1-Day Hollywood Studios Itinerary Using Lightning Lanes
Our 1-Day Hollywood Studios Itinerary using Lightning Lanes covers how the paid line-skipping services work in practice. This step-by-step Walt Disney World touring plan answers questions, illustrates the process, and offers time-saving strategy for making the best ride reservations.
This is a theoretical day at DHS due to unknowns, but that’s true of literally any itinerary. Wait times vary, attractions experience downtime, and there are unique wrinkles to any day in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Just like a normal touring plan, there’s a lot here that we can pull from past precedent, historical wait time data, and extensive experience with similar systems.
In particular, crowd levels have a big impact on what you can accomplish with Lightning Lanes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. On slow to moderate days, using Lightning Lanes is straightforward and stress-free. On busier days, the number of ride reservations you can make drops dramatically, as there are more people in the park competing for line-skipping access to the most popular attractions.
More than any other park, the Lightning Lanes service “breaks” at DHS under the stress of heavy crowds. Be warned, this itinerary will work well in low-to-average months, but not so much around Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or other peak weeks. If you’re visiting during school breaks (aside from summer), you’ll want to use this plus Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
When it comes to this itinerary, the most important thing to know is that there’s one big attraction per park that sells Lightning Lane access at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, that ride is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Normally, we don’t recommend paying extra to bypass the lines because there are other ways to beat the crowds at Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
By and large, Lightning Lanes offer the better bang for your buck, and is the superior way to spend if you’re on a budget. That comes with an asterisk with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, as it’s the most popular ride in all of Walt Disney World and is prone to downtime. If it has an issue while you’re in line–or throughout the day of your visit, the standby line will back up, slow to a crawl, or stop completely.
This is intended to supplement our Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World. A lot of you have had questions, and we’ve tried to answer most of the common ones there. However, many are about specific scenarios and that FAQ would be as long as a Tolstoy novel if we addressed each one there.
With that said, some of you may want to ignore our advice and purchase Lightning Lanes. Depending on crowds, this actually can be a “challenge” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which is home to the most popular Lightning Lanes attraction (Slinky Dog Dash) and the most popular Individual Lightning Lane attraction (Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance) in all of Walt Disney World.
Both of these often book up within seconds of 7 am, which presents a practical problem—how do you book both? There is no good way for one person to accomplish both beyond trying to do things quickly and hoping for the best. Ideally, you’ll want to have two adults awake at 7 am, with one booking Slinky Dog Dash and the other booking Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. This is the only dynamic duo of rides where this presents a problem–if you’re booking any other combination, it’s no issue.
Anyway, on with our 1-Day Disney’s Hollywood Studios Itinerary with Lightning Lanes (note that this assumes an 8:30 am opening time for DHS; if the park opens at 9 am during your visit, simply adjust these times by 30 minutes)…
7:00:00 am – Book Slinky Dog Dash with a Lightning Lane return window of 3:10 pm to 4:10 pm.
In a perfect world, you’ll get a much earlier return time for Slinky Dog Dash, but it doesn’t always work that way–even if you’re refreshing right at 7 am on the dot. For this attraction, we strongly recommend following our Speed Strategy for Lightning Lane Selections.
~7:35 am – Race to Rise of the Resistance during Early Entry “bonus time” at DHS.
~8 am – Beat the crowd to Slinky Dog Dash.
8:30 am – Rope drop Toy Story Mania via standby line.
8:50 am – Do Alien Swirling Saucers via standby line.
9:00 am – Blast off to Batuu, enjoying free time in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge before the crowds and midday heat arrive. It’s an excellent time to Meet the Mandalorian & Grogu if you want a chance to encounter theme without a mob of people. (This is not a character meet & greet but is the most popular character encounter at Walt Disney World, so it’s ideal to be there for their first set of the day. See the above link for tips & tricks!)
Although it’s early, consider playing Batuu Bounty Hunters via the MagicBand+ for a little bit. Alternatively, you can browse the shops or even potentially do Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run via standby or the Single Rider line if you anticipate wanting to do that more than once–or just want to knock it out early!
10 am – Do Star Tours: the Adventures Continue via standby line.
You may not be wild about waiting in three consecutive standby lines for popular rides, but that’s bound to happen at DHS given the top-heavy nature of the lineup. In fact, you will almost certainly have more Lightning Lane reservations in late afternoon than in the morning or early afternoon. That’s just how it tends to work out, so plan accordingly and knock out “easier” attractions via standby early on.
10:20 am – Marvel at MuppetVision 3D in all of its distinctly patriotic brilliance.
10:30 am – While waiting for MuppetVision (but without taking your attention away from its profound pre-show), book Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run with a Lightning Lane return window of 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm.
