I wonder how the Studios will handle the Toy Story and Star Wars queues

DisneyChristmas

Mouseketeer since '55
Joined
Nov 23, 1999
DH and I were at the AK yesterday (with FPs fortunately for Pandora FOP and Na’vi River). Shortly after opening, the lines for these two attractions jumped to 210 minutes for FOP and 100 minutes for Na’vi. The lines snaked all the way back almost to the AK entry area. The AK is a huge place.

How will the much smaller Studios accomodate the lines for Toy Story Land and then add the Star Wars lines a year later?
 
I'm thinking it is the opposite. For Star Wars land, you may only get in if you have a FP or they cut the line off at a certain geographic point in the Park. It would not surprise me if you got a pass to the line. For example, when the line hits 120 minutes, the next 200 people get a pass to come back to the 120 minute line in 30 minutes. The next 200 people after that have a pass to come to the line in 60 minutes and so on. This way the line is 120 minutes without a FP but they still have people moving around the rest of the Park and SWL occupancy is somewhat controlled. Virtual line after a certain threshold is reached, like Volcano Bay, but not necessarily done digitally.
 


DH and I were at the AK yesterday (with FPs fortunately for Pandora FOP and Na’vi River). Shortly after opening, the lines for these two attractions jumped to 210 minutes for FOP and 100 minutes for Na’vi. The lines snaked all the way back almost to the AK entry area. The AK is a huge place.

How will the much smaller Studios accomodate the lines for Toy Story Land and then add the Star Wars lines a year later?

I believe the main way into State Wars: Galaxy's edge will be Grand ave - and I am sure it is no coincidence they just opened a bar right at that entrance to give people something to spend money on while they are in line to get into the land
 
I'm afraid that when those two lands open, they're going to swamp the park. You won't be able to go to DHS for quite a while.

All the people going to those two new lands will also boost up the numbers going to the existing attractions as well.
 


I'm afraid that when those two lands open, they're going to swamp the park. You won't be able to go to DHS for quite a while.

All the people going to those two new lands will also boost up the numbers going to the existing attractions as well.
The two lands open at different times and will draw different crowds in general. TS should open end of May and by the time SW opens I imagine the hype for TS will have passed. The Pandora opening had very long lines but the logistics seemed to go smoothly. SW will certainly draw the biggest crowds, but I wouldn’t say so much that you won’t be able to get in the park.

When the Pandora rides opened it seemed to draw away from the other rides. Both trips I made since it opened I never waited for anything more than 20 minutes, even safari and EE so I’m not sure that ToT or the other rides will have longer than normal waits when TS or SW opens but we will see.
 
When WWoHP opened, they used different types of phased openings for guests to access the area. I wouldn't be shocked if one method of crowd control for SW:GE was having an ADR or FP, with everyone else set to timed opens. And (of course), that's not counting any EMM-style upcharges for accessing the land before everyone else.

It was also great that DVC/AP folks got early, timed access to Pandora before the official open date - a good way to spread out visits from interested parties in a controlled setting.
 
The two lands open at different times and will draw different crowds in general. TS should open end of May and by the time SW opens I imagine the hype for TS will have passed. The Pandora opening had very long lines but the logistics seemed to go smoothly. SW will certainly draw the biggest crowds, but I wouldn’t say so much that you won’t be able to get in the park.

When the Pandora rides opened it seemed to draw away from the other rides. Both trips I made since it opened I never waited for anything more than 20 minutes, even safari and EE so I’m not sure that ToT or the other rides will have longer than normal waits when TS or SW opens but we will see.

I think Toy Story Land won't be too bad - crowded and long lines, sure - but nothing unusually

SW:GE is like something we've never seen before. They are setting up the land itself to be so interactive with the shop owners being in character and droids to interact with, etc that people are going to want to spend a lot of time just in the land and I really think disney will need to limit crowds in the land itself (even more than they did for Pandora) - because if it is too crowded to move, how can you really enjoy the land?

Plus there will be people that have no interest really in the rest of WDW and are just coming for SW:GE to the impact to the rest of DHS and rest of WDW in general will be very interesting
 
I've been watching wait times religiously in anticipation for our end of February trip. Flight of Passage is guaranteed to open the day at 120 minutes. Whether that is accurate is another story. It's been reported that they let folks in to FOP before official opening time, so it wouldn't surprise me that it is accurate.

On top of this you still have Frozen Ever after that commands a big line, and 7 dwarfs mine train as well.

The only solace that I can take is that when star wars opens, Toy Story land will already be up and running. You will in effect have two new E-tickets to spread the crowd. The reason this is important is in theory the capacity of the park is not increased. So only having one would make that one miserable, having 2 should split it up more evenly. It also seems as though capacity may be greater with the DHS additions.

I think they've really underestimated the popularity of Flight of Passage. That surprises me some in that Soarin' was popular enough to warrant the addition of a 3rd theater to improve capacity, yet your new attraction that is like Soarin' on steroids, debuts with a lower capacity(22550/day soarin vs 17280 for FOP). I'm hoping they learned a little bit from this and up the capacity in the new dhs stuff.
 
