In this post we discuss rope drop strategy and Early Entry strategy at Hollywood Studios. We cover everything you need to know to start your day right at Hollywood Studios, including where to start at Hollywood Studios with and without Lightning Lane Multi Pass, planning to get on Rise of the Resistance, and how to make the most of the Early Entry perk if you have it.

Basics of Rope Drop at Hollywood Studios

Let’s start with some basic information before diving into the more complex aspects of strategy.

What Is “Rope Drop”?

If a theme park opens at, say, 9AM, it’s rare that they actually just keep everyone outside at 9AM and then open the gates and all the rides right at 9AM. Instead, they have various procedures in place to try and avoid chaos. “Rope drop” refers to this process—the actual opening time and steps involved if you arrive early enough at the park. Depending on the precise protocols at a park on a day, Cast Members may actually have a rope up separating people from the park which is dropped when the park opens.

On our site, we typically use the term “rope drop” to more or less mean “the hustle that starts when you wake up and until you take your first breath after riding a few rides.” The idea is that you want to be one of the first people at the park to be one of the first people on the most important ride and off that ride quickly to have a short wait for a second ride and a third and so on, until there are no short waits left for good rides and it’s time to take a breath.

Rope drop strategy, then, is the plan you put together to get you through that hustle with the lowest waits on the best rides possible. This starts with waking up and includes anything preparation you have to do on your My Disney Experience app for your visit, how you should get to the park, when you should arrive at the park, where to go when you arrive, and what rides to attempt in which order.

Remember, rope drop strategy is only one part of your overall park strategy. Rope drop only covers the start of the day, and the rest of the day, including the major entertainment you’ll want to watch, is the subject of our Hollywood Studios One Day Itinerary post. If you pay for Lightning Lanes, you’ll need a good Hollywood Studios Lightning Lanes strategy (these offerings inevitably come up in this post, too).

Then there is access to extra park hours. This post includes discussion of Early Theme Park Entry. If you have access to Extended Evening Hours and Hollywood Studios has those hours, for example, that will be a part of your park strategy. Or maybe Hollywood Studios After Hours is an option and you feel that’s a better way for you to get on these rides.

What time does Hollywood Studios open?

Hollywood Studios opening times vary on a day-to-day basis, with openings between 8AM and 9AM being most common. You should check the Disney World website or My Disney Experience app for the scheduled opening times for your visit. Read more about Hollywood Studios hours and extra hours access here.

Guests with Early Entry will have access 30 minutes before the scheduled open, but keep reading for the important details…

What Is Early Entry at Hollywood Studios?

Guests of Disney hotels and select partner hotels have access to each of the four Disney theme parks—including Hollywood Studios—every day, 30 minutes before the scheduled opening.

Who gets Early Entry at Hollywood Studios?

Early Entry is available to guests of Disney hotels and select partner hotels. The full list is here. Guests should have access including the day they check-in and the day they check-out, and I’ve used Early Entry on both check-in and check-out days. I have heard from people that checking into the hotel online before you arrive helps make sure you are allowed in the day you check in.

I recommend having your reservation pulled up in the My Disney Experience app as you enter the park. My MagicBand often has problems during Early Entry. I’ve been told that showing the reservation in my app should always get me access to Early Entry, and so far that’s been my experience.

What Time is rope drop at Hollywood Studios?

The parking lot for Hollywood Studios usually opens an hour before the start of Early Entry. The first Disney buses of the morning are often set to arrive at this time, but your experience at specific resorts may vary. The exact opening time of the park entrance will vary, but it will typically be 15 to 30 minutes before guests are allowed onto any rides.

Once inside the park, guests can head toward the different rides and queues will form outside their entrances. The ride buildings may open a few minutes before Early Entry so that the first guests will be boarding right around the start of Early Entry.

Guests without Early Entry are allowed into the park at its scheduled opening time. (Note: As always, the specific procedures in use may change or vary. Here’s an example of Hollywood Studios allowing guests without Early Entry into the park but not allowing them to queue for rides. These specific variances don’t significantly impact the strategies in this post.)

What Is The Best Way To Get To Hollywood Studios?

