Bright suns, Kimberly, and welcome to planDisney! I had so much fun building my custom astromech unit at the
Droid Depot workshop, and it’s one of my favorite Disney souvenirs. I’m excited to hear that your daughter will be making her own droid during your upcoming trip, so let’s make sure you can get there on time.
It sounds like you may have booked the earliest time slot at Droid Depot, which is typically at the same time
Hollywood Studios opens for regular guests. While it’s usually okay to show up a few minutes late to your reservation, I’d lean towards booking a slightly later time slot so you don’t have to worry about rushing. Even making a reservation for 10 minutes later would give you a bit more wiggle room, and you can always arrive early and see if they can accommodate you before your time slot.
Hollywood Studios has recently been letting all guests in before
Early Theme Park Entry starts, although that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to go to Droid Depot before the official park opening time. Once you’re in the park, Disney Resort hotel guests can enter the different areas like
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge,
Toy Story Land, and Sunset Boulevard to begin riding attractions. Everyone else can grab coffee, browse the gift shops, or line up to enter one of the lands.
If you’d like to maximize your time in Hollywood Studios that day, you might want to head into the park early and line up to enter Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge so you can get to Droid Depot as close to park opening as possible. Since Toy Story Land is usually closed to non-Disney resort hotel guests before Hollywood Studios officially opens, I’d recommend lining up at the other entrance to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, just past
BaseLine Tap House and
Star Tours. Be sure to double check park hours closer to your visit since the schedule can change.
Finally, there are two tips I wanted to share to help your daughter have the best day ever with her new droid! First is to take her time choosing droid parts from the conveyor belt. Once she moves to the assembly stage, the rest of the building process goes pretty quickly! Second is to find the different
PhotoPass photographers around Batuu so she can get some pictures with her new astromech buddy. This will be the practically perfect way to commemorate the day!
I hope you and your daughter have an out-of-this-world day at Hollywood Studios in October. And if you have any other questions, you’re always welcome back at planDisney!
JoAnna