In this post, we provide a full one-day itinerary for Hollywood Studios. This post and the strategies we discuss are based on multiple visits, but most of the times are from a single visit (we veer off with suggested times at some points). In any case, these times are just an example, and your exact experience will differ.
For this itinerary, we applied much of our Hollywood Studios FastPass+ strategy (and Walt Disney World FastPass+ Strategy). We also have a guide to the rides of Hollywood Studios.
You can also read our most recent trip report to see detailed itineraries from that visit.
Important: Disney World Phased Reopening Notice
This topic is temporarily impacted by the ongoing phased reopening of Walt Disney World after its extended mid-2020 closure. We highly recommend you also visit our Walt Disney World Reopening Masterpost, where we highlight specific issues guests will face during this unique time.
Introduction, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and Post status
This post is in a state of flux. The following events have made for an ever-changing situation at Hollywood Studios:
August 29 — Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Opens
September 1 — Extra Extra Magic Hours begin at Hollywood Studios
November 2 — Last day of Extra Extra Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios
December 5 — Rise of the Resistance Opens (Boarding Group Phase)
February 19 — Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run joins FastPass+, Tiers Change
March 4 — Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway Opens as Tier 1 FastPass+
March 16 — Disney World Closes Temporarily (Virus Pandemic)
July 15 — Hollywood Studios Reopens
Unknown Date — Boarding Group Phase for Rise of the Resistance Ends
Current Post Status
In its current state, the post covers visiting the park while Rise of the Resistance is issuing boarding passes, which we discuss in more detail below. It also is based on the earliest days of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which was only open a few days before the fear of the impending viral pandemic
Once the parks reopen, we have little idea what to expect from crowds / park operations. On the plus side, the day covered in this post was closer to “worst case” than “best case.” This means in most cases you should be able to improve on this day if your day doesn’t quite match this.
Split Days at the Parks
Our one-day itineraries are based on full days at the parks. If you have a shorter stay in Disney World, we have posts on two-day Disney World trips and three-day Disney World trips that discuss how you might efficiently divide your days across multiple parks.
Advance FastPass+ Reservations
For more on this topic, check out our Hollywood Studios FastPass+ strategy. And remember that most of the rides at Hollywood Studios are subject to height requirements, so you may need to use rider swap service, if applicable. If you’ll be impacted by height requirements, you might also want to read about visiting Hollywood Studios with a toddler or small child.
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is now open as a Tier 1 FastPass+. We’re tentatively recommending that be your Tier 1 pick if possible, but we think Smugglers Run or Slinky Dog Dash are fine picks too. This post is modeled after a Tier 1 FastPass+ for Smugglers Run.
For Tier 2s, you have a bit more flexibility. In Tier 2, this post is based off having Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, which we think is a good paring.
Rise of the Resistance Boarding Groups
As of this update, Rise of the Resistance (the newest ride at the park) is using a boarding group system to accommodate the heavy demand. In brief, the way this works it:
Your group enters the park
One of you uses the app to sign all of you up for a boarding group
Your boarding group gets called later in the day
You return to ride during your two-hour window
The details of the system are much more complicated, and we have a separate post discussing Rise of the Resistance touring strategy that you must read to compile a full plan for the park.
Hollywood Studios Opening Times
This post uses an 8AM opening time, which is a common opening time for Hollywood Studios, but 9AM may be more common. In general, park hours at Hollywood Studios vary, and special events will impact whether you (or other guests) can get into the park early or stay late. Always be sure to check the actual hours for your date. Hollywood Studios is scheduled to open between 7AM and 9AM most days.
You should check the official park hours to make sure you know the operational hours for your visit. Generally, you will have to adjust the morning half of this schedule as opening times vary, but the afternoon showtimes will often be similar (and either way, it’s unlikely your day will look exactly like ours).
Arrival & Rope Drop
Regardless of what the exact FastPass+ situation is on any day, your goal to hit the major rides is to balance your FastPass+ reservations with a successful morning at the park. These are the cornerstones of putting together a good Hollywood Studios touring plan. We also have a post discussing rope drop at Hollywood Studios in more detail.
Most days, we advise arriving 90 minutes early for an ideal rope drop at Hollywood Studios. If you’ll be starting with Smugglers Run you can push that a little bit, but 60 minutes early is as late as you’ll want to arrive.
As always, earlier is better. If you’d like to see how early people are getting to Hollywood Studios, I always recommend doing a search on twitter for the latest tweets with relevant terms (“Hollywood Studios,” “#RiseofTheResistance,” “Runaway Railway,” “DHS,” “Slinky Dog Dash,” etc.).
