Hollywood Studios – generally my least favorite Disney park as I think it has been lacking in previous years….Disney has obviously thought so as well and over the past 5ish years has added not only “Toy Story Land” but recently opened “Galaxy’s Edge”, the new Star Wars land and also right before COVID hit, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad!  These new additions have really kicked up Hollywood Studio’s attendance (even today at opening was pretty busy) and added a much needed boost to this slumping park.

This is “busy” as we first enter the park.

As the day goes on, not so busy – this is at 11am.

1:20pm and the coast is pretty clear!!!

Great crowds today at Hollywood Studios!

We arrived and parked at Hollywood Studios around 9:20am – the official opening time for the park is 10am but getting there early allowed us to get through the health screening, security check and park gates by 9:30am and head straight towards Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad.  We were cruising in the line and by 10am, we entered the virtual queue for Star Wars; Rise of the Resistance.  Our time for that ride was approximately 2pm, so we had time to not only ride Mickey and Minnie, but also Toy Story Mania, Slinky Dog Dash, Tower of Terror, Rockin’ Roller coaster, have lunch and then venture over to Smugglers Run BEFORE our numbers came up for the virtual queue.

A great example of the physical distanced queues in line for Rockin’ Roller Coaster.

The crowds were a bit heavier in the morning, but as the day went on, crowds thinned and we had a fabulous time exploring Galaxy’s Edge!  It was WAY bigger than I imagined it and the theme imagineering is incredible!!!!

Inside the Millennium Falcon

Smugglers Run ride queue…cool stuff to look at!

Are we, or aren’t we smiling?

Another cool view from the Smugglers Run queue.

Some things at Disney ARE different – there aren’t any parades, per se – but we were right in the middle of a pop up parade with Mickey, Pluto, Minnie and Daisy walking down the street! We could never have gotten this close under normal circumstances!

We decided to head back to our resort for a refresh time and left the park around 4:30pm.  Some of us swam, I did dishes and laundry (totally my choice) and got ready for our dinner reservation back at Hollywood Studios at the Sci-Fi Dine-In – one of our favorite places to eat!!!!

Dusk at Hollywood Studios!

We love the Sci-Fi!!!

The park was so cool at night – because of the limited park hours, we won’t see as much after dark during this trip, so we scheduled our dinner late so we could see the park at closing!  It was an amazing Day 2.  Check in tomorrow for Magic Kingdom!!!!