Walt Disney World Memorial Day Trip Report – Part 4
We got close to a full night of sleep that night (if you missed our previous installment at Epcot, click here to start from the beginning), but I was still up fairly early the next morning. Unfortunately, Sarah had some work-related stuff to deal with, so we couldn’t get an early start on the morning. While she was doing this, I went out and wandered around the Contemporary, trying to find some interesting photos. Once you get past the cool a-frame building, there isn’t a ton of photographic interest, so I basically just wandered. Sort of like the rooms themselves, it’s just a modern looking hotel with a really cool hook in the design.
As a kid, I always thought the Contemporary was about the coolest hotel ever, an impression formed entirely as we whisked through it on the monorail. Even when we first returned to Walt Disney World as adults, it was a dream to stay there. Now that we have stayed at many other nice modern luxury hotels around the world, the luster of the Contemporary has sort of worn off for me. Like I mentioned in the first installment, Sarah really liked it, and I love being able to walk to the Magic Kingdom, but it just isn’t a top hotel for me on a list of Walt Disney World hotels at which I’d personally want to stay.
For me, where Disney excels is in the creation of hotels that blend nice accommodations and interesting themes, with an emphasis on the themes. You can get luxury hotels anywhere in the world; frankly, many brands and boutiques do these types of hotels much better than Disney does. Themed hotels are rare, and themed hotels that are well-executed (rather than just a light bit of window-dressing to differentiate the supposedly ‘themed’ hotel from countless other hotels in an area) are exceedingly rare. For this reason, I’d much rather stay at a hotel like Port Orleans Riverside or Wilderness Lodge than the Contemporary. I still liked the Contemporary, but Sarah is enamored with the hotel, and it just doesn’t quite do that much for me.
We got a really late start that morning, and headed to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends just before lunch…
We met Len Testa of TouringPlans.com fame for lunch. He had recently joined some new cult or something that dictated he not dine at Walt Disney World table service restaurants, so we grabbed lunch at Fairfax Fare. I’m actually surprised it took Len this long to join a cult, and as far as cults I could see him joining, not being able to eat at table service restaurants doesn’t seem too rough.
With the exception of breakfast, we had never eaten at Fairfax Fare or any of the little stands back in this market area. They always seem hot and busy when we’re there, so we skip them. We for some reason wanted to eat food at a busy locale without any shade, so Fairfax Fare it was. Plus, what better meal to eat in such an environment than a mac and cheese hot dog and chicken & ribs?
The mac & cheese hot dog was shockingly good. I don’t mean that it was really good, but compared to what I expected based on the taste of Disney’s “gourmet” hot dogs elsewhere, well…I was expecting the worse. It was actually a pretty decent option.
The chicken and ribs, on the other hand, weren’t so good. The portion was really small (about 2-3 ribs) and the ribs were so drowning in generic BBQ sauce that it was tough to taste the flavor of the meat.
We parted ways with Len and went to start checking out the Star Wars Weekends offerings.
The last couple of times we had done Star Wars Weekends, we were really enthusiastic about it, spending most of our time at Disney’s Hollywood Studios those days partaking in Star Wars activities. This time, not so much.
Part of that was because we decided to skip the Star Wars Weekends Legends of the Force Motorcade, which always seems to be about a 2 hour “process” to see. We also had booked both of the character meals, meaning that it was unnecessary to focus on meet & greets.
Essentially, that left just enjoying the “ambiance” of Star Wars Weekends and the presentations. As far as costumed guests and a fun Star Wars ambiance, both seemed to be less noticeable than in previous years. Perhaps we just weren’t looking for it.
The park was insanely busy, so we headed over to MuppetVision 3D for a respite from the heat and crowds. I had missed the news that the pre-show had changed here to become a tie-in for the new Muppet movie, and I was really disappointed by the changes. They were unfunny, disjointed, and did I mention unfunny? Since I rate MuppetVision a 10/10 attraction and call its pre-show the highlight, it should be no surprised I’m upset about these changes (that, admittedly, most people will overlook…but most people have poor taste, so let’s not use that as a barometer of what’s right, wrong, good, or bad). Hopefully the old pre-show is restored soon.
