I am building my TP for DHS during the first week in April. TP suggests a 20 minute wait and then 45 minutes to tour Launch Bay. My 9 year old DS does not linger over displays but looks quickly and moves onto the next thing. I can’t imagine spending 45 minutes in Star Tours. Does this time include the character greeting? How long should I expect Launch Bay to take?
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Yep 45 min. sounds right, only if you are doing the two meet and greets. Hopefully you’ll finish earlier, but you wait could be 15 min. at each meet and greet.
The film is on the order of 15-20 minutes (not sure exactly) so if you time it wrong that could be your wait then 20 minutes of film time to watch. If you skip the meet and greets you can likely see the other stuff at a fast pace in 10-15 minutes. Presuming you watch the film, I don’t think you can do it in much less than 30 minutes though even skipping the meet & greets.
The meet & greet lines tend to have posted waits around 40 minutes apiece from what I’ve seen. If you did both meet and greets plus the film and walk through you could be 1.5-2 hours easily enough unless you time the character lines really well.
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I’m confused. If my kids want to meet Chewie and Kylo Ren (soon to replace Vader), will we have to wait in outside line 2x? Or can we scoot around to the other once we finish first? Is Disney Visa just a line cut to meet Kylo? It’s not a whole separate area? How long is outside line midday? (Disney VIsa says it’s only 11-4, so can’t hit early for shorter lines to get in… right?) Thoughts? Help! Most important thing to DS7 when we go, after Jedi training thing and TSMM.
When we were there in early December - there was a short line outside to wait on the movie. Frankly that was just a normal “wait until the movie ends then go in” line & not a huge queue - possible that’s far worse at high demand times. You could skip that wait if you wanted and not watch the movie and head straight to the characters though.
After the movie you moved into a room with the character queues - we didn’t do the characters, but my impression is it’s 2 separate lines each requiring their own wait - one for Chewie & the other for Darth (soon to be Kylo Ren). Wait times seemed to be in the 30-40 minute range for the characters and I think you have to wait in each line individually. Not sure if the Disney Visa is an entirely separate line or not - from what I’ve read the wait time there is about the same but you get a free pic IIRC.
The rest is basically a self explore museum type setup. Some cool movie prop type stuff - lots of elaborate costumes for sale (think 4 figure quality costumes) - a cantina backdrop - some Jawas running around - some video games you can mess around with.
Doing both characters and the movie it’s going to take an hour plus I’m sure and that’s if you catch a relatively short character line - I could easily see 2 (a way to make HS a full day park again?). I haven’t read anything saying the best time to catch the characters for a short line unfortunately - I’d presume whenever they first start would be the best time though.
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I haven’t been yet, but a friend was there about 2 weeks ago, and his description was very similar to @Damavs. He said it was about 30 min to wait for/watch the movie, about an hour to do both M&Gs, and another 30 min to look at the other stuff. They spent very little time playing the video games and skipped spending time in the gift shop. He said his kids could probably have spent another 30-45 min there, but he had a “strategically planned” ADR following as a way to get them out. As I’m not a gamer, and don’t really care about M&Gs, I would plan about an hour for my own touring.
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When we were there during Christmas/New Years week, there was a separate line (pretty short) for the VISA card picture. It was a little hard to find (way off to the right), so ask CMs along the way.
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In December, I spent almost exactly 45 minutes in the attraction. I waited (briefly) to watch the movie and took my time inside the attraction to take a lot of photographs, but I didn’t stop to meet either of the characters that day. How much time you spend will depend on what you choose to do.
You have the option to skip the movie if you want to save time. I enjoyed seeing it, but it’s not something I’d wait 20 minutes to see. Once inside, I’m guessing that with a child that you’d maybe spend 15 minutes or so looking at the models and maybe taking a few pictures. The posted character meet waits seem to be around 30 minutes each (they are separate meets). I’m not sure what the actual wait times are, but unless you’re going at rope drop you’ll probably spend at least 45 minutes to an hour meeting characters. There’s also a gift shop at the end that you may wish to explore or rush through (depending on how much you enjoy Star Wars merchandise).
Thanks for the info! Launch Bay has an hour booked in my TP.
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The movie is really just a bunch of clips of producers/directors/etc… talking about how much they love Star Wars. Unless you need a little break to sit down, it’s skipable.
The Chewie m&g is fast as he doesn’t talk or sign. The Darth Vader was much longer as he interacts and skulks around for you. Pretty cool really.
