So you may want to put together a place to start and see what works for you because at first I thought 3/4 of a day tops would be fine until I started looking at show times/length of shows ect.

 

[CTDisneyfan816]

Hi everyone!

I have only briefly been to Hollywood Studios. I am going fully for the first time in 19 days (yay!!!).

My question is, do I need a full day for the park? I am not into thrill rides so I won't be doing TOT or RR. We have dinner reservations at 50's Prime Time and I have wanted to go there for years so we will be there for dinner around 4:30pm. I have seen the show already but my mom hasn't and I assume we will just stay at Hollywood Studios until it closes at 8pm. We are staying at the Pop Century and Extra Magic Hours are 8-9am at Epcot. I was thinking maybe about going from Epcot from about 8-noon and then heading over to Hollywood studios (I think our first Fastpass there is around 12:45?)

My question is do you think that will be enough time to get in all of the park? Or will I be wishing that I had gone in the morning?

Thanks!

For me no. If you want to see all the shows and all the exhibits then it could be. If I wanted to spend more than 4 hours there I would ride Star Tours multiple times for the multiple story lines.

 

[hsmamato2]

IDK... depends on what you like. I personally LOVE the street performers,and I spend a lot of time just watching them....(do they have regular hours?) plus hanging around and eating takes us time, but we are a bit slow

 

[Raenstoirm]

The basic question...are you into shows? If so, you need the whole day. If not, than no. I was pregnant this past trip so I couldn't ride the 3 big rides at DHS (ToT, RnRc and Star Tours), so we finally took the time to visit the characters in Animation Academy (well I did while DH did the big rides), see Beauty and the Beast for the first time and Little Mermaid for the first time since the 90s, plus Indiana Jones for first time in 5 years. We did not get to Lights Motor or Fantasmic.