If you can walk to Hollywood Studios from a nearby hotel (Yacht Club, Beach Club, BoardWalk Inn, Swan & Dolphin), that’s the best option. You’re likely to be let in as soon as you can see any other guests, including those arriving by car, getting in.

The parking lot will open more or less when the first guests are start to allowed through security and first buses drop guests off, so drivers lose a little bit of ground, but they at least aren’t back at their hotel waiting for the bus.

Buses sound like a good option, and for rope drop they usually are, with one caveat. If you can get on the first bus, you’re probably golden, but if you don’t, then the second bus might not get you to the park early enough to beat the rush. The problem is the first bus can be quite early—we’re talking 7:15AM pickup for an 8:30AM Early Entry start. We almost always catch this first bus, but it comes at the cost of sleep (well, we have a toddler, so we’re usually up at 6:30AM anyway).

Uber/Lyft are problematic if you’re arriving early because you don’t know when the parking lot will open, and your Uber driver might be stuck waiting in a line or, worse, driving aimlessly.

Skyliner hours are also finicky, and if you’re coming from anywhere but Caribbean Beach you run the risk of a situation where you get to Caribbean Beach (the Skyliner hub) and the line to Hollywood Studios isn’t running yet or you’re stuck in line behind a ton of people at that resort.

Similar to buses, if you arrive at the Skyliner really early, say, 30 minutes before its posted starting time, you’ll probably wind up in a pretty good position for rope drop, at the cost of sleep.

If all that has you a bit panicky, then now is a good time to make sure you’re happy with your Lightning Lane plans. If you gave me Lightning Lane Multi Pass and put me at the park gates right when it opened, I’d be completely confident that I’d get on all the rides about about 355 days of the year (I’m figuring my confidence would be about 90% some days around Christmas and Spring Break). I prefer to be among the first people in the park, and it makes for easier planning, but I don’t worry when I’m not. This is fine, as long as you’re prepared:

What time should I get to Hollywood Studios?

We recommend arriving 45 to 60 minutes before the start of Early Entry if you have Early Entry and are planning to rope drop either Slinky Dog Dash or Rise of the Resistance (the two main scenarios we discuss below). If you’re rope dropping anything else, arrive 30 minutes before the start of early entry.

If you don’t have Early Entry, you can arrive 30 minutes before the park opens because most of the crowds ahead of you are going to be Early Entry guests anyways.

Breaking Down Hollywood Studios Rope Drop

You might have Early Entry or you might not. You might buy Multi Pass or you might not. You might buy Lightning Lane access for Rise of the Resistance or you might not. (As an aside, the entire Multi Pass portfolio at Hollywood Studios is more valuable than the single Rise of the Resistance Lightning Lane, so with a full day in the park it usually won’t make sense to buy just the Rise Lightning Lane. Either you’d buy just Multi Pass or you’d buy both Multi Pass and the Rise of the Resistance Single Pass.)

That’s a lot of scenarios, and that’s not even factoring in variances in crowd levels or when you arrive. We’re not going to address every combination individually. Instead, we’re going to discuss the different options for rope drop and which scenarios they best apply to. First, we have to discuss some pre-rope drop things you might have to take care of.

But Before Your Park Day Gets Here…

Some days in advance of your visit, you’ll have a chance to purchase and book Lightning Lanes at Hollywood Studios. For more detailed information, timeline, and strategy, check out that linked post. It’s important to understand your rope drop strategy and Lightning Lane strategy work together to get you through the major rides. Here’s a quick summary.

We always recommend Multi Pass at Hollywood Studios. You can have a great day at the park, including probably getting on every ride, without it, but you’ll spend a lot of time in lines and you probably won’t make it to every show.

Our recommended Multi Pass lineup is Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania, and Tower of Terror, but that recommendation comes with some caveats about which times you can get. We usually recommend buying Multi Pass but not the Rise of the Resistance Single Pass. You’ll need to dive more into that Lightning Lane strategy post for details on all these recommendations.

The bottom line for this post is that your Lightning Lane and rope drop strategies must work together.

