Welcome to our Hollywood Studios One Day Itinerary, with all the strategies for planning your day at Hollywood Studios. In this post we’ll walk you through a full day at Hollywood Studios, from before you get into the park to the park’s featured nighttime entertainment. Along the way, we’ll include a sample day, but we’ll also be providing plenty of guidance in case you want to build your day differently. On with the show!

Introduction

Disney park touring has gotten complicated. At a given park you might have Early Entry or you might not. You might buy Lightning Lane Multi Pass or you might not. You might pay for a Lightning Lane Single Pass or you might not. That’s all before we even get to things like how early you can arrive, whether your party is concerned with height requirements, or whether you want to do zero, one, two, or three table service meals.

While not everyone will be able to work toward the same itinerary, each of the four parks still has distinctive aspects that will impact how you plan your day. Our goal in this post is to provide you of an outline of how to divide your time at Hollywood Studios between the core offerings—attractions, entertainment, meals, and characters. We’re primarily focused on nine rides, four featured stage shows, and nighttime entertainment in this post.

We’ll move chronologically through the day, recommending different activities for different parts of the day. Throughout we will also link to other relevant posts that address specific situations or times in more detail. If you don’t understand something (“Huh? What’s the difference between Lightning Lanes and Multi Pass?”), it’s probably discussed in a linked post.

Throughout this post we assume park hours of 9AM to 9PM with Early Entry at 8:30AM. You should confirm specific park hours (and hours for things like Early Entry, Fantasmic, entertainment, etc.) for your visit online or in the My Disney Experience app. Read more about Hollywood Studios hours and extra hours access here.

Finally, yes, this post is pretty general…but you know I can’t avoid providing some specifics. The example day we give isn’t a specific day we spent in the park, but it is compiled from days with roughly average crowds (and, in any case, just an example).

The core of the example day is that it includes Early Entry, Lightning Lane Multi Pass, but not Lightning Lane Single Pass for Rise of the Resistance. We basically always recommend Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Hollywood Studios, so this post is in keeping with that advice.

But even if you have a different setup, the 3000 words in this post that aren’t specific times from the example day will be useful to everyone. At the end of the post, I include my complete sample itinerary along with some closing commentary about major ways your day might vary.

Before You Get To Hollywood Studios

Guests planning to use Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Single Pass as part of their Hollywood Studios visit will purchase and book those between 3 and 21 days in advance of their visit, depending on the details of their stay (7 days in advance of stay, up to 14 days of stay if you’re a Disney resort guest, 3 days in advance of park visit for all other guests).

We recommend buying Multi Pass, and our recommended initial Lightning Lane lineup is Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania, and Tower of Terror (with some caveats). We generally don’t recommend the Rise of the Resistance Single Pass, but it will make for an easier day.

On my example day, my initial Lightning Lane lineup was:

9:05AM - 10:05AM Toy Story Mania
10:05AM - 11:05AM Tower of Terror
11:15AM - 12:15PM Slinky Dog Dash

I took whatever Slinky Dog time I could get, but was particularly happy to get early times for Toy Story Mania and Tower of Terror. As discussed more in the above-linked Lightning Lane strategy post, an early return time for at least one ride is a necessity at Hollywood Studios.

With three initial Lightning Lanes booked plus one ride I’ll have a short (hopefully) wait for at rope drop, that’s already four of nine rides planned for. That leaves basically the full day to find time or Lightning Lane availability for five rides—not too challenging a task. The real challenges are (1) minimizing wait times and (2) fitting the rides around the entertainment you want to watch.

In the example itinerary, I note when I used Lightning Lanes, but I don’t note specifically which were booked in which order. This is mostly because I spent a lot of time modifying / shuffling the bookings. Lightning Lane priorities are a matter of a different post.

Early Entry, Park Open, and Rope Drop

The early hours of the day are about one thing—rides. Your goal for this part of the day is to get on as many rides with short waits as possible, before crowds settle in, Lightning Lane times get pushed late, and waits plateau.

