Hello from a beautiful day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios! We had a quiet day here, but still had some fun catching up on all the new things here. Let’s get started!
When we arrived, we initially thought they hadn’t let cars start lining up at the parking gate yet, as it wasn’t quite 9am yet, but boy were we wrong. They must have started line up much earlier, because this was, in fact, where the traffic had backed up to at that point from the parking gate. We couldn’t believe how many cars were in front of us, and how quickly cars filled in behind us. Thankfully the Cast Members in the parking booths are very efficient, and we were in and parked in plenty of time to still try for a Boarding Group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
Once inside the park, we found a certain set of spatulas that we have suspected were on the way for some time now, but had begun to lose hope of ever seeing. This adorable set seems to complete the character kitchen wares ensemble for “Cinderella”, bringing Jaq and Gus Gus to the kitchen.
The “Toy Story” ensemble is also complete now too, with Rex and an Alien joining the cooking. We can’t wait to make something with our new helpers!
Another piece of merchandise caught our eye today, this one in the exit shop for Toy Story Mania! Featuring the Green Army Men, this kid’s shirt proclaims, “I’m in charge!” This fun, green shirt retails for $17.99.
Frozen Sing-Along Celebration is set to return on October 5! We saw the screens turned on and being worked on in the queue area for the attraction today.
On a related note, the large screen just outside the Hyperion Theatre, which houses the Frozen Sing-Along Celebration, was not functioning today. We wonder if the problems were related.
Once again, we found the line for Slinky Dog Dash stretching way beyond the boundaries of Andy’s Backyard, and out into the park, all the way to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. While we saw it reach the queue while we were here the other day, today we saw it actually reach the entrance to the attraction. The wait time for Slinky Dog Dash at this time was 90 minutes.
Conversely, there was no wait at all to peruse the selection of Pandora Jewelry in Legends of Hollywood, especially now that an entrance to this area has been opened inside the shop coming from the clothing section. Despite what the sign says, guests can now cross between the two sections of the store instead of having to exit the store and re-enter from the dedicated Pandora Jewelry entrance.
In reopening news, this refreshments stand on Grand Avenue close to Muppet*Vision 3D was getting some attention today. Three Cast Members were seen here discussing aspects of reopening. We hope the breakfast sandwiches return!
We checked in at Hollywood & Vine, which is slated to reopen tomorrow, and found a few updates had been made. Menus have been updated outside, as well as entrance and exit markers added. We also found out that today was a soft opening for Cast Members and Executives. We tried telling the Cast Member that we knew Minnie Mouse, but that apparently wasn’t good enough to get us in. Don’t worry, we’ll be back tomorrow for the official reopening!
We saw two familiar faces in new places today. Daisy Duck joined in on the Mickey & Friends Motorcade today, bringing the sass that only she can to the street. We loved getting to see her out and about!
We also saw Frozone out and about with the Pixar Motorcade, playing it “cool” as usual. He even danced his way down the street for a bit. We love his spunk!
It appears that testing is being done with adding barriers between rows of seats on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. This would potentially allow the capacity of each car to be raised from one party to two parties, effectively doubling the current capacity of the attraction. It seems that only one ride vehicle currently has a divider, but we’ll be watching for further developments.
As you can see, it was another busy day here at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Crowd levels seemed more like a weekend to us than a recent weekday, but it seems like the parks are getting busier and busier. With Gov. Ron DeSantis in favor of increasing capacity at Walt Disney World, we may see an even greater increase to crowd levels here over the coming weeks. Still, we had a great day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and we hope you enjoyed coming along with us. Have a magical day!
I’m hoping that both capacity and fireworks are closer to normal in mid-October. With more and more evidence that it’s safe to start returning to normal I hope Disney can start providing more people with the healing and happiness that they have given me every time I visit.