After a week of visiting theme parks and attractions in the
Orlando area, we decided to sleep in a bit before heading to the last park of
our trip. We arrived for our first ever
visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios about an hour after rope drop and headed
straight for our first fastpass attraction of the day, The Twilight Zone Tower
of Terror. This ride absolutely blew me
away. The theming was top notch, the
backstory was intriguing, and the ride itself was thrilling. This was by far my favorite attraction in all
of Walt Disney World, and it deserves every bit of praise it receives.
We took our time throughout the rest of the day, because
frankly, if we hadn’t, we would have been done with the park in only a couple
of hours. It was possible to see
everything we wanted to see without having to traverse back and forth across
the park to hit our fastpass windows or avoid long lines. Our feet appreciated the choice to make this
park the last on our trip due to the least amount of walking involved.
Outside of the Tower of Terror, none of the rides really
stood out to me. Everything seemed to be
“so-so” or “just okay”. The Great Movie
Ride was a bit boring due to its slow pace, Star Tours seemed like a generic
motion simulator with a Star Wars overlay, Toy Story Midway Mania was enjoyable
even though you just moved from one screen to another without much in between,
and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was fun but had way too much head banging.
In addition to the rides, we also experienced several of the
shows: Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Muppet Vision 3D, Lights Motors
Action, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, The Magic of Disney Animation, and Walt
Disney: One Man’s Dream. Again, much
like the rides in the park, the shows were decent but seemed to fall flat. They didn’t quite measure up to the Disney
standard that I had built up in my head, and they all felt like filler in a
park lacking quality attractions.
The remainder of our time in the park was spent perusing
gift shops, eating a mediocre lunch at the ABC Commissary, taking a gander at
the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, and taking in the general vibe of the generic
movie set theme. The park did not feel
as neglected as EPCOT did, but it did feel incomplete. It seemed as though many of the attractions
were being promoted as major attractions in this park, when in reality they
would only be considered minor attractions if they were located in another park
such as the Magic Kingdom.
We ended our day by watching Fantasmic. This was by far my favorite nighttime show in
all of Walt Disney World. The production
really captured the mystical proverbial “magic” that exudes from the Disney
brand. The lights were great, the props
were great, the actors were great, and the music was great. The way everything came together was, for lack
of a better word, magical. It was the
perfect way to end not only that night, but our entire Orlando trip as well.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is far from a perfect park, but I
also don’t think it deserves some of the criticisms it receives. I had a fun time here. If it came down to returning to this park or
going back to EPCOT, I would choose the Studios based on Tower of Terror and
Fantasmic alone. There is certainly much
room for improvement, and thankfully, if the rumors are true, upgrades are on
the way in the not too distant future. It
will be interesting to see what this park looks like in a few years.
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