Galaxy’s Edge/EEMH Rope Drop Experience

Walt Disney World
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Hi everyone! This is my first time posting, though I’ve been a lurker on the forums for some time now :slight_smile: I thought I would share my experience rope dropping Hollywood studios (and specifically Galaxy’s Edge) for anyone going in the near future during this EEMH madness.

Myself and my boyfriend (DBF) visited Hollywood Studios on Monday, September 2. As a caveat, crowds levels were SUPER low this day (probably because of the impending hurricane and people canceling their plans), so YMMV. We were staying at the Contemporary, woke up around 4:45 AM, caught a bus shortly after 5, and were in place just past the turnstiles right around 5:30AM.

I would say we were towards the middle back of the pack. There was a sizable crowd at that time but nothing insane. They held us until exactly 6AM, when cast members slowly started to walk us back towards GE. It was dark and crowded, so hard to see much of anything walking there. We stayed towards the very outer left side of the pack, and I felt this was a good move. Many people were bunched up in the middle, and we were able to position ourselves right about the middle of the crowd (compared to the back middle when we started) simply by walking towards the outer edge of the crowd. We were slowly funneled into a smaller and smaller line as we neared MFSR in the back of the park. Cast members were positioned as sort of human traffic barriers to ensure nobody was too far outside of the MFSR “line” as we made our way into GE.

By the time were in the true beginning of the queue just outside of MFSR, it was about 6:20 and the posted wait time was 30 mins. In reality, we had moved through the whole queue, done the ride, and exited all by 6:45. When we got off and back to the front where the line starts, nobody was queued up outside waiting. At that point the wait time was probably 20 minutes, give or take, and we really didn’t see a true crowd increase until closer to 8AM or so. My suggestion would be to get through the turnstiles at Hollywood Studios by 5AM to be towards the front of the pack and therefore off the ride sooner, or avoid the rope drop madness altogether and get to MFSR around 7AM after the initial rope drop crowd moves through.

Once we did MFSR, we moved on to TSL and did SDD (basically a walk on), TSMM, RNR, and TOT, all walk ons. We had done all rides we wanted to do by 8:30AM, and were sitting on a bench in GE when the park opened to all guests and the crowd came rushing in. Again, YMMV as the crowds were super low comparatively due to the unique hurricane situation.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this is helpful to anyone planning on visiting in the next few months!

17 Likes
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That sounds like a great morning, and all before 8:30 AM!

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Did you see a separate line/group/rope for people who were RDing TSL? My plan was to avoid SW until 7h and do TSL instead.

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There was no true separate line/group for TSL that I saw, but there were cast members yelling that those wishing to go to TSL should hang to the right while the rest of everyone going to GE goes left. You will definitely be in the minority and should be able to do TSL rides multiple times in a row if you want before waits occur (assuming you get there by rope drop). The place was pretty empty when we got there around 7 after doing MFSR.

5 Likes
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This is really helpful! Thank you for sharing. I hope more people share their EEMH experience as we continue through the month. We are going at the end of the month and I really want a good strategy for HS!

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Thanks for sharing!

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We will be there in 14 days. Out of a party of 4, 3 of us has seen and done SWGE at Disneyland. Our thoughts were to do TSL first and then do SWGE. This was very helpful, thank you for sharing your experience with HS rope drop!!

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THANK YOU for sharing this. I was wondering what it was looking like with a 5:30am arrival!

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Would anyone be able to provide an update on EEMH - HS please. The TP I created has us going to Galaxy’s Edge at 6AM for Smuggler’s Run followed immediately by Toy Story Land. Allocated 2 hours for those 4 rides. Thanks!

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I first went to TSL. I was in front of SDD by 6:15am (they start slowly walking you a little after 6am). By 6:50am I had ridden it two times (since SDFP looked (and were) so easy to get we prioritized SDD). Breakfast at DB7 followed by MFSR. I think it was 8:20am when we left SWGE.

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Appreciate the comment - thank you!

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Also, I arrived at 5:55am and walked slowly, with people in my group pausing for pictures along the way. So I was at the very back of the rope drop crowd.

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I went into the EEMH with false hopes that everyone would go to SWGE. It was about 50/50 for us and much more went to TSL than I expected. It was a little disappointing as everything I was reading before we got there said TSL would be practically empty. This was not the case for us. (We were there last week). I was shocked at how long the lines were to see the characters at 7:00am as well. My original plan was to do SDD and TSM by 6:50am to get in lines for character but lines were longer so didn’t make the character lines at 6:50am.
So my advice is to go into it with the expectation of still having lines in TSL at EEMH (although still shorter).

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I was noticing the same 50/50 ratio while i was looking at the wait times in the app the past few days. Thinking everyone is catching on to the “empty” EEMMH that people have been raving about. Plus Oct is generally higher crowds anyway so looks like us Oct trippers may have missed that boat. Going to adjust my touring plan to account for a lines in both lands now.:thinking::confused:

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I think you’ll be able to get all four rides done in two hours regardless of the order, based on my experience this week (specifically on October 8 – CL2 predicted, CL5 actual). We showed up around 8am and rode SDD and TSM in less than an hour, all standby. If it were me, I’d start with MFSR then SDD then AS2 then TSM.