It was a busy start to the day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios this morning, but not unlike what you might experience for the remainder of October and into the holiday season as Americans travel more mobile during the ongoing global pandemic.
This morning and into the early afternoon, we stopped by Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge to take a look at the crowds. While navigating the land, we found the Resistance forest area over by Rise of the Resistance to be much less crowded than the Black Spire Outpost section of the land, which contained a winding queue for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. Here’s a look at the queue, which snaked around the land and even through multiple backstage areas. At two separate times this morning, we noticed Cast Members closing the queue to new guests as the line reached the end of the physical distancing markers.
We’ll start by walking into Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge from Toy Story Land, or at least trying to. The queue made multiple switchbacks here and Cast Members had to perform walkway control as the queue jumped from one side of the path to the other. Guests looking to enter or exit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge had to wait until the Cast Member stopped the queue and let them cross. A similar traffic control situation can be found in Pandora – The World of Avatar for Flight of Passage.
We then followed the queue as it built back towards the Resistance forest areas where it was cut off to new guests.
From here, we’ll follow the queue forward towards the Black Spire Outpost area and find it meandering into two backstage areas.
The queue area only seems to hold about 10 physically distanced groups in the backstage portion. We’re not sure why Disney has decided to do this when they make so many other concessions in sections of the queue near Toy Story Land. It doesn’t seem to add much to the overall line, and it surely takes away from the feeling of the land when a giant gate is swung open to reveal backstage areas.
Over near the Millennium Falcon, Disney has decided to take guests backstage again by opening another access gate. This one is perhaps a bit less noticeable.
According to information from thrill-data.com, Smugglers Run is averaging a 54 minute posted wait this month, but todays average wait time so far is 83 minutes, with a maximum posted wait of 160 minutes. A busy day on Batuu.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!