Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge has already had a major impact at Disneyland where it just opened, so things are clearly going to be changing in a couple of months at Walt Disney World when an identical new land opens up at Disney's Hollywood Studios. However, a new report claims that along with the new land debuting, something else will be changing at Hollywood Studios, the FastPass+ system.
FastPass+ is the system by which guests visiting Walt Disney World can schedule a limited number of attractions ahead of time so that they don't need to stand in the overly long standby line and can instead skip most of that line and more or less walk right into the attraction. The current system divides the attractions at Hollywood Studios into Tier 1 and Tier 2 attractions. The difference is that, of the three FastPass+ reservations guests can make ahead of time on any given day, only one of them can come from a Tier 1 attraction.
Tier 1 attractions are currently all located in Toy Story Land, the newest part of the park, having opened just last year, and everything else in the park is a Tier 2 attraction. However, Chip & Co. is reporting that, as of August 29, the same day that Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens to the public, that system will be changed up. Under the new categorizing, all rides will become Tier 1 attractions, while all shows will be Tier 2 attractions.
While there is certainly a certain logic to this idea, this would upgrade a lot of much older attractions, like the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Rock N' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, to Tier 1 attractions.
With Toy Story Land having all the newest attractions, one assumes that those are still the places that most guests will spend their Tier 1 FastPasses. It will be interesting to see how these changes potentially change how guests approach their visit to Disney's Hollywood Studios. It used to be, if you could get a FastPass+ for Slinky Dog Dash, you could work in both roller coasters in one day easily, now guests may have to choose.
Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run, the one new E-ticket attraction opening with Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, won't be part of the FastPass+ system at all when it opens. That will certainly be added at some point down the road and that will obviously be a Tier 1 attraction when that day comes.
Interestingly, the report claims that the one existing Star Wars attraction, Star Tours: The Adventure Continues, and nighttime spectacular Fastasmic are not currently slotted into either new FastPass+ tier, though if the pattern holds, one assumes Star Tours will be in Tier 1 and Fantasmic will be in Tier 2.
Walt Disney World has not confirmed these FastPass+ changes, but we'll know soon if it's all true. Guests staying at Walt Disney World Resort hotels can book their FastPass+ times 60 days before their trip, which means they'll start booking FastPasses for the end of August beginning at the end of June.