One of the good things about being in Disney’s Hollywood Studios on a crowded, 90 degree day (okay, the only good thing!) was that Dinosaur Gertie’s Ice Cream of Extinction was open! Granted, they just serve ordinary ice cream…BUT THEY SERVE IT FROM A LARGE APATOSAURUS! Any day you have ice cream served out of a dinosaur is a good day.
Great Movie Ride is a must-do for us, and we had noticed its wait time ranging from around 30-45 minutes that day. Compared to the norm, that’s just a little long. We learned that this was due to FastPass+ tiering, which has since been adjusted. When we saw it “dip” to 25 minutes, we decided to bite the bullet and queue up.
After that, it was off to see Warwick Davis: An Ewok’s Tales. Warwick Davis is a fairly well known guy, and I’m a big fan of his. However, unlike 99.9% of the guests at Star Wars Weekends who probably know him from Star Wars (barely remember them after A New Hope), Harry Potter (have only seen one film), or Willow (haven’t seen it), I am a big fan of his for his work in the seminal Leprechaun film series.
For those unfamiliar with the Leprechaun movies (for your own sake, that’s hopefully most of you), these are terrible B-movies that have attained cult status with…well, probably just me. They are laugh out loud bad. Somehow, we started watching them in college for Halloween, and turned them into…ahem…competitive drinking events. We don’t drink competitively when watching the movies these days, but I still make sure to watch Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood every Halloween. It’s the worst and most ridiculous film in the series, therefore making it the best. No one should watch these movies, but those with delicate sensibilities really should not watch these.
As for the presentation, it was well done and hilarious, but not nearly enough focus on the Leprechaun series.
After that was Jedi Mickey’s Star Wars Dine at Hollywood and Vine. This Star Wars character dinner is available during the entire Star Wars Weekends “season” (in other words, weekdays in addition to the weekends) and features Disney characters dressed in Star Wars attire. We’ve already written a full Star Wars Character Dinner Review, which you can read for full detail, so I’ll just cover some basics here.
Our wait to get inside was about 20 minutes, and it seemed like we arrived right at the tail end of a rush, because people who arrived as we were being seated got seated in practically no time.
The food was surprisingly good. We had heard some bad things about Hollywood & Vine, but it seemed like an above-average Walt Disney World buffet.
The restaurant was packed, but we still had excellent character interactions.
We were even able to see some characters multiple times!
It was also nice being able to meet them indoors after sitting around in air conditioning, rather than standing 30-45 minutes in a hot line and looking all sweaty and gross in the photos.
Even with above-average food and fun desserts, the price was a bit much. Given how quickly these meals sold out, we wouldn’t expect that to change for the better next year, though.
After dinner we had some time to kill until the Symphony in the Stars fireworks. Unfortunately, we had no FastPass+ and just about everything had a long line.
Instead, I got a head-start on some photos…
Top priority was the Tower of Terror queue. I’ve always wanted to get photos of the Hollywood Tower Hotel building through the queue, but I never remember to do it early enough in the night. While I did this, Sarah watched the Star Wars dance party in front of the BAH.
The tree coverage made this very difficult from many spots, but I found a few areas that were clear enough to get some good photos. This is my favorite shot of the bunch, as it shows the “ghosts” of guests passing through the queue and also provides just enough detail of the Tower of Terror building to give it the right context. It would be nice if the part of the sky where the Tower is in this shot were open, but it’s a dilapidated, overgrown area, so this sort of fits.
I took a ton more shots over by Tower of Terror, but almost all of them were ruined by stray raindrops. Once done with that, I staked out a spot for the fireworks.
Symphony in the Stars was absolutely awesome. Disney’s Hollywood Studios has been adding fireworks shows over the last few years, but in total, they only amount to a few weeks’ worth of nights per year. I’d hazard a guess that Disney views Fantasmic as the Studios’ nighttime entertainment, but I really wish they would add fireworks to the schedule on a regular basis.