I've been watching wait times religiously in anticipation for our end of February trip. Flight of Passage is guaranteed to open the day at 120 minutes. Whether that is accurate is another story. It's been reported that they let folks in to FOP before official opening time, so it wouldn't surprise me that it is accurate.

On top of this you still have Frozen Ever after that commands a big line, and 7 dwarfs mine train as well.

The only solace that I can take is that when star wars opens, Toy Story land will already be up and running. You will in effect have two new E-tickets to spread the crowd. The reason this is important is in theory the capacity of the park is not increased. So only having one would make that one miserable, having 2 should split it up more evenly. It also seems as though capacity may be greater with the DHS additions.

I think they've really underestimated the popularity of Flight of Passage. That surprises me some in that Soarin' was popular enough to warrant the addition of a 3rd theater to improve capacity, yet your new attraction that is like Soarin' on steroids, debuts with a lower capacity(22550/day soarin vs 17280 for FOP). I'm hoping they learned a little bit from this and up the capacity in the new dhs stuff.


I know for FoP people get to the park quite early to reduce their wait times (I know rule of thumb seems to be to try to get to the entrance 1 hour before park opening to have a lower wait time) so I wonder if that 120 min wait mark takes into acount all the people waiting to get in line - so basically if at that point you showed up to the park and found the end of the line of people that had waited to get in, your wait would be 120 mins. Might be a bit exaggerated initially, but I think it gets there pretty quick

Also, by the time Star Wars opens you will also have Mickey and Minnies runaway train - which is using new technology and supposed to be a "E-ticket" type ride too so you really will have 3 opening in 2019 plus Toy Story Land still being pretty new so that should help a bit

The challenge will be a lot of people won't give a hoot about any of that and are only coming for Star Wars - so that dynamic I think makes this land opening different than any other
 
DH and I were at the AK yesterday (with FPs fortunately for Pandora FOP and Na’vi River). Shortly after opening, the lines for these two attractions jumped to 210 minutes for FOP and 100 minutes for Na’vi. The lines snaked all the way back almost to the AK entry area. The AK is a huge place.

How will the much smaller Studios accomodate the lines for Toy Story Land and then add the Star Wars lines a year later?
1. Club Level FP+ will likely be the majority of FP+ bookings for the Lands
2. Earlier openings and/or closings of the Parks
3. Select groups of guests may get priority on certain FP+ (like Star Wars, I would hope if you paid to stay in the hotel, you would get first dibs on the SW rides)
4. and yes, CM's with lollipop sticks saying "The line starts here!"
 
I for one am planning a trip for 2019 and am more concerned what the two openings at Studios will have on the other parks. I figure there will be a lot more people coming to Disney that do not normally come or have waited to plan their trips for the opening of SW in particular. And since they are there, they will also be visiting the other parks.

My guess is all the other parks will become more crowded than usual. There might be a few days where you might be in one of the other parks and have less of a crowd due to most of the people being at the Studios that day.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the crowd calendars predict the crowds and then how that compares to reality once the new additions open.
 
I believe the main way into State Wars: Galaxy's edge will be Grand ave - and I am sure it is no coincidence they just opened a bar right at that entrance to give people something to spend money on while they are in line to get into the land

The popular theory is that for a certain period of time after the opening to Galaxy's edge, Grand ave will server exclusively and an entrance, the path from Galaxy's Edge to TSL will be exclusively an exit. The will be able to queue up people on Grand Ave if the land reached capacity.
 
The popular theory is that for a certain period of time after the opening to Galaxy's edge, Grand ave will server exclusively and an entrance, the path from Galaxy's Edge to TSL will be exclusively an exit. The will be able to queue up people on Grand Ave if the land reached capacity.

yeah, definitely expect that - even for Pandora when it first opened they were using the back access on as an exit, at least at times, so makes sense
 
I for one am planning a trip for 2019 and am more concerned what the two openings at Studios will have on the other parks. I figure there will be a lot more people coming to Disney that do not normally come or have waited to plan their trips for the opening of SW in particular. And since they are there, they will also be visiting the other parks.

My guess is all the other parks will become more crowded than usual. There might be a few days where you might be in one of the other parks and have less of a crowd due to most of the people being at the Studios that day.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the crowd calendars predict the crowds and then how that compares to reality once the new additions open.

I'm actually wondering what the impact for much of 2019 will be - the expectation is that SWGE will open by the end of 2019 but we don't know exactly when, so, yeah, people will want to be there right when it opens but I wonder if more people are planning big trips for 2020 to ensure that it is open.
 
As much as I desire to see the end product of Star Wars, and even Toy Story land....I don't think I have any desire to go in the first 12 months.

I just assume let the intrepid pioneers figure out the tips and tricks through trial an error, I'll then read about it here, and learn from others pain.
 
I'm actually wondering what the impact for much of 2019 will be - the expectation is that SWGE will open by the end of 2019 but we don't know exactly when, so, yeah, people will want to be there right when it opens but I wonder if more people are planning big trips for 2020 to ensure that it is open.
I have been wondering this as well. We are most likely going to visit in Jun or Jul of 19 to catch the end of our AP, and as much as I want to see SW:GE, I'm glad it won't be open because I would rather not deal with those crowds. As much as I enjoy SW, I can wait a couple years to see it.
 

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