There’s no shortage of add-on events at Walt Disney World these days and the hook of most of these offerings is the ability to see Walt Disney World without the ever-growing hordes of guests in your way. A relatively new offering is the Early Morning Magic event for Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Here’s how Disney describes the event:
Kick-start your day in Andy’s backyard! Be among the first Guests to ride select attractions, meet Toy Story Characters and enjoy a bountiful breakfast.
Play Big Before the Park Opens
Special event admission is available for $79 per adult (ages 10 and older) and $69 per child (ages 3 to 9); tax not included. Please note: regular theme park admission is also required.
For reservations, please make your purchase online or call the Disney Reservation Center at (407) 827-7350 for assistance. Guests under 18 years of age must have parent or guardian permission to call.
When booking the event, you’re met with a choice of event times. You can choose 7:00 am or 7:30 am, but this doesn’t actually matter. Either reservation will gain you entry at 7:00am with everyone else. The separate times are just an attempt by Disney to spread out the traffic at the breakfast service since Toy Story Land doesn’t officially open to attendees until 7:30 am. The hope here is that 7:30 am arrivals will go “play” first and then come eat.
Nothing wakes you up like the bright construction lights of Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
A Cast Member with a sign welcomes guests to check-in.
I’d show up by at least 6:45 am if you want to get the most out of your time. They open early sometimes and you can get a good jump on breakfast. That being said, you could always wait and eat after you go to Toy Story Land.
Despite being “jaded” according to folks who know nothing of me, little in this world brings me the joy of a mostly empty Hollywood Boulevard with neon signs aglow. It’s a shame I hate Disney World so much…
We trekked back to Backlot Express just to get pictures of the continental breakfast buffets before the crowds descended upon them. We’ll come back to the food later.
It was definitely before 7:30 am when we walked into Toy Story Land and we found that everything but the meet and greets was already functioning.
We went straight for Slinky Dog Dash and waited less than 2 minutes to ride. Even at the longest length, I don’t think we waited five minutes to ride this over the course of the event. We rode 4 times, but we certainly could have done it more if we wanted.
That posted 5 minute wait was probably an exaggeration. They raised it to ten later, but it was again inaccurate.
I don’t think Alien Swirling Saucers loaded a full set of saucers for a single ride during the event. You could ride to your heart’s content, although I’m not sure how much of this ride I need. We rode twice and felt fulfilled.
We planned on doing the meet and greets next, but the lines were about as bad as I have ever seen them despite the lower crowd levels. We decided to ride Toy Story Mania instead.
There was absolutely no wait to ride, but the long walk to the ride and through the exit is enough to dissuade you from riding this too many times before 9 am.
The line for Woody and Jessie was still bad when we exited Toy Story Mania, so we took a walk to find Buzz Lightyear. Somewhat hidden around the corner, only one family was in front of us in line. This is what I expected from this event.
Finally we just decided to get in line for Woody and Jessie to say we completed everything at the event. We ended up waiting about 20-25 minutes and were still in line long after the event was over and the park had opened to regular guests.
My advice would be to meet Woody and Jessie as soon as they emerge around 7:30 am. This felt like a tremendous waste of time given how short the lines were for EVERYTHING else. However, it did offer this view of the rope drop crowd arriving…
HERE COMES THE CROWD
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