Theme Park Scope

Every single time Extended Evening Hours at Hollywood Studios gets announced, I scan the list of rides with the focus of someone defusing a bomb.

And every single time, I’m looking for one thing. Is Rise of the Resistance on there? (Spoiler from past years: often, it wasn’t. Sad trombone.)

Well, this time, it is. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is now open during Extended Evening Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I’ll give you a second to let that sink in. I needed one too.

Hollywood Studios has two Extended Evening Hours nights on the calendar through the end of 2026. Both are on Wednesdays, from 9 PM to 11 PM:

• Wednesday, October 14, 2026
• Wednesday, October 28, 2026

(Yes, the first one is this week. If you’re already at a Disney resort or about to be, check your plans.)

For those who haven’t done this before, Extended Evening Hours are a perk for guests staying at certain Disney hotels. You get two extra hours in the park after it closes to the general public, and the crowds are generally much thinner. Not everything in the park stays open, though. Disney keeps a list of eligible attractions on its website, and that’s the one you want to trust over anyone’s recap, mine included.

The perk is for guests staying at eligible resorts, which includes the Deluxe Resorts and Deluxe Villa Resorts, plus a few other select hotels. Based on the list I’ve seen, that includes:

• Deluxe Resorts like Animal Kingdom Lodge, Beach Club, BoardWalk Inn, Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Polynesian Village, Wilderness Lodge and Yacht Club
• Deluxe Villa Resorts like Bay Lake Tower, Boulder Ridge Villas, Copper Creek Villas and Cabins, Jambo House, Kidani Village, Beach Club Villas, BoardWalk Villas, Lakeshore Lodge, Old Key West, Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Riviera Resort, Saratoga Springs, Villas at Grand Floridian and the Disney Vacation Club Cabins at Fort Wilderness
• Other select hotels, including the Swan, Dolphin, Swan Reserve and Shades of Green

Here are the attractions listed for Extended Evening Hours at Hollywood Studios:

• Alien Swirling Saucers
• Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
• Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
• Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets
• Slinky Dog Dash
• Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
• Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
• Toy Story Mania!

That is a seriously good list. Honestly, it’s most of the greatest hits.

If you haven’t ridden Rise of the Resistance, here’s the quick version. You join the Resistance, get captured by the First Order, and have to escape while Kylo Ren confronts you. It’s a trackless ride with a little Tower of Terror-style drop that is on the gentler side. It’s long, it’s immersive, and it’s the kind of ride that gets people to say “wait, that was one ride?” when they step off.

It’s also one of the busiest attractions in the park, which is exactly why this matters. A ride with that kind of demand is a lot easier to enjoy when the general public has gone home. I can’t promise exact wait times (nobody can), but a thinner crowd after 9 PM is the whole point of this perk. And in earlier years, when Extended Evening Hours came around, Rise of the Resistance was left off the ride list, so having it on there now is a real change worth noting.

I’m going to be dramatic about this, because that’s my brand. This is the single best addition to Extended Evening Hours that Disney could have made for Hollywood Studios. Rise of the Resistance is the headliner of Galaxy’s Edge, and leaving it out of a “bonus nights” perk always felt a little like throwing a party and forgetting the cake.

Is it a perk that’s only for resort guests? Yes, and I know that’s not everyone. But if you ARE staying at one of those hotels, and you’re on the fence about which night to do Hollywood Studios, this is the one I’d circle. Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Rise of the Resistance in the same night, with fewer people? That’s a pretty great evening.

I’m also curious whether this is a one-time thing or a sign of how Extended Evening Hours might look in the future. I don’t know. Nobody outside of Disney does. But I’ll be watching, and I’m hopeful.

If you end up going on October 14 or 28, tell me how it went! Were the lines as short as we’d hope? And of course, stick around Theme Park Scope, because I’ll be keeping an eye on any updates to these evenings and sharing them with you as soon as I know more.