HS strategy now that everything is tier 1

[monica9]

Hi. We are going end of September into October.
We are Star Wars fans so will want to see GE and ride the falcon so we will be doing that at least one day RD. We have dd9 and dd2 with us. Not sure we can get both up and out by 5:15 to get to the park for RD but let’s say we do 1 of our days at HS. We would RD the falcon but what should we do next? Dd9’s fav ride is RnR so we were counting on that being tier 2. We haven’t seen toy story land so definitely want to at least get on to the slinky ride. We love TSM. We can leave ToT if we had to.
We wanted to get into RnR one time each of the 3 days we are there. We’d like to try to alien saucers too! I hate the tea cups though. Is it spinny like that?
What would you do if say you only got to HS one rope drop day and the other two days you are there for a couple hours and arrive around 8?

 

[sharonabe]

What would you do if say you only got to HS one rope drop day and the other two days you are there for a couple hours and arrive around 8?

Well, I would FP+ TSM one day, SDD one day, and RnR one day. Other than that, I'd be watching the DIS to see how things shake out in Sept with the 6 a.m. EEMH and where you need to focus your time if you make that rope drop.

 

[wendlle]

Hi. We are going end of September into October.
We are Star Wars fans so will want to see GE and ride the falcon so we will be doing that at least one day RD. We have dd9 and dd2 with us. Not sure we can get both up and out by 5:15 to get to the park for RD but let’s say we do 1 of our days at HS. We would RD the falcon but what should we do next? Dd9’s fav ride is RnR so we were counting on that being tier 2. We haven’t seen toy story land so definitely want to at least get on to the slinky ride. We love TSM. We can leave ToT if we had to.
We wanted to get into RnR one time each of the 3 days we are there. We’d like to try to alien saucers too! I hate the tea cups though. Is it spinny like that?
What would you do if say you only got to HS one rope drop day and the other two days you are there for a couple hours and arrive around 8?

I haven't ridden the Saucers yet but it is almost identical to the Mater ride at DCA which I have ridden, it isn't like the Teacups. My DH doesn't like teacups but had a blast on Mater.

 

[CapnJacksGirl]

I haven't ridden the Alien Saucers yet either but I've ridden Mater at DCA. I absolutely can.not do the Teacups, but I loved Mater's ride. Laughed my butt off! From the sounds of things Alien Saucers is pretty much the same ride and just as cute. Would I wait a long time for it? No. But 30 minutes or less, I'm queueing up.

 

[yulilin3]

AS2 is not like the teacups.

 

[Dis Dragon]

This is one of the biggest issues with planning right now, we're going in August just prior to the change but then back in November. I have no idea how to plan Hollywood Studio days and am just really hopeful that they change something in the next couple of months. We're from the west coast, we're not RD at 2am...

Saucers is ok, it's definitely not teacups. Hard to say since you haven't rode it yet, but I would take it or leave it based on wait times like the pp mentioned.

Sounds like you have 3 days? So 2 RnR and 1 SDD... TSMM is easy enough to wait in line plus it's all inside.

 

[DavidNYC]

Truthfully the only option is to either suck it up and wait online early in the day or use the FP. I'm not going until 2nd week November and hoping maybe by then they'll redo the FP tiers but until then, I'd try to rope drop or get there as early as possible, do a few rides standby, and hop to AK or MK for using your FP.

 

[JETSDAD]

My strategy for first week of September will be to RD the EEMH for Galaxy's Edge, have a Tier 1 FP set for park open (ideally SDD but whatever tier 1 you like), then probably burn two tier 2's immediately after that. Then I'll look to add day of FP's for the other tier 1 rides.

 

[The Foolish Mortal]

My strategy is ......... stay away from HS.

Seriously, I hate this change because I don't really go for the shows and also not a fan of Star Tours. Anywho, my next trip to HS will likely be in january. Fingers crossed, things are different by then (though I am not holding my breath)

 

[Dis Dragon]

My strategy for first week of September will be to RD the EEMH for Galaxy's Edge, have a Tier 1 FP set for park open (ideally SDD but whatever tier 1 you like), then probably burn two tier 2's immediately after that. Then I'll look to add day of FP's for the other tier 1 rides.

I'm really curious to see how this works out with availability. Good luck!

 

[armerida]

My strategy for first week of September will be to RD the EEMH for Galaxy's Edge, have a Tier 1 FP set for park open (ideally SDD but whatever tier 1 you like), then probably burn two tier 2's immediately after that. Then I'll look to add day of FP's for the other tier 1 rides.

What time are you planning to arrive for the EEMH? We’ll be there that same week and I’m not sure how early we need to get there. I was thinking to do the same thing and schedule first FP for 9am, but worried that we might miss it depending on how long the wait to get into GE and ride MFSR is...

 

[DWillowBay]

I wish I understood the goal of making all but one ride a Tier 1. So....now a person can ride 1 ride, Star Tours and see a show. But, we've seen the shows multiple times and don't need to do that again. So....? I just don't know what the cattle herding is all about. SWGE ? But how does this help? They've definitely made this park back into a 1/2 day park for our family.

