HS 1-day Strategy with Lots of Extras

[catsinawindow]

We'll be taking our first family trip to WDW in July and are planning on one day at HS. There are some big Star Wars fans in the group, so Galaxy's Edge is looking to be a highlight of the trip! Our "must-dos" include Savi's lightsaber build, Droid Depot, Ogas Cantina, RoTR, and MFSR. I'd also like to do SDD, MMRR, and an Indiana Jones show (are those still happening?) but the rest of HS is in the "nice to do" category for us. We aren't planning on a sit-down meal other than Ogas (which I realize is just drinks). How reasonable is it to accomplish all this in one day? Should we plan for 2 days at HS, even if that means limiting MK to one day?

ETA: we are planning to get Genie+, will purchase an ILL$ for RoTR, and are ok with rope dropping. We're staying onsite at CBR.

 

[sequoia 14]

It would be very hard to do all of these. If you were willing to be there prior to early entry, get a ILL for RoTR, get lucky getting a G+ for slinky and ride MFSR single rider you might be able to do all of these in a long day.

For example, have two people ready to go at 7am. One gets the ILL for RoTR and the other gets a G+ for Slinky. Rope drop MMRR and then plan for the Droid, Savis and Ogas mid-morning on. You can do MFSR single rider anytime. You could also try to rope drop MFSR to ride together and then head to MMRR right after expecting a little bit of a wait.

Fit in Indy when it fits your schedule and then see what other rides you get on with Genie.

Good luck!

 

[catsinawindow]

It would be very hard to do all of these. If you were willing to be there prior to early entry, get a ILL for RoTR, get lucky getting a G+ for slinky and ride MFSR single rider you might be able to do all of these in a long day.

For example, have two people ready to go at 7am. One gets the ILL for RoTR and the other gets a G+ for Slinky. Rope drop MMRR and then plan for the Droid, Savis and Ogas mid-morning on. You can do MFSR single rider anytime. You could also try to rope drop MFSR to ride together and then head to MMRR right after expecting a little bit of a wait.

Fit in Indy when it fits your schedule and then see what other rides you get on with Genie.

Good luck!

This is what I suspected/was afraid of. I do wish park reservations didn't tie us down to one park for our 5th park day, I'd rather have the flexibility to swap a second day at MK for a second day at HS if we didn't get to see the whole park! Parkhoppers really aren't in the cards for us, too much money for the number of people and park days.

The plan you outline above is what I was thinking too, although I was wondering if rope-dropping SDD and MMRR (with priority being SDD) and getting MFSR as my first G+ might allow us to get more of the second-tier rides with G+? We have younger kids and a husband that I know will want the "good" seats for MFSR, so I think we'd want to do that ride at least once as a group. The idea of keeping reservation times for Savis, Droids, Oga's, RoTR, and whatever we get for G+ straight is already making my head spin, though! I guess maybe I'll see what reservation times we get once we arrive at our 60+7 window and decide from there if we want to switch our fifth park day to HS (or even add a sixth park day for arrival day, departure day, or our rest day).

 

[RoseGold]

I think this schedule is doable if you get rid of SDD and MMRR.

 

[sequoia 14]

This is what I suspected/was afraid of. I do wish park reservations didn't tie us down to one park for our 5th park day, I'd rather have the flexibility to swap a second day at MK for a second day at HS if we didn't get to see the whole park! Parkhoppers really aren't in the cards for us, too much money for the number of people and park days.

The plan you outline above is what I was thinking too, although I was wondering if rope-dropping SDD and MMRR (with priority being SDD) and getting MFSR as my first G+ might allow us to get more of the second-tier rides with G+? We have younger kids and a husband that I know will want the "good" seats for MFSR, so I think we'd want to do that ride at least once as a group. The idea of keeping reservation times for Savis, Droids, Oga's, RoTR, and whatever we get for G+ straight is already making my head spin, though! I guess maybe I'll see what reservation times we get once we arrive at our 60+7 window and decide from there if we want to switch our fifth park day to HS (or even add a sixth park day for arrival day, departure day, or our rest day).

The hard part is going to be planning our your set Savis/Droids/Oga's reservations with the ride reservations you get. If you are able to add an extra park day where you could just do the extra Star Wars activities it would probably be a lot less stressful.

