Miss it by 3 weeks…well at least I know now…hopefully tsmm will be up and running by memorial day and we can at least go on that ride. I would have never gone on the spinning ride but unlike the idea of slinky dog. …no 2nd trip for us but we have so much to experience for the first time it might have been overwhelming lol
1 Like
I am also wondering about a soft opening as we will be there the week before it opens, leaving on that Saturday. I am bummed since many Disney commentators were expecting a Memorial Day opening.
@JonMcIntosh I would stick to your original plan that $1700 can go towards another trip, maybe when Star wars land is open too.
@profmatt I would make duplicate ADR’s, that way when FP opens up you have 2 possible days to try for.
1 Like
If anyone here becomes aware of a passholder preview for TSL, please post ASAP!
We were in Pandora the Monday after opening. As already stated in this thread, we monitored the previews constantly before our trip. They did not offer any public “soft” openings.
They did open extra magic hours from 10:00pm to midnight. We moved our flight to arrive a day early at 8:00 pm. Checked in, stopped by the room, and immediately went to Pandora. This was our first time ever to WDW, and was booked as a honeymoon before I even knew the word Pandora. We studied park maps and such before arriving to have some barring because I knew it was going to be nuts. I made late FPP for the safari and Everest. We rode those first, hoping things would clear as it got closer to 10pm. It did. The only thing open was Pandora. It was gorgeous at night. We had dinner at the canteen and drinks and walked around. I remember thinking it was much emptier than we anticipated. Standby for FOP was 150 minutes, we waited 105. Standby for Na’vi River was 50, we waited 20. It was not the disaster I imagined it would be.
For those asking about FPP, we were able to make FPP at our sixty day mark. This was only three days post park opening.
1 Like
OK, update on this.
The timeline for Pandora was …
Feb 7th. - opening day confirmed as May 27th
March 23rd - FP tiers were announced, plus confirmation of special EMH for Pandora only
March 24th - FP booking opened (which caused no end of confusion from those who just couldn’t’t get their heads around the fact that people who had onsite stays could therefore book for the 27th and beyond)
- AP and DVC previews confirmed and reservations started. DVC members had to be staying onsite during a preview to book, AP holders not 100% sure if it was for everyone straight away or initially only for onsite people.
So expect FPs to be bookable towards the end of April or so.
1 Like
I was there a week or two before 7DMT opened. We saw these soft openings happen. We walked by several times and it appeared the CM outside would ask people if they would like to try it out. We walked by several times and never got lucky enough to be asked. DH asked how people were getting to ride and if it was open and CM said it was soft openings for other CM, but we saw very little kids riding so we assumed CM and family? I don’t know…seemed to us that the CM were offering pixie dust and letting guests ride, but other guests were being told it was only “invitation only”. Oh well! I’ll finally get to ride it this June 
1 Like
7DMT was an unusual opening model. There were these “spot” soft openings for a couple of weeks (I remember tracking them on Lines). Then, on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend (back when they were doing the MK 24 hour days) it had a full time “soft opening” that lasted for several weeks before the “official” opening. I rode it at 0615 on that Friday with a 15 min wait. Later in the day the wait was up 150 min…
But that was a single ride in an already established, open, “land”. As TSL is an entire new “land”, I’m guessing that they will use a model more along the lines of what they did for Pandora.
1 Like
I’m nervous about how this will impact my trip. We’re planning to arrive on July 5th and the crowd calendar looks not so terrible (compared to what I expected for July). While I’m excited to see Toy Story Land, I’m really worried that this announcement will make crowds crazy those first couple weeks after opening. Any projections or thoughts on how much higher of a crowd level I should anticipate? Thanks!
I really don’t think TSL will be such a big deal that people will plan an entire vacation around it’s opening; it’s certsinly no Pandora in scope or attractions. DHS may be more crowded, but I don’t think it will have a major impact on the other parks.
You see I think the flaw in that argument is that it assumes people act rationally.
For example, I’ve ridden 7DMT twice. Both times I found it disappointing. (Hell, I find BTMR slightly disappointing. It’s not really white-knuckle.) Yet I find myself trying to figure out how I can ride it on my upcoming trip. Why? Because everyone else wants to. It’s the same with BOG. Architecture aside, it’s hardly fine dining. But people go nuts for it.