This day was an 8AM open after Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway opened. As noted earlier, this is hopefully something of a “worst case” schedule. It’s definitely not ideal, and if morning crowds aren’t awful you hopefully find yourself with a bit more free time.
Not covered in this plan is specifically when your Rise of the Resistance boarding group gets called because that will vary. You’ll just go to Rise when your boarding group gets called, modifying the schedule accordingly. Plan for a total one hour at Rise of the Resistance (this includes time in the queue).
Arriving at Hollywood Studios
Having had some bad bus experiences recently, I opted to take a Lyft from Animal Kingdom Lodge to Hollywood Studios. Uber and Minnie Vans are also options to consider, but I’m currently pessimistic on taking buses to Hollywood Studios for rope drop. The Disney Skyliner also begins operations too late for these purposes.
I arrived at 6:29AM, which is in accordance with our recommendation of arriving 90 minutes early. You can see in these early days of Runaway Railway crowds are pretty big at this point:
At 7AM, guests were let into the park. At this time, most of the park is still closed but Trolley Car Cafe (Starbucks) and the Joffrey’s stand near Toy Story Land may be open selling snacks and coffee.
Today I’m starting with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway since I’m planning around a FastPass+ for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. Starting with Slinky Dog Dash will sometimes be the better choice (discussed more in the rope drop post), but this is a safe way to get the hot new ride finished early.
Remember: Join a Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group
Since mid-December, Disney has begun issuing Rise of the Resistance boarding groups at the official park opening time. Personally, I continue to check the app every 10 minutes after I was let into the park, and then basically constantly for the 5 minutes leading up to official park opening time. Again, you can read more about this process in our dedicated Rise of the Resistance post.
Runaway Railway sometimes begins operations before the park is scheduled to open. Our current recommendation is that you do not enter the Runaway Railway building until you have a Rise of the Resistance boarding pass because of the poor cell reception inside.
Rope Dropping Runaway Railway
Once you’re inside the park, the line for Runaway Railway is dead center, right down Hollywood Boulevard at Center Stage (the hub of the park), as seen in the above photo.
The line started moving a little early, and I was on the ride at 8:07AM, exiting the building at 8:13AM. Here were the waits when I exited (sorry I hadn’t unchecked Animal Kingdom):
Squeezing Rides Into The Morning
There were days when you could finish all of the Hollywood Studios rides in just a few hours, but those days are gone (again, see the above wait times). Now we have to put up with a little bit more, or take a little bit more risk hoping for short waits later on.
Our morning strategy is to focus on rides until about 11AM. This is typically the time of the first showing of Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage, which we like to catch. We’ll miss that today (you’ll see why), but there are other shows—like the 11:30AM Frozen Sing Along or the 12PM Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular that you might visit to start the second phase of your day.
With FastPass+ reservations for Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and expecting to find relatively short waits for Alien Swirling Saucers and Star Tours throughout the day, I made the decision to head to Toy Story Land and just deal with the two hour (120 min) wait for Slinky Dog Dash.
Now…I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten in a 120 minute line before. Not in years of running this website, or decades of visiting prior to that. This is partly why I call this post “close to worst case.” Even on crowded days, it’s unlikely the wait is going to get much higher than this.
But I felt in these challenging times I had a duty to at least see if this worked out okay. I was on Slinky Dog Dash at 9:43AM, just under 90 minutes after I got in line.
Targeting that 11AM Beauty and the Beast left me in a bit of an awkward situation, but I decided to gamble on the post 60-minute wait at Toy Story Mania. It didn’t work out, though, and I was on that ride at 10:59AM after an actual wait of 70 minutes.
So the morning looked like:
6:30AM Arrive
7AM Park Gates Open
8AM Park Open (obtain Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group)
8:07AM Board Runaway Railway
9:43AM Board Slinky Dog Dash
10:59AM Board Toy Story Mania
In terms of rides, this leaves (along with my plans for riding):
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (FastPass+)
Tower of Terror (FastPass+)
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (FastPass+)
Alien Swirling Saucers (standby)
Star Tours (standby)
Rise of the Resistance (boarding pass required)
Morning Rise of the Resistance Boarding Groups
If you grabbed a Rise of the Resistance boarding group quickly, you might get called early in the morning. Return windows are two hours long. Keeping in mind that you should never risk missing your boarding group, we’re comfortable returning in the last 30 minutes if our group gets called in the morning.
