Please help me plan a non- Star Wars morning at HS!

[bethclayton]

My daughter and I will be at HS this Sunday just until about noon. We have FP's at AK for the afternoon, so no FP's for HS at all, we will have to wait in line for everything. We do not plan to go to SWGE at all. We mainly just want to hit ToT, RnRC, and are really hoping to ride Slinky Dog Dash, as we have not been to Disney since it opened so it is new to us. The park hours say HS opens at 7 am. Will it be necessary for us to get there at park opening? I'm not understanding how things are working over there right now with SWGE being so popular... is this making the lines for things like ToT shorter, or longer because more people are in the park killing time waiting for their SWGE boarding group? We have a long day planned that day and I'd love to be able to get to the park later, like 8 or 9 am, but if the collective wisdom of the disboards deems it important to get there for opening to avoid long waits, then that's what we will do. Thanks in advance for any help you can give us!

 

[Heluvsme]

I'm curious to see what others say, we are doing something similar in May. My thought was non-Star Wars stuff would be fairly, semi, somewhat "easy" ("easy" used lightly here, I know nothing is slow anymore) to get onto. I would think the masses head to Galaxy's Edge. ??

 

[Orionreplay]

We found in November that Toy Story Land and Galaxy's Edge were the two driving forces in HS. Our first attempt at Slinky Dog was an 80 minute wait first thing in the morning. Everyone went that way. Later we got to ride Aerosmith without too much waiting, maybe 30 minutes, because the Park just feels heavier on the SW and TS side.

We did get FPs for Toy Story Mania, but then later tried the saucers and had to wait 50+ minutes for that. We never got back to Slinky Dog because the lines were just always consistently long and never a FP could be found.

We found that while Star Wars is a lot of walking and shopping, Toy Story is where the 'fun stuff' is in terms of Woody, Buzz, rides, and environment. We of course did not have Rise of the Resistance during our stay.

 

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

Most people are either going to GE OR TSL. And I have a feeling that's still the case despite RotR due to the nature of the boarding groups freeing people from lines. Though I suppose it's possible those with early boarding groups have been able to get in lin

I'm going to assume this is the only day you'll be going to DHS and account for your AK FP's. The best strategy is probably to arrive at least an hour prior to park open. The crowd might not be quite as bad as it has been, but I still imagine there being a crush of people. Head straight to Slinky Dog Dash for rope drop then scurry over to Sunset Blvd for RnRC and ToT in that order.

If SDD is a "we want to try it but don't care if we don't", just arrive before park open (an hour is *probably* not necessary) and head straight to RnRC then ToT. Reality is if all your FP's are in Afternoon at AK, and you only have 3 rides on your to-do list at DHS, you technically should have time to spare. How long you're willing to wait is really the only issue in this case.

 

[Afabena]

I would say get there 45 min before park opening to have enough time to get yourself through security and the tapstiles. I went in Nov and HS was insane first thing in the morning (park opened at 9 that day though). If you want to do SDD I would do that first thing as the line builds quickly and will stay that way all day. I will caution you that TSL is HOT during the day. We were there on an incredibly sunny and hot day and there is really no shade and no place to duck into AC in that land. If you are going into TSL it will probably be best to do it first thing in the AM and then go to the other side of the park.

 

[bethclayton]

Thank you very much for the helpful replies! I need to rethink my plan, for sure. Perhaps we will just try to hit HS with a 4th FP one evening after another park, just to hit ToT and possibly standby for RnRC. I don't see SDD happening. I don't think I have it in me to head out quite that early and deal with all the chaos there when we will have a relatively long day after that. We also leave the next day, so will need to pack when we get back to the room, etc.