The fireworks shows I’ve seen at the Studios are very impressive (this Star Wars fireworks show ranks #1) and provide great counter-programming to Fantasmic, which regularly fills up. Here’s hoping that once the Studios receives its large scale overhaul, there is an actual need to add more nighttime entertainment, and we get regular fireworks then. The only problem with that is…we’ll be waiting a while for it to happen!
Even with the changes for this year’s Star Wars Weekends, I feel like Disney isn’t fully capitalizing on Star Wars. It’s now theirs, and it seems like Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be the inevitable home of a Star Wars Land. We’re–at best–a few years away from that, but why not something that gives the Studios more of an infusion of Star Wars?
Instead of weekends, why not do Star Wars Summers? Set up some semi-permanent infrastructure and have this be the big summer draw. I know Star Wars fans care about the celebrities at these events and it may not be feasible to have them around all summer, but I don’t think the general public even knows who many of these people are, much less cares that they are at the events. Do the fireworks every night, a couple of character stage shows, some roaming characters, etc., and you have a huge summer draw for the Studios without any star power.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios started to clear out after the fireworks, but rather than heading out and waiting on a bus with the herd, we headed over to Star Tours. We only waited about 5 minutes in line.
Sarah went into The Writer’s Stop to grab a coffee, and while she did that, I took a few more photos.
Then we headed over to Tower of Terror, did that a couple of times, and moved onto Rock ‘N’ Rollercoaster.
By the time we were done with that, the park was closed, so I quickly took a few more photos.
We didn’t linger much, as Magic Kingdom was still open, and we figured we could make it there with enough time to do a few things, so we headed out.
We Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain and a couple other things before ending the night at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Everything we encountered besides the Main Train was a walk-on.
I decided to just use my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens that night, as I was having trouble creatively coming up with new ideas. Overall, I was reasonably pleased with the results.
We definitely find ourselves wanting to spend less and less time in Disney’s Hollywood Studios on each trip we take. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror remains one of my absolute favorite attractions at Walt Disney World, but we’ve lost interest in a lot of other things there. In the past few years, we’ve spent more time at Disney’s Hollywood Studios during Star Wars Weekends season and Christmas (for the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights). While Star Wars Weekends wasn’t as big of a shot in the arm for the park on the weekend we went as it usually seems to be, it still brings a lot to the table.
Hopefully whomever is developing the long term plan for Disney’s Hollywood Studios sees the energy it’s missing on a regular basis, and takes steps to restore that whenever the large-scale changes occur at the Studios. Attractions and new lands are incredibly important, but the Studios also needs some of its character and charm restored.
It was a great day overall, but at the end of the Extra Magic Hours evening, we were ready to head back to our room and sleep. We had a Star Wars character breakfast bright and early the next morning!
Click here to return to our Walt Disney World 2014 Memorial Day Trip Report Index in order to navigate to other installments. If you’re new to our trip reports, make sure to check out our past Walt Disney World and Disneyland Trip Reports.
For actual Walt Disney World trip planning tips and comprehensive advice beyond these quick and random tips, make sure to read our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide and related articles.
Your Thoughts…
Are you a fan of Star Wars Weekends? Ready for Disney’s Hollywood Studios to get an “Extreme Makeover”? Share your comments on any of these things—or anything else from the trip report—in the comments!
Sorry if this was previously mentioned in any other comments and I am repeating it, but reading this now for the first time I couldn’t help but laugh when you talked about them having the Star Wars Summer because everything you mentioned they should have for Star Wars is there right now, but for Frozen! HAHA are you sure you don’t secretively work for Hollywood Studios?!
Hi..Its a very nice blog. I like all the pictures mentioned in this blog, especially the food’s pics. Lovely and yummy too.
