No DHS reservations -- bad idea?

[Davey Jones II]

So I made our park reservations for our seven day WDW trip in late October. I did not reserve any days at DHS, on the advice of some posters in past threads. In a nutshell, they said that DHS is mobbed in the morning, and during early entry, but the crowds tend to dissipate as the day goes on.

So, instead of starting a day there, we plan to hop to DHS on most days, and close the parks. We will stack some LL for those visits. I would love to hear any opinions on this strategy -- is it a good idea, or not?

 

[Mle8308]

So I made our park reservations for our seven day WDW trip in late October. I did not reserve any days at DHS, on the advice of some posters in past threads. In a nutshell, they said that DHS is mobbed in the morning, and during early entry, but the crowds tend to dissipate as the day goes on.

So, instead of starting a day there, we plan to hop to DHS on most days, and close the parks. We will stack some LL for those visits. I would love to hear any opinions on this strategy -- is it a good idea, or not?

It depends. If you are staying in a Disney or qualifying resort, you can do early entry and you could knock out probably 2 "big" attractions before the major crowds start. If you are eligible for early entry, I would do at least one day at DHS. In late August, I did not notice a huge drop in the crowds in the afternoon, because people hop to DHS, too. And by then (after 2pm) most of the LL are gone so there is no choice but standby. It can be rough, especially if any of the attractions experienced downtimes earlier in the day. However the last hour, yes, it definitely slows down. I'd do one day early entry and head for one of the headline attractions and book a LL via Genie+ right at 7am for another major attraction.

 

[elgerber]

In both July and in September (on one of our days, but not both), using EE and Genie+/ILL, we were able to ride all rides and have lunch but 12:30

 

[georgina]

And then sometimes people go for EE and multiple rides are down at opening.

We were not thrilled with the G+/ILL/early park method at HS. We would ride something and have time to kill until our next G+ ride, and most of the other lines were quite long.

I think OP if going to hop multiple days and stack G+ for later in the day they could be successful.

 

[Davey Jones II]

And then sometimes people go for EE and multiple rides are down at opening.

We were not thrilled with the G+/ILL/early park method at HS. We would ride something and have time to kill until our next G+ ride, and most of the other lines were quite long.

I think OP if going to hop multiple days and stack G+ for later in the day they could be successful.

Yeah, that is our strategy. We are staying on-site, but even if we had gotten a DHS reservation, we weren't planning to do early entry -- our focus is on closing the parks (except at the MK; we will try to get there early, since we'll get kicked out of the park early for the Halloween party).

Of course, without a theme park reservation, we can't get restaurant reservations there. Any chance of getting into Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre and Oga's Cantina at certain hours without a reservation?

Thanks for all the responses.

 

[elgerber]

Yeah, that is our strategy. We are staying on-site, but even if we had gotten a DHS reservation, we weren't planning to do early entry -- our focus is on closing the parks (except at the MK; we will try to get there early, since we'll get kicked out of the park early for the Halloween party).

Of course, without a theme park reservation, we can't get restaurant reservations there. Any chance of getting into Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre and Oga's Cantina at certain hours without a reservation?

Thanks for all the responses.

Park reservations do not have anything to do with dining. You can make dining anywhere you want.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

So I made our park reservations for our seven day WDW trip in late October. I did not reserve any days at DHS, on the advice of some posters in past threads. In a nutshell, they said that DHS is mobbed in the morning, and during early entry, but the crowds tend to dissipate as the day goes on.

So, instead of starting a day there, we plan to hop to DHS on most days, and close the parks. We will stack some LL for those visits. I would love to hear any opinions on this strategy -- is it a good idea, or not?

On our most recent visit, we hit DHS 3 times: twice in the evening and once in the morning. We found the morning day to be much more crowded than the evenings.

Waits for Rise of the Resistance were 100+ minutes in the morning and less than 20 minutes in the evening.

Evenings are also a good time for a Toy Story Mania tournament if you like to do that one multiple times.

 

[Upatnoon]

This strategy does waste park time, as it does take time to hop and you have to visit the park you reserved first.

Also, evenings are great times to visit all the parks, not just Hollywood.

With 7 days, I would probably book at least one at Hollywood just to eat lunch there and see a couple of shows earlier in the day.

 

[Anna131517]

It’s a little harder to stack lightning lanes now with the new Genie+ rules. You’ll have to keep a close eye on them as they come up because you have to wait until the return times naturally get to after 2 pm - before, guests who started at another park were more easily able to gobble up the afternoon lightning lanes because when they went in to book one it would open up the afternoon LLs while morning ones were still available. I think you would waste the least amount of time hopping to HS on a day you started at EP. HS is just a short walk/boat ride/skyliner ride from the EP international gateway entrance.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

So I made our park reservations for our seven day WDW trip in late October. I did not reserve any days at DHS, on the advice of some posters in past threads. In a nutshell, they said that DHS is mobbed in the morning, and during early entry, but the crowds tend to dissipate as the day goes on.

So, instead of starting a day there, we plan to hop to DHS on most days, and close the parks. We will stack some LL for those visits. I would love to hear any opinions on this strategy -- is it a good idea, or not?

Yes, DHS does get lighter as the day goes on and by evening, it's fairly empty. We used a similar strategy on our last spring break trip and it worked well. We didn't hop to DHS but we started our day around lunch time and did this given we had late nights prior. We purchased iLL$ for ROTR and used G+ pretty successfully throughout the day with no issue. Granted we didn't hop there and did use G+ with the new after 2pm ride rule, but thus far, it's not really killing those that hop just trying to level the playing field for those that start the day in that park some. With as many days as you have in the parks, you should be able to accomplish your must dos and more.

 

[RoseGold]

You can either rope drop, or you can shut it down. I think this is a great strategy with hoppers, it's the one I like.

 

[Davey Jones II]

Thanks for all the replies. I incorporated a lot of the advice into our touring plan.

 

[DebbieB]

That’s my plan for 11/27. I have an MK reservation, closes at 6:00. I plan to take an afternoon break and then hop to DHS for evening. I hope to stack Slinky Dog, Tower and maybe Toy Story Mania.