Out of all the parks, we had planned to spend the least amount of time at Hollywood Studios on our honeymoon. There seemed to be a consensus among the Disney World Vlog community that in January 2019, when we visited, Hollywood Studios wasn’t quite as full and vibrant as it could be. As Adam and I walked around, we couldn’t help but agree. We still had a lot of fun, but we also felt that the park hadn’t yet reached its full potential. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway were both under construction while we were there. We have since visited Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland and definitely feel that would have helped round out the park during our visit.
Jumping forward a few days in our honeymoon, we also spent two days in Universal Studios. While there, we got the feeling that Disney was trying to achieve with Hollywood Studios what Universal Studios had already successfully achieved with their two parks. We will talk about that more in depth during the Universal Studios blog post.
With all that said, we were able to appreciate the park for what was there and the potential we could see coming with Galaxy’s Edge. There wasn’t a WOW moment, like when we entered Animal Kingdom, but it was a worth-while visit and we look forward to seeing how the park grows throughout our lifetimes.
One of the highlights for us was visiting Toy Story Land, where everything is absolutely huge! It is such a wonderfully themed park, with one of the best atmospheres in all of Disney World. Slinky Dog Dash is a cute, little roller-coaster that is a very smooth ride. As with all of the parks except Magic Kingdom, we struggled to find breakfast, so we ate at Woody’s Lunch Box. We had a Breakfast Bowl and Turkey Breakfast Sandwich, which was decent enough, but I had really been looking forward to trying out their Tachos (tater tot nachos) and would have happily eaten those for breakfast if they were being served in the morning. We had planned to go back to try them for dinner, but after a huge lunch at Hollywood & Vine, we couldn’t stuff anything else into our bodies. It’s definitely on the list for next time!
Hollywood & Vine was another special experience for us, though this time it was the characters, not the food, that made it worth its price tag! Read all about our experience and why there is a rock in a bunch of these pictures, by clicking here.
Adam loved all things Star Wars. We are curious about how the park has changed since Galaxy’s Edge was opened, if they still do the Star Wars shows at the Chinese Theater, or have moved those over to the official Star Wars part of the park now. Adam also loved the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith and Tower of Terror – all those thrill rides.
We were not as much a fan of some of the shows – the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (well, Adam loved this one, I did not), Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage, and Voyage of the Little Mermaid. One day we will go into more detail about what we loved and didn’t love about all of our experiences, but I do feel like all of these could stand to be updated and re-tooled. The one thing I really appreciated about all of them was being able to sit for a while.
Speaking of sitting, we got awesome seats for Fantasmic! With character dining, we managed to get preferred seating and were in the second row. We have seen Fantasmic! at Disneyland, I really appreciated that this was a different version of that show. The themes are very similar, but I enjoyed immensely how much different the storyline was. Plus, we got to sit during it, making it a much more pleasant and relaxing experience than in Disneyland where seats are hard to come by.
As I conclude this blog post, I can’t help but feel sad that I wasn’t able to write about Hollywood Studios with as much enthusiasm and passion as I did Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. I know with the addition of Galaxy’s Edge and Runaway Railway, Disney has made huge strides in improving the park and we are definitely looking forward to visiting it again to hopefully make memories to share more enthusiastically.