With that Lightning Lane business mostly out of the way, let’s move onto actual park strategy. We’re going to cover four rope drop strategies at Hollywood Studios:

Rise of the Resistance Rope Drop (Early Entry Only)
Slinky Dog Dash Rope Drop (Early Entry Only)
Other Early Entry Rope Drops (Early Entry Only)
Rope Drop Without Early Entry

As you can see, the first three of these only apply to guests who have Early Entry. If you don’t have Early Entry you of course can start with these rides, but there’s not much strategy involved because they will already have long lines, you’re just going to stand in them.

Now, let’s talk specifics.

Hollywood Studios Early Entry Rope Drops

First, we start with the major issues in picking what rides to rope drop at Hollywood Studios. After that, we move onto the more specific information about the individual options.

This is, unfortunately, one of the more complicated issues at Walt Disney World. If you have Early Entry and don’t want to read the rest of this post, I’m happy to tell you the simplest approach to Hollywood Studios rope drop right here:

Buy Multi Pass and book Slinky Dog Dash, Tower of Terror, and Toy Story Mania
Buy the Single Pass Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance
Arrive 30 minutes before Early Entry and rope drop Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway

Why not end the post there? Well, this simple approach requires you to spend money on both Multi Pass and Rise of the Resistance. It also requires you to get good return times for Slinky Dog Dash, Tower of Terror, and Toy Story Mania (or else you shouldn’t book them). And there are trade-offs, as there always are. So, if you’d like more context around this topic…keep reading.

What Rides to Rope Drop at Hollywood Studios (Early Entry)

If you have Early Entry, there are basically three rope drops to consider—Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog Dash, and something else (we’ll discuss all the options later).

We’ll start with what to do if you don’t buy Multi Pass. Then we talk about what to do if you do buy Multi Pass, which comes with a variety of sub-scenarios.

If you have Early Entry and you don’t buy Multi Pass, you should start with Slinky Dog Dash. Without Multi Pass, this is the only way to get a short wait on this ride. While Rise of the Resistance is occasionally more popular than Slinky Dog Dash, Slinky Dog Dash is usually the most popular ride in the park. It also has two advantages over Rise of the Resistance when it comes to rope drop.

First, Slinky Dog Dash is more centrally located. You could finish Slinky Dog Dash and be in a decent spot to get to most any other ride in the park for your second ride, with Alien Swirling Saucers and Toy Story Mania in the same land. Even Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run isn’t much farther from Slinky Dog Dash than from Rise of the Resistance.

Second, Rise of the Resistance has reliability issues at park opening time. The ride experiences delayed openings with relative frequency (play around at Thrill Data to see specifics). If this happens when you try to rope drop Rise of the Resistance, you’ll usually wind up riding Smugglers Run as your first ride. This is fine, but not great.

If you have Early Entry and you buy Multi Pass, your options open up a lot. In this case, the first option to consider is to rope drop Rise of the Resistance, but there are two reasons you might not do that…

The first reason you might not start with Rise of the Resistance is that you bought the Lightning Lane Single Pass. This is the simplest way to resolve this question, but it comes at a monetary cost. Remember, you should only be reading this section if you’re planning to buy Multi Pass—adding the Single Pass Lightning Lane on top of that can make for a pricey day.

The second reason you might not start with Rise of the Resistance is that, as noted above, Rise of the Resistance experiences delayed openings more than most other rides at Walt Disney World. There’s a tradeoff here—start with Rise and your risk it delays opening, botching your rope drop; don’t start with Rise, and you’ll have to fit it in later in the day. Standby waits for Rise can spend significant chunks of the day over 2 hours.

I’m honestly really torn on this. Personally, I prefer to start with Rise, and that’s my go-to most days I visit. If it’s delayed, I go straight to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and then Toy Story Land for Alien Swirling Saucers and/or Toy Story Mania. These aren’t ideal rides for rope drop, but as a backup plan they aren’t bad.

If I start with Rise of the Resistance, I make Slinky Dog Dash my initial Tier 1 Multi Pass pick. Slinky Dog Dash is the most popular ride on Multi Pass, and in any case if you aren’t rope dropping it then it should be your initial Tier 1 Multi Pass pick.