Note: 10:30 am is chosen because it’s 120 minutes after park opening (assuming DHS opens at 8:30 am), which is consistent with How the 120 Minute Rule Works at Walt Disney World. This rule governs when you can make your next ride reservation, and is incredibly important to understand.
11 am – Free time or a buffer in case crowds are worse during your visit. If you’ve already accomplished all or most of this, consider rewarding yourself with one of the best snacks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
11:45 am – Arrive at least 15 minutes early to catch the second showing of Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. Take notes to improve your sick parkour moves.
12:30 pm – Book Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith with a Lightning Lane return window of 4:05 pm to 5:05 pm.
Note: Lightning Lane return times for every attraction except Slinky Dog Dash get refilled or “roll over” throughout the day, so if you only see late evening return times when first opening up My Disney Experience to book another Lightning Lane, give it a few minutes–you should see earlier times.
12:40 pm – Browse Walt Disney Presents for evidence to confirm suspicions of grave-rolling.
1 pm – Lunch, free time and/or buffer (we recommend an ADR at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant)
2 pm – Double back to Pixar Place to meet the Monsters and other Pixar Pals.
2:30 pm – Meet Minnie & Mickey at Red Carpet Dreams or Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight, whichever character appeals to you more. Potentially both if the lines are short.
2:30 pm – Book the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Lightning Lane with a return time of 4:20 pm to 5:20 pm.
3:10 pm – Do Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run via Lightning Lane.
3:40 pm – Do Slinky Dog Dash via Lightning Lane.
4:00 pm – Do Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith via Lightning Lane. Arrive 5 minutes early, taking advantage of grace period.
4:20 pm – Do the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror via Lightning Lane.
4:45 pm – Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy via standby line.
5:10 pm – Race on over to the Trolley Car Cafe Starbucks for some coffee…and against your better judgment, a Carrot Cake Cookie. Lightning McQueen would say you’ve earned it–time to ka-chow down!
5:25 pm – Do Frozen Sing-Along Celebration via standby line.
6 pm or so – Dinner at another one of Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ excellent themed restaurants.
7 pm – Free time to do repeat favorite headliner attractions via the standby line. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and even Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance all usually have moderate actual wait times–regardless of what the posted wait time is–after 7 pm.
Second Showing of Fantasmic – On some nights, there are two showings of Fantasmic. If that’s the case during your visit, see the later one and do rides until ~15 minutes before showtime. If there are multiple showings, you do not need to arrive super early for good seats. If there’s only one performance of Fantasmic, catch that one and arrive at least 30 minutes early. See our Viewing Guide to Fantasmic at Walt Disney World for further advice on the best seats, etc.
Once again, this was a theoretical day with Lightning Lanes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios based on assumptions about capacity allocation and demand. Some or all of these assumptions could be off and not reflect what you actually experience depending upon your travel dates. Again, the same could be said of any itinerary. If you’re diligent, this is probably ~75% accurate, and at the very least, should illustrate how a day could look using Genie+ for those who never used paper FastPass or MaxPass.
To be sure, this is an efficient day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but not an overzealous one. The biggest challenge will be the backloaded return times, and filling out your late morning and midday with stage shows and table service meals–or whatever else you want to kill time before your Lightning Lane return times roll around.
Ultimately, the point here is not to “sell” you on buying Lightning Lanes, but rather, to illustrate how Genie+ could prove advantageous for days you opt to purchase the add-on, put some doomsday assumptions to rest, and start making lemonade out of lemons.
If you’re still not quite satisfied with how Lightning Lanes work in practice, see My Day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Using Genie+ (if you’re visiting during a busier season, don’t expect to accomplish that much–here’s a look at my day using Lightning Lanes with peak crowds). If you’d rather simply know which selections are objectively the best (in terms of time saved and how quickly they book up), see our Disney’s Hollywood Studios Genie+ Priorities & Ride Ranks.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Was this 1-Day Disney’s Hollywood Studios Itinerary w/ Lightning Lanes helpful to illustrate how paid FastPass works at Walt Disney World? Have any questions we didn’t answer with the above? Still confused by how Lightning Lanes work? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Other thoughts or concerns? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Why do you keep saying you will be able to have more than one Genie + lightning lane at a time. Disney made it clear you will only be allowed one at time until you tap in on that ride.
You forgot to build in plans getting “derailed” (haha, coaster pun) because rides are down due to mechanical issues and/or lightning in the area. But yeah, I tend to agree that in all likelihood people will walk away from a fairly satisfying park day feeling it was worth it.