 

[snowwhite84]

I wish I understood the goal of making all but one ride a Tier 1. So....now a person can ride 1 ride, Star Tours and see a show. But, we've seen the shows multiple times and don't need to do that again. So....? I just don't know what the cattle herding is all about. SWGE ? But how does this help? They've definitely made this park back into a 1/2 day park for our family.

I think the goal is to get physical bodies waiting in line as a way of crowd control. I will be there in late September and I’m definitely not happy about the change, but I do see why they did it.

 

[sethschroeder]

I wish I understood the goal of making all but one ride a Tier 1

To spread out the FP+ among everyone coming to the park. If you are staying onsite they are giving you EEMH to offset not having the extra FP+. There is no way in my mind that waits won't be fairly short that early for RNR, TT, and TSM.

 

[sethschroeder]

We are going end of September into October.

Not enough is known yet for this timeframe.

This is what I am "planning" on.

- There will be a VQ for Star Wars Land that we can get in sometime during the EEMH with a loading time around 10am
- We will grab a Lightsaber or Droid creation time (not sure which one yet) for around the 10am time slot (we have 4 ticketed adults hence the need for the VQ time)
- We will go straight to Slinky Dog to start, then TSM, followed by RNR, TOT, and Star Tours
- We will then head over for our VQ time for GE
- Exiting GE we can grab a couple shows before heading over to Epcot for the rest of the day

If we can get it down to a single day like the above we will take it and likely not return over the 9 days in the parks we have except to grab a show on our way to/from Epcot and AKV. I personally don't even plan on using a single FP+ for this park as if its busy enough I don't even plan on being in the park by 9am and will be on my way to Epcot.

Alternative is basically doing a phased approach of GE one day then over to Epcot and TSL one day then over to Epcot, each time catching RNR/TOT as we leave the park.

 

[Remy is Up]

Ill be interested to see what it does to the refresh strategy. I actually think it works in the favor of those who use refresh. Get an early FP for one of the tier 1 rides whichever it may be, then burn 2 on other things, then start refreshing. I think it will still work. As much as I have said Ill stay far away from HS after SGE opens, we may test out refresh one morning in late September and see how it works. Over the past couple of years, even after TSL opened, we have had no problem getting 5-7 FPs in a morning at HS, and able to find pretty much anything we wanted. We shall see how this effects the prior strategy.

 

[toasterstrudel]

I struggled with this. My fastpass day was today and I'm not really sure if I like what I ended up with.

We are going to DHS on 9/2. We will go for the extra early hours, but probably not at 6. Most likely 7. Planning to try and hit rock n roller coaster, tower of terror and maybe tsmm before 10am. We have a fp for little mermaid at 10:20, Star Tours at 11:30 and then we will leave for a pool break. We will be back just in time for dinner reservations at 5:40 at sci fi, and SDD FP for 6:50-7:50.

We will also try to fit jedi training in there somewhere. I'm ok with doing that instead of Little mermaid and just burning that fast pass.

It is so unpredictable what will happen crowd wise at the rest of the park. I won't have much time to revise my plans once we start hearing reports of what is happening at opening.

 

[Cinderumbrella]

We’re going Labor Day Weekend. We’re taking 1 Morning to rope drop EEMH for SW:GE. Then we’re hopping to a different park later in the day (after a nap) to stay through closing and use FP there.

We’re going back to DHS later in the trip in the late afternoon through closing. I picked RnRC, Star Tours and Muppets. We will do TSM and SDD in the last hour or park opening. I have no expectations of refresh working that day simply because we arrive so late.

 

[Pappy Tom]

The tier changes have made it easier not to stay very long in Hollywood Studios.

We'll probably make our Tier 1 FP and Tier 2 FPs for earlier in the day, then walk around a bit and see if either the SDD, TSM, TOT or RNR lines are long. If they are, then we'll head on back to our resort and enjoy the amenities there or maybe burn our HS Tier 2 FPs to revisit another park and get more FPs.

We had planned that HS would be our last park visit during our vacation; glad it worked out that way (HS was the lowest priority park anyways, even with TSL and SWGE there). Unfortunately, this new FP tier policy Disney has implemented has made a visit to HS less attractive for people that like to go on the rides.

 

[Mom2Stitch]

We are there 8/31-9/9, planned days for DHS are 9/4 -goal is to be at the gate very early for the EEMH and get SWGE out of the way-I made a SDD FP for 12:20- late lunch is at Epcot. Fingers crossed we make it through SWGE before 12:20. 2nd DHS day is 9/6 with the intention of again being in line very early for EEMH-we are going to hit TSL's 3 rides in stand by, ST's with a FP, Mama Melrose Fantasmic! lunch-I booked SDD at 9PM because we want to see the land at night so figured we'd get that in after F!, hopefully we can score another ride on TSM too.

I'm not even there and already tired, lol.