You can pull up the previous update here.

We are a bit behind the times, but I don’t think it will take too long to get caught up on what’s important. It turns out that if you are persistently behind on what you want to get done, that adding another layer of work will cause you to fall further behind what you want to get done, rather than make you more relevant. We all learn new things.

The News

From 7pm through Park close, from now through the end of the Taste of EPCOT International Festival of the HolIDaYs, Annual Passholders and Disney Vacation Club members with the proper credentials can save 10% on food and non-alcoholic beverages at what Disney is describing as “select outdoor kitchens” when using electronic payment methods.

Continue reading “Walt Disney World Wait Times and News for 12/3/2020”

Our day at Hollywood Studios continues because we don’t have any other choice. This remains the back of the line for Smugglers Run at 1:55pm with a 50-minute posted wait that is headed for 65 minutes as it continues to wind around much closer to the entrance to Slinky Dog Dash than the Millennium Falcon.

With Park Hopping resuming in less than a month, with people expected to be able to move over to the Studios beginning at 2pm, it’s likely that waits and congestion will only get worse as those who decide to leave are replaced by others just arriving. Part of our usual touring strategy is to try to wait out the crowds in hopes that people will eventually give up and leave. That hasn’t been the case at the Studios for the most part, with the early 7pm close almost every day, and no nighttime spectaculars to pull people away. Even if you add 10,000 people to the Studios at 7pm, with Fantasmic! and the fireworks scheduled, those additional people are occupied by those shows. You either have the opportunity to enjoy them yourself or take advantage of fewer people in line. Without those additional people and without the shows to absorb them, it’s basically a wash as far as wait times are concerned.

With the Studios’ average wait for each ride coming in at a constant 40 minutes, waiting for eight of them will cost you about 320 minutes in line. That’s over five hours of the standard ten hour day, not including the time it takes to experience the attraction, walk to the next one, visit fillers, eat lunch and dinner, etc. If you’re headed to the Studios and want to do each of the rides, you’re looking at spending the entire day there. Even as we bob and weave as intelligently as possible, there aren’t a lot of late morning and afternoon opportunities to do much of anything without waiting longer than we’d like.

You can check the standard wait time distribution chart again a little further down this post to see how long you can expect to wait throughout the day, but there are only two opportunities to ride Millennium Falcon without waiting 45+ minutes. And that’s either very very early in the morning or basically last thing at night. Since it’s impossible to be everywhere first or last thing, you’re going to find yourself waiting. A lot. And because of that, people tend to linger later as it takes them about an hour to get through each ride. After all, if you’ve spent a considerable amount of money to do something, chances are that you’re going to want or need to take the time to accomplish it. Most people visiting the Studios want to do most of the things, particularly considering it’s the Park with most of the newest attractions. We’ll continue to do our best as we move through the day and then see how things turn out come January.

In the previous post, I updated my advice on what requests to make throughout the Rise of the Resistance experience, so you can see as much of the pre-shows and ride as possible. You can pull up that post here, which starts 99% spoiler-free, before delving into more of the specifics with the help of some pictures.

If you’re unfamiliar with how we got here, you can pull each of the previous parts:

1. The Best Way to Rope Drop Disney’s Hollywood Studios
2. Disney’s Hollywood Studios Morning Touring With An Extra Early Start
3. The Impossibility of Late Morning Disney’s Hollywood Studios Touring

The first post describes the key to a successful morning at the Studios and then moves on through a standard day from there.

Continue reading “An Afternoon Try at Touring Disney’s Hollywood Studios with Frozen and Toy Story Land”

All Photos by Alex Westcott.

Now that it’s December, we’ll enjoy a holiday-focused visit to Magic Kingdom.

The Halloween decorations were a little lackluster this year, but Disney decided to go a little harder for the holiday season. Obviously, both Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween and Very Merry Christmas Parties are/were canceled in their entirety this year. A lot of the decorations are designed to be featured during those events.

Continue reading “A Festive Holiday Walk Around Magic Kingdom with A Few Treats”

We’ll go over my experience with Rise of the Resistance in this separate post since some people are still trying to avoid spoilers. I’ll cover the key points of what’s changed and what row/dot/position requests you may want to make in these first few picture-less paragraphs, and then include some more detailed photos of exactly what I’m talking about after the picture of the Muppet*Vision queue below.

Basically, what you need to know is that there are now plastic barriers in between the rows on the vehicles, in effect doubling the number of parties who can ride, along with increasing the hourly capacity. That translates to Disney moving through about 15 boarding groups per hour versus the eight that they previously averaged. They also release more groups, making it more likely that you’ll be able to secure a position.

