Mini Trip Report: Hollywood Studios After Hours

[kfkennedy1]

We went to After Hours at Hollywood Studios on March 8, so I wanted to provide a quick report in case it is helpful for anyone planning to do this soon. We were at Uni for Spring Break this past week, but decided to head over to WDW for one evening at HS. Although it was expensive for a group of five, I think it was worth it. We really had a great time and got so much done.

Our group was me, DH, DS7, DD9, and DS11. We arrived around 7:30, and there was no line to get our wristbands and enter the park. We brought Publix subs with us for dinner and headed straight to Fantastic! for the 8pm show. We arrived at F! at about 7:45 and that was plenty of time to get a decent seat. We ate our sandwiches while waiting for the show to start/during the beginning of the show. We hadn’t seen F! before and everyone really enjoyed it–even DS11 who typically doesn’t like shows.

After that, the park was still open to day guests, but the line for MFSR wasn’t too bad, so we headed over to do that. By the time we finished, it was close to 9:30 (park close was at 9:30), so we walked over to Toy Story Land. I think a lot of the After Hours guests went to SDD or Rise to start, so we decided to save those for later in the evening. We did Toy Story Mania, watched the Green Army Men drumming and then did AS2. The lines for the free snacks and drinks was pretty long in TSL so we held off, and headed back into Galaxy’s Edge to do MFSR a second time. We tried for Chewie Mode, but didn’t get it to work. Then we stopped for popcorn, Mickey Bars, ice cream sandwiches, and drinks. We finished the ice cream, and wandered over to MMRR while eating our popcorn. After that, we did ToT, then headed back to Toy Story Land. We also watched some of the projection shows on the Chinese Theater as we passed through that area each way.

SDD was up next. We arrived close to midnight, and the posted wait was 30 minutes (it had been at 30 minutes for most of the night), but the actual wait was about 10 minutes. It was past midnight at this point (maybe 12:15). I really wanted to do Rise, but the rest of the family wanted to stay and do SDD, so we split up. I did Rise (posted wait was 30 minutes, but I think it was about 10). The rest of the group did SDD 2 more times (so 3 times total). We met up and made our way out of the park, having done every ride and some multiple times. We had hoped to grab some more bottled waters and drinks on the way out, but they had closed those stands (it was 12:45 at that point).

Here is the After Hours brochure that they handed out when we entered:

Hope this short report is helpful to others! And happy to answer any questions about our experience. Cheers!

[jubileeroy]

Thank you! This is very helpful; I, DH and DS12 are heading down in April and will do HSAH the first Sunday of our trip and I’ve been looking for exactly this kind of post. Thanks again!

[nuclearali]

Thanks for posting! I have a feeling this is a good example of the “average” HS AH night- not like the terrible one a few weeks back when it was really busy. Definitely the right strategy to save SDD and RotR for the end of the night.

[kfkennedy1]

One other thing to add. Maybe around noon, I checked to see whether we could have purchased G+, and we could have even without a day ticket or park reservation at any park that day. Since we planned to do F! when we arrived and not start on rides until close to regular park close, I had no intention of buying it (and it wasn’t necessary for us to do everything we wanted during after hours) but I think I’ve seen some questions on chat about whether it would be possible to stack LLs for the 7pm to 9:30pm window before after hours start.

[amytravel12_525354]

Thank you for posting this. My son and I are going on April 19th. Cannot wait. Glad to hear you had minimal waits for everything.

[Mrandmrsthomas0618]

We had a lot of fun at the HS after hours tonight.

Here’s a list of what we did. Time entering line, then time getting on ride. We got on Aliens then had to get off right before it started but wasn’t going to waste time waiting for it to come back up.

It was fun letting the kids guide us. They loved it and enjoyed getting to do their favorites over and over.

One thing that stunk was the skyliner being closed when we left. Had to take bus back. Quick ride but had to wake up kid in stroller to fold it up.

[kfkennedy1]

I’m so glad you had a great time! We drove over from Uni the night we did HS DAH, but when we were walking back to our car, I noticed that the SL didn’t look like it was running. But otherwise sounds like a wonderful time.