Show · Sunset Boulevard
Fantasmic!
The park's nighttime show: a 30-minute water, fire and projection spectacular in a 6,900-seat amphitheater, with live performers and boats.
Any heightMulti Pass
Walt Disney World · Bay Lake, Florida
Disney's Hollywood Studios
The thrill park of Walt Disney World, and the one with the most height sticks.
Disney's Hollywood Studios opened in 1989 as a working film and television production facility that guests could tour. Almost none of that is left. The soundstages stopped producing, the backlot came down, and what stands there now is a park built around a handful of very good rides, three or four live shows worth your time, and the most complete Star Wars environment Disney has built anywhere. The studio framing survives mainly as architecture.
The thing to understand before you book is the height problem. This is the most height-restrictive of the six Disney parks in the United States. Seven attractions have a height requirement, and the range runs from 32 inches at Alien Swirling Saucers up to 48 inches at Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets, which is the tallest requirement at any Walt Disney World park except TRON at Magic Kingdom. If your group includes a child under 40 inches, roughly half the ride lineup is closed to them, and the shows and walkthroughs have to carry a much larger share of the day than they would at Magic Kingdom.
The park is also small and badly shaded. You can walk from the entrance to the far end of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in about twelve minutes, and much of that walk is over open pavement with no trees. Toy Story Land is the worst offender: an entire land of concrete and metal with a handful of canopies. In July and August this is a genuine planning constraint, not an inconvenience, and the air-conditioned shows and walkthroughs become the structure of the day rather than filler.
Two changes matter as of 2026. Rock 'n' Roller Coaster reopened on May 26, 2026 as a Muppets attraction after twenty-six years with an Aerosmith theme; the track, launch and three inversions are unchanged and the height requirement is still 48 inches. In the other direction, Muppet*Vision 3D and the Muppets Courtyard around it closed in 2025 for the Monstropolis project, which Disney has announced without giving an opening date. Grand Avenue is a thinner land than it used to be and part of it is behind construction walls.
Used well, this is a one-day park with a very front-loaded plan: be at the gate before opening, take Slinky Dog Dash or Rise of the Resistance in the first hour, and accept that the middle of the day belongs to shows and food. Used badly, it is the park where families spend six hours in queues and see three attractions.
Last verified July 2026
At a glance
- Best for
- Thrill-seekers and coaster riders · Star Wars fans of any age · Older children and teenagers over 48 inches · Live show and stunt-show audiences · Adults on a shorter Walt Disney World trip
- Less ideal for
- Families with a child under 40 inches · Toddlers and preschoolers · Anyone who needs frequent shade or cannot tolerate heat · Visitors who want a slow, wandering park day · Guests looking for classic gentle dark rides
- Days needed
- 1 day minimum
- Tallest requirement
- 48in (122cm)
Everything about this park
All 31 attractions
The complete list, sortable and filterable
Best rides, ranked
An actual ranking, defended one by one
Height requirements
7 rides with a minimum height
Where to eat
28 restaurants, carts, and lounges
Best snacks
45 tracked items with prices
Park map
Printable, works offline
Accessibility
Transfers, rentals, quiet spaces
First-timer guide
A plan you can actually follow
Headliners
The rides you plan the day around
If you only get a handful of long queues in you, spend them here.
Dark ride · Hollywood Boulevard
Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway
A trackless dark ride behind the Chinese Theatre screen that turns a Mickey cartoon into eight rooms of gags, with no height requirement.
Any heightMulti Pass
Simulator · Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Six guests fly the Millennium Falcon together as pilots, gunners and engineers, with the flight quality depending entirely on who gets the pilot seats.
38" minMulti PassSingle rider
Roller coaster · Sunset Boulevard
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets
A pitch-dark indoor launch coaster with three inversions that goes from a standstill to highway speed in under three seconds; 48 inches to ride.
