What’s Fun to Do at Hollywood Studios?
The past two years have proved challenging for the entire Disney community.
Sometimes, we tend to forget how good we have it as Disney fans. So, I thought I’d try to change that today by focusing on the positive.
Let’s talk about what’s fun to do at Disney’s Hollywood Studios!
Clobber Your Friends
I’m not one of those hyper-competitive people who must win at everything. So I can lose with dignity and grace…unless I’m playing Halo.
Anyway, I don’t like to get aggro about wins and losses, but I make an exception at Hollywood Studios.
When I ride Toy Story Mania!, I need to win. If I don’t have bragging rights for my ride cart, I feel like I’ve failed.
This ride is one of the few places where I take tremendous satisfaction in clobbering my friends. Okay, it’s this and fantasy football.
Eat with Your Relatives
In my opinion, Hollywood Studios falls behind the other parks in terms of restaurant quality.
Photo: Disney
However, two of the options here rise above the rest…and not just because of the cuisine.
At 50s Prime Time Café, the cast members pretend like they’re family. So, they have expectations about how you should act at the table. It’s hysterical.
Photo: Food Network
Don’t you dare put your elbows on the table, and you may have to take the dishes after your meal. You know how family dinners work!
Enter the Twilight Zone
I think the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror qualifies as one of the best Disney rides ever. At a minimum, it’s the most unique.
Photo: Disney
Disney somehow built a ride that Rod Serling hosts, even though he’d been dead for many years before it opened.
When you enter the Twilight Zone, you’re boarding a cursed elevator cart that doesn’t stay in the elevator!
Even worse, the cart careens up and down unexpectedly in a zero-gravity state. It’s one of the most thrilling rides at the park…and arguably the best-themed as well.
Fly the Millennium Falcon
Obviously, Star Wars has evolved into one of the most significant aspects of a park visit.
As you’ll see, I believe that three aspects of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge are especially fun.
One of them is Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run because YOU GET TO FLY THE MILLENNIUM FALCON!
What more could you possibly want?
PS: I can also clobber my friends on this one.
Go Off-World
Both the rides at Galaxy’s Edge are terrific and glorious on their own.
Still, for Star Wars fans, you don’t need to do anything else to have fun on Batuu.
Photo: Richard Harbaugh
All you need to do is walk through the tunnel and find yourself at Black Spire Outpost.
In a matter of moments, your worldview changes as you immerse yourself in a completely believable alien environment. It’s a stunning triumph in Imagineering.
Live out a Cartoon
Let’s start with the big question. Who put Goofy in charge of train station management? That was a bad idea from the start.
Then, the situation somehow takes a turn for the worse as Mickey & Minnie pull you into their cartoon universe where anything is possible.
You’ll face tornados, fall off a watery cliff, and…ballroom dance?!
So much happens on this ride, and it all feels perfectly thematic as we live out a Disney cartoon.
Play on a Slinky
Slinkys have had their heyday as pop culture toys everyone wants and needs. Just typing that makes me feel melancholy, though.
Not that long ago, kids still relished the thought of watching a Slinky strut its way down a set of stairs.
Disney Imagineers evidently never forgot the brilliance of this toy, as Slinky Dog Dash doubles as a love song for Slinky toys.
The ride vehicle twists, bends, and contracts as needed to propel you along the roller coaster tracks. It’s genuinely a remarkable physics instructional tutorial each ride.
Photo: TheCoasterKings.com
You’re not at Hollywood Studios to learn, though. Instead, you just want to have a great time, and this roller coaster absolutely delivers on that premise.
Rise against the Resistance
The First Order. I hate these guys.
Photo: Steven Diaz
Like most members of The Resistance, I want to do my part to overthrow Kylo Ren and whatever nonsense we decided Snoke was.
When I’m lucky enough to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, I marvel at how much happens.
First, I plot against the First Order. Then, I get kidnapped and held hostage by the First Order. Later, I participate in a shootout and an escape.
Also, at one point, Kylo Ren holds out his hand menacingly as if he’s gonna do something to me. It’s all thrilling and indisputably the most ambitious Disney ride ever.
Photo: Disney
Shrink in Size
As a kid at heart and someone with world-class Peter Pan Syndrome, I admire the little things at Disney parks.
To wit, after literally dozens of visits to Toy Story Land, I still think about the concept each time I enter.
According to the theming here, I gradually diminish in size until I’m the size of a toy. That’s why everything here looks so large. It’s not the pictures that got small.
Disney deserves plenty of credit for pulling off something so silly and enjoyable.
Photo: Matt Stroshane
Watch an Sc-Fi Movie
My refrigerator is a cluttered mess of sports and video game references and pop culture items. And oh yes, Disney is a large part of it.
I’ve had two different thank you letters from Sci-Fi Dine-In on the fridge. The restaurant gives you these as thanks for returning visitors.
Credit: Disney
They’re a point of pride for me because this place is legitimately my favorite restaurant on the planet.
I have reservations for next month, and I’m already counting down the days.
Photo: Disney
A Disney trip when I don’t visit this place just isn’t the same. So why do I love it so much?
Sci-Fi Dine-In honors the drive-in movie experience from the 1960s…and authentically at that.
I actually went to a drive-in movie a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, that experience paled in comparison with a meal at Sci-Fi Dine-In.
For one thing, I didn’t even get to see Garco!
Yes, Garco’s terrifying and really should wear a hat. But, like Walt Disney, I love him anyway.
Seriously, the drive-in entertainment here is remarkably awful in the best possible way. I could watch this on a loop…which I can at Sci-Fi Dine-In!
Zoom to an Aerosmith Concert
When I think of bands that hate each other, my first thought is Aerosmith. But, save for maybe Oasis, no musicians have ever had more ups and downs.
Somehow, these repeated spats haven’t stopped the band from creating superlative rock music.
Several of their best tunes are on display during the insane Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster, a quick journey across Los Angeles.
I must admit that I never expected to watch Aerosmith and Disney join forces. Still, the ride’s quality speaks for itself.
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I’ve also been one of the fortunate few in line when Steven Tyler rides it. I think it’s hysterical and heartwarming how much joy he gets from this attraction.
That’s what Disney should be for all of us: pure escapist fun. No, we won’t all get an attraction based on our lives, but we’ll always have a great time at the parks.
Image Credit: Disney
