Welcome to another WDWNT Photo Report from the Hollywood that never was and always will be! It’s officially August, which means it’s officially the opening month of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge… which means this park is about to get incredibly busy, so let’s start this park walk on one of the last days before Hollywood Studios is forever changed.

Walking down Hollywood Boulevard this morning, you could already feel the increased crowd level. It was a very busy day at DHS, and with one whole side of this street completely closed, the crowd didn’t have as many places to disperse. At least some of the stores along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard are set to reopen soon.

With the opening of Galaxy’s Edge imminent, most of the rest of the Star Wars offerings throughout Hollywood Studios are remaining as an “off planet” experience (versus being on Batuu.) The only changes we are seeing to the previous Star Wars experiences were the end of the March of the First order in early July, and Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, will move from his current meet and greet inside the Launch Bay to roam Batuu searching for resistance spies, and will be replaced in the Launch Bay meet and greet location by his Grandfather, Darth Vader (it’s best not to think too hard about the logistics of the story aspects of this.)

Chewie is staying, though. For now…

Voyage of the Little Mermaid is back in full swing after having a few days of cancelled performances in July and early August.

The time of having to peek over the fences in Toy Story Land at Galaxy’s Edge is coming to an end, but it’s still really amping up the excitement for now.

There was a bit of a queue gathered this morning waiting for the opening of Walt Disney Presents. That’s not something we usually see, and probably gives you a pretty good idea of the crowd level of this day.

Cast previews for Galaxy’s Edge are currently in full swing. The entrance process outside seemed to be running very smoothly, which is good news for when Annual Passholder previews begin on August 17th (I hope you got your reservation already though, because they are all BOOKED.)

For as busy as everywhere was in the park, it seemed like no one had managed to find their way into Pizzerizzo yet. This was the only place in the park that was just absolutely dead. It will be interesting to see if this changes once Galaxy’s Edge opens to the public, given its proximity to the entrance.

We found another hidden paintbrush this morning in the Stage 1 Company Store in the Grand Avenue section of the park! If you stumble across one of these paintbrushes in the store, make sure you pick it up and return it to a Cast Member for a surprise!

You can still build your own lightsaber in Tatooine Traders at the exit of Star Tours, but this is just a friendly reminder that Savi’s Workshop opens to the public along with the rest of Batuu on August 29th, and if you’ve waited this long to get a custom lightsaber, keep waiting and do it right.

Outside the park, the wrapping on the Skyliner signage is slowly peeling off ahead of its grand opening on September 29th. We are still hoping for a potential soft opening later this month, which will definitely help with traffic flow with the opening of Galaxy’s Edge.

That’s all for my walk around Disney’s Hollywood Studios! Keep checking back to WDWNT for all of the latest updates! I’ll just be over here counting down the days until my Galaxy’s Edge preview. See you on Batuu soon!