One thing I struggle with is we are a family that has DAS, and I don’t know if it would be worth the cost in view of that. If wait times go up so much we end up spending all day waiting for our DAS return times, then maybe. I hope not though. The cost for sure adds up for a family of 5.
This won’t stop us from coming, but it will mean we pretty much only do one day per park. I suppose that is what disney wants since the first four days of a park ticket are so much pricier than incremental tickets–they want everyone taking four day trips. It’s a shame, as I would prefer a longer trip of half days to four really intense days, but it’s just getting too expensive for longer trips.
@Tom, I was there last October and had plenty of wi fi dropouts in all sections of the park, or the pages took forever to load because the network was being overwhelmed. I hope that they addressed this seeing how the Geinie will put even more load on the network.
@Adam
Are you sure that’s how Genie+ will work? Maybe I need to do some more research but this is how I see it working. At least on day 1.
You can logon at 7 AM and demand will dictate when each Genie+ ride is available. They can’t have everyone arriving around the same time, so as slots fill up, they will just keep pushing the arrival time out until all spots are filled for the day. This is why they have the 120 min rule. It will make sure people are not limited to only 1 or 2 rides for the entire day when the arrival time for their first ride is late in the afternoon or even the evening. Instead, it will allow you to book a 2nd ride at 9:01 AM, rather than having to wait until you check in to the 1st ride that was booked at 7 AM, even if you can’t access the queue until 3 PM. If they only release arrival times every few hours, like you are suggesting, they are risking that some people will never get to ride it if they are constantly missing the short booking window throughout the day. They will be competing with thousands of people so spots will fill up fast. And you’ll get people booking the same Genie+ ride successfully, while others miss out entirely. That won’t work. Which is why if you login at 7, there is a great chance you’ll get the ride you want. It’s just a matter of what time and how that fits in with your plans.
That being said, Disney is excluding some of the most popular rides from Genie+ where demand would be ridiculously high (Seven Dwarfs, Flight of Passage, etc), so maybe the demand will be more spread out amongst the secondary rides and the arrival times won’t be as bad unless the park is extremely crowded.
For those that want to arrive later in the day, they will need to constantly check Genie+ until their desired ride arrival time is listed because it doesn’t give you the option to choose a later time in the day, only the first available (at least not yet). Genie+ seems to be more suited for the morning crowd or people already in the parks.
This is a Disney ripoff! We pay enough for the resort rooms, overpriced food and admission to the parks. WDW is getting to be way less “magical.”
@Adam. August has been very slow at WDW because of delta variant and schools back in session. We have to travel during vacation weeks and park passes were hard to come by when we went in April.
You do have to get up at 7am if you want to ensure getting your monies worth. As I mentioned in a previous post, at least AK and Epcot don’t have enough rides to support this system and I’m willing to bet that most rides will be sold out early. If you don’t get to Epcot until 2pm done there’s only 4 rides eligible for Genie+, I bet they will all be gone so even if you got one, they would be sold out after that and the cost wouldn’t be worth it for one ride
Thanks Tom – I guess I was under the impression that you had to use your first genie+ LL pass before you could book another one. That’s obviously not true then ? I must have misunderstood the press release
@mike – as the park returns to normal capacity, changing park passes is easy. We have been at WDW this past week. We had no problem changing park pass from Animal Kingdom to DHS, same day.
Second– you don’t have to get up at 7am every morning to use Genie+. Only the days you want a 9am FP. If you’re planning on rope dropping, you’re probably up at 7 anyway. If you don’t want a Genie+ until 3pm, you can book it at noon.
This isn’t a situation where all slots will be gone at 7:01. It will work like old paper FP, most rides available most of the day.
Thank you to the person that made the comment that it is just like the old paper fast pass but in digital form! That made it all make sense to me. That 7am wake up is like your mad dash at rope drop to get the coveted FP.
I really want to know if Genie plus will be worth it during super-busy times like New Years. Also we are NOT 7-am people and will never roll out of a hotel room before 10.
We we’re considering dropping a ton of money for a New Years trip, and spending another 375 on top of that is hard to swallow. Especially if it won’t do much good for us late risers. Or if it wouldn’t work well when the parks are so crowded.
Hi Tom, thank you for doing this. I realize it’s too early to tell, but any idea how LL pricing will fluctuate and any idea how far they will allow you to book it ahead of time? So will it be like individual park pricing where guests will know the pricing months in advance as Disney will publish “RotR will be $12 per person Dec 1-18 and $20 per person Dec 19-Jan” or will it be more like Uber where the price fluctuates constantly according to demand? If it’s the latter, will there be a cap and floor to prices?
