Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Report: Tinseltown Breakdowns

Hollywood Studios can be the best park at Walt Disney World for Early Theme Park Entry. We’ve taken advantage of the perk over a half-dozen times at DHS, and highly recommend to those planning trips. With that said, sometimes things go wrong. This photo report offers a step-by-step look at what we accomplished (and didn’t) during a morning with multiple ride breakdowns, how we made lemonade out of lemons, and how it could’ve gone worse or better.

As regular readers might’ve noticed, we’ve become increasingly enthusiastic about Early Entry at Walt Disney World. Part of this is because we think it’s an underrated perk, with many guests dismissing it as “only” 30 minutes. Others do it first at Magic Kingdom, which is unquestionably the worst park for Early Entry, and assume it’ll be equally bad at the other 3 parks.

Admittedly, another contributing factor to our positivity about Early Entry at Walt Disney World has been our personal experiences over the course of the last year-plus. In thinking back, we had enjoyed a really good and smooth run, not running into any major issues for a while. Well, that luck changed during recent Early Entry testing on consecutive days at DHS and Magic Kingdom. Here’s the report from one of those days at Disney’s Hollywood Studios…

Let’s start this report at the beginning. For this Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I stayed at in the New Little Mermaid 5th Sleeper Rooms at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. Not only are these reimagined rooms fantastic, but so too is the location–so long as you make a request and don’t get stuck in one of the far-away buildings. (See the Best & Worst Rooms & Building Locations at Caribbean Beach Resort for our request recommendations.)

I left the Little Mermaid room at 6:58 am and walked directly to the main Skyliner station at Caribbean Beach Resort, where there was no line and I had my own private gondola. I was through security and waiting at the turnstiles by 7:13 am, which is absurdly good time. You might wait 15 minutes just for a bus to show up at a different resort!

In any case, we strongly recommend arriving to Disney’s Hollywood Studios at least 40 minutes before Early Entry starts (8 am on this particular day). It’s common for DHS to open the turnstiles and attractions prior to the official start of Early Theme Park Entry, so if you show up right when Early Entry starts…you’re late!

Since this is unadvertised, there are no guarantees and the timing can be off by a few minutes, but it’s common for the front gates to start admitting guests 30 minutes before Early Entry starts, and it’s best to be at the front of the pack for obvious reasons. On this day, the first guests were admitted right at 7:30 am. (This is consistent with my last 4 experiences with Early Entry at DHS–it’s started at 7:30 am, +/- 2 minutes.)

One of the unique wrinkles to Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is that there are no secondary holding points within the park. Once you’re in, you’re good to go to your first destination of the day. This is in contrast to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train “Shuffle” or the methodical slow-walk to Avatar Flight of Passage.

Depending upon your perspective and pace, this can be a good or a bad thing. It is undeniably more pleasant to have the space for a leisurely (speed) walk down Hollywood Boulevard and deeper into the park. The crowd is more spread out and the resulting breathing room is nice.

This space also allows guests move faster and jockey for position. If you are, to use one totally random example, a speedy adult male blogger with no one to slow you down, you’re going to make it to your first attraction faster than a family with toddlers or a larger multi-generation group. Unlike the other parks where Cast Members set the pace, there are much clearer winners and losers at Hollywood Studios.

In my experience, it’s common to see dads waiting outside Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance for the rest of the family to catch up. I’m not trying to generalize–that’s simply what I’ve observed with a degree of regularity. I’d hazard a guess that some families send a “runner” to secure a spot, only to abort that plan when they hear Cast Members warning at the attraction entrance that parties must be together before entering the queue.

The good news is that this doesn’t really matter most mornings. If you’re towards the front of the pack at the turnstiles, it ends up being mostly immaterial whether you’re fast or slow in getting to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. So long as the ride is up, it absorbs Early Entry crowds surprisingly well, and the natural spacing is better than a log-jam of people all arriving to the attraction entrance at the same time. (Seriously, that’s an awful approach and I’m surprised Seven Dwarfs Mine Train still does it that way a decade later.)

