Episode 68: Top Tips for Tackling Hollywood Studios

On this week's episode, Krystle and Julie talk through their top tips for tackling a day at Disney's Hollywood Studios. With Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story Land as hot spots, this park can be especially challenging due to the smaller number of popular rides, making wait times and grabbing those coveted Lightning Lane reservations problematic. Listen in to get the most out of your day at Hollywood Studios!

For more Hollywood Studios content, check out these previous episodes:

Episode 38: Disney's Hollywood Studios Quick-Service

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wanderlust-wishes/id1749012067?i=1000691332497

Episode 31: You Can Only Choose One - Hollywood Studios

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wanderlust-wishes/id1749012067?i=1000681638649

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to Wanderlust and Wishes, the podcast where we explore the world one destination at a time. I'm Julie. And I'm Crystal. As travel agents with Fantastical Vacations, we are here to share our passion for travel and help you turn your wanderlust into reality. From hidden gems to bucket list adventures, join us as we dive into the sights, sounds, and stories of our favorite destinations. So grab your passport, pack your bags, and let's embark on this journey together. So let's get started.

UNKNOWN: 0:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:33

Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 68 of Wanderlust and Witches. Today, we're going to talk about top tips for tackling Hollywood studios. This one is definitely a tough one. For anybody that's ever been to Walt Disney World, you know that Hollywood studios can be a challenge. You guys all loved our Magic Kingdom episode when we did this. So let's just make it into a series. This is one of the things we love the most is talking about strategy and digging into our tips and our experience. So we love chatting through this. stuff. Okay, so let's jump in. First, we're going to talk through rope drop and touring strategy and lightning laying. Those all kind of mesh together. So we're going to talk about those first. And disclaimer, I did ask my husband. He says he's not a Disney person, but I hear him watching TikToks with happily ever after. All lies, John. What Disney are you watching over there? Don't worry about it. But anyway, I asked him if he had any tips to share. And I thought he was just going to give me one or two, but he started with a whole list. So from a Disney dad, we have his sprinkled in here as well. Be on the lookout. All right. So I'm just going to ruffle some feathers off the bat and just say, start out with just buy the Rise of the Resistance individual lightning line. Don't try and rope drop it. More often than not, it's not open at Park Open. And they don't tell you that until you get over there. And then if you don't care about the pre-shows, they've been testing a single rider. So It's not always open, but you could do it that way and you'll just enter in the storm trooper room if you don't want to buy the individual lightning lane. But I'm just going to say spend the money, do it right and just buy it. Agree. I completely agree with that. And individual lightning lane equals single pass lightning lane now. Oh, my gosh. Does. It's changed like 85%. times in the last couple of years. So just FYI, individual lightning is the same as single pass lightning lane. But yeah, I completely agree. Lightning lane is a must in Hollywood studios. There's just not enough rides and that, you know, the ones that are popular have very long waits and they also get picked up quickly when you're doing your multi-pass or single pass lightning lane. So you want to have a strategy when it comes to that. Hopefully that going to get better as they're adding in the different areas. They're upgrading the animation courtyard and also transitioning the Muppets area over to Monsters, Inc. So hopefully that will help some and add some rides in or attractions that will make this a little bit better. But I always feel like this park feels crowded even when it's not crowded. Yeah, I definitely agree. And I would say if you could only buy it for$1, park, this would be my pick. Agree. Totally agree. I also think that rope dropping in combination with Lightning Lane is a must here. And you need to be there early. So even if you have early entry and you're staying on property, you need to be there like an hour early. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's very competitive. There are a lot of other people that also rope drop because of the way that this park is. And if you want to be there first in line or close to the front of the line, if you're rope dropping something, you really need to be there as early as you can to get the most out of the park. It's even better if you are staying at a Skyliner resort. It makes it a lot easier to get there earlier. It's very nice. My next tip is staying in Galaxy's Edge. I wouldn't suggest this for a first or second timer, but if you're with a group that's been a few times, ask a cast member to turn on Chewbacca mode for Millennium Falcon. You will not understand a word that's said because it's all Chewie just doing his voice, but it like switches up the experience. So I'm going to stick with rope dropping topics. My second tip is to rope drop Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, especially for early park entry. And then you can typically head over to