We were just at the parks this past week and you would likely not be able to rope drop SDD and MMRR without a significant wait on the second choice. And SDD was down all morning when we were there. If they are both priorities I would try to at least G+ one of those. MFSR seems to be more reliable and you will likely be able to knock that off in the morning. If you ended up doing two mornings you could rope drop whatever of those 3 didn't work out the first time as well.

 

[T.G.I.Friday]

I’m kind of surprised that other posters think it seems hard, so I’m probably off base, but it doesn’t seem that bad to me. Admittedly, it’s a longer day than I would want, but it seems manageable. Assuming with early entry you will have 13 hours of open park (8-9), you want to do 5 rides and 3 experiences. That seems like enough time. I do agree that the timing of the reservations vs your Genie will be the challenge.


I’d do the ILL for Rise and first genie for MFSR (check off the 2 must dos). And I’d rope drop MMRR. Then probably suck it up and then ride SDD standby. I would think you could have those first two attractions done by 10, so then you’d have the rest of the day to balance your ILL and reservations. And just do Indy when it works around everything else.

And keep in mind that Oga’s has reservations for after park close (I think the last is 9:55 for 9 closing), so you can try for that and not even have to use park time.

It would be a long day, but if you only stand in one standby line, it seems more than manageable to me.

 

[catsinawindow]

The hard part is going to be planning our your set Savis/Droids/Oga's reservations with the ride reservations you get. If you are able to add an extra park day where you could just do the extra Star Wars activities it would probably be a lot less stressful.

We were just at the parks this past week and you would likely not be able to rope drop SDD and MMRR without a significant wait on the second choice. And SDD was down all morning when we were there. If they are both priorities I would try to at least G+ one of those. MFSR seems to be more reliable and you will likely be able to knock that off in the morning. If you ended up doing two mornings you could rope drop whatever of those 3 didn't work out the first time as well.

Thanks for the input, especially regarding not being able to rope-drop SDD and MMRR without a significant wait for the second one. I might prioritize MMRR since we have a little one (2 years old) and this will be pretty much the only ride she'll be able to go on at HS. I guess I could consider holding SDD until right before park close if my husband is willing to take the little one(s) back to the resort and I could just do it via standby with my 11 year old (and the 8 year old, if she's still up for it by then)! Do you know how the actual standby wait times are for SDD at park close?

On the flip side, do you think MK is doable in one day? Our travel agent strongly suggested reserving two days for MK, but I feel like we have less "must dos" at this park so maybe switching our second MK day for HS would be a better choice? If not for the park reservation system, we could always make that decision during our vacation once we see how our MK and HS days go, but it seems like reservations are likely to fill up for these two parks, so i feel like I'd need to make the decision ahead of time

 

[catsinawindow]

I’m kind of surprised that other posters think it seems hard, so I’m probably off base, but it doesn’t seem that bad to me. Admittedly, it’s a longer day than I would want, but it seems manageable. Assuming with early entry you will have 13 hours of open park (8-9), you want to do 5 rides and 3 experiences. That seems like enough time. I do agree that the timing of the reservations vs your Genie will be the challenge.


I’d do the ILL for Rise and first genie for MFSR (check off the 2 must dos). And I’d rope drop MMRR. Then probably suck it up and then ride SDD standby. I would think you could have those first two attractions done by 10, so then you’d have the rest of the day to balance your ILL and reservations. And just do Indy when it works around everything else.

And keep in mind that Oga’s has reservations for after park close (I think the last is 9:55 for 9 closing), so you can try for that and not even have to use park time.

It would be a long day, but if you only stand in one standby line, it seems more than manageable to me.

Thank you for this encouraging take on what our day might look like! What you describe is very much what I was thinking, with the main difficulty being how to fit both MMRR and SDD in if I'm using my first G+ selection for MFSR. We have a little one (2.5 years at time of vacation), so I'm leaning towards ropedropping MMRR since it's one of the only rides she'll be able to go on at HS. We have little ones (2.5, 8, 11) so I don't think an after-hours Oga's reservation will work for us, but we're otherwise open to spending the whole day at the park. If my husband is willing to take the little one(s) back to the resort, I might even be able to do a few rides with my older kid(s) right before park close, depending on how everyone is feeling.