Hi All! My family of 4 (me, hub, and 2 girls ages 6 &4) are headed to Disney in a few short weeks! We’ll be going to Hollywood Studios on Saturday 9/1 and I was able to secure FP+ for Slinky Dog at 4:45 PM. There are EMH that day, so we plan to hit Toy Story Land at rope drop and hopefully knock out TSM and Aliens first thing (TP estimates we will be done with both by 8:45 AM). Our other FP+ are for Beauty & the Beast (11 AM show) and Frozen (1:30 show), with a 12 PM lunch ADR in the middle at 50s Prime Time.
I’m a little worried that we will run out of things to do before our 4:45 PM SDD FP+. My girls have no interest in Star Wars and are too little/too chicken for Rockin’ Rollercoaster or ToT. We plan to do Muppets 3D and possibly the Disney Jr show, but even when factoring these in, it looks like we will be done by 2:30 or 3. I’ve been obsessively checking for earlier FP+ times but nothing is available and given the popularity for SDD, I’m assuming we probably wont be able to modify the time. Any ideas on what we can pop into the afternoon without a FP+? Any attractions I may be missing that would be good for kids my age? The only other thing I can think of is the Little Mermaid show, although my daughter was scared of Ursula when we saw it 2 years ago (and it still will leave us with extra time to kill in the afternoon).
Also, note that we are staying at Wilderness Lodge and so don’t really want to leave the park to come back later. Doesn’t seem worth the travel time for just the one attraction.
Thanks for any feedback you mat have!
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We have a slightly similar situation in that we are trying to stretch the day to make it from RD to Jingle Bell Jingle Bam that night. Our solution for now is that after our lunch we are going to take a stroll (or you can take a boat!) over to the Boardwalk/Beach Club area for ice cream at Ample Hills Creamery and to look around the resorts there for awhile. With children as young as yours you may not want to add extra walking, but would they possibly be up for a boat ride and ice cream?
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That’s a good thought, thank you! We are renting a double stroller and so even the walk would probably work out ok (they may even fall asleep for a bit if we do).
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My only other thought is that if you rope dropped Slinky Dog (rather than using a FP) you might be able to get a more convenient FP time early in the day for TSM.
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Originally that was our plan and it might make sense, but I think I’m too nervous to drop the FP for SDD. My kids are super excited for this ride.
I definitely understand. It will be nice not to have to fight the crowd headed to SDD first thing as well.
There is always the Indiana Jones show or character meet and greets.
True. Does anyone know what characters are at the Celebrity Spotlight at Echo Lake? Is it still Olaf?
FWould they like the Indy show? Other than the loud explosions it’s really fun to watch.
Mickey and Minnie meet in Commisary Lane, and the Disney Junior characters meet somewhere too. Olaf is near Echo Lake. And the Citizens of Hollywood are great fun, we’ve seen them both on Sunset Blvd and outside the Muppets.
Although they don’t have any interest in Star Wars, they might like the March of the First Order, or even watching the Jedi Training.
Also the Disney Jnr Dance Party starts soon, September I think, although I’m not sure if ti’s scheduled yet.
You could walk over to the Boardwalk for some ice cream!
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I got so excited when I heard about the Disney Jr Dance Party, but it wont be there during our visit, unfortunately. Thanks for the suggestions!
Just got back two weeks ago, we did the rope drop ~ish, got SDD, Aliens, and TSM all complete in the first hour of HS being open…actually got to HS around 8:05 (EMH stated at 8) so it was not that bad, SDD was only about a 20~25min wait. You also have Woody and Jessie meet and greet along with Buzz and the green army men. And who does not want to meet Chewbacca and BB8?
The rope drop at HS was nothing compared to the one at AK…The HS was not bad at all, not what I was excepting, I thought RD meant trowing some elbows but I never felt crowded. We would definitely do it again. My girls are 5 & 9.
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Great to know, thanks! If we could get all 3 TS rides in during EMH that would be ideal. I will definitely keep this strategy in mind. On our last visit my whole family really loved TSM, it was one of the highlights of the trip. So my thought was to prioritize this by heading there first, and then try Aliens second since we have the FP+ for SDD later in the day. But I don’t really care too much about Aliens, so if the standby line for SDD isn’t bad after TSM, we will try to jump on that and take our chances on Aliens. I may even be able to switch the SDD FP+ for an earlier Aliens time.
We did SDD first as the line will grow then did aliens and then over to TSM where we only waited ~10 or less…it was crazy, never would I thought that TSM wait would ever be that short. Keep in mind that in EMH there is no fastpass+ so there is no other line cutting in front of you. The lines move pretty quickly. Get the Disney App and keep an eye on the wait times prior to your trip to help plan.
Great point. We have never done RD during EMH before so I wasn’t thinking about that.
SDD is really fun and you might want to do at RD and still use your FPP to ride a second time. We did RD during EMH and they let us into TSL at 6:30 am (EMH technically started at 7). It was fabulous. I think you could do some character M&Gs in the afternoon.
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