On this morning, I arrived to the entrance of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at 7:37 am. I had been about two dozen back at the turnstiles, so there were a decent number of people in front of me, but the queue was still mostly empty. After breezing through to one of the final rooms, the line came to a standstill for at least 10 minutes.

This was a new-to-me experience with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance during Early Entry. Usually, the ride is either up and the line never stops, or it’s down and the line doesn’t even open. Nothing would surprise me with Rise of the Resistance, but a ride breakdown within a few minutes of starting operations is relatively uncommon. (It’s possible that the ride itself had not actually started operating yet, and Cast Members had just started the pre-shows.)

In any case, things started moving after about 10 minutes and I was in the first pre-show at 7:58 am. Everything was smooth sailing after that. No stages of the attraction were bypassed or otherwise not working properly (being a bit purposefully vague, as I’m still trying to avoid spoilers to some extent).

For those who are curious, I did Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance four times over the course of three non-consecutive days, and different effects were working/broken each time. The only consistency is the cannons weren’t moving, but I haven’t seen this effect working on either coast since 2020. I assume the cannons have been permanently disabled.

I was off Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance by 8:17 am. That delay may not seem like much, but the goal for a great run is as close to the starting time of Early Entry as possible. (I’ve finished Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance before 8 am on some previous occasions.) That allows you to be in the ‘second wave’ of guests at Slinky Dog Dash, while still beating the “late” arrivals who show up for the official start of Early Entry.

Meanwhile, the wait time for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance had jumped significantly and was 130 minutes when I exited the attraction. To a degree, this is a normal occurrence around the official start of Early Entry. Most guests don’t realize that Early Entry starts early at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, or they underestimate how long Walt Disney World transportation will take.

Consequently, most on-site guests are arriving from 8 am to 9 am, and still heading directly to Galaxy’s Edge. Again, if you’re on time…you’re late! (My dad’s military cliches are forever etched into my memory despite most having zero applicability to my life. That one’s the biggest exception.)

On this morning, there was another contributing factor: Slinky Dog Dash was experiencing the dreaded delayed opening. Thinking I might take a calculated risk and join the line, I headed through Toy Story Land to assess the situation. The attraction was still down, no roller coaster trains were cycling, and the standby line stretched back past Walt Disney Presents.

This was a perfect storm of bad variables, and jumping into the standby line at this point would’ve been a terrible idea. Even if Slinky Dog Dash started operating immediately–and there was no guarantee of that–the line was long enough that it would be at least a 60 minute wait. If, for whatever reason, the ride was not ready to roll by official park opening time, that would only worsen as the backlog of Lightning Lane guests would be prioritized. In a nutshell, this would’ve been a terrible gamble to take, especially with other lines still being short.

My best option at this point would’ve been doubling back to Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run, as its posted wait time was 15 minutes and it probably was a walk-on in actuality. (The non-gambler move would’ve been that rather than venturing into Toy Story Land at all.)

Instead, I headed to Sunset Boulevard. Both the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster still had 10 minute posted wait times. When both are running, this is common–most on-site and off-site guests are prioritizing Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land, meaning that Sunset Boulevard is quiet.

Both attractions on Sunset Boulevard were still walk-ons. I was in line for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at 8:29 am and breezed through that from start to finish (pre-show wasn’t running) in 10 minutes. Following that, I was in line for Tower of Terror by 8:39 am and off that attraction (which was running its pre-show) by 8:55 am.

Three headliners with minimal waits to start the day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios might sound like a pretty good outcome for Early Entry and rope drop. To be sure, this is an above-average performance.

Nevertheless, I was hoping to knock out one or two more rides before wait times ballooned. I probably should have done Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run–and likely could have done Slinky Dog Dash on a good day. Others undoubtedly had worse luck, so no major complaints about “only” doing 3 rides during Early Entry.

This is where the wheels fell off on the morning.

