I think you can safely do this. The carbonyl groups will reduce the basicity or stability of any intermediate carbocation that must form in a hydrolysis reaction. So the reaction would be very slow. (You can further decrease the rate by keeping it cold. My favorite work up strategy is to add ice to my reactions to keep them cold.)
The second point is that the sequence proposed appears to be a known literature sequence. I think it is highly probable that you could simply go to your library, look up the two compounds in SciFinder, and find published methods for their preparation.