Smuggler's Run right after that and still get in line with a pretty low weight. My strategy is typically to do a lightning lane multi-pass to pick Slinky dog as the tier one and then rope drop mickey minis and then head over to smuggler's run that will get you three rides in pretty quickly if you're able to get a decent time for slinky dog i agree we always rope drop mickey minis if you've been here a minute you know that i like to rope drop something that is toddler friendly any height friendly so you're not dealing with rider switch right off the bat so we always pick mickey minis and that was one of john's tips too is he loves to start out with that one in the morning and then go back on a multi-pass later because you can't not love that ride I know if you don't love that ride talking to you dad something's something's wrong it's perfect it's the perfect ride that song stuck in your head yeah so I'm gonna kind of move over sort of kind of into Lightning Lane just to finish out my tips for Lightning Lane like I mentioned Lightning Lane multi-pass and single pass definitely a must. I completely agree with Crystal that if you're going to do Rise of the Resistance, just get the single pass lightning lane because sometimes when you do rope drop it, or even if you just decide you're not rope dropping it, but you're just going to wait in line, it goes down a lot. And if you have a single pass lightning lane and it goes down whenever you're supposed to have your lightning lane, you'll get one of those kind of freebie ones where they'll put it back onto your My Disney Experience account and you can use it whenever. If you're waiting in line and you've been waiting in line for like an hour and it goes down, you're just stuck. You either have to sit there and wait longer until it comes back up, or if you leave and try to come back later, it's just a mess. And I just don't want to deal with that. And for the most part, if we don't do a single pass lightning lane, then we just don't go over there because I don't want to wait for two hours for something that might go down. It's just not worth it to me. In general, we'll try to get slings Slinky Dog as our tier one. Because if you don't get it when you see it, it'll be gone for the day and then you'll be painting yourself. You won't have it at all. For tier two, I would pick Toy Story Mania. And then if you want to get on Rock and Roller Coaster, if that's a priority for you, then pick an easy option like the Alien Swirling Saucers or whatever it's called. Get one of those that you know you can get almost immediately as soon as the park opens so that you can use it and then immediately pick another tier one. Because once you're in the park, you don't have the restrictions that you do when you're doing preselections. But if you don't care about Rock and Roller Coaster, then I would go ahead and do Tower of Terror as my second tier two. It just kind of depends on what you want to do. But Rock and Roller Coaster is another one of those that the wait's going to be long all day, and it's not really going to get better until probably close to park close. So if you want to get on it, that's probably the strategy that I would use is to kind of do the bait and switch. I'm not looking forward to when this ride goes, when Rock and Roller Coaster goes down for the Muppets overlay because it's going to be even worse. Slinky Dog and the other tier ones are going to be even harder to get. Also, it's not really worth it to use Lightning Lanes on shows for the most part. And that goes really for any park. For the most part, if you get in line, you're going to wait maybe like 30 minutes or however long it takes for the show to kind of rotate people in and out of the building. These shows hold a lot of people. And so most of the time when you get in line, you're just going to be in line until the next show starts. And worst case scenario, that show starts and you have to wait to the next one after that. But for the most part, you're not going to wait a super duper long time to get into a show because there's so much space in those areas. Speaking of shows, should we jump to our shows? Yeah, absolutely. This, as we were just talking about, this park is very show heavy. They're great. They can just take a lot of time and the schedules do not ever line up. So if the shows are something you like to do, keep a note of what runs when, somewhere on the half hour, somewhere on the hour. And then a lot of them will end around dinnertime. Typically, there's a couple of new ones in this park that were seen run until eight, but it's just because they're new. Once the newness wears off, they'll go to like dinner time. So just to give you an idea, Villains is running every 40 minutes right now. Beauty and the Beast has only five shows and they start on the hour. For the first time in forever, The Frozen Seeing Along is on the half hour all day, but they end at 630. Indiana Jones only has like five shows and they're every hour and 15, but there's a weird two hour gap in the every 40 minutes right now. And that one's going until 8. But just for the time being, I'm guessing by January that goes back to like Indian Lake at 5 or 6. Yeah. So if you would like to watch more than one of those, just kind of keep in mind with your lightning lanes and if you can get from A to B and watch them because they never line up and it's annoying. Yeah, it's kind of weird the way that they stagger them out. And just as an FYI, Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones are both outside The other