Hollywood Studios was probably the Disney Park that we spent the least amount of time in. There wasn’t a lot there that we were interested in, although the rides that were on our list all had long wait times.

The History of Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios originally opened under a different name (Disney-MGM Studios) due to a partnership between Disney and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. However, the partnership between the two companies ended, and in 2007 it was announced that the park would be rebranded as Hollywood Studios.

Did you know that this theme park also doubled as a working studio until the early 2000s? It was thought that by having soundstages and production facilities in a Disney Park that was based on the behind the scenes of films, it would allow guests an even closer look at how films are produced.

The Layout of Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios is split into eight sections, a couple of these only containing one attraction and a few dining options.

Unlike a couple of the other Disney Parks, there isn’t really a central location that provides a direct route to the other sections, you will have to travel through others to reach the area you want.

Hollywood Boulevard

This is Hollywood Studio’s equivalent of Main Street USA. It is the first thing you see as you enter the park, on either side of the street are shops and restaurants leading up to the area that is known as “Center Stage” and the entrance to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway.

Honestly, we only spent time here when we were moving around or queuing for Micky and Minnie’s Railway. The ride was quite fun and one that Harry had wanted to go on from the start because it followed the story of a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Echo Lake

When we were visiting Hollywood Studios this is actually the area that we did the majority of activities in. Although, one of the rides possibly belonged more in the Star Wars area.

One of our favourite attractions was the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. It was really interesting and held the crowd’s attention the whole way through. You are seated on covered bleachers with a nice cool breeze coming through (this was especially nice considering the heat on the day we were there!) as stunt performers explain and demonstrate different stunts from the Indiana Jones films including battle scenes and pyrotechnics. Both Harry and I found it a lot of fun to watch and talked about it for quite a while afterwards.

Vacation Fun is another attraction that I would recommend from this section. It is an old Mickey and Minnie animated film based around them going on vacation (who would have guessed). We have watched a lot of these short films before, but it had started to rain a bit, so we were grateful for the opportunity to be inside. The exit for this attraction was also great as it provides photo opportunities at the different locations from the film.

The only actual ride that was in this section of the park was Star Tours, which you would think was more likely to be found in the Star Wars section, but oh well. We were lucky with the queue times for this ride as we only waited five minutes or so. Once on it, I realised that we had actually been on the one in Paris, so it made sense that it seemed a little repetitive.

Commissary Lane and Grand Avenue

I’ve decided to combine these two areas as we spent very little time in the pair of them. Both have one attraction and a couple of dinning options, but the only place we visited in either was PizzeRizzo. This is laid out like a typical Italian American restaurant serving things like pizza and meatball subs. It wasn’t too crowded either which meant we had no trouble finding a table to enjoy our food at.

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

This area of Hollywood Studios was absolutely packed for the duration of our visit. I’m not sure if this was because it held the most interest of park goers or because the Rise of the Resistance ride was still fairly new, but either way this seemed to be where everyone graduated to. The area is very well themed, as we’ve come to expect from Disney, even down to the drink’s bottles on sale (although the price definitely reflects this!).

I’m sorry to say that we can neither confirm nor deny the hype surrounding the Rise of the Resistance ride, as the wait time was roughly two hours, so would have taken the majority of our day. However, we did enjoy our trip through hyperspace on the Millenium Falcon: Smugglers Run. After all, not many people can say that they’ve flown the Millenium Falcon.

Toy Story Land

If you were a fan of these films or have young children, then this is not a section of the park that you will want to miss. It is truly a place for your inner child to come out and have fun.

As we had made it our mission to go on as many, if not all, of the known rides as possible, our final ride of the trip was the Slinky Dog Dash. The queue for this ride was the longest one we had stood in and seemed to go on forever, it didn’t help that as we were nearing the front of the line an announcement came on saying that they may have to close down the ride due to extreme weather coming in. Luckily, that didn’t happen, and we got to enjoy the ride, understanding why it is so popular. The only downside was that after the wait the ride seemed far too short.

Toy Story Land was the only part of Hollywood Studios that had crowds even close to Galaxy’s Edge. The décor was amazing and the toilets nearest the Star Wars area were incredibly clean.

Animation Courtyard

According to our ticked off map of the park, we didn’t actually do anything in this area, however looking at the attractions available, it makes sense. One is for younger visitors called “Disney Junior Play & Dance”, while the other two were museums linked to Walt Disney (most of the information we already knew).

If you are looking for a quiet area to sit in, this is definitely the place for it.

Sunset Boulevard

Despite this being the home of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Sunset Boulevard for us was the place to get the best ice cream. In fact, Hollywood Scoops was the only place in Hollywood Studios that we bought our ice cream at, always the brownie sundae as well.

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was the only well-known ride that we didn’t go on. Mainly because Harry doesn’t like drop towers, but also because it didn’t really appeal to me. While we were eating our ice cream a lot of people did walk past either confused on where the entrance to the ride was or talking about it.

Parade

While it may not be of the same magnitude of Magic Kingdom’s Parade, there is one at Hollywood Studios as well. We stood to the side and watched as the Incredibles and the toys from Toy Story walked or drove past us. We hadn’t expected to see a parade during our visit, but it was a pleasant surprise. (Please not that the above image is not a part of this parade.)

Conclusion

While Hollywood Studios wasn’t my favourite park, I can certainly see the appeal for those looking for a quieter day or who have a specific interest in one of the areas. There wasn’t much there that I particularly wanted to see but we still had a good time, so I’d still recommend spending at least one day here.