Guests with Early Entry (those who are guests of Disney resorts and select partner resorts) have access to Early Entry and should take advantage of it. Unfortunately, “take advantage of it” means “wake up even earlier” because the advantage disappears if you don’t arrive early enough.

As discussed in our Hollywood Studios Early Entry and Rope Drop Strategy post, your arrival time will be dictated by your rope drop strategy, which is part dictated by your Lightning Lane strategy. Generally, I try to arrive 45-60 minutes before the start of Early Entry, which allows me to rope drop basically anything. (One of your family members—usually a teenager—will object that waiting 45 minutes before the park opens is the same as waiting 45 minutes in the middle of the day. But you’re not missing out on anything else in the park during the 45 minutes you wait before it’s open—it’s just bonus time.)

If you’re not aiming for Rise of the Resistance or Slinky Dog Dash first, arriving 30 minutes before the start of Early Entry is usually enough. Without a Lightning Lane Single Pass in the example day, I started with Rise of the Resistance.

Guests with Early Entry should be able to finish at least one ride during Early Entry, being in line for a second (or, on good days, third) by the time the park opens to other guests. If you start with Rise of the Resistance, you might not be done with that ride by the end of Early Entry, but that’s workable, too.

The crowd 30 minutes before the start of Early Entry one day

Guests without Early Entry can arrive 30 minutes before the park opens (as a general rule this is the latest we’ll ever recommend arriving to a theme park). Because Early Entry crowds will already be filling the queues, you don’t gain a huge advantage from arriving earlier.

Guests without Early Entry following our recommendation will start with one of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, or Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, but there is (even more) flexibility here. If the waits for Slinky Dog Dash or Rise of the Resistance look good to you and those rides are really important to you, checking off one of those boxes early is a fine way to start the day. Know, though, that you might be sacrificing some of your ride count because you’re spending so much time on a single ride while other waits in the park might be lower.

A non-Early Entry crowd waiting for the park to open

As crowds tick up, Star Tours and Alien Swirling Saucers will be the last rides to see high waits, with Toy Story Mania possibly still low by mid-morning on a slow day. If you can squeeze one of these into your morning, great. If not, they’ll still be the shortest waits throughout the day.

By around 10:00AM (an hour into the regular park hours), you’ve hopefully finished 3-4 rides (if you had Early Entry) or 2-3 rides if you didn’t have Early Entry. This leaves you between 4 and 6 rides to fit into the next 11 hours.

If you’re behind this pace, don’t worry. You’ve still got a long day ahead. If you only managed 1 ride in the first hour, you should take a look at wait times and ask whether you should buy Multi Pass or the Single Pass Lightning Lane, if you haven’t already. If you already have one or both of those things, you’ll probably be fine regardless of how your first hour went.

In my example morning, I accomplished:

7:25AM - Bus drop off at Hollywood Studios
8:30AM - Start of Early Entry
8:42AM - Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (standby, no wait)
8:52AM - Alien Swirling Saucers (standby, no wait)
9:05AM - Toy Story Mania (Lightning Lane)
9:35AM - Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (18 standby vs. 20 posted)

This is a pretty straightforward Rise of the Resistance rope drop with Multi Pass setup and just about what I’d typically aim for. You should notice, specifically, that I confined myself to a relatively small area of the park (four rides in two neighboring lands).

If you rope dropped, for example, Tower of Terror, you’d probably be looking to ride Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway early. It’s always worth remembering the time cost of walking back and forth. A 30-minute wait for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster when you’re standing in front of it is as good as a 15-minute wait any other time of day once you factor in the time it’ll take you to get there and to your next destination.

Late Morning at Hollywood Studios

There’s no need to slow down now, if you want to pop in line for another ride (up to an hour wait or so), feel free.

If you have Multi Pass, you might have lucked into early initial times or even be able to be booking new, quick times, but at some point you’ll probably be looking at return times about 1-3 hours out. At that point your day becomes a balance of booking your three Lightning Lane return times and then filling the gaps between those times.

In any case, this is usually when we slow down and start to evaluate the rest of our day, starting with entertainment…

But first…coffee!