shows are indoors and you'll get into, you'll be able to sit in the AC. The, those two shows, you still get to sit down, but you're still in the heat. Yes. They have fans and I think, you know, it makes it a little bit better, but it's still, it's still warm. They don't help as much. Yeah. You're like hoping and praying there's breeze coming through. Yeah. Definitely not the same as sitting in air conditioning. No. So speaking of AC, John's tips, where Frozen is his favorite nap spot. I do not agree with this because I have video every time we go of him belting Let It Go. Oh, that's hilarious. He is a very good girl dad and plays right along with the Frozen stuff. So he says it's a nap spot, but he sings along. And then he also says that Indiana Jones is the most underrated show. It's very entertaining. And he said, but you're sitting, which comes in clutch, his words. But I think that Indiana Jones is just like a very much like a guy show. Like my father-in-law loves it. Calder loves it. So if you have some hangry men, go get them a snack and then go sit them down at Indy. And then you could go like either stay and watch it or go do something else while they take a breather. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think this is definitely a guy-friendly option just because it's Indiana Jones. And it's also, I mean, it's like action. It's okay. I'm okay with it. I just, I mean, it's not... necessarily my favorite but I don't like it as much because it's outside I don't like to be sitting out in the heat moving on to food and dining this Park has a great option for dining package with Fantasmic. If you want to see Fantasmic, I would almost always just do a dining package with it. If you guys have been listening for a while, you know that I don't like dealing with having to worry about pushing against the crowds with fireworks or shows or anything outdoors where you're dealing with a crowd. I would rather do something that allows a specific spot where you just already have a designated area. And so for me, this is just very easy, so much easier. We've done this with Hollywood and Vine, but there are also four other restaurants that offer the dining package. The 50s Primetime Cafe, Sci-Fi Dine and Theater Restaurant and the hollywood brown derby all of those offer the option for a dining package with phantasmic i would say that this park actually has lots of food options most of the quick service are hidden and like overlooked so if you want to go and listen to our you can only choose one for some highlights we actually have two episodes we have our hollywood studios quick service episode which is 38 and you can only choose one hollywood studios is 31 we We'll link those in the show notes or dig through some menus because there's more than just chicken strips and theme park food. So if you want to go to Oga's Cantina, you definitely need a reservation. It's not required, but you're most likely not going to really get in easily if you don't have a reservation. I personally feel like this is a one and done spot. I feel like it's very small and crowded. And I just feel rushed. And I don't, I've just never felt like I could really enjoy the space because it's so crowded. They pack so many people in there. And it's sometimes you don't, even with a reservation, you don't even get a seat. Sometimes you have to stand. And so it just wasn't enjoyable for me. I mean, and I love Star Wars. So I love like the premise behind it, but I don't like the way that it actually turned out whenever I've been there the last couple of times. But if you haven't been there and you are a Star Wars fan, I would definitely say to try it and get the reservation for it. If I don't ever go back there, I'm okay with it, though. I've actually heard that from a lot of people. They're like, I did it. I don't ever need to go back. Which is sad, but if it's not up to Disney experience standards, then why pay the Disney menu prices? It's too small. They needed a bigger spot. I mean, it's really small. Alright, if you think you're going to eat the famous breakfast hot shows when you're on your way into the park in the morning either standing in line or riding the bus or the skyliner put in your order mobile order ahead of time the breakfast hour that they serve goes by so quick and the mobile order times push out so far just put it in early select your time and then you can have them if not you will miss out by the time you think about it they'll be Mobile order slots for like lunch and mid-afternoon. Yeah, especially this particular spot, Woody's Lunchbox. It's very popular and those times go like immediately. And even for lunch, like don't try. If you want lunch there, don't pull up the mobile order option at lunchtime because you won't have anything until late afternoon. It'll be an hour, 90 minutes before you get your food. My next recommendation is Baseline Tap House. It's one of those kind of hybrid situations that it's more than a quick service because you have like the tables and you have someone that will come and do your refills, but it's not quite table service. It doesn't have reservations. So you do need to kind of get there. If you want to go, you probably need to get there fairly early, but it has some great options. It has charcuterie board, a German pretzel, and also has like flights of hard cider and beer, but it's really popular. with agents with our agency. Everybody loves it. I really love ABC Commissary. There are lots of comfy chairs like seating and there's so much of it that you don't feel like