48" minMulti Pass
Roller coaster · Toy Story Land
Slinky Dog Dash
A two-launch outdoor family coaster over the top of Toy Story Land, and the hardest ride in this park to get on without a plan.
38" minMulti Pass
Dark ride · Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
An eighteen-minute, four-part Star Wars ride combining a simulator, a trackless dark ride, a walkthrough and a drop; widely considered the best attraction Disney has built.
40" minSingle Pass
Dark ride · Sunset Boulevard
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
A 199-foot drop ride inside a decaying hotel, with a randomized drop sequence and the best queue and pre-show Disney has ever built.
40" minMulti Pass
Dark ride · Toy Story Land
Toy Story Midway Mania!
A 3D interactive shooting ride through five carnival games, with a scoreboard that turns the whole family competitive within about ninety seconds.
Any heightMulti Pass
7 distinct areas
The lands
Walking order from the entrance. Each land page carries its full attraction and dining list.
Opened 1989
Hollywood Boulevard
The entrance street, running from the turnstiles to a full-scale replica of the Chinese Theatre at the far end.
7 attractions3 places to eat
Opened 1989
Echo Lake
A small lake ringed by 1940s roadside architecture, holding two of the park's three best live shows.
5 attractions10 places to eat
Opened 2017
Grand Avenue
A short stretch of contemporary downtown Los Angeles that now functions mainly as the walkway into Galaxy's Edge.
0 attractions2 places to eat
Opened 2019
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
A fourteen-acre outpost on the planet Batuu with two headliner rides, a cantina, and more built detail than any other land at Walt Disney World.
7 attractions5 places to eat
Opened 2018
Toy Story Land
An oversized backyard where you are scaled to toy size, holding three rides and no shade whatsoever.
4 attractions1 places to eat
Opened 1994
Sunset Boulevard
A side street off Hollywood Boulevard holding the park's two biggest thrill rides, its two biggest shows and its food court.
5 attractions7 places to eat
Opened 1989
Animation Courtyard
A dead-end plaza off the central hub holding the park's two quietest indoor attractions and no dining at all.
3 attractions
Food
What to eat here
Our highest-priority items in Disney's Hollywood Studios. Mark them on the tracker and they save to your device.
Carrot Cake Cookie
Sunshine Day Bar
Two thick carrot cake cookies sandwiched around a slab of cream cheese frosting, considerably larger than the photographs suggest.
Our take: This one earns its reputation. It is very sweet and it is one dessert for two people, not one each. The most-searched item at this park and the search is justified.
Felucian Garden Spread
Plant-based kefta meatballs over herbed hummus with pita and a dressed cucumber and tomato salad, properly spiced rather than mildly seasoned.
Our take: One of the best vegan entrees at Walt Disney World and better than most of the meat dishes around it. Order it even if you eat meat; almost nobody does and they are wrong.
Fried Chicken
Buttermilk-brined fried chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables, served by a waiter playing an exasperated relative who will check whether you finished the vegetables.
Our take: The best table-service dish in the park and genuinely good fried chicken, not theme park fried chicken. The dish the whole restaurant is built around.
Grapefruit Cake
A light chiffon cake layered with grapefruit cream cheese frosting and citrus segments, carried over from the original 1930s restaurant menu.
Our take: The best dessert at Hollywood Studios and nothing else here is close. Tart rather than sugary, which is why people who dislike theme park desserts love it.
Lunch Box Tart
An oversized toaster pastry made in house, iced and sprinkled, with a filling that rotates between fruit and dessert flavors through the year.
Our take: The best cheap dessert in the park. It travels well, it splits neatly in two, and the savory version that appears from time to time is better than the sweet one.
Ronto Wrap
Roasted pork and a grilled sausage rolled in a warm pita with a tangy slaw and a peppery sauce, cooked at an open grill turned by a salvaged droid.
Our take: The best single thing to eat at Hollywood Studios and one of the best at Walt Disney World. Substantial enough to be lunch, portable enough to eat in a queue, and priced fairly for what it is.
