Best time to do Jedi Training?

[Andrea Wright]

We have a PPO at H&V, so I'm thinking we'll have our choice of Jedi training sign up times. For planning purposes, when's the best time to signup? I was thinking early afternoon, when the park is otherwise busy, but I heard there is no shade so being there at 1pm or so might be torture (going oct 1). But since the process takes an hour, going in the morning seems wasteful of the low ride lines then. Thoughts?

 

[John Marecek]

There is zero shade. Many sign up for the first shows to get it done before any meltdowns may occur. If you think you can make it through, and the weather will cooperate, I highly recommend when it's dark because they activate the light sabers, light em up with sound effects and all. Make sure you know the forecast though. Rather do it early than chance getting rained out.

 

[Mikie]

I find DHS a somewhat difficult park to tour because of all the show times - as opposed to MK where you just go from ride to ride as desired. Therefore, I wanted to put our Jedi training near our meal ADR time so that I wasn't dealing with multiple "appointments" all day. For us, this meant a late afternoon Jedi show, followed by our Fantasmic package dinner. This would also dovetail with your point about using your morning time for short lines, then doing Jedi when lines are longer anyway. Lots of people recommend avoiding afternoon shows because of afternoon thundershowers, but that weather pattern is more common in summer than in Oct . Not that you can't get rain in Oct, but you're no longer getting those daily afternoon showers. Check the forecast the day before you sign up to see if it influences your plans any and otherwise, I personally like an afternoon show.

 

[PSULion]

We always do morning, to get it over and done with (in a good way). It's the most important thing to my kids, so I want them to do it when they're fresh, and before any bad weather makes its way in (assuming it's nice in the morning of course). Being done with it early gives us more flexibility in the afternoon.

We don't mind missing the slow time for rides, because with little kids we don't do RnR or ToT. We just FP Star Tours and TSMM for the afternoon.

ETA: It is HOT during the show. We did the show around 10 am in FEBRUARY, and my oldest started to wilt by the time it was done. My 2 would never make it through an afternoon show in October. Especially with the robes on.

 

[jeepnjudy]

We did the morning as it was cooler and less crowded in that area than in the afternoon. Also avoided the typical Florida afternoon rain showers!

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

If you think you can make it through, and the weather will cooperate, I highly recommend when it's dark because they activate the light sabers, light em up with sound effects and all.

Whoa. My elder kids, one of whom is about to age out of eligibility for this show, would love that. How late do the shows go? When do they turn on the lights? We're going in Dec, where the almanac says sunset will be at 5:30pm.
Thanks to all PPs, as wondered about the same things as the OP (and also am doing a PPO H&V breakfast).

 

[slford00]

When we did it, we were near the front of the line for sign-up, and we did the very first show because the day we did it, the first show was 10-15 minutes after park opening. So, instead of having to arrive 30 minutes prior to a later showtime (resulting in a total experience time of 45-50 minutes), we were finished by 9:45 or so. We had fast passes for Toy Story and Tower of Terror, and Star Wars, so missing that initial rope drop time didn't hurt at all (kids are too small for RnRC). Plus, you're already missing the first bit of rope drop touring due to having to sign up for Jedi in the first place (by the time you've finished, at least some lines will have started forming at the headliners).

On the flip side, doing later in the day when lines everywhere else are long is a good plan too. And showtimes don't always start as close to park opening as ours did.

Even in the 9-10 AM hour, it was still super hot when we did it (this was early Sept. 2015).

 

[yulilin3]

My vote is for early morning
1. Better temps
2. Less chance of rain, less chance of it being canceled
3. You can plan the rest of your day after since JT takes about 50 minutes of your day

 

[John Marecek]

Whoa. My elder kids, one of whom is about to age out of eligibility for this show, would love that. How late do the shows go? When do they turn on the lights? We're going in Dec, where the almanac says sunset will be at 5:30pm.
Thanks to all PPs, as wondered about the same things as the OP (and also am doing a PPO H&V breakfast).

Check the website within a few weeks of your trip for the show times. Final one is 7:40 I think

 

[picprincess]

We did it twice on our July trip. The 11:40 show was brutally hot!!! On our next HS day we did the 7:10 show which was great! Our 4 kids were the only ones up on the top stage! I vote for late evening unless the forecast calls for rain.

 

[ChasingLeslie]

DS did 10:40am and it was already hot...I can't imagine how bad those mid-afternoon slots are! It did suck to lose some prime touring time, but we still did GMR, met Kylo Ren and Chewie, traded with Jawas, and headed to TSMM (which was down...we got paper FPs to come back later).