We just got back from a WDW trip and had to spend a full day in DHS as we were waiting to meet our cast member daughter there after her shift. We struggled very hard to find anything to do after a while. The only place we could find to sit and enjoy the atmosphere was around Echo Lake. We normally love to sit on Sunset Blvd. after the dark and enjoy the sights and the background music. This is no longer possible because of the overbearing loud dance music in the center hub, and the mass of people trying to get to Fantasmic. The dance party is more of a cruise ship atmosphere IMO and not Disney. If they must keep it they should put it in the back street lots and make it a “street party”. I love WDW but this park is very tired and dated. There seems to be a very eclectic mix of attractions with very little sense of theme. They need to add attractions and quick!
Moving the dance parties to the Streets of America would be a welcome move, in my opinion. I’m not keen on dance parties at all, but at least I wouldn’t really notice them back there. The problem is…would they be too difficult to find in general? Dance parties don’t really “work” unless a certain amount of crowd is there.
I made my first trip to Hollywood Studios in April. My family enjoyed it, but we had a few problems. First, scheduling the shows in a way that made sense — hitting what we wanted without having to go back and forth.
It was hot that day and we skipped some of the outdoor shows that I know we would have enjoyed.
Also, no parade.
Some of the roving performers at MK made it just that much more fun. I didn’t see any at HS, though maybe there were some?
The layout of the park was really disjointed and I had a hard time navigating. Nothing they can do about it at this point as far as I know.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios does have roving “Streetmosphere” characters called the Citizens of Hollywood. They are actually the best roving entertainment anywhere! I can’t speak to do show scheduling as the shows are all sort of a ‘been there, done that’ thing for us, so we don’t really do them anymore.
Bringing back a parade would be a good start. The park just needs *something* new!
I am totally with you on DHS. It needs a major overall and I am surprised there has not been any sort of announcement. We spent a whole day there and enjoyed ourselves but still it feels like it is the park that needs an overall in the worst way. We had a toddler who wanted to see the Pixar and Disney Jr. characters and we enjoyed those portions. For future trips we can totally knock out DHS in a few hours. I wish they would capitalize on Disney Jr, Pixar and Star Wars moreso than they are now. The generic “Hollywood” attractions just are not doing it for me anymore. I was there the year DHS opened and there for the 25th anniversary this year and I was amazed at how similar some of the attractions still are.
Will the new ‘Frozen’ stuff that was just announced make a difference for you? It seems like that will be a reasonably strong draw for families, even if they are putting in a bare minimum effort on it all.
We are in the planning stages of our second WDW trip and we’ve left DHStudios completely off the agenda. It was fun once, but there are a lot more things we want to see and do at the other parks.
Our big problem with DHS was the hours of CS restaurants. At 6:30 at night there were like two restaurants open, which makes no sense to me. But I agree that there isn’t much to it. On our trip last week we spent roughly 2 days at Epcot, 1.5 days at Mk, AK, Universal…HS only got a half day. Too many shows we didn’t care to see, backlot and animation shadows of their former selves, Great Movie Ride was my least favorite ride of the whole trip! I did enjoy RNRC (first time), TSM, and the best version of TOT (I think the fifth dimension and drop sequence pushes it a bit over Tokyo), but as of now it’s my least favorite Disney park, easily.
I realize Disney is a lot of fun and all, but do you really enjoy seeing the same thing over and over and over and over again? Think of all the places in the world you could see with the money you spend on Disney. Don’t get me wrong…Disney is awesome…but what makes it awesome is that it is something special.
Fair enough, but I would hazard a guess that we have seen more of the world (lowercase ‘w’) than the majority of people our age…or older, for that matter. We don’t just travel to Disney destinations.
What happened to the “shameless plug” for your other blog that would go perfectly right here? 😉
That is very true. I am definitely jealous of you haha. Thanks for understanding what I was saying I wasn’t trying to sound rude by any means.
No worries. I understand your point–I wasn’t trying to be defensive, either.
You find it odd that a guy who writes a Disney blog travels to…Disney?!?! Just the massive number of annual passes Disney sells demonstrates the affinity people have for “seeing the same thing over and over and over again”.