Things worth knowing before you go
Buy one Single Pass, and buy it for Rise of the Resistance
Multi Pass is a reasonable purchase here because so much of the park's value sits in four or five rides. Single Pass is only worth it for one attraction: Rise of the Resistance, which has the longest standby and the highest chance of a mid-day breakdown adding an hour to your plan.
The park empties during the nighttime show
Fantasmic seats about 6,900 people and pulls a large share of the crowd to one corner of the park. If you skip it, the window it creates is the best riding hour of the day everywhere else, and Slinky Dog Dash after dark is better than it is in daylight.
Shows are the structure of the day, not the filler
Beauty and the Beast, the Indiana Jones stunt show and the Frozen sing-along seat over a thousand people each and rarely turn anyone away. Scheduling them into the hot hours and never spending a Lightning Lane on them is the single highest-value habit at this park.
Single rider on Smugglers Run is the best queue in the park
It regularly runs at half the standby wait or less. You will almost always be assigned an engineer seat, which is the least interactive of the three roles, but you get on the ride in twenty minutes instead of sixty.
Eat at 11:30 and again at 5
Every kitchen here is overwhelmed from noon to two and again from six to eight. Shifting both meals thirty to sixty minutes earlier reclaims most of an hour and gets you a better choice of seating.
Animation Courtyard is the release valve
When a headliner goes down and every posted wait in the app jumps at once, Animation Courtyard does not change. Walt Disney Presents and Star Wars Launch Bay are air conditioned, free, never busy, and long enough to absorb a bad hour.
Measure children before you book, not at the ride
This is the most height-restrictive of the six parks, with seven attractions carrying a stick and a top requirement of 48 inches. The measurement is taken with shoes on, and a borderline child who clears gets a wristband so they are not re-measured all day.
Mobile order is not optional at two locations
Woody's Lunch Box serves an entire land from one window and Docking Bay 7 is the only substantial indoor seating in Galaxy's Edge. Book windows for both as soon as you tap into the park; you can change the time later, but you cannot conjure a slot at 12:30.
Grand Avenue is a corridor now, not a land
Muppet*Vision 3D and the Muppets Courtyard closed in 2025 for the Monstropolis project, and there is currently no operating attraction in the land. BaseLine Tap House and Mama Melrose's are still open and are both worth a stop, but budget the area as a walk-through.
Do one queue on purpose
Tower of Terror's gardens and lobby, the Millennium Falcon corridor and the Star Tours spaceport are three of the best-built environments Disney has made, and Lightning Lane skips most of all three. Ride at least one of them standby specifically to walk through it slowly.
Getting there
Parking
Standard theme park parking sits in a large surface lot directly in front of the entrance, with a paid daily rate as of July 2026 and free parking for Disney resort hotel guests. Preferred parking costs more and puts you noticeably closer, which matters more here than at Magic Kingdom because there is no monorail or ferry between the lot and the gate; you walk or take a tram straight in.
At the entrance
There is a single entrance plaza with security screening before the tapstiles. Bag check lines run slower than the no-bag lane by a wide margin, so anyone travelling without a bag should split off and re-group inside. Oscar's Super Service, just inside on the right, handles wheelchair, ECV and stroller rentals and is also where Guest Relations sits for accessibility devices.
How to get here
- Disney Skyliner from a station immediately outside the park entrance, serving Caribbean Beach, Riviera, Pop Century, Art of Animation and, with a change at Caribbean Beach, EPCOT's International Gateway.
- Friendship boats from the dock beside the entrance to the BoardWalk, Yacht Club, Beach Club, Swan, Dolphin, Swan Reserve and EPCOT's International Gateway.
- Disney buses to all Disney resort hotels, Disney Springs and the water parks, from the depot to the left of the entrance plaza.
- A paved walking path to the Epcot resort hotels and EPCOT's International Gateway, roughly 20 to 25 minutes on foot.
