Roll up Roll up It’s where you become your own star, Hollywood Studios has it all camera’s, lights and plenty of action around every corner. This is another park that we spent 1 full day at and a night from a previous rest day to try and fit it all in with a reasonable break – walking around on your feet for 14 hours a day becomes very tiring and this park had a good amount of shows as you would expect with Hollywood themed parks.
Like most of the other parks this is split into themed areas with each having its story to reach out to you: Hollywood Boulevard, Echo Lake, Muppets Courtyard, Pixar Place, Animation Courtyard and Sunset Boulevard. The Main Street (Hollywood Boulevard) grabs your first interest with its street lined older style buildings with little side streets containing boutique shops – like pandora. At the end of the main street you are faced with a huge stage used for the Star Wars ……… at the end of the night as well as during the day for other smaller shows but here is where the park splits into the other themed areas.
Our first night time was to ensure we got to experience the must do attractions, but first we chose to eat at ABC commissary which was a very nice dining experience and a change from the American Food, I mention this as I ordered chicken and ribs and I got half a chicken with ribs and a salad, very nice and tasty. Back to the attractions though – Belinda and I were booked in to go on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror followed by a family show in viewing Fantasmic.
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
As you enter the haunted twilight tower you enter a room and the story begins with how the Hotel used to work and now only has a service elevator for you, enter if you dare – it has a little surprise for you (I am not going to spoil) but it does go to the top of the top and drop you enough so you actually lift of your seat a little putting strain on the belt :-). A great Thrill Ride for sure Belinda and I Review 10/10 - Fantasmic
This is a character show with fireworks and lasers looking over a water design staged that also animates a story into a spray of water, it is very hard to explain but if you click the link you can catch a glimpse of the video,
Family Review 9/10
On returning to this park for the day time experience we had the luxury of knowing our way around the park and this helps a lot to make sure you get the little bits of magic into your holiday. Today, resort guests had Magic Hours so we headed straight for the 2 major attractions at HollyWood Studios by this I am talking about Twilight Zone Tower of Terror where this time Brianna and Emily joined us for the ride this time. The second ride to get to was the Rock n Roller Coaster, unfortunately Emily changed her mind on this ride after waiting about 20 minutes and would wait at the end for us to return and then regret it all day – YOLO.
From here we enjoyed a casual Starbucks Coffee and wandered around to have some more of the character photos with Chip’n’Dale and the favourites Mickey & Minnie Mouse, you can not have enough of these photos 😝, before entering into the Pixar Palace for Toy Story Mania. Our day had many attractions listed below, with our top 4 reviews;
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, this time around Brianna and Emily joined us, so our Family Review didn’t change from our earlier review with a high 10/10
- Rock’n’nRoller Coaster
The name describes the ride, a roller coaster that is indoors and in the dark, it has a loop and 3 corkscrews which you don’t really know about due to the blackness of the ride as well as being one of the smoothest coasters we have been on, very impressive coaster – Belinda, Brianna and Roy Review 10/10 - Toy Story Mania
A family friendly attraction that takes you into the main scenes of Toy Story movie in a spaceship that spins and turns you around before you come to a stand still allowing you to blast (shoot) a laser at the moving targets, this is a very good attraction providing everyone with entertainment and laughs. Family Review 9/10
- Beauty and the Beast
Not like me at all but I will say this has made the top 4, while this may come as a surprise to you all given the list above. It is a stage show musical and is very well done with all the cast members (dancers) doing a great job staying synchronisation, we have not seen the movie but the show allows you to understand the plot behind the performance, Family Review 9/10
- Muppet Vision 3D
I said top 4 and unfortunately this did not make it, for those that know me well will understand that I had high hopes and expectations of this attraction – I left disappointed… It could have been so much better, yeah it had the normal key characters etc but if it opened with the skit of all the characters in the window singing the opening song in 3D this would have been so much better. - The Great Movie Ride
- Star Tours
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Show
- Walt Disney One Mans Dream
After this long day we headed back to Rock’n’Roller Coaster to see what the wait time was for stand bye riders – 120 minutes, no way was I waiting that long for a ride, we offered Emily and Brianna to go to the single rider line and hopefully this would be reduced, Emily did not wish to ride with someone else as much as she was now ready to give it a go, where as Brianna said see you soon – 45 minutes later 😀, but her excited face after the ride was worth the wait #collectingmemoriesnotthings has been my hashtag all holiday and this is exactly what I was talking about – the smiles and laughter you are sharing as a family.
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – YouTube Video
#colletingmemoriesnotthings
Our Aussie Family 