On a less crowded day, there might still be some short waits available when your boarding group gets called. If you can fit one, or even two, of those in before heading to Rise, go ahead (but again, don’t miss your boarding group).
Hollywood Studios Shows & Characters
Now is when we start patching together all the different types of things at Hollywood Studios, not just rides but shows, characters, and other attractions. You’ll want to find time for the following daytime shows:
Beauty and the Beast — Live on Stage
Frozen Sing Along Celebration
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
Voyage of the Little Mermaid
All of these have set showtimes, and as you begin the second part of your day you want to pay close attention to those times.
You might also want to plan for Disney Junior Dance Party, the Mickey Shorts Theater, Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy, and some time at Star Wars Launch Bay. There are a few items of streetmosphere (Citizens of Hollywood, Green Army Men), too.
Daytime shows are good and bad for planning. Unlike rides, you usually won’t have to wait for them—you can just walk in about 15 minutes before start.
But they also have limited showings. It’s really easy to think “oh there’s five showings of this, I’ll catch a later one,” only to get to the end of the day with one show time remaining left at a time that doesn’t work for you.
If you’re interested in meeting characters—which we won’t cover in this itinerary, but which you probably want to make time for—you’ll want to read our Guide to Meeting Characters at Disney World (or specifically to meeting Mickey and meeting Princesses).
As we said, it’s the 11AM showing of Beauty and the Beast—Live on Stage that we usually set our sights on, but if you miss that first show you can still visit one of the later ones. Just don’t stay in line for rides until 2PM and then try to cram the shows into a few hours. Remember, check the app or the Times Guide, as showtimes vary.
Afternoon Shows, Rides, and Attractions
If you catch the 11AM Beauty and the Beast and sit near an exit, you can usually also catch the 11:30AM Frozen Sing Along. Having fallen behind on this ideal schedule, though, I just headed straight to the 11:30AM Frozen Sing Along.
After this show, it’s a good time to grab lunch at any of Hollywood Studios’ quick service restaurants. If crowds are particularly high, you might want to eat lunch a little further from noon, but mobile ordering can also cut through some of the crowds.
We’re fans of Docking Bay 7 Food & Cargo in Galaxy’s Edge, but most of the time we pick our lunch based on where we are or where we’re heading next. Today I wanted to be near Beauty and the Beast and Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy, so I ate at Fairfax Fare.
After lunch, I walked into lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy at 12:48PM. That show isn’t on a set schedule, but occurs continually every 15ish minutes.
This was a tight squeeze, but I managed to make it into the bleacher seating of the 1PM Beauty and the Beast. My backup, had I missed that showtime, was to head to the 1:15PM Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, with Voyage of the Little Mermaid, Star Tours, and Alien Swirling Saucers all backups if that plan failed.
I could have also gone to those backup options instead of settling for the bleacher seating, but I don’t mind it. After Beauty and the Beast, the 20-minute posted wait for Star Tours looked like a good option. It wound up taking 23 minutes, and I boarded the ride at 1:55PM.
I headed to Muppet Vision 3D, but just missed a show, which left me me not entering the theater until 2:26PM. From there, I took a bit of a slow trip to Tower of Terror and used my FastPass+. With a 55-minute posted standby wait at 3:13PM, I was on 13 minutes later.
I had the 4:45PM Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular in mind, so I paid a quick visit to the Star Wars Launch Bay before catching the 4PM Voyage of the Little Mermaid and then the 4:45PM Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.
From there, I was able to go use my FastPass+ for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, finishing that ride at about 5:50PM. To recap that afternoon:
11:30 Frozen Sing Along
12:15 Lunch
12:48 Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy
1PM Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
1:55 Star Tours
2:26 Muppet Vision
3:26 Tower of Terror (FastPass+)
3:40 Star Wars Launch Bay
4PM Voyage of the Little Mermaid
4:45 Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular
5:46 Smugglers Run (FastPass+)
By now, things are starting to close. Many character greetings have ended, and final showtimes for the major shows are passing by. With the park itself closing at 8PM, you could have pushed a couple activities—maybe Star Tours, Muppet Vision, Little Mermaid, the Launch Bay—later in the day if you needed to visit some other experience before it closed.