Now, if you’ve read the above and decided either (1) to buy the Single Pass Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance or (2) that you’re too worried about a delayed opening and prefer to just fit it into your day later, then you’ve got another choice to make—what to rope drop and what to pick with your initial Tier 1 Multi Pass pick.

If you have Early Entry and Multi Pass and are not starting your day at Rise of the Resistance, there are five decent options for rope drop:

Slinky Dog Dash
Tower of Terror
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

As long as you know the appropriate Multi Pass strategy, you could conceivably start with any of these.

The obvious approach is to pick Slinky Dog Dash with Multi Pass—it’s super popular and will remove some stress from your morning (since other rope drops are less stressful). In this case you’d pick some other rope drop, and we discuss which to pick below in “Other Hollywood Studios Rope Drops”.

But Slinky Dog Dash is the most popular Multi Pass selection, which means that you might have limited availability by the time you get around to booking it (some guests can book 21 days in advance of their park visit, some can only book 3 days in advance) doesn’t guarantee an early return time. A later return time is bad because you’ll be waiting longer to use that Lightning Lane and free up a slot for a new pick.

This means you might prefer not to use your initial Tier 1 Multi Pass selection on Slinky Dog Dash, and you’d rather rope drop Slinky Dog Dash. Rope dropping Slinky Dog Dash allows you to use your initial Tier 1 Multi Pass pick somewhere else. That somewhere else (say, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster) won’t run out as quickly, and you’ll be using your first Lightning Lane and making yours second pick early.

The downside of rope dropping Slinky Dog Dash is you’ll want to arrive around 45-60 minutes before Early Entry starts, which makes for an early morning. There’s no right answer here, it’ll come down to personal preference and the specifics of Lightning Lane availability and your trip (e.g. does an 8PM Slinky Dog Dash time even fit into your schedule at all?).

Now let’s talk about specific rope drops, including how to choose between everything that isn’t Slinky Dog Dash and Rise of the Resistance.

Hollywood Studios Rise of the Resistance Rope Drop (Early Entry)

Note: As discussed above, because of the risk that Rise of the Resistance won’t open on time at the start of Early Entry, you might opt to avoid this rope drop. There are no official numbers on how frequently opening is delayed, but I’d estimate it at about twice a week (see Thrill Data posted wait times). I’ll usually still rope drop it, but if you’re on the fence and considering buying the Lightning Lane, you might let these be the thing that tips you.

Again, this rope drop is only possible if you have Early Entry. Guests of Disney resorts (and select partner resorts) get access to the park 30 minutes before other guests. Since they will create a long line at Rise of the Resistance, guests entering the park at the standard opening time don’t have to strategize around starting with Rise, you just go get in line if that wait appeals to you.

If you decide not to rope drop Rise of the Resistance, you can make a Lightning Lane Single Pass purchase for it, or you can wait in its standby line. Rise still has some reliability issues, so we generally don’t recommend saving it for the very end of the day unless you can visit another time during your trip if it breaks down.

Rise of the Resistance is one of the most popular rides in Walt Disney World, so to ensure a smooth rope drop, arrive an hour before Early Entry (this is around when the parking lots open, and about when the first resort bus should get you to the park).

Once you’re inside the park, you’ll be heading left at the Chinese Theater, past ABC Commissary and Star Tours. Depending on the precise protocols, guests are typically queued either at the ride itself or near the entrance to Galaxy’s Edge next to the Muppet Courtyard.

Historically, you could not get into the Rise of the Resistance queue at rope drop by going through Toy Story Land. I haven’t tried this or checked it in a while, but it’s a longer route and, as noted above, they sometimes direct the queue to a holding area outside Muppets. Just use the Muppet-side entrance.

A good Rise of the Resistance rope drop experience will have guests loading into the queue 15 minutes before Early Entry officially starts, with the first guests exiting the ride 15 minutes before the park opens to other guests. Realistically, you should expect this rope drop to take all of your Early Entry time.

My most recent experience:

7:16AM Board bus at All Star Sports
7:32AM At Park Gate (among first people)
8:01AM Guests let into park
8:06AM In queue for Rise of the Resistance
8:30AM Start of Early Entry
8:42AM Boarded Rise of the Resistance
8:52AM Boarded Alien Swirling Saucers
9AM Park Opens

The section below, “Finishing Up Your Early Entry at Hollywood Studios” discusses where to head next and contains a sample schedule of a morning starting with Rise of the Resistance.