@Will. I agree 100%. The 2 changes I would like to see made (which shouldnt change anything and improve guest satisfaction) would be to allow booking at 9pm the previous night so you don’t have to wake up early and then being able to choose your return time for genie+ selections in case you are not a rope dropper or want to use your genie+ selections for a second park when park hopping.
I think this would go a long way to changing some of the negative narrative on Genie+
1. Thank you for this write-up. It mostly seems possible, except maybe…
2. Toy Story Mania, 40 minutes after rope drop, via stand-by, in a total of 35 minutes. You’re the seasoned vet here, but that seems ambitious. LOL!
3. I’ll completely needlessly reiterate my point from the FAQ thread. I don’t want to wake up at 7AM everyday on vacation just to be able to enjoy certain rides without a 2+hour wait. Disney, let us book in advance, PLEASE!
Toy Story Mania averages a 25 minute wait (or less) posted wait time until 9:50 am. Of course, it’s hard to say how early entry or Genie+ will change the equation, so perhaps you’re right about that.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Disney relents and offers more of a pre-planning element. My guess is that the vocal minority of fans love to plan, but Disney has (significant) feedback from “average” guests who hate the amount of planning that goes into a WDW vacation.
Your theoretical day answers so many of my questions, thank you. I am a little confused about the 7:00 comment about rejecting purchase of individual ROTR LL access for $18. At 1:00 the same comment/decision to reject references $24. cost. I assume these figures are best guesses, but do you think the cost for the ride will remain same throughout the same day or will it fluctuate?
Also, do you think the add-on for AP might be discounted for DVC members?
“Do you think the cost for the ride will remain same throughout the same day or will it fluctuate?”
I think it’ll fluctuate–that’s why it went from $18 to $24. (I could see the ceiling being higher than that.)
I was told “no discounts” for AP and DVC, and I assume that extends to whatever the annual fee for the add-on ends up being. Could be wrong, though!
I’m confused at all the people put out by needing to be awake before 7… I’m trying to figure out how anyone gets themselves and their kids ready, fee, packed, and our the door in time for rope drop without being awake by 7. I live 10-15 minutes from Disneyland (depending on traffic!) and I’m trying to figure out how we’ll get there fed and parked in time for rope drop for our trip in September and can’t see anyway around my husband and I being up and packing starting between 6:30 and 7. We also have a WDW trip booked for January (covid willing… Using our twice-canceled cruise credit for land and sea) and I’m not sure how we’ll get ANYWHERE by rope drop based on kids adjusting to a time difference and the time it takes to get them fed and transportation even if the adults wake at 6!
After not visiting for 10 years we just spent a week at WDW with my family this past May.
The weather was perfect if a little hot, the wait times were predictable but we managed and we even got to go on Rise of the Resistance twice. It was a perfect week.
It will be just myself and my husband returning in October for the 50th.
I first came to WDW in October 1971 with my parents for my high school graduation trip.
I’m so disappointed that they decided to start up this nonsense now.
I’m confused about how this will work and ticked off that WDW is going to try and squeeze more cash out of me just to get on a ride.
What a letdown for someone my age who was looking forward to this trip in remembrance of that first visit 50 years ago.
I’m seriously thinking of canceling.
Still feel some of the perks for staying on property are lost with Genie+ and lithe paid option. I don’t like that the virtual queues, Genie + ans paid options all become available at 7am . Staying at Disney only gets you early access to the paid per ride options. It would be nice to have earlier access to virtual queues. Wonder if you have multiple phones/devices if 3 people can access the 3 options at the same time of it will screw up your chances to get anything you truly want.
“Still feel some of the perks for staying on property are lost with Genie+”
As compared to the FastPass+ booking window, absolutely. Between this and Disney’s Magical Express ending, I think WDW is going to see resort occupancy decrease in early 2022.
Hey Tom! Thanks for the blogs I’ve been reading yours for years!! I have 2 questions for you and both are long shots but figured I’d ask…
1. Any idea when Polynesian monorail will be ready?
2. Any idea if they are adding deluxe resort extended hours in November?
Thank you!!
Very soon (like literally any day now) and yes. Not sure if the schedule has been released, but expect it to follow the same day of week pattern as already announced.
Thank you for this.. I can see the pros and cons of Genie+. My biggest Con is that Disney is the ONE place I am not locked to my phone.. the battery dies fast, and it is hard to read in the bright Florida sun. With this Option, I will be chained to it like I am throughout the rest of my life
Totally agree with that. We make a conscious effort to not spend time on our phones while at the park, and generally didn’t feel MaxPass altered that in a significant way. We’d typically quickly book something while entering a queue (also often helps with the sunlight/screen brightness element).
I was under the impression that you could only purchase two Lightening Lanes per day?