Okay, no. Typically I start with coffee. The Hollywood Studios Starbucks is Trolley Car Café, located at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard (the “street” you entered on) and Sunset Boulevard (the “street” with Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster).

There are Joffrey’s stands at the exit to Tower of Terror and between the hub and Toy Story Land. You should also check the mobile order menus for cold brew (Woody’s Lunch Box used to have it, but doesn’t as I write this) to avoid waiting in any lines.

If you’re looking for a morning snack, we recommend Woody’s Lunch Box (Toy Story Land) or Ronto Roasters (in Galaxy’s Edge and my personal morning favorite). We don’t recommend breakfast—or any meals, actually—at table service restaurants in Hollywood Studios. This is not a knock at the options, we simply like the quick service options and find they fit into our day better.

Planning Entertainment at Hollywood Studios

Now, planning entertainment. What I literally do is take out my phone, open the My Disney Experience app, open the Notes app, and start trying to pick when I’m going to go to different shows. This is maybe something the in-app Disney Genie service (distinct from the retired Genie+ service) could help with, but I prefer Notes.

The first showing of Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage is typically at 11AM, with the Frozen Sing-Along typically beginning at 9:30AM. With several showings throughout the day, you’ll probably be better served using Frozen to escape the heat in the afternoon.

Beauty and the Beast typically has about five showings, but I’m fine visiting the 11AM one because with lunch and an afternoon wait for a ride, it’s just too easy to suddenly run out of showtimes. This has long been my morning goal, though I didn’t make it on the specific visit detailed in this post.

An alternative option for Beauty and the Beast is to visit it around the time of Lightning Lane bookings at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and/or Tower of Terror. If you can do all three of these back-to-back-to-back, you’ll save yourself a lot of steps.

The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular typically has five showtimes throughout the day. I usually wind up squeezing in a later show, but a family that prefers thrills might prioritize this over Beauty and the Beast in the morning, risking missing a late Beauty and the Beast show.

Finally, Disney Junior Play and Dance has several showtimes starting around about 10AM. Since we have a toddler now, we go to Disney Junior Play and Dance. As for Indiana Jones, we usually don’t bring the toddler to that, both because of time constraints and the large focus on noises, violence, and explosions.

You’ve also got Muppet*Vision 3D, Mickey Shorts Theater, and One Man’s Dream running continuously throughout the day. All three of these are good options for escaping the heat or getting off your feet for a bit.

If you can make a major showtime before lunch (Beauty and the Beast or Indiana Jones preferred, with Frozen Sing-Along okay, too), do that. If you can’t quite get that schedule, at least start checking off some of these boxes before lunch so you have less to worry about in the afternoon.

Filling the time before lunch, my example day continues:

10:18AM - Tower of Terror (Lightning Lane)
10:30AM - Frozen Sing-Along
11:16AM - Slinky Dog Dash (Lightning Lane)

Notice the short time between Tower of Terror and the Frozen Sing-Along. If I hadn’t made that window, maybe I would have instead gone to the Mickey Shorts Theater (right next to Frozen Sing-Along) or to the Olaf character greetings. But walking into a show just a few minutes before it starts is ideal because you aren’t wasting time sitting around.

With Multi Pass, that brings us to six rides and one show before lunch. Without Multi Pass, I’d be happy with even just four rides by this point.

Lunch at Hollywood Studios

Our favorite spot for lunch is the quick service restaurant, Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo. If you can plan to be in Galaxy’s Edge around this time (probably as part of riding Smugglers Run or Rise of the Resistance), you’ll be conveniently placed for Docking Bay 7. Recently, I’ve also taken to the quicker Ronto Roasters, just outside Docking Bay 7.

