The Star Wars Offerings at Disney’s Hollywood Studios
By Dave Shute
STAR WARS AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
The Disney World theme park Disney’s Hollywood Studios is undergoing a transformation while new Toy Story and Star Wars lands are being built.
Several less popular, lower capacity, and/or somewhat pointless attractions have been closed to create space for the new offerings, and in the meantime the old Star Wars attractions here have seen revamps, and new ones have been added.
For years the mainstays of the Star Wars offerings here have been Star Tours and the Jedi Training Academy.
Star Tours has been updated with scenes from The Force Awakens, and the Jedi Training Academy has had its capacity doubled.
Each of these is a terrific experience. Star Tours should be on the touring plans of all guests, and the Jedi Training Academy should be directly experienced by children who are Star Wars fans, and watched by everyone else.
Added to the must-do list in December 2015 are the Star Wars fireworks, Symphony in the Stars. This show had been showing mostly nightly since its opening, but is on only four days a week in May. Later “this summer” it will be replaced by what looks to be an even more impressive Star Wars fireworks extravaganza.
Three other more minor Star Wars offerings are also on hand.
- Path of the Jedi, which finally puts something in the old Sounds Dangerous building, recaps the Star Wars saga and is a good refresher for those who haven’t seen the films in a while
- Star Wars: A Galaxy Far Far Away is a minor stage show featuring almost all the core Star Wars characters
- Star Wars Launch Bay has Star Wars meet and greets, a film, replicas of objects from the films, and is the base for Stormtrooper encounters, including a march several times a day
I saw, or saw again, all six of these in my December, January and April visits to Disney World, and reviews and photos are in the links.
These last three are probably only for true fans, but the first three are great entertainments for everyone!
There’s more on the upcoming Star Wars land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios here.
Have you seen any of these new or revamped offerings? What did you think?
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5 comments
Just wanted to wish everyone at out of this world May the Fourth. If you are a StarWars fan there is so much to see and do. You won\’t want to miss it.
Hi Dave, just wondering if it’s possible to see both the Star Wars fireworks and Fantasmic in one night or would this require 2 separate evening visits to Hollywood Studios? THanks so much!
Amy, it’s been possible until July, when they have been scheduled too close to each other.
Schedules for August and later are not yet out.
The new Star Wars show that debuted in late June is more projection intense, and really repays being close to it. Not everyone that Fantasmic fits will be able to get a good view of the new show, so this may be permanent…I’ll have a better sense of views after my visits to it next week!
Thanks Dave – if you have any insights about this issue I’ll anxiously await them after your visit next week. We are headed for our second visit in February 2017 – we missed Fantasmic during our first visit in April 2015 because of thunderstorms on consecutive nights, so we had that high on our to-do list for this next visit. However, if the the Star Wars fireworks are not to be missed by our much-more-Star-Wars-savvy-than-last-time 8-year old son, I’m feeling that we may need an additional night at Holywood Studios which might affect how many days ticket we purchase, or add-on Park Hopper that we hadn’t planned on originally. With the dining plan window opening up August 5th, you are basically already committing to where you will be on each day well before Fast Pass reservations, so it would be great to know this. Always so many factors to consider and I couldn’t figure it out without your help, Dave, so thank-you again!
🙂 Amy. The biggest help will not be me (hard to believe I know) but rather Disney detailing its evening schedules six months in advance–or even 60 days–which it has not been good at lately…
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