After opening briefly, Slinky Dog Dash went down again, as did Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. With the park’s two biggest attractions unavailable, every other headliner had a posted wait time at or above 60 minutes by 9:05 am. Not only that, but the park felt busy–far worse than any park had the prior few days.

It’s worth mentioning that this was on a day when Disney’s Hollywood Studios was only a 6/10 on the crowd calendar. That number is based on crowd levels over the course of an entire day, not a snapshot at any single moment. By ~9 am standards, this was pretty bad–probably more like 8/10.

Recognizing that ride lines were only going to get worse with the park’s two headliners down, I decided to call an audible and head to meet & greets. This is a pretty tried and true strategy at DHS, but usually not quite this early.

My first stop was Walt Disney Presents, where the Ariel from the live-action Little Mermaid is meeting. I had attempted this meet & greet twice previously, but the line was way too long the first time (estimated as being 100 minutes) and cut early at my second attempt. Third time’s the charm, I figured. Narrator: he figured incorrectly.

While I was one of the first people to show up, there were Cast Members outside the meet & greet area in Walt Disney Presents indicating that Ariel was still getting voice lessons (or something like that). After inquiring further, they indicated that they expected Ariel to arrive around 9:30 am. (“Expected” and “around” are red flags in a situation like this.)

After purchasing and consuming a cookie, among other things, I returned at 9:25 am. At this point, many other guests were loitering around Walt Disney Presents. The new estimate for Ariel’s arrival was 10 am. I decided to bail at this point. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was down in addition to Slinky Dog Dash and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, so this growing crowd would only be worse by 10 am.

It also didn’t help that there was no organized line. Unlike the start of Early Entry, being a solo blogger would put me at a distinct disadvantage here–I’m not about to “cut” some kid trying to meet their favorite princess for the sake of content.

Ultimately, this might sound like a relatively productive Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on paper. To an extent, it was thanks to a mix of luck and good decisions. However, I hit a wall right at official park opening, at which point breakdowns coupled with the limited ride roster resulted in every headliner having a posted wait time of at least an hour.

That’s not what most people would expect right at park opening. It’s frustrating and discouraging to get up and out the door for rope drop, only to encounter peak wait times to start the day at DHS, with no great workarounds. Even buying Genie+ spur of the moment wouldn’t help much immediately, as those return times would already be pushed out.

The reality is that this happens at every park from time to time, but it seems to be most common at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It doesn’t help that DHS is the park with the worst fallback options. Everywhere else, there are enjoyable alternatives–but the top heavy ride roster and show-centric nature of Disney’s Hollywood Studios makes things tough when multiple attractions are down first thing. (The best options until the shows start are pretty much characters or eating!)

Things could’ve also gone worse for me during Early Entry. Starting at Slinky Dog Dash and enduring the delayed opening would’ve meant only accomplishing that–or perhaps nothing at all, depending upon how long it was up before going back down. For those arriving at or before 7:30 am, one ride in ~90 minutes would’ve been a really frustrating outcome. They could’ve achieved similar results just jumping into the standby line at some random time in the middle of the afternoon–no early alarm required!

The key takeaway here is that although Early Entry can be excellent at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, it can also be a feast or famine situation. We’ve offered effusive praised for this perk recently, so it’s only fair to point out the pitfalls. If multiple headliner rides have delayed openings or breakdowns, you may accomplish far less. (And that does happen from time to time!) Early Entry can be great, but the whole experience can also be a headache-inducing waste of an early morning wake-up call while on vacation at Walt Disney World when things go wrong. As with so much at Walt Disney World, luck is a big factor and your mileage may vary.

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

Thoughts on Early Theme Park Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Have you experienced ride breakdowns to the day at DHS? If so, which attractions and what was your experience with crowds and other wait times as a result? What’s your preferred approach to early entry? How would you have done things differently? Any other feedback on arriving early to the Walt Disney World theme parks? Agree or disagree with our advice or approach? 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!