Good point. I wasn’t trying to be condescending or anything. I probably should have worded it better.
Work-related stuff? How do you guys find time to work? 😉
We sneak it in here and there! 😉
Another great installment, and great photos! Thanks for sharing 🙂 I LOVED the photo of the Tower of Terror in the queue. The “ghosts” are *perfect* for the ambiance. Great job with that! 🙂 I am excited for the next installment. Here’s a question: when you’re the last one in the parks because you’re taking pictures, does security ever get mad or do they not even care? I’m SO sorry if this is somewhere on the site or in another trip report, and I decided not to ask this for a while because I figured I must be able to find it, but I couldn’t.
Thanks for the awesome posts. Keep ’em coming! 🙂
With regard to Security, it depends upon the circumstances. In most cases, it isn’t just the two of us. There are also people in restaurants, gift shops, etc.
We have run into some hostile Security guards, but only a couple in about 8 years of doing this. Most of the time, Security is great, and many of them are interested in seeing the photos or talking photography. Without question, Epcot is the best park for night photography in terms of Security. They are very lax.
That’s cool! Thanks for the response! 🙂
Always love your trip reports with phenom photos! Just a small typo…. “We Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunt….”
If that’s the only typo in this entire installment, I did pretty well! 😉 (Thanks for the heads up, btw.)
“Main Train” – same paragraph
We ahve the same feeling – ToT is my favorite WDW attraction (or at least close), but the rest of DHS holds less and less appeal for me as time goes by. That said, we thoroughly enjoyed SWW and saw many people in SW dress and had great ambiance. But we were there for Mark Hamill week, which might have made a difference.
Photography question – the picture of the car in front of the GMR and the picture of Sarah above it both show as F4.5 but have vastly different depth of field. Is that simple a difference of focus point/distance?
Mark Hamill week definitely made the difference. I almost commented on it here, but I suspect that many Star Wars Weekends regulars who would have been spread out over other weekends instead all flocked to that weekend, sort of ‘dulling’ every other weekend. Just a theory of mine…
Depth of field is affected by aperture PLUS focal length and distance to subject. In the case of the two photos you mention, I think the car shot is ~14mm and the portrait is probably 100mm+. For wide angle shots, it’s very difficult to have shallow depth of field, for telephoto shots above 100mm, it’s very difficult *not* to have shallow depth of field.
My family had a conversation the other night while we were planning a trip about Hollywood Studios vs Animal Kingdom. Usually if we are pressed for time because of a shorter trip (annual passes for the win), we go to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios and skip Animal Kingdom. I’m sort of starting to agree with the losing interest in the Studios sentiment, and might prefer Animal Kingdom over it.
I hate that the Studios are sort of lackluster, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who is thinking this.
I feel guilty thinking about how little time I like to spend in DHS simply because of how much money I’m spending to be there in general, but I feel the same way about Animal Kingdom. Even though I am nowhere near supportive of “Avatar Land”, I hope the additions to AK bring some more life to the park.
In past trips, AK and DHS have been combined into one day, morning in AK and then afternoon and evening in DHS, and after that we typically are content with not returning to those parks for the remainder of the trip.
I would love to look forward to spending an entire day or more in DHS but I don’t see anything happening to that park soon to get me to feel that way.
Well…on the plus side, your current type of touring lends itself REALLY well to FastPass+. Do everything via Standby at Animal Kingdom, and then schedule FP+ for the headliners at DHS that would normally run out of FP first thing in the morning.
I have a feeling we are about to hear some big announcements for DHS. In fairness, I had this same feeling last fall and nothing happened. So what do I know?
Animal Kingdom has definitely overtaken Disney’s Hollywood Studios for us. I still like DHS, but not so much as a “theme park,” but instead as a place that has ~4 attractions I really, really like.
They have one of the top 5 Walt Disney World attractions (if not #1) with Tower of Terror, but even that isn’t enough to save it.