If Rise of the Resistance experiences a delayed opening, we recommend going straight to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. From there, you might also be able to get on Alien Swirling Saucers or Toy Story Mania with a short wait.

Hollywood Studios Slinky Dog Dash Rope Drop

As with Rise of the Resistance, the Slinky Dog Dash rope drop only works if you have Early Entry. Feel free to start there if you don’t have Early Entry, you just won’t need to be strategizing arrival times and your subsequent rides as much.

Slinky Dog Dash is a part of Multi Pass at Hollywood Studios—and the most popular ride in Multi Pass—so if you’re planning to use Multi Pass for it you’ll want to grab it immediately when you’re able to make your advance bookings.

You don’t want to sleep in if you’re rope dropping Slinky Dog Dash. While you don’t need to be among the very first people in the park, I’d definitely want to be at the gates 45 minutes before Early Entry and no later than 30 minutes before Early Entry (30 minutes early being basically the latest we’ll ever recommend arriving for a rope drop).

To get to Slinky Dog Dash, you’ll head right from the Chinese Theater, down the steps, and toward “One Man’s Dream.” A line of Toy Story Land Cast Members is typically there. Heading to Slinky Dog Dash, you’ll want to be on the right side of this group. Unlike Rise of the Resistance, you should expect to begin walking to Slinky Dog Dash right at the start of Early Entry.

A good Slinky Dog Dash rope drop experience will have the first guests off around 15 minutes before the park opens to other guests. A sample morning starting with Slinky Dog Dash can be found at the end of the next section.

Other Hollywood Studios Rope Drops

If you decide to grab Slinky Dog Dash on Multi Pass and to rope drop something else for an easier morning, you’ve got four decent options: Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

Choosing between these four basically comes down to (1) what Lightning Lanes you have booked and (2) what time those Lightning Lanes are for. Because of their location, it basically only makes sense to rope drop Tower of Terror or Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster if you can plan to do them back-to-back.

If you don’t have a Lightning Lane booked for either, this makes a ton of sense. We prefer to start with Tower of Terror and then go to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.

But it can also make sense if you have a 9AM Lightning Lane time for one of them (you’ll rope drop the other then wait for your Lightning Lane). Or maybe you have an 8PM Lightning Lane time for one of them and you’d be happy to instead ride it early and change that Lightning Lane to some other ride with an earlier time.

Entering the park and heading down Hollywood Boulevard, you’ll make the first right down Sunset Boulevard, with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror at the end. Depending on exactly when you arrive, they may be queuing guests for these two rides along the boulevard.

If you’re at all willing to consider using the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster single rider line later, then you might consider Tower of Terror the better rope drop option in this part of the park.

If it doesn’t make sense for you to head all the way down Sunset Boulevard during Early Entry, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is a good option, too. This also applies if you have a rider who doesn’t meet the height requirement for Tower. Yes, you can use rider swap but it won’t be a good use of time immediately in the morning. Much better to take care of one quick wait as a family and then consider splitting up for a ride.

Alternatively, you might head to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. While the ride is quite popular, we generally don’t recommend this. Smugglers Run has a single rider line, which is a fine backup option is you don’t otherwise fit it into your day. More importantly, it’s an inefficient use of time. It’s far in the back of the park, a relatively long experience even with no line, and has no good options for a second ride near it once you get off.

Finishing Up Your Early Entry at Hollywood Studios

Once you’re done with your first ride of Early Entry, assuming it was one of the three we just covered, you can probably fit in one more ride, possibly getting in line for a third before the park opens to other guests.

If you started with Slinky Dog Dash, it usually won’t make sense to go to Rise of the Resistance, which has been drawing the longest waits of the morning. If Rise is a priority…go back and re-read starting with Rise and do that instead of starting with Slinky.