- Rideshare and taxi drop-off at a designated area near the bus depot, which is usually the fastest way out immediately after the nighttime show.
Disney's Hollywood Studios questions, answered
How many days do you need at Hollywood Studios?
One full day is enough for almost everyone, provided you arrive before opening. The park has fewer attractions than Magic Kingdom or EPCOT and the day is decided by how much you get done in the first three hours. A second day only makes sense if you want to do both Savi's Workshop and Droid Depot, or if you are travelling with small children and need a slower pace.
What is the tallest height requirement at Hollywood Studios?
48 inches, for Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets. That is the tallest requirement at any Walt Disney World park apart from TRON Lightcycle / Run at Magic Kingdom. Below that, Tower of Terror, Star Tours and Rise of the Resistance are 40 inches, Slinky Dog Dash and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run are 38, and Alien Swirling Saucers is 32.
Is Hollywood Studios good for toddlers?
It is the weakest of the four Florida parks for children under about 40 inches. Seven rides have a height requirement and only three of them go below 40 inches. What is left for a toddler is Toy Story Midway Mania, Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway, Alien Swirling Saucers, Disney Junior Play and Dance, the Frozen sing-along and a handful of character meets. That is a real day, but it is a short one.
Which rides at Hollywood Studios have no height requirement?
Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway and Toy Story Midway Mania are the two significant ones, and both are headliner-quality. Everything else without a stick is a show, a walkthrough or a character meet. That makes those two rides the anchors of any day that includes a small child.
Is Rock 'n' Roller Coaster still Aerosmith themed?
No. The coaster was rethemed to the Muppets and reopened to all guests on May 26, 2026. The track layout, the launch and the three inversions are unchanged, and the height requirement is still 48 inches. The queue, pre-show, story and soundtrack are all new, and there is no virtual queue.
Is Muppet*Vision 3D still open?
No. Muppet*Vision 3D and the surrounding Muppets Courtyard closed in 2025 to make room for the Monstropolis project. Disney has not announced an opening date for what replaces it, so any year attached to it is speculation. Grand Avenue currently has no operating attraction.
Do you need Lightning Lane at Hollywood Studios?
It helps more here than at most parks because so much value sits in a handful of low-capacity rides. As of July 2026 Multi Pass runs roughly $15 to $45 per person per day depending on park and date, and Single Pass roughly $12 to $25 per ride. If you buy only one Single Pass all trip, buy it for Rise of the Resistance.
Does any attraction here use a virtual queue?
No. As of mid-2026 no attraction at Walt Disney World permanently uses a virtual queue, including Rise of the Resistance, which dropped its years ago. Virtual queues now appear only temporarily when a brand-new attraction opens.
What is the best thing to eat at Hollywood Studios?
The Ronto Wrap at Ronto Roasters in Galaxy's Edge, $13.99 as of July 2026, and it is not a close contest. After that: totchos at Woody's Lunch Box, the carrot cake cookie at Sunshine Day Bar, and the grapefruit cake at the Hollywood Brown Derby, which is the best dessert in the park.
Should you watch Fantasmic or ride instead?
Honestly, it depends on your group. Fantasmic is a genuinely large production with fire, water screens and live performers, but claiming a seat costs 45 to 75 minutes on a busy night. If you have already seen it, skipping it buys you the single best riding window of the day, because the amphitheater absorbs a large share of the park.
How early should you arrive at Hollywood Studios?
At the tapstiles 30 to 40 minutes before the posted opening time. This park front-loads harder than any other at Walt Disney World: Slinky Dog Dash and Rise of the Resistance both post their lowest waits of the day in the first hour and never return to those levels until close.
Is there shade at Hollywood Studios?
Not much, and this is a real planning issue rather than a complaint. Toy Story Land is almost entirely uncovered pavement, Galaxy's Edge is designed to look like a desert planet, and the Slinky Dog Dash queue in particular runs largely in direct sun. Build the air-conditioned shows and walkthroughs into your plan as scheduled rests.