When I booked my trip I wasn’t even thinking about TSL. But when the possibility it might be open during my trip raised its little head, I went crazy. And when I found out it will be open during my trip, I was rearranging my schedule and cancelling ADRs like a man possessed.
But why? I suspect Slinky will be pretty lame. And the other one. Admittedly TSMM was a highlight of my previous trip — partly because it’s so different and I assumed it would be boring and stupid.
I’ve got people in another thread trying to persuade me to get up at five in the morning to rope drop opening day!
I certainly want to walk around TSL and enjoy the theming, which looks very cool from what I’ve seen. No doubt I’ll obsess about getting an FPP for Slinky and, if I fail, I’ll start planning what to do during a four hour wait.
All this being said, I think you’re right. It’s not Pandora. (Though it kind of is Pandora to kids, no?) I don’t think we’ll be seeing the craziness we saw at AK last year. I hope.
The awkwardness of being there for opening day is that no-one knows what it’s going to be like. I’m either going to spend all day in interminable lines, or the whole thing will be done in a couple of hours and I’ll be wondering around not knowing what to do with myself.
1 Like
Will Toy Story Mania be open the few days before the opening of Toy Story Land?
I’m hopeful that the crowds will be limited to DHS and that people won’t change plans for this. Fingers crossed! I found such great ADRs for my trip and really don’t want to change dates.
I agree… I think there may be some people, who have both the time and financial flexibility to do it, might try to push June trips into July (perhaps they planned June THINKING TSL would be open). But I don’t think anybody will plan a July trip if they weren’t already planning to come, because it is not really a surprise to anybody that TSL is gonna be open in July - we were all expecting that.
I think locals may come out in higher numbers… not sure how locals affect crowds.
Yeah, the pushing June trips to July is what I’m worried about, but hopefully there won’t be enough people doing this to really impact crowds that much.
I can’t guess. But anybody doing that would have to (1) have enough date flexibility such that switching a trip on 4 months notice is no problem and (2) financial flexibility to absorb whatever changes would cost (if any)… so
some I am sure, but obviously your guess is as good as mine.
We will be there end of May/early June, and I am, I think, glad we won’t have to be dealing with the opening of TSL.
Possibly.
Pandora disn’t have any soft openings, bar I think a handful of people (like 25 at a time) on a couple of days. It was all previews.
Likely they will do the same thing for TSL, but no one knows yet. See my reply above for the Pandora timeline. Using that as a guide, we could expect announcements towards end of April, with FP booking and preview registration opening almost immediately.
But this is pure speculation. 
Speaking as someone who will be there when it opens, I do think it’s a mixed blessing. If you’re going at the beginning of June, you know you’re not getting any TSL action. You can make your plans and relax knowing that next time (apparently there’s always a next time) you’ll see it — and in calmer circumstances.
I’m there on Days 1, 2 and 3. I have plans for Day 2 that I can’t easily change and I’m not going to. I swapped my original Day 1 plan with another day, freeing up Day 1 for TSL all day. Great! Except how much of the day will TSL end up taking up? Am I wasting a day of my trip for a 20 minute walk around the new area and a two minute ride on kid’s rollercoaster? I can even switch my Day 3 plan to TSL if need be. But I’ll lose the opportunity to do the things I had originally planned and there’s nowhere to move those things to.
1 Like
Well, you have said that the rides in TSL don’t appeal to you so much, so pick a day, if you can score a FPP for the ride, great, otherwise you have a normal day at HS and you walk and look. I think realistically you will have to set the boundary that you are comfortable with…
1 Like
I’m just going to bump this back up to the top. Any day now I’m hoping that Annual Passholders or DVC member preview days will be announced. When the are, please update this thread with a link! It was only through super nice people like yourselves that I was able to see Pandora last year as an AP. We never got the email even though we were valid AP holders at the time of the invitation and during our planned trip. Of course, if I see a link, I’ll share it here!
Have a magical day!
2 Likes