The pre-shows are also modified where you may be assigned an inopportune position behind some flimsy plastic. In the first pre-show room, at the end of the queue that “feels” like a winding cave, you may want to request a spot in the back of the room for a full view of the introduction to your mission. Those assigned spots along the same wall as the monitors up front will have a limited view of what’s happening, and potentially no view whatsoever of a key character.

When you board the Resistance Transport Ship in the next area, which begins outdoors, you’ll want to be on one of the dots that is not in the very front left or right of the ship, or your view will again be obstructed. When you make it to the end of the next queue area and the First Order asks how many people are in your group, request the front row of the ride vehicle. That’s the most important request as your view won’t be hampered by the plastic reflections or the heads/phones of the people in the front row. Without putting in any requests, you have just about a 50/50 chance of being placed in a desirable position. Obviously, about half the people who ride will find themselves in a lesser position during each step.

The boarding group signup process hasn’t changed since last month, when Disney moved the first release to 7am. For a detailed look at how best to sign up for a boarding group, see this post. The main points are highlighted at the bottom if you don’t want to go over all of the various scenarios. But if you want the best shot at riding, you probably want to take the time to get it all figured out.

For more on how we got here, you can pull up the previous parts:

1. The Best Way to Rope Drop Disney’s Hollywood Studios
2. Disney’s Hollywood Studios Morning Touring With An Extra Early Start
3. The Impossibility of Late Morning Disney’s Hollywood Studios Touring

We managed to obtain boarding group 50, which is just about perfect, as it will take Disney about three hours to get that far, assuming the ride doesn’t go down for technical difficulties. That will give us some time in the morning to visit some priorities and enjoy lunch without having to worry about being called over when we would prefer to take advantage of a short wait somewhere else.

But even so, between me and Corless, there is basically no duo on earth who has gone through the boarding group signup more times. And 49 boarding groups worth of people still managed to sign up first. All of the 7am boarding groups will fill in about ten seconds, and there is some amount of luck in getting your request in early. I’ve gotten everything from group 1 to getting completely shut out. By following the advice in the post linked above, and having more people attempt to sign the group up, you’ll increase your chances significantly.

As I mentioned early on, getting in line for Muppet*Vision as early as 10:45am would not have made much sense prior to March of this year. But with the extended queue full virtually all day from 11am onward, actual waits easily hit 25 to 60 minutes in the afternoon. In the theater, every other row is blocked off and three seats are kept empty for each party of up to four people. That means about 75% of the seats will go unoccupied, resulting in these much longer waits.

Continue reading “A Very Modified Star Wars Rise of the Resistance Experience with Tips on Getting the Best View”

Our visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios continues after a successful early morning, where we were let into the Park just before 9:15am with the official 10am open. In Part One, we discussed the only way to guarantee that you’ll be among the first people inside the Park. That simply boils down to walking over from the BoardWalk. The easiest way to do that is to book breakfast at Trattoria al Forno or Ale & Compass Restaurant at the Yacht Club. You can also be dropped off at the Swan or Dolphin Resorts, or as others reported, the Speedway Gas Station across the street, or even the Fantasia Gardens Mini Golf parking lot. Part Two followed with stops at Slinky Dog Dash and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

There is no theme park where early touring is as vital as the Studios, particularly now that Disney has increased capacity by 40% without opening much of consequence. Combined with the lack of shows, the limited number of attractions, and the shortest operating hours of any of the theme parks, wait times build quickly. I waited five minutes for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at 9:15am. As I disembarked at 9:30am, the wait would have been 45 to 65+ minutes. I waited 22 minutes for Slinky Dog Dash when I arrived at 9:36am. When I exited, the line backed up to Animation Courtyard and the wait would have been 80 minutes. I waited 23 minutes for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run after arriving at 10:06am. The wait as I left would be at least 50 minutes.

But now we have a problem, and it’s only 10:42am, or 42 minutes after the Park officially opened.

Here’s the wait time chart for the day with 10:45am highlighted:

Larger: Here.

At this point, we’ve basically run out of options where we’ll be able to do much of anything without waiting at least a half hour. Across the attractions, the overall average wait comes in at 47 minutes. Even if those times are exaggerated by 30%, you’re still looking at 40+ minutes in line for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror.  Even Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy is down, taking that option off the table. The only attraction posting a wait of less than 35 minutes is Muppet*Vision, and even that climbs to a 45-minute posted wait by 11:30am. The Studios does not have a lot of filler with so many shows dark. That both means we can’t see them ourselves, but it also means that several thousand people won’t be immersed in Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, Fantasmic, all of the character meets, etc. for some time to come.

Continue reading “The Impossibility of Late Morning Disney’s Hollywood Studios Touring”