Make sure to mobile order. We usually place our order well before our planned meal time. You can select whatever timeslot you want, and you can modify that time if you need to (of course, subject to whatever times are available). When you arrive at the restaurant, tap “I’m here” in the mobile order. On busier days it might take 10…15…20 minutes for your food to be prepared…so…

We’re in the minority who like the PizzeRizzo (and Catalina Eddie’s) pizza (no, I’m not interested in your take because your refined palate prefers ‘doh-MEE-nos’—as a born and raised Chicagoan and now New Yorker, I reserve the right to like whatever pizza I please), and we’ll typically sit in the “event room” upstairs if eating there. We (ironically) avoid Woody’s Lunch Box for lunch, as it has inadequate and only-outdoor seating.

My lunch this example day:

11:20AM - Lunch at Ronto Roasters

Afternoon at Hollywood Studios

Early afternoon is the start of decision time—you don’t need to give up on anything yet, but you need to start prioritizing. You need to note if anything is closing early (check the app). Things like the Mickey Shorts Theater and One Man’s Dream will typically close earlier than the rest of the park.

You’re going to be running low on showtimes for the major shows, so prioritize any of those if they’re important to you. At the top of my mind are going to be the last showtimes for Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones. If possible, I want to avoid trying to force the last showtimes to work.

If you don’t have Multi Pass, or if you don’t have a Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance, you also need to take a look at the wait times and start budgeting time to wait for those. We’ll often tackle a major ride right after lunch. This is a bit counterintuitive since waits tend to be relatively high at that time, but it’s also the safest decision if you have several major rides left.

If you haven’t ridden either of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run or Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster yet, open your mind to single rider. Your party will get split up, but you’ll at least get on the rides. If they have shorter waits later in the day, you might even get back on them together, if you feel they’re worth it after your first ride.

With Frozen Sing Along done earlier (10:30 this day), I did two more shows—Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular and Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage, with some rides in between.

12:17PM - Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway (Lightning Lane)
12:21PM - Star Tours (Lightning Lane)
1:00PM - Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
1:41PM - Mickey & Minnie Vacation Fun (Mickey Shorts Theater)
2:00PM - Muppet Vision 3D
2:37PM - Rock 'n' Roller Coaster (Lightning Lane)
3:15PM - Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (used Lightning Lane at 2:54PM, but not necessary)

I’ll let you in on a secret here—I really tried to modify that Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster to a sooner time. I wanted to get it closer to my morning Tower of Terror time so I could also catch the 11AM Beauty and the Beast showtime. Had I managed to modify Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster to a sooner time, I’d have perfectly played the geography of the park—tackling this isolated section of the park in one swoop. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be and I had to make two trips down Sunset Boulevard.

Evening At Hollywood Studios

If you’re planning to see Fantasmic, your evening needs to be carefully built around that show. There are sometimes two showtimes. The earlier showtime typically has the advantage of lower crowds, but you often won’t be able to do any rides after it, effectively shortening your day.

The later showtime will have higher crowds, which means you’ll want to be in line at least 30 minutes early. But this might still allow you more time overall in the park.

If you’re skipping Fantasmic, the last part of your day is about filling the time before the 9PM showing of Wonderful World of Animation, the nighttime show in the hub of the park (nb: Nighttime entertainment can vary, check the app for today’s schedule). You’re done or nearly done with the shows, except maybe one or two of the smaller shows, and it’s time to get back to focusing solely on rides (if you have any of those left).

If you plan on missing that show, you can get in line for any of the major attractions up until the park closes. Doing this, you assume the risk that the ride will break down and not be running at close. This isn’t a common occurrence, even for Rise of the Resistance, but it is a risk we have to acknowledge.

For a 9PM park close, if you don’t have Multi Pass, have dinner at 5PM or a quick dinner at 8:15PM. You want to give yourself as big a contiguous block of time to be working with. If you plan dinner at 7PM, you’ll wind up doing one thing between 5PM and 6:30PM (when you head to dinner) and then you’ll be done at 8:15PM with not much time before the 9PM show.

If you’re willing to eat a late dinner back at your hotel, planning for the 8:15PM dinner and then cutting that plan if you need the time for a ride or two is also a good way to go (frankly you could also just plan to grab your dinner right at 8:45PM and eat it while watching the show in the hub).

