Disney World 50th Anniversary Trip Report (Part 4 - Hollywood Studios and Epcot)

Welcome to part 4 of our Disney World 50th Anniversary Trip Report. This post covers a visit to Hollywood Studios with Early Entry and an afternoon at Epcot, with dinner at Biergarten!

Related Posts

Emily’s Early Entry at Hollywood Studios

Emily here. I left the room for Early Entry at Hollywood Studios at 7:07 AM and was on the bus by 7:20 AM. For buses that make multiple stops Gran Destino is the usually the last stop at Coronado Springs, so we headed straight to Hollywood Studios. This is great in the mornings, but if drivers are sticking to that plan later in the day you’ll be the last one dropped off.

I arrived at the park by 7:33 AM and walked right through security with no wait or crowds, presumably the gates had just opened. The Early Entry checkpoint at Hollywood Studios is before the main entrance to the park. This means that only guests with Early Entry can enter the park at all (as opposed to Magic Kingdom where guests can enter Main Street and the Hub without Early Entry).

Upon entering there park, there are signs directing you to the main attractions as well as check in for early reservations at Savi’s Workshop.

I saw signs for Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Toy Story Land and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, but notably I did not see a sign directing guests toward Galaxy’s Edge or Rise of the Resistance. This is actually important because Cast Members were telling guests that you can only get to the Rise of the Resistance queue for Early Entry by entering Galaxy’s Edge from the entrance near Muppets. You could enter Galaxy’s Edge and Smuggler’s Run from the entrance near Toy Story, but that route wouldn’t get you to the Rise of the Resistance queue.

My first stop was Slinky Dog Dash so I went right at the Chinese Theatre toward Toy Story Land. I arrived at the “rope” (row of Cast Members) outside of One Man’s Dream at 7:36 and was the first person there. No one even showed up to join me until a good five minutes later, but by 7:54 it was decently crowded.

At 8:30, just at the official start of Early Entry, they walked us to Toy Story Land and I was the very first person to enter the queue and board the ride! That was actually the first time I’ve had that happen and was super proud of holding the line all the way to the entrance!

Even being the first person on and off the ride, it was already 8:46 by the time I was off (with some technical delays)! I thought about Runaway Railway, but the wait was posted at 20 which would have sucked the last of my early entry time so I booked it to Tower of Terror instead. I entered the queue, only to be told at the entrance to the hotel that it was down. So I backtracked the queue and zipped over to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster instead. I walked right on (pre-show optional) and was off at 8:51.

With only 10 minutes left of Early Entry, I would have liked to have hit Tower of Terror, but it was still down. I decided Runaway Railway was my best option as I’d be getting there just moments before the gates opened to all guests. It was posted at 14, but was actually only 10.

By the time I was off Railway at 9:12, Tower of Terror was finally back up! It was posted at 20 and took 22 minutes.

Early Entry goes fast at all the parks, but that walk to Toy Story land (which didn’t start until the official start of Early Entry) for Slinky Dog really ate up a lot of time. However, with four attractions out of the way by 30 minutes into the official park opening, you’re pretty set for a solid day at Hollywood Studios.

Zoe and Daddy Start the Day 

Kenny here. Zoe and I had breakfast at El Mercado, the main quick service option at Coronado Springs. Our room was in Gran Destino Tower, which only has lounges and table service, but El Mercado is only about a 5 minute walk, maybe less, from the tower. We had mixed experiences with the food at Coronado, overall.

 

I passed over the part of yesterday’s check in where we discovered that nearly all the food / beverage options at Coronado were closed midday. We wanted coffee, but Barcelona Lounge is closed noon to 5PM, Café Rix is closed after 12:30PM, and El Mercado is closed 2PM to 5PM. Emily wound up getting lattes from Rix Sports Bar & Grill.

 

El Mercado is exclusively grab-and-go for breakfast right now, and the other meals are primarily grab and go. I grabbed pancakes, kids eggs and potatoes, a banana, a parfait, and a milk, and spent around $34.

We discovered early in this trip that quick service doesn’t work as well for us because we wind up buying Zoe so many potential options that we can spend as much as a table service meal that might come with a variety of sides anyways.

 

The bigger problem with grab-and-go for us is that we’re vegetarian but most breakfast options had a meat side. Yes, I could talk to someone, but there’s often a line to do that and frankly the staff weren’t particularly attentive. So we wound up just wasting meat, which is the worst of all options.

 

Zoe ate relatively well this meal, and the Cast Members cleaning tables got a kick out of walking by and chatting and waving. After a “quick” visit back to the room, we wound up on a bus at 9AM having started breakfast at 7:49AM. We were in the park to meet up with Emily at 9:17AM.

 

Reunited for a Morning at Hollywood Studios

While Emily waited in line for Tower of Terror, Zoe and I went over to Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy. I’m honestly not sure if this show ever fills up these days, but certainly in the morning it’s a good place to escape any crowds, and the benches were fun for Zoe to walk around and climb on.

Zoe might say “My family didn’t have a car as a child, so a movie that fetishized cars that much would have made no sense to me,” but Z seemed at least entranced by the huge screenz.

 

After Lightning McQueen, I used my rider swap for Tower of Terror, waiting 8 minutes when the posted wait was around 30. At about 10:15AM it was time for Zoe’s first nap.

