HS Planning Difficulties

[wonderstruck88]

I'm trying to put together a general outline for our May 2018 trip, just what parks we'll be in on which day, and I'm finding Hollywood Studios to be super hard to plan. We really want to see both Fantasmic and the Star Wars fireworks, so I figured we would just spend two different nights there and probably have that be all of our time at HS. We have little kids who won't be doing the big rides, so it's basically just TSMM, SW, and the shows.

What is complicating this is the fact that our oldest is now talking about wanting to do the Jedi Training, which I know you have to be there first thing in the morning to sign up for. And honestly, I'd say there's about a 50% chance of him chickening out at the last minute, although maybe I'll feel differently about that by May.

It just feels like such a waste to spend two nights and a morning at a park that doesn't have a ton for us to do. Curious as to whether anyone here has dealt with something similar and how you decided to split up your time.

 

[sharonabe]

Unfortunately, you're either going to have to say "no" to Jedi Training or find a way to make it work.

If you could do an early EMH at HS and get there for it, so you can sign up for the very first Jedi spot, then you would probably have time to do most of the attractions you want to do at HS at that time as well before hopping to another park. This way, you hop just in time for the night time shows on your evening nights. My choice would be to do the morning and at least one night in conjunction with your EP days. It just makes hopping easier. You could even combine that morning with an afternoon at EP and then the evening back at HS.

Good luck with this one!

 

[ashleymrush]

Have you seen Fantasmic or the Star Wars fireworks before? If you've seen one and not the other, I'd go watch the one you've never seen before. It is a tricky situation that you are in for sure. It doesn't help that it's even difficult to plan a full day in DHS right now because so much is being worked on. If you are set on doing both evening events you could ride the boat from EPCOT to DHS one night to watch one of them and skip Illuminations. If you did that I'd probably plan for the fireworks that night. You need to arrive early for good seating at Fantasmic but for the fireworks you could literally pop right in and find a spot to stand without any pre-planning. As for the morning Jedi training, I would talk to your son and get him to fully dedicated. My oldest is very apprehensive about doing things like that and I wouldn't sign him up without knowing he's going to follow through. One last option, that wouldn't be fun, but is doable is that you could run with your son over to DHS really early on the morning that you planning to come back to DHS in the evening. You could sign him up for the last time slot of the day and then go back to a different park. Then when you get there in the afternoon/evening you could do the Jedi training and watch one of the shows. That's not really the best option in MHO but it is an option. Hope this helps.

 

[Klayfish]

Some of it will depend on park hours and show timing. This summer, it was very possible to do F! and Star Wars fireworks on the same night. F! was 9:00pm and Star Wars was 9:30pm. F! ends right around 9:28pm. So if you seat yourself so that you're at the back of the theater and/or start walking toward the exit as the finale is wrapping up (you can still see it as you're walking toward the exit) you can make it to Star Wars. In fact, there were CMs along the F! exit walkway holding large signs. One pointed left and said "Exit", the other pointed right and said "Star Wars Fireworks". We did it and it was great. I think we missed the first 30 seconds of Star Wars, but that was about it. Maybe they'll do the same thing next summer.

 

[chris benton]

Hoppers and an Epcot Resort (just not cbr) were made for this issue (among others.)

 

[heather13]

Some of it will depend on park hours and show timing. This summer, it was very possible to do F! and Star Wars fireworks on the same night. F! was 9:00pm and Star Wars was 9:30pm. F! ends right around 9:28pm. So if you seat yourself so that you're at the back of the theater and/or start walking toward the exit as the finale is wrapping up (you can still see it as you're walking toward the exit) you can make it to Star Wars. In fact, there were CMs along the F! exit walkway holding large signs. One pointed left and said "Exit", the other pointed right and said "Star Wars Fireworks". We did it and it was great. I think we missed the first 30 seconds of Star Wars, but that was about it. Maybe they'll do the same thing next summer.

This description is perfect. We were able to see most of both shows last week (having never seen either of them before). We walked out of Fantasmic during the last bit, watching over our shoulders as we exited. Then we half ran to the SW fireworks and only missed about five minutes. So many people were doing the same thing, and we didn't have a fantastic spot for FW but it was fine.
The other option - if you have true SW fans in your group - we found more than enough to keep ourselves occupied at the park - even without TOT and RNRC. We could have ridden Star Tours several more times. We could have spent more time in Launch Bay meeting characters (and my kids generally aren't fans of meeting characters) we rode TSM twice, and after my daughter participated in jedi training she felt the need to watch it a second time since she was so nervous she wasn't paying attention to the instructions. We didn't even make it to the Frozen show - ran out of time.

 

[trstno1]

I'm going to try this strategy for F! and Star Wars Fireworks.

 

[srwarden1928]

Depending on how many of the shows you want to see, planning for HS can be VERY challenging. Participating in Jedi Training can also be a challenge, although if your DS wants to do it I would think he would have a blast with it. Plus the issue with the night time shows.