Hollywood Studios
Park Dedication
The World you have entered was created by The Walt Disney Company and is dedicated to Hollywood – not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was – and always will be. -- Dedication, 1989
Park Overview
Hollywood Studios is the third park at Walt Disney World. The idea started as a potential pavilion to be added to Epcot. When Universal Studios began work on their park for Orlando, Disney saw an opportunity to beat them market, and the concept evolved into a full park. It opened as Disney-MGM studios in 1989, a year before Universal Studios Florida opened. Many of the themed areas were designed for filming TV shows and movies. Other attractions celebrated Hollywood, like The Great Movie Ride, or showed part of the movie making process, like the Monster Sound Show. Over time, it has shifted away from this “movie-making” theme. As of today, none of the original attractions are still in operation. Some of the new line-up are related to the movie-making, but the majority are not. Disney has recently been considering changing the name of the park to be more representative of its current identity.
Over the last decade, Hollywood Studios has received a new land for Star Wars and Toy Story. A new land is also in work for Monsters, Inc. These highly immersive lands themed to a single franchise have become tent poles for the park. Stage shows are common as well, within a line-up including the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Beauty and the Beast, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and Disney Jr. Play and Dance!
One of the uses for Hollywood Studios nowadays is to identify properties that will be successful long-term in the Parks. There are several shows and minor attractions that can be swapped out with relatively little effort. These are serving as proving grounds for intellectual property to be used in other attractions. Examples include tests for Frozen, Star wars, Pixar, and Villains. Generally, Disney's newest characters make their ways to Hollywood Studios. If they are popular in this park, then they're considered for a more permanent attraction elsewhere.
Wait Times
Below are graphs showing wait times for some of the key attractions at the park. We track posted wait times, and use them to predict what wait times will be each day. We make live updates to these predictions, so they will adjust to the current crowd levels in the park. The orange line with the circle markers shows the wait times that Disney has posted today. The blue line shows our prediction. The light-gold shaded region shows wait times that we would consider average – these are the range of wait times you can expect on a day that’s not too crowded or too slow.