With Multi Pass you’re probably done or nearly done with rides, and you’ll want to be planning your dinner around your return times in any case.

As for ride strategy, you need to start tackling any major rides you haven’t done yet—Rise of the Resistance and Slinky Dog Dash being the priorities. All waits will drop as the evening wears on, but these will be highest and drop the least. Don’t delay these hoping for “short” waits later, it might just not happen.

What you want when 8PM rolls around is (at worst) to have a few 15-minute waits left. Star Tours, Alien Swirling Saucers, and Toy Story Mania are the best to save for late. You don’t want to get to 8PM and just have one ride left with a posted 75 minute wait so you’ve just boxed yourself out of the 9PM show.

When waits are low, you can accomplish a ton at the end of the day. On Disney World’s 50th birthday I wound up doing almost all the rides in the last two hours of the day.

If you had Multi Pass, as I did on my example day for this post, you’ve probably ridden everything already. In that case, you’ll have some extra time to fill, which I filled with Oga’s Cantina on this particular day.

It’s worth pointing out that it’s things like this that are the real power of Multi Pass at Hollywood Studios. I don’t think you need Multi Pass here to have a great day—finding any way to get on the rides will make for a great day.

But this is a full day park with lots of cool offerings, among them the relatively pricey extras like Oga’s Cantina or Savi’s Workshop. The free time you get by purchasing Multi Pass can be well spent at Hollywood Studios. (Yes, sometimes purchasing Multi Pass means more time to spend even more money, that’s part of Disney’s goal, but whether these other things are worth their cost is a separate matter.)

During the holidays at Hollywood Studios, the Tower of Terror projection show, Sunset Seasons Greetings, is absolutely unmissable, in our opinion.

The 9PM Wonderful World of Animation (again, specific shows and times vary) is viewable from basically anywhere in the center of the park. Unlike Luminous at Epcot or Happily Ever After at Magic Kingdom, you don’t need to really jockey for positioning early for this show, and it’s common to see large groups sitting on the ground during the show.

Position yourself near the back of the hub for a quick exit once the show ends.

Here’s how my example evening turned out:

4:15 Walt Disney Presents... / One Man's Dream
5:15 Dinner at Rosie’s / Catalina Eddie’s
6:30 (Reservation) Oga’s Cantina
8:20 Queue for Fantasmic
9PM Fantasmic

My Final Itinerary

7:25AM - Bus drop off at Hollywood Studios
8:30AM - Start of Early Entry
8:42AM - Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (standby, no wait)
8:52AM - Alien Swirling Saucers (standby, no wait)
9:05AM - Toy Story Mania (Lightning Lane)
9:35AM - Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (18 standby vs. 20 posted)
10:18AM - Tower of Terror (Lightning Lane)
10:30AM - Frozen Sing-Along
11:16AM - Slinky Dog Dash (Lightning Lane)
11:20AM - Lunch at Ronto Roasters
12:17PM - Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway (Lightning Lane)
12:21PM - Star Tours (Lightning Lane)
1:00PM - Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
1:41PM - Mickey & Minnie Vacation Fun (Mickey Shorts Theater)
2:00PM - Muppet Vision 3D
2:37PM - Rock 'n' Roller Coaster (Lightning Lane)
3:15PM - Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (used Lightning Lane at 2:54PM, but not necessary)
4:15PM Walt Disney Presents... / One Man's Dream
5:15PM Dinner at Rosie’s / Catalina Eddie’s
6:30PM (Reservation) Oga’s Cantina
8:20PM Queue for Fantasmic
9PM Fantasmic

Conclusions

Hollywood Studios is either the toughest or second toughest park to tour at Walt Disney World, depending on your attitude toward Magic Kingdom. With a powerhouse ride lineup and strong entertainment, there’s definitely enough to put together a great full day at the park.

The challenge is getting the most out of the park, and if you’re without Early Entry, Multi Pass, or Single Pass, you might wind up spending a lot of time in lines and not a lot taking in the entertainment or other offerings of the park.

All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered

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Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.

When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!

Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.

Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.

Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.

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