If you have plans to visit Disney World, you’ll need to know all about the Park Pass reservation system.
Hollywood Studios
To closely monitor their capacity, Disney is currently requiring a Park Pass reservation in addition to a valid theme park ticket for each day of your visit. We’ve got a guide for you with ALL our tips on doing that. But if you’re trying to get into Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you may notice…it books up WAY faster than the other parks (typically!). And it turns out, there’s a very good reason why!
Okay, let’s start at the beginning. If you’re trying to book a Park Pass reservation for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, best of luck to ya! All of the reservations here tend to get snatched up quicker than the other Disney parks.
Let us in!
That’s all well and good, but WHY does Hollywood Studios book up so fast? Well, a couple of factors come into play that make scoring a reservation here a extra tricky. Luckily, we’re breaking them down for you!
It’s Popular
We’re gonna start with the obvious — Hollywood Studios is popular! This used to be known as a half-day park but NOT anymore! Two of Disney’s newer attractions are here: Mickey and Minnie’s Railway and ALL of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Not to mention, Toy Story Land (including the mega-fun Slinky Dog Dash) just opened a few years ago and many guests still haven’t had a chance to experience it, if they don’t visit regularly. A few NEW rides and 2 NEW lands?! Unsurprisingly, people want to give all this fun new stuff a try!
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance quickly became an absolute must for most guests visiting Disney World. And now that the ride no longer requires a boarding pass, guests flock to Hollywood Studios early to get a spot in the standby line or they can purchase a Lightning Lane through Disney Genie’s Individual Attraction Selection.
Don’t let them know you’re with the Resistance!
And because the park IS so popular, it’s kind of contributing to its own problem. If people really want to visit, they’re going to book it for the first park of the day because they see how fast capacity fills. They’re not going to wait and maybe visit on the off chance that it hasn’t reached capacity when the Park Hopping window opens at 2PM (Although that RARELY happens.). Now, this probably isn’t a major factor, but it certainly doesn’t help.
It’s Small
If you dig a little deeper into it, you may realize…Disney’s Hollywood Studios is small. Now, Magic Kingdom is the smallest Disney World park from an acreage perspective, but Hollywood Studios’ capacity is much lower.
According to the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA), Magic Kingdom averaged over 57,000 guests per day in 2019. EPCOT averaged 34,000 guests per day, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom averaged 38,000 guests daily. By comparison, Disney’s Hollywood Studios averaged just over 31,000 guests each day. Now, these numbers are well below the max capacity for each park, as Disney rarely hit capacity pre-COVID, but they do provide some perspective of capacity limitations (as Disney does not make their actual capacity numbers public).
Toy Story Land
Now, it’s worth noting that Disney has been vague about its current capacity procedures. That is, we don’t know how many Park Passes they’re actually allotting and when. But we can assume, based on “normal” capacity, that Hollywood Studios is getting a smaller allotment. This means Hollywood Studios simply can’t offer as many Park Pass reservations as other parks.
Click to See When Disney World Hit Capacity!
What Now?!
Let’s throw ‘em both together: popular park + low capacity = Park Pass reservations that go fast! Okay, sure: now you understand why it’s so frustrating trying to book a day at Hollywood Studios. But that doesn’t really help ya out if you’re currently on the struggle bus, right?!
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
We’re gonna give you a little tip: don’t give up hope! We previously mentioned that Disney was vague about how their Park Pass reservations work. And it’s true! They’ll randomly drop MORE passes every once and a while, refilling the “bucket” of reservations available.
Hello from Hollywood Studios!
If you’re really hoping to get into the park, keep checking Disney’s official Park Pass Availability Calendar. Of course, we’ll keep ya posted here, too! And if it really comes down to it, there’s a chance that you’ll be able to Park Hop over on the day of your visit to Disney World. Remember that we also recommend you book your Park Passes as SOON as you book your trip — hopefully, if a few months out at least, you’ll still have plenty time to snag a pass here.
Good luck if you’re trying to snag that Park Pass! We’ll keep ya posted with more Disney news (and plenty of tips!), so stay tuned to DFB.
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We returned last week from our trip and the first trip for my girls and not gonna lie HS was a mess. It felt way more crowded, when an attraction went down you could tell the ride times inflated big time, we were unable to do several things we wanted to do, and we had a lot of trouble finding a place to sit down and eat or drink when we wanted to. Hopefully it gets better for all soon! We did the best we could do make it a fun day with all of the setbacks.