We’ll be traveling to Disney in mid-May with smaller children. None of us are Star War enthusiasts and don’t feel compelled to fight the crowds to go on the rides; however, our children will love Toy Story Land. Given the huge morning crowds that the RofR boarding groups are drawing in, does it still make sense to get to the park at opening and booking early fast passes, or would we be better off doing something else in the morning and booking afternoon/evening fast passes? Thanks!
It is VERY easy to get between Epcot and DHS via the Skyliner, so if park-hopping is an option for you, doing Epcot in the morning / early afternoon and Toy Story Land in the afternoon/evening should be very easy. Depending on what you want to do at Epcot, you may not need fastpasses for it, so being locked out of them with your DHS selections would probably not matter. As an added bonus, it leaves you in the park for the excellent night shows at DHS!
Thanks Aaron, we do have park hopper tickets and I can look at what a morning Epcot would look like without fast passes. Another alternative I’ve been mulling, our tickets include a waterpark pass, so we could do that one morning and head to HS after but I’m not super familiar with where the water parks are located on the Disney complex.
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Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach are both relatively close to DHS, but it might matter more how close they are to your hotel, as you may need to change or drop off wet clothes before heading to the park (at least my family does!)
Good point. We are staying at Grand Floridian. Are lockers an option?
DHS lockers are hard to spot, but they’re behind the service truck immediately to the right when you enter the park. They don’t have any of the XL sized lockers that MK or EP have, so you might have to plan on getting more than one. You should be able to stow away your wet clothes there.
Are you driving? You could leave stuff in your car.
We won’t have a car. 
We could still head to HS in the morning, but all of the reports of heavy morning crowds have me worried!
I think you’re best off doing a water park in the morning, then going back to your hotel to change, then going to HS for the late afternoon / evening. Lines have been shortest for TSL in the hour before the park closes. A large portion of the crowd has been leaving as soon as their BG is called.
Here’s a pretty typical day from 2/24/20 showing the wait times at SDD.
The wait shot up pretty fast and peaked at 190 minutes at 10:30am. You basically have to show up 90 minutes early to RD, which doesn’t save you time overall. 
By 7:30pm, the line was only 75 min. Obviously, if you have FPP, SDD is the best option outside SWGE and MMRR. But you’ll probably be waiting in some lines, and most will follow this general pattern. I’d rather be there in the evening if it wasn’t for RotR.
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Thank you so much for that graph and run down. I definitely don’t want to do HS without having FPP booked and I think you’re right, evenings are looking much more appealing right now! Of course if Disney drops the boarding groups between now and May, then its another whole scenario. If only planning was as cut and dry as it was when we went 5 years ago. 
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TSL looks great in the evening, with all the lights. Especially Slinky Dog Dash! Consider it another plus for going later in the day.
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Thanks! Now the question is, Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach?
How small are the kids? Blizzard Beach has a bit more for under 48" if I recall, but Typhoon Lagoon had some good options for 48-60"
We will have one under 48" and one over. Our little one one is a Daredevil who will want to keep up with her brother, but over all, I’m think ease of transport might be the deciding factor? I’ve never been to either water park but it was a free bonus with our tickets this time.
For what it is worth my kids (4 and 6) would pick Blizzard Beach over Typhoon Lagoon.
I also agree with others above - do HS in the afternoon or at night. It is terrible in the morning for younger kids since they can’t/don’t want to ride much (other than TSL) and the shows don’t start until 10:30 at the earliest (at least when we went in January). We did TSL before 9 a.m. and had nothing to do so we ended up going back to our resort until about 1 p.m. Later it was great. No crowds. My husband and oldest son rode MFSR just before close at 8 p.m. with no other riders.
Thank you, that helps. Our kids will be 4 and barely 7 at the time of our travel. 