Evening at Hollywood Studios
Hopefully your Rise of Resistance boarding group got called at some point, which would have caused you to (justifiably) make some sacrifices to the above schedule In terms of rides, we’re left with just:
Alien Swirling Saucers (Standby)
Rock ‘n Roller Coaster FastPass+
Besides those, we’ll need to pick a nighttime show: either 8:30 Fantasmic OR 8:35 Wonderful World of Animation and 9PM Star Wars Galactic Spectacular (Fantasmic will typically have you missing Star Wars). You’ll also probably want dinner.
Thrill-seekers might find this a good time to use the single rider lines at Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster if they’d like to add in some extra rides.
Notably, Hollywood Studios really transforms at night. Its two newest lands—Toy Story Land and Galaxy’s Edge—were designed to shine at night, and both are fantastic for a walkthrough in the evening (though Toy Story Land is better). Set some time aside for that.
If you can get a same-day FastPass+ for a nighttime ride on Slinky Dog Dash, you’re golden, because that’s a beautiful experience.
If you’ve got some extra time, we’re fans of a visit to BaseLine Tap House. The bar has a straightforward counter-service style ordering system and a great list of beers. BaseLine has a shelf paying homage to Writer’s Stop, a spot we absolutely loved before it closed back in October 2016.
Here’s an example schedule for what’s left of the day:
6:30PM Alien Swirling Saucers (after 35 min wait)
6:50PM Mickey Shorts Theater
7:15PM Dinner
7:45PM Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster FastPass+
8:35 Wonderful World of Animation
9PM Star Wars Galactic Spectacular
Hollywood Studios Nighttime Shows
If you’re navigating a Fantasmic! showing, it might be tough to get Slinky Dog Dash in at night without a FastPass+. You’ll probably want to aim to be on the ride no later than 45 minutes before showtime, accepting that you might not get the optimal level of darkness.
If you’re not heading to Fantasmic! you’re probably aiming for the pairing of Wonderful World of Animation and Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular. These are projection shows onto the Chinese Theater, so you literally just need to be in the middle of the park at showtime to catch them.
If you’re lucky, most people will sit for at least Wonderful World of Animation. The new show is an improvement over Disney Movie Magic. While it relies heavily on projections, the animation projects much better than live action. The show is usually followed by Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular, a projection-based Star Wars show.
If you’re looking for a cherry on top of your sundae, they’re both fine shows. Depending on the schedule, one or both of them might occur after the park closes (so you can’t get in any new lines anyways).
Really, these shows are targeted at the crowd who cannot or didn’t want to deal with the hassle of Fantasmic! Reluctantly, as people who really don’t love Fantasmic!, we’d suggest aiming for Fantasmic! instead of these nighttime shows.
One good way to fit Fantasmic! in is by using your Disney dining plan credits for a Fantasmic! dining package, which comes with preferred seating.
If you’re not ready to call it a night after the park closes, you can walk over to the Boardwalk. It’s about a 15-minute walk, with several hotels, bars, and restaurants (reservations generally required for restaurants). We’re fans of AbracadaBar.
Final Thoughts On Visiting Hollywood Studios
Even with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway open, Hollywood Studios is mostly a comfortable, one-day park, which is great. You might not be able to do everything, but you shouldn’t be left with anything huge missing.
In this itinerary, we did skip a few noteworthy items. As noted earlier, there aren’t any character greetings in this post. We also don’t have kids, so Jedi Training and the Disney Junior Dance Party didn’t make our schedule.
But this was—one more time—not a perfect day. Three rides by 11AM is certainly a slow morning, and if you were able to improve on that you’d have more time for extra activities.
While we did stop by Walt Disney Presents… and quickly walk through the exhibit, the One Man’s Dream film wasn’t playing. We highly recommend you make time for Walt Disney Presents (and the accompanying film, when it’s playing).
Final Itinerary
Rise of the Resistance — Use Boarding Pass
6:30AM Arrive
7AM Park Gates Open
8AM Park Open (obtain Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group)
8:07 Board Runaway Railway
9:43 Board Slinky Dog Dash
10:59 Board Toy Story Mania
11:30 Frozen Sing Along
12:15PM Lunch
12:48 Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy
1PM Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
1:55 Star Tours
2:26 Muppet Vision
3:26 Tower of Terror (FastPass+)
3:40 Star Wars Launch Bay
4PM Voyage of the Little Mermaid
4:45 Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular
5:46 Smugglers Run (FastPass+)
6:30PM Alien Swirling Saucers
6:50PM Mickey Shorts Theater
7:15PM Dinner
7:45PM Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster FastPass+
8:35 Wonderful World of Animation
9PM Star Wars Galactic Spectacular
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