The VIP m&g was about to open at 11 the day we were there. The line was already beginning to snake a bit. That’s tough to predict. Just depends on how many cardholders are around at any given time.
The stuff in the gift shop is cool (totally relative to how into Star Wars you may be) but super expensive. The longer you linger, the more likely you may be to spen $4000 on a costume. LOL.
FYI, this is on the opposite side of the park from Star Tours. Very weird but I guess that was where the available space was.
We were there last weekend on a crowd level 7 day. We got to Launch Bay around 10:00 am. There was no line to get into the building. Initially we skipped the movie line and went straight in to the character M&G, stopping briefly to look at displays and theming along the way. The line for Chewie had no wait, so we were through with that part in a matter of minutes. The Darth Vader line was posted at 40 minutes, but the CM at the line entrance notified us that if we had the Disney Visa, we should just wait for that one, which didn’t open until 11 am. He also said he could neither confirm or deny that the Visa M&G would be Vader, but that it was most likely Vader. (I know the Vader M&G is being replaced by Kylo Ren this month, but not sure if that applies to the Visa M&G as well.) We then spent the next 30 minutes looking at the rest of the displays and trading with the Jawas (if you bring them some trinket they will closely inspect it and trade you a small droid piece, then pose for a picture. My sons had a highlighter pen and a found pressed penny to trade…this was one of their favorite parts of their visit to Launch Bay.) I did not let my kids stop in the room with the video games (Star Wars Infinity, Star Wars Angry Birds, etc.) Since we still had time before 11, we went back to the entrance and watched the movie (our timing must have been perfect because there was no wait), which was OK, but nothing special, and I would not wait in a line for it. By the time we got done with the movie, it was 11 am, so we headed over to the Visa M&G line (located at the far end of the video game area), and it was about a 20 minute wait to see Darth Vader. After that, we spent some time in the gift shop. We spent about 90 minutes there in all, but my boys (including the husband) are huge Star Wars fans and spent a good amount of time looking at the props and models and soaking in the theming. I would plan at least 60 minutes for the two M&Gs to be safe, and maybe a little extra if you want to trade with Jawas and look at the displays.
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This was super helpful. Thank you @catdrj!! I will remember to bring a trinket and we will skip the movie. My son is a fan of the movies but we are not super fans. It is something he will be excited to do.
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Thanks for the trinket tip! My son is a huge Star wars fan, I think we are going to spend more time in there than I want to!
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Our whole family are super Star Wars fans, so we are very excited to meet Chebacca! None of us are super fans of standing in line, though… so we are considering doing the M&Gs at Launch Bay at RD and continue from there to other attractions before lines start to develop, and then return to Launch Bay later in the day to see the movie and the exhibition. Has anyone else tried this?
My worry is that the crowds will make it difficult to explore the exhibitions later in the day. Or are the crowds normally manageable in Launch Bay?
I was there on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, so quite crowded in the park. I went to Launch Bay around 1pm and saw Chewie, line was maybe 20 minutes. It did not feel too crowded in Launch Bay, there was plenty of room. I would not miss rides first thing as those lines will get very long quickly. I would plan all of Launch Bay for later in the day, but that’s me. We prefer to ride, ride, ride first thing.
We did Launch Bay in the afternoon and passed on the 40 minute wait for Chewbacca. We watched the fireworks and went back and only had to wait for the people thereally at that time.
Thank you so much for your input, @gabmom and @Wahoohokie! 
My TP now says we’ll hit RnR at RD, then meet Chebacca and Kylo Ren but skip the rest of the Launch Bay, hit the other major rides (I hope to get Fastpasses for Star Tours, TSMM and GMR). Then have a midday break, and return to Launch Bay in the evening before F! to check out the exhitibitions and trade with the Jawas. Do you think this would be an OK touring plan? (We’ll do the single rider line at ToT - DS7 doesn’t like the look of it)
@len, would it be possible to split the Launch Bay experiences in the touring plans, so the M&Gs are a separate experience from the rest of the pavillion? Like you have done at Epcot, where the Seas with Nemoand Friends is separated from the Seas Main Tank and Exhibits? Thank you so much for constantly improving the already wonderful touring plans tools - I don’t know what I would do without them (stand in line for hours, I guess)! I used my first touring plan (cut out from the Unifficial guide) at Disney World in July 1992 and have been a fan ever since 
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Yes, I like your second plan!
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Hubby didn’t want to meet Kylo Ren. He is a die hard Star Wars fan and said he didn’t need to meet the bad guy.