Disney – Hollywood Studios

This was everyone’s least favorite park and if we had to pick one to skip this would be the one. To be fair, our family is not into Star Wars and that would make a big difference when planning a trip to Hollywood Studios, as a good portion of this theme park is dedicated to Star Wars.

We split Hollywood Studios into two days because of how our trip was scheduled. I wouldn’t recommend this strategy and I wouldn’t normally have planned my trip this way. Because we were coordinating with extended family members our trip dates weren’t entirely up to our choosing, but it worked out fine in the end.

To read about planning and preparing for our Disney World trip CLICK HERE.

As soon as we checked into our resort on our arrival day, we immediately changed clothes and hopped on the bus to Hollywood Studios.

I did NOT buy lightning lanes passes for this first day because if travel was going to go haywire, I didn’t want to have wasted money and I could have cancelled our dinner reservation.

This resulted in a LONG wait for Toy Story Mania and the few other rides we went on. We didn’t even attempt any of the other major attraction rides because of the long wait times. I felt very solid in my decision to have purchased lightning lanes for most of the remaining days of our trip (including some single lightning lane passes for certain rides).

With a show, sit-down dinner, and a few rides, we were beat and decided to skip the late-night Fantasmic show so we could get some sleep – no regrets.

Our departure day was the second time we went to Hollywood Studios. We left our bags with bell services at the resort. Then, once again, we hopped on the bus and spent the majority of the day enjoying the park. Cutting it a little too close, we arrived back at the resort with seconds to spare as our transportation to the airport was pulling in as we walked up.

Rides

Please note that these are from two 1/2 days (arrival and departure days).

*LL means we had a lightning lane

• Alien Swirling Saucers x2 (LL)
• Slinky Dog Dash (LL)
• Toy Story Mania x2 (LL)
• Tower of Terror (LL)
• Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (LL)

Shows

Beauty and the Beast (highly recommend!)

The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure (my husband took one daughter to this while I did rider switch for Rock ‘n’ Coaster)

For the First Time in Forever (cute and funny)

Characters

*Only one of our kids was interested in meeting characters and getting their signatures. Even then, only specific characters were requested by our child. Many more characters are available at each park.

Olaf

Attractions

Walt Disney Presents (we had time to kill while waiting for a show to end and I love history)

Food

Woody’s Lunch Box (get the totcho bowl!)

Ronto Roasters (get the ronto wrap!!)

Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater (This was our one dinner reservation of the entire trip. I made it for our first night because I knew we would be tired from getting up super early and traveling. I wanted a meal I knew my kids would enjoy – burgers and shakes. The meal was good. The sci-fi movies were pretty gross but sitting in a car and the theming was fun. This experience probably could have been skipped.)

Backlot Express (Wookiee Cookie – shareable)

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