Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Disney Increases Capacity at Several Attractions – RideMax Estimates Updated!

A quick update today to let you know that just in time for the busy week between Christmas and New Years, Disney has increased capacity at several attractions, and we’ve adjusted our RideMax estimates accordingly.

An example of the sort of thing I’m talking about here is Frozen Ever After at Epcot, where Disney has placed plastic dividers between rows of seats on the boat vehicles, allowing guests to be seated in every row, rather than every-other row as before.

Attractions affected in RideMax by this most recent round of changes include:

Frozen Ever After
Expedition Everest
Slinky Dog Dash
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Millennium Falcon – Smuggler’s Run
Tower of Terror

Not all of the above were affected by capacity increases, but adjustments for some attractions may have had a sort of ripple effect on others.

The bottom line is that if you’ve created RideMax plans for Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Epcot, or Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I’d strongly encourage you to create new plans instead!

Major Update to RideMax Wait Estimates for Disney’s Hollywood Studios

The scene above basically sums up what a normal weekday looks like these days first thing in the morning at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This represents just a portion of the line for Slinky Dog Dash just before the park is set to open for the day.

With the new Rise of the Resistance attraction only accessible via virtual boarding groups, and due to the fact that these boarding groups can fill up within just a few minutes of park opening time, Disney is left with a HUGE crush of crowds at opening time, with the major attractions swamped very early in the day.

While we’re hoping Disney will do something to ameliorate this madness, in the meantime we’ve been forced to update our wait estimates for Hollywood Studios — and not in a good direction. 🙁

If any of you have created RideMax plans for Hollywood Studios prior to the publishing of this post, I’d strongly encourage you to re-run those plans before your visit!

Major Adjustments to RideMax Wait Estimates for New Toy Story Land Attractions

Just a quick note here to let everyone know that today we’ve made some major adjustments to the RideMax estimates for the two new Toy Story Land attractions at Disney’s Hollywood Studios — Slinky Dog Dash and Alien Swirling Saucers.

I mostly mention this to let any RideMax customers know that if you’ve created RideMax plans which include these attractions, I’d strongly encourage you to create new plans instead.

I know this is a bit of a hassle, but we’ve had the chance to look at the wait times for these attractions for a couple of weeks now, and the good news is that, on average, the actual waits are coming in well below our initial estimates.

So, re-run those Hollywood Studios RideMax plans — and have a great trip!

Another Day, Another Construction Update…

Toy Story Midway Mania - Disney's Hollywood Studios

Another quick PSA today.

With all of the construction going on at Hollywood Studios to make way for the new Pixar and Star Wars areas, Disney has closed down half of the capacity at Toy Story Midway Mania.

I mentioned this on Twitter a couple of days ago, but just in case you missed it, we’ve made some major adjustments to our standby estimates for TSMM at Hollywood Studios. If prior to Tuesday, January 16th you created RideMax plans for Hollywood Studios which included riding TSMM in the standby line, I’d strongly encourage you to make new plans instead.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios – Kids’ Shows, Star Wars Merchandise, Backlot Express Galactic Chicken Salad

I decided it was time to check out a few of the “kids’ shows” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios last Thursday, since it’s been a while since I’d seen some of them and wanted to see if any of the related “tips” in RideMax needed a refresh.

Something folks sometimes overlook with RideMax is how handy it can be for visiting the various shows at Hollywood Studios. If you’re trying to visit five or six shows, it can be a real pain to figure out your schedule by hand, even if you know the show schedule in advance. On the other hand, RideMax can crank out a schedule in seconds — literally — for visiting the shows of your choice, given the date of your visit and your planned arrival and finishing time.

I needed to leave the park right after lunch, so I didn’t have a lot of time for this visit. With RideMax I was able to schedule three of the shows, plus visits to Toy Story Mania and Tower of Terror, along with some time afterward for lunch at Backlot Express.

Here is the specific schedule I used:

Continue reading “Disney’s Hollywood Studios – Kids’ Shows, Star Wars Merchandise, Backlot Express Galactic Chicken Salad”