If you started with Rise, Slinky Dog Dash isn’t the best option because it will have a long line, but if you want to get 30-60 minutes into the official park day having checked off the toughest two boxes, then it might make sense. Slinky Dog Dash is also the most important Multi Pass pick, so if you have Multi Pass and missed out on it then taking care of it early should leave you smooth sailing with Multi Pass the rest of the day.

So, if you’ve got either Rise or Slinky done first, you have a few options before the park opens to other guests. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is nearby and a Tier 1 Multi Pass attraction. If it has a wait of, say, 20 minutes or less, I think it’s usually a good second ride to visit.

If you didn’t pick Toy Story Mania on Multi Pass, it is a good option, particularly after Slinky Dog Dash. It’s one of the most popular Lightning Lanes in the park, so it’s good to grab a short wait early in the day if possible.

If you have Toy Story Mania book, Alien Swirling Saucers is, a bit strangely, also a good pick early on. Because Tier 2 Multi Pass picks are limited, Alien Swirling Saucers is a bit more popular on Multi Pass than it perhaps “deserves.” This means an early, short standby wait is the best way to fit it into your day.

If you started down Sunset Boulevard with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror, we already discussed that the other ride in that part of the park might be your best second pick.

From any first ride, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is often a fine pick, too. Despite its central location, the ride tends to lad behind the heavy hitters early in the morning. And if you started with Runaway Railway, you’re basically in the middle of the park and can choose from any of the second options we already discussed.

Here’s an example of a simple morning, starting with Rise:

7:25AM - Bus drop off at Hollywood Studios
8:30AM - Start of Early Entry
8:42AM - Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (no wait)
8:52AM - Alien Swirling Saucers (no wait)
9:05AM - Toy Story Mania (5 min Lightning Lane vs. 10 posted)
9:35AM - Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (18 min standby vs. 20 posted)

Here’s something a bit less conventional, starting with Rise and then a long walk to Tower of Terror, which had a low wait this morning:

7:24 Arrive
7:30 Gates opened, small delay because my early entry was messed up
7:37 Queued for Rise of the Resistance
8:10 Begin walk to Rise
8:30 Early Entry Official Start
8:38 Done with Rise
8:53 Tower of Terror
9:00 Park Official Open
9:05 Rock n Roller Coaster

And starting with Slinky Dog Dash, followed by a low wait at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster:

7:30 Arrive
8:37 Slinky Dog Dash
8:55 Rock N Roller Coaster (Tower had technical difficulties)
9:12 Runaway Railway (in line before park opened to other guests at 9AM)
9:48 Tower of Terror

Hollywood Studios Rope Drop Without Early Entry

First of all, if you don’t have Early Entry you basically need Multi Pass and the Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance. You can have a nice day at the park without them, but if you’re at this point of this post on this site, you’re going to want to spend the money on Multi Pass and Rise of the Resistance.

Second, you have to understand that without Early Entry, this isn’t true “rope drop” and at Hollywood Studios—where all rides are part of Early Entry—you aren’t going to find any short first waits. This is a “least of all evils” situation.

With that in mind, we recommend the following for guests without Early Entry:

buy the Lightning Lane Single Pass for Rise of the Resistance
buy Multi Pass and book Slinky Dog Dash as your initial Tier 1 pick
“rope drop” the shortest wait of Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run

There is an alternative approach—trying to get on short waits at Alien Swirling Saucers or Star Tours before heading to the three rides we mentioned. We don’t like this approach for two reasons.

First, it’s risky. Those waits could easily be at 20 minutes by the time you get there.

Second, they’re easier to get on Multi Pass. It can make sense to ride these rides without using Multi Pass because that gives you more flexibility with your Multi Pass options later, but don’t do that immediately if there’s any chance you can instead beat major crowds to Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, or Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run.

Continuing Your Day at Hollywood Studios

With Early Entry opening the park 30 minutes “early”, your rope drop time is going to be winding down 30-60 minutes into the start of the regular park day, that’s when short waits are going to run out.

Of the core attractions, Star Tours and Alien Swirling Saucers will typically keep low waits the longest, so have those on your radar. Once you run out of low waits, your day becomes about balancing the waits you have left with the recovering-but-still-impressive entertainment lineup at Hollywood Studios. This is the subject of our one-day itinerary for Hollywood Studios.

All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered

Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.

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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