you're rushed with seat lurkers like other places. And then there's Pebble Ice and Fountain Diet Coke that you can refill as long as you're in there. And it's a great spot to like fill your water bottles with Pebble Ice. So we always find ourselves over there. It's a great little I just I feel like it's kind of hidden and overlooked a lot. It's down like a dark alley. It's not really, but it's kind of like that because it's very shaded. It almost looks like it's like a cast member alley kind of space because of the way that it is. It's just kind of weird. Some other notable quick service. I also have ABC Commissary on my list. It has a large menu with lots of variety. It has lots of seating. And of course, it has AC. How could I forget the AC? Fantastic. Yeah, it's fantastic. Woody's Lunchbox for the tachos and then Ronto Roasters for the Ronto Wrap. Both of those are outdoors. And even Docking Bay 7, the other quick service in Galaxy's Edge, they're not indoors. Backlot Express, that's another quick service, but it also has a very small indoor dining space. Most everything is outside. So the fact that ABC Commissary has it's all indoors and it's all AC is fantastic. We're going to move on to coffee specifically. Julie's tips now because we all know she knows every stand between here and Timbuktu. So I thought about I just I was thinking about it when I was putting the notes together. I was like, Crystal always says I need to like put together my coffee spots. And so I thought I would add people appreciate it. So the official Starbucks location for Hollywood Studios is the Trolley Car Cafe. It's on the corner of Hollywood and Sunset. I tend to skip Starbucks in the parks for the most part because I would rather go to a Joffrey's location. And they're typically so overly crowded that it's just tough to go in there. There's just a big long line. And this place, it's always packed. So just be prepared to wait if you want to go in there. If you really need your Starbucks, this is where you should go. But it'll probably be crowded. The Joffrey's locations, there's one near the entrance of Toy Story Land. This is the one I typically go to most often. It's kind of catty corner from Walt Disney Presents as you're kind of turning the corner to go into Toy Story Land. And there's one outside the exit of Tower of Terror. So this one's kind of hidden because you have to really kind of go out of your way unless you just rode Tower of Terror and you went through the gift shop and you're coming out. You don't just run into it. It's a very odd spot to have it. And then in Galaxy's Edge, Katsaka's Kettle, they have a cold brew black calf. It's cold brew. with sweet cream, cheese, and chocolate puffs. And you can also get this one spiked if you want. You can technically get a cold brew at Oga's Cantina, but like I was just saying before, it's not really where I would recommend going, especially if you're trying to get a quick coffee. This is not going to be a quick stop. It's not going to be an easy place to get one. Could work. It's like I know all the good fountain diet cokes. I know who has puddle ice and who does not. Moving on to characters and meet and greets I would typically say to go over to meet characters at Star Wars Launch Bay to get out of the heat because I have multiple characters over there but now it's scheduled to close on September 24th of this year because to start construction on the upgrades for Animation Courtyard however there is another option at Walt Disney Presents that I'll talk about in a minute I'm curious where they're going to move the Disney Visa, Darth Vader meet and greet. I'll have to keep you posted the next time I get my little thing in the mail with the updates for the cardholders. Yeah. Because that's like such a great, we do that one every time because we get so much time. My character tip is prepare your children because Olaf does not sign autographs. He does give warm hugs, but then you just get a postcard. So. Lame. I know. Those sticks, you just can't bend them. Yeah, it's very hard. It's It's not Olaf's fault. I know it caught one of mine off guard the first time. I was like, wait. So we have the nice little postcard, but it's just not the same. Especially if you're trying to collect autographs like people are doing on the backpacks or on the water bottles or different things. So the next meet and greet, it's kind of hidden and tucked away, I think. If you want to visit Walt Disney Presents, I mentioned it just a few minutes ago. As you're turning into where Toy Story Land is, it's on the right, kind of on the corner. there's a spot where you can go in and see all kinds of memorabilia about Walt Disney. And there's like a 15 minute documentary of one man's dream in there. But after you walk through that section, at the very end, you have the option to meet Sully. This is one of our favorites. My daughter Ella loves Monsters, Inc. And Sully, the character she has, I don't even know how many Sully stuffies. So that's usually a place that we go. But it's not really obvious. that he's there. Like we just kind of stumbled upon it one time when we happened to go through Walt Disney Presents. And if I'm remembering right, you cannot take a stroller through Walt Disney Presents. Like you can't take a sleeping child in there. Just be aware of that. All right. Fantasmic. Let's talk more about that. John's tip for Fantasmic. We did not have great experience with the people the last time we went to it. And he said, if you want to see the worst of humanity, go to Fantasmic.

