Welcome to Hollywood (Studios), what’s your dream?

Our second visit to Disney was to Hollywood Studios, home to Star Wars, Toy Story, Tower Terror, Indiana Jones stunt show, Frozen musical singalong and more. One of the main attractions in the park is Disney’s state-of-the-art, high-tech attraction “Rise of the Resistance”. For those who aren’t aware it’s a Star Wars ride, but before we get into the details, the technology used to pull of this amazing experience is literally mindblowing. The cars (the thing you sit in to experience the ride) runs on invisible tracks, kind of like a giant “automatic vacuum cleaner/lawnmower” that you’ve programmed to navigate your house/garden. Rather than everything you’re watching on a screen looking like a flat 2D image, they’ve taken great care to make the images appear like you’re witnessing a real event. Overall this increases your immersion in the experience from being passive, to be fully engaged. Once you’ve ridden the ride, you really appreciate and value the time and effort taken and it’s no exaggeration to state everyone coming off the ride was marvelling at how great the experience was and I suspect the number of repeat riders is very high.

We really enjoyed the experience and felt it was worth the hour’s wait. Some of us were more excited about it than others and loved every twist and turn in the ride queue which had been thoughtfully decorated as a rebel base. And as the ride progresses, you’re snatched by the First Order (evil empire), thrown into a cell, rescued by the resistance fighters and have to escape the First Order.  

From there we explored Galaxy’s Edge outpost and the ton of traders, the entire area is fully themed like a huge film set, complete with a full-size Millenium Falcon – one of the only times a full-size ship has ever been constructed. 

Once you leave Galaxy’s Edge, you arrive in Toy Story Land and immerse yourself in Andy’s toys. Despite not having any small children with us, it was great to see the wonder in all the little faces as we walked through the different attractions which reminded of those moments when we did have small people in the family. 

After strolling around Main Street looking at the stores and eating a much needed ice cream to mitigate the effects of the afternoon heat, it was time to take our seats for the Indian Jones stunt show (based on Raiders of the Lost Arc). We really enjoyed the show and the brief glimpse it gave behind the scenes as the crew talked us through how they pulled off the stunts in each sequence. The last area of the park needing to be explored was Sunset Boulevard, home to Tower Terror. But by now and with the influx of people pouring in from other parks (to limit capacity, you need to book a place in your park but can enter any other park after 2pm) – the ride queue was over 90 minutes. 

Whilst in one of the ride queues, we’d decided our evening meal would be a visit to one of the local BBQ smokehouses. Again the re-fillable drinks were most welcome and our pulled pork burgers (with coleslaw, pickles and a choice of tata tots (mini potato croquettes) or fries were delicious.