One Disney expert shares why Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the perfect park for an adult’s trip to Walt Disney World Resort.
We all know the feeling, that rope drop magic. A happy brigade of families, straining at the leash, waiting for that chance to pounce on a beloved attraction before a queue can even form. It means the start of another day of magic at Walt Disney World. But for this Disney Dad, the excitement rises exponentially when the magic moment that we’re waiting for is the opening of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. What makes an alleged grown-up like me feel like a kid again in this special place? Come along for an imaginary adventure at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and we can solve the mystery together.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Adults: The Vibe
I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Part of my Hollywood Studios anticipation is a primal, competitive impulse to fast walk past Echo Lake just shy of lightspeed on my way to the front of the line for Rise of the Resistance. But I’ve been bringing my family to Disney’s Hollywood Studios since the only thing we were racing for was a chance to sign up my son to fight Darth Vader with a plastic lightsaber in Jedi Training Academy. So my childlike glee is not just a manifestation of Poppa Bear’s competitive streak. It’s something in the air…
Photo by Marisa Alvarado
You know what? It IS something in the air! That magnificent underscore of 1940s swing music, carrying you away to a Sunset Boulevard of the mind. Growling, grinding saxophones against a hit of brass you can feel down to your feet, making a guy soft-shoe his way into the park, and deeper into a Hollywood that never really was, and yet I’ve somehow known it since I was a kid.
Maybe that’s the difference. The albums where I first heard that swing music are in my collection now, but they belonged to my grandparents when I first heard them, and now the music belongs to everyone on the streets of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, creating an inescapable vibe for us to share and carrying this Disney Dad back to his childhood.
The Star Wars of It All
This year, on May the Fourth, I celebrated Star Wars Day with a trip to my local rep cinema to see The Empire Strikes Back. I commented to many friends and colleagues that I hadn’t seen it on the big screen since it was first released in 1980, and I learned to my horror that they NEVER had, because they hadn’t been born at the time. But for those of us who were there, an abiding love of all things Star Wars is deeply ingrained. Baked in, on a molecular level, and for years, Disney’s Hollywood Studios has been the place where that childhood passion meets the real world.
Photo by Marisa Alvarado
What we loved in the days of those plastic lightsaber battles in Jedi Training Academy (and its successor Trials of the Temple) continued in the 3D chicanery of Star Tours, awkward “prom pictures” with Kylo Ren at Star Wars Landing Bay, exploring Baatu, flying the Millenium Falcon… and yes, beating the queue for Rise of the Resistance doesn’t hurt. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is strong in the ways of the force, and for Disney Dads and Moms of a certain vintage, a powerful thing that is. Powerful thing.
The Tried and True Attractions
There are more than a few other starring attractions that make a day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios so special for a Disney Dad of my model year. Here are a handful of favorites that will give you away if you’re trying to pass for a “youth”. Don’t worry, you weren’t fooling anybody.
- The Man in the Hat – Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!: He made archaeology cool and turned the simple act of wearing an era-accurate fedora into cosplay, and if you are in your prime Disney Dad years, he’s one of your heroes. The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! is one of the best shows in any of the Disney World parks, and because we’re friends, I’m not going to once more tell you the story of how I was in it one time. Not today anyway.
- The Band – Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith: Your kids don’t know who they are (years ago, my son actually asked who those weird old men were), but you rocked out to this band, my brother Disney Dad. And while the winds of change are blowing, it is the Muppets who are coming to take over, and we grew up to that soundtrack too. It’s time to play the music. Rock On.
- The Reruns – Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: Those same long-ago afternoons at Grandma’s when I learned to love swing music gave me a background in TV even older than I am. Which meant the day my daughter asked in the Tower of Terror queue what was supposed to be scary about a broken pair of glasses on display, I was able to respond with the plot of the episode “Time Enough at Last”, baffling the children in the area and getting respectful nods from my fellow Disney Dads. Proper.
The Heart of Disney’s Hollywood Studios
It may not be the same vintage of the other pieces of intellectual property that speak to Dads of a certain age so much, but Toy Story Land is a beautifully realized “do-over” for Disney Moms and Dads who understand the love and loss at the heart of the Toy Story original trilogy. Who wouldn’t love to be a toy in that stunning playset of a land?
Everybody has a box of toys that went astray somewhere in the past. Everybody grows up. But at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, maybe that isn’t a permanent arrangement. And maybe that’s the unexpected adult appeal of the place. Magic.