UNKNOWN: 23:08

Ha ha ha ha!

SPEAKER_00: 23:11

But in saying that, it is a great show. It's just not a show up and watch type of situation like fireworks at Magic Kingdom. Like the amphitheater is tucked back away from the main part of the park. So give yourself lots of time to get in and even more time to get out because it's a hike to get back there. And then trying to get out with all the people, it just takes forever. So like we talked about with the dining packages, except for Candlelight Processional, I think Fantasmic is the most worth it in the case of dining packages. I completely agree with all of the things said. It's not easy to get in and out of having a designated spot where you can just go in and show your ticket or your receipt, your dinner. And you do have to have that, just FYI. Make sure that when you do your dining package, they give you basically your tickets to get into that specific spot. But they lead you to a part that's roped off just for people that have purchased the Fantasmic dining package and you just find a spot. It's so easy. You don't have to fight people. Or go and wait and sit for two hours with tired children. Right. Just so that you can be in a decent spot to see things. Exactly. Okay. So next, just overall park conditions and atmosphere. John has a tip. Let's just get that out of the way now. He says that going back and forth, or just the crowds in general, that Toy Story Land and Galaxy's Edge are nightmares. So and he says, Emily, Unless you were there just for that, go do it and move on. Don't like keep coming back to it because it's just kind of a pain. My thoughts on this is this is a very hot park. So going back to the shows, I like to make the afternoon show focused after getting rides out of the way in the morning for like a force break for AC. Just in that hot mid-afternoon, like go find a show. Like that's the time to do it. Don't waste your morning on shows. Do it. later. I agree. And it's because they're, I don't, they don't have a lot of shade in, especially in that all cement, any of it. It's all like, there's so much, yes, there's so much like cement and blacktop spaces. There's no shade, which is not fun when it's hot outside. It's really better to just get there early. And if you wanted to, you know, take a break, take a break during the You know, you could go back to your resort, go to the pool or something, especially if you're on the Skyliner. It's very easy. And then you could come back. If you have like the Fantasmic dining package, you could come back and watch Fantasmic and maybe jump on a couple of rides when it's not quite as crowded and it's a little cooler after it's dark. Yes, for sure. Pack your patient pants. And I'm curious with all the changes coming to the park, what's that going to do with like layout and there's going to be lots of walls. So just be prepared to pivot and And don't get in any fights with anybody. Yeah, please don't. It's not worth it. You get kicked out for life. Like that's not worth it. You know what's interesting? I was looking on the app earlier just when I'm doing my research. I like to look at the layout. If you pull it up where Muppets is supposed to be, they have trees. I'm like, there's not trees there. Yeah. Like Animal Kingdom right now. They just wiped it off the map. Like half the park is trees. Animal Kingdom because of Dinoland. They just had a tree over top of it. It's just funny that that's like what they do to fill in when that spot is not usable. They just toss some trees on the app and it's just hilarious. I was like, that's not trees. But anyway. All right. I think I have one last tip and this is my toddler tip for the day. Unfortunately, this is probably the least friendly of the four as far as toddlers. There are only two any height rides right now. Then you jump to Alien Squirreling Saucers at 32 inches, Millennium Falcon and Slinky at 38, and then everything else jumps to 40. So just to give you a little perspective, I measured Reese, my little Reese today, because she has been super into Snow White the last couple weeks, and she's just randomly always singing hi-ho, hi-ho, like on repeat. So I was curious where she's at for Seven Dwarfs My Train, so wrong park, but she turns four in December and is pretty tall for her age, and she was measuring like 39 and a half inches just to give everybody an idea so every trip prior to that she's ever done she's ridden Mickey and Minnie's and Toy Story Mania and then we've had to rider swap everything else one trip she might have done Alien Swirling Saucers but because there's not a lot of kid rides that line is always so stupid long that like if she's sleeping or something we just skip it because I don't want to wait for it and it's it's not one of her jams so if you were to skip a park unless you're there for Toy Story and you have babies and toddlers I might suggest this one but like unfortunately unless you're there for Toy Story but it's just hard because especially if it's just like two parents and a toddler you're not ever riding anything together all day go to Magic Kingdom go to Epcot even there's so many Epcot that boat rides and any height rides that you can ride together where you're not doing that in this park unless you ride Mickey and Minnie's all day long over and over. Right. The other option is also the shows. I mean, you have three or four shows and two rides. You can get those done very quickly in the morning if that's all you're doing. If those are the things that you're focused on, this would be at most a half-day park because of that. Reese is taller. You have someone that is either average or even a shorty like my child because she's vertically challenged like me it took her a while before she was tall enough to ride all the rides that she wanted to it was like counting down to where she was at like the 48 inch mark so she could get most everything you know and if they're five or six that's hard for them to sit and watch all day and not get to do much yeah yeah and she was the one that wanted to ride everything she's my roller coaster buddy that likes to ride those kinds of rides with me well we hope that you enjoyed this episode as I was saying we love talking through this stuff we would love to help you plan a trip and talk through this strategy specifically for your family some of these things are based I mean we say this we typically say this but a lot of these things are based on you know my family or Crystal's family or our experiences and we'll make sure that we adjust the planning to your family and what your family likes and what your family needs needs and work through a strategy with you to make sure you get the most out of the parks. And if we could inconvenience you for two minutes, please, please, please, please leave us a review. We need some reviews to help push our little show out there. Tells the algorithm all the things we don't understand, but it truly helps us and we love you forever for it if you just please leave us a review. Thank you for listening and we hope that you have a wonderful week. We'll talk to you next week. Bye Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Wonderlust and Wishes. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, the world is full of wonders waiting to be explored. Until next time, happy travels. Bye for now.