 

While Zoe napped, I visited Starbucks, getting our beverages about 15 minutes after getting in a line that started outside. Oh, we also have switched the venti beverages. We used to find time for multiple coffee stops in a day, so we’d get smaller beverages. Now, with Zoe, we make a single stop for ventis.

 

We wandered the park a bit and replied to some Instagram messages. We hung out near Echo Lake, our favorite spot in Hollywood Studios and maybe all of Disney World. We walked through the market in Galaxy’s Edge.

Zoe wound up taking a long nap, so I rode Smugglers Run single rider (4 minute wait when the posted standby wait was 40 minutes) at 11:45AM. Zoe woke up before I got off, so we headed to our lunch at Docking Bay 7 Food & Cargo, our favorite quick service spot at Hollywood Studios.

 

Docking Bay 7, like all the Disney World quick service spots in the parks, is still mobile order only. This visit went find and our food was ready within a few minutes of us tapping “I’m here” in the app.

 

Zoe was not impressed and it was a fight to get anything resembling a meal done. During the latter half of that struggle, Emily went on single rider at Smugglers Run, waiting about 5 minutes.

 

Around 12:45PM we were about ready to leave the park, but you can’t hop until 2PM, so we had some time to pass. A follower had asked me whether we prefer blue or green milk from Milk Stand, and honestly I has no idea, so we tried both and all preferred blue. 

We hustled to the 1:15PM Disney Junior Dance Party. Zoe was a bit overwhelmed and just held onto Emily the entire time, until the end when it started to clear out and Z started dancing. I heard from a few people this was how their little ones reacted the first few times. 

 

At 1:30PM it was time for us to head to Epcot. Here’s a look at how the morning at Hollywood Studios wound up:

  • 8:30AM Start of Early Entry

  • 8:37AM Slinky Dog Dash

  • 8:55AM Rock N Roller Coaster

  • 9:12AM Runaway Railway (in line before park opened to other guests at 9AM)

  • (Zoe and Kenny at Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy)

  • 9:48AM Tower of Terror (Emily)

  • 10:04AM Tower of Terror (Kenny)

  • 11:45AM Smugglers Run Single Rider (Kenny)

  • 12:00PM Lunch at Docking Bay 7

  • 12:30PM Smugglers Run Single Rider (Emily)

  • 1:15PM Disney Junior Dance Party

As far as rides go, that meant we still had Star Tours, Alien Swirling Saucers, and of course, Rise of the Resistance left. With the park open until 9PM, it would have been no problem to fit those in and probably even catch a few shows (like Frozen Sing-Along, which Zoe still hasn’t seen).

Afternoon at Epcot

There are three main ways to get from Hollywood Studios to Epcot, all taking about 20 minutes. You can take the Friendship Boats, which stop at the Boardwalk area resorts along the way. You can walk. You can take the Skyliner with a transfer at Caribbean Beach.

Historically we strongly preferred to walk, but with Zoe and the heat that’s not a great option these days. The Friendship Boats are okay, but you have to wait for a boat. We opted for the Skyliner, boarding at 1:39PM and arriving at Epcot at 1:58PM, just before park hopping started at 2PM.

We had a 4:40PM reservation at Biergarten, so we had some time to pass before dinner. Frozen Ever After was a posted 35 minute wait, and we like that queue so figured it would be a good place to escape the sun, which was really punishing at this hour.

We were somewhat wrong, as we wound up spending 8 minutes outside and 11 minutes inside for a combined 19-minute wait, boarding at 2:39PM. Zoe was in love with some toys at the Norway Pavilion and was really upset to leave, a common theme during our Epcot time this trip.

Oftentimes it will make sense to go straight from Frozen Ever After to another boat ride, Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Tres Caballeros inside the Mexico Pavilion. That ride was a walk-on, so we rode it at 2:58PM.

We swung by Epcot’s Baby Care center for a diaper change and then popped into the Epcot Experience next door. As expected, this was a great place for Zoe to walk around for a while, and it hasn’t attracted real crowds since its first few days open. We highly recommend visiting it.

Sometime around 3:30-3:45PM we headed to The Seas pavilion, which is my favorite place to get Zoe to nap in Epcot. You can usually find a quiet-ish space, and the water and fish are very calming.

Dinner at Biergarten

After Zoe’s nap, it was finally time for our early dinner at Biergarten. Biergarten is one of our favorite restaurants (possibly our actual favorite). There are performances by Oktoberfest Musikanten throughout the day, and if you time your meal right you can catch two (the schedule is posted at the restaurant but changes regularly, today’s time were 1:15, 2:15, 3:15, 4:30, 5:40, 6:50, 8PM).

Our 4:40PM reservation was imperfect—we caught the tail end of the 4:30PM show and then had to wait for the 5:40PM show. That said, it worked out well to not have Zoe distracted mid-meal.

The combination of an early dinner time and the still reduced crowds at Disney World meant Biergarten was relatively quiet during our visit. That was a bit of a bummer, but the overall atmosphere was still festive enough for a good time. Zoe seemed to really enjoy the performances, but it was a fight to find something Z would eat even with Biergarten’s wide-ranging buffet.

We left a bit after 6PM and only waited four minutes for a bus at the front of the park. With the big day tomorrow, we all headed to bed pretty early. Okay, the liter beers at Biergarten probably helped Emily and I get to sleep earlier, too.

It’s here! Tomorrow’s post will cover the 50th Anniversary of Walt Disney World. It’s October 1, 2021 at Magic Kingdom!