Agree on the Contemporary. It was a lifelong dream to stay there for me. Same reasons as you. It just seemed so awesome to ride through it on the monorail! But now that I have, I just don’t think it’s that amazing. There are so many other hotels at Disney that I love for their themes. The Contemporary just didn’t wow me the way I thought it would.
On Warwick Davis, as Max says, you forgot Willow!!!
Last but not least, for whatever long term plan they have on DHS, I hope they consider both Star Wars and Marvel. It would be the best park to add both of those franchises. They have a TON of material with each. Here’s hoping they use it!
I guess we need to see Willow. Probably wouldn’t hurt to watch Harry Potter, either!
As for what DHS can do, Marvel isn’t even on table. Universal has the rights in the east. There’s always the chance that Disney could purchase the rights from Universal, but I highly doubt Disney will go for those rights given the other IP Disney could use (namely, Star Wars).
Disney’s strategy with regard to Marvel in Theme Parks is going to be “Wait it out.” Yes, Universal has exclusive rights to use Marvel characters in theme parks east of the Mississippi river — but they don’t have carte blanche to do so. Every new character they wish to use, or any change to an existing attraction, requires approval from Marvel. Since Marvel is now Disney, Disney will just say no, repeatedly. Universal’s Spider Man attraction cannot be updated for Sony’s new films. Their Hulk attraction cannot take advantage of the popularity of Avengers. The Universal Marvel rides will get stale. The value Universal places on that IP will drop steadily until they are willing to sell it back for far less than it would cost Disney right now.
I think that might be an oversimplification of what Marvel/Disney can do to force the issue. Marvel cannot unreasonably withhold approval for changes and additions, so if there is no basis for not consenting, they won’t do it. I don’t think there’s nearly as much bad blood between Universal and Disney executives as there is between fans, and I would expect “cooler heads to prevail” on matters like this. From Marvel Studios’ perspective, the IP being used in a Universal theme park is just as advantageous as the IP being used in a Disney theme park. In both cases, it’s promoting their product.
If Universal anticipates Disney using the IP aggressively (say, for an entire land or more), I could see Marvel not selling it back for any price, as giving it up would give up a competitive advantage.
When Marvel contracted with Universal, we were in the pre-Avengers days and Marvel IP wasn’t worth nearly what it is worth now. I can think of few properties that would be as valuable in a theme park setting. I’m actually shocked Disney hasn’t started utilizing it more aggressively in non-Walt Disney World theme parks. Why they are moving so slowly on that and Star Wars is a bit beyond me, actually…
Love your blog so much! Minor suggestion for the two most culturally literate people on the internet these days…see “Willow”! It’s a really fun film. We had an old VHS copy and my kids wore that thing out. Must see, if you met the star.
“two most culturally literate people on the internet…” You can’t possibly be referring to us. I know a few pop culture references, but that’s about the extent of my “literacy” these days. 😉
Thanks for your reflections on the Star Wars Weekends. We were at WDW over two of them, but didn’t go into the Studios on those days because we worried that the park would be jammed…and that’s the park that gets most congested most easily! Now, we’re kicking ourselves a bit on that decision.
Here’s hoping that the Studios/WDW powers that be do something to make that park better. We only spent a half day out of seven park days on our trip, which explains how far it is fallen out of our favor. It’s such a contradiction – a park that has some of my favorite rides (Star Tours, Tower, Toy Story & Muppets) would be my least favorite by far to visit. All of this has been stated before, but you opened the door! 🙂
What really saddens me is how long it will be before ANYTHING opens at Disney’s Hollywood Studios given the current pace of construction. Avatar was announced in 2011, began construction this year, and opens in…what…2017? Sounds like we might get Star Wars Land in 2019 at the EARLIEST! Yikes.
I’m right with you on Hollywood Studios. I feel like they need to change an entire half of the park (with the exception of Muppets and Star Tours). I don’t get why they’re dragging their feet on announcing anything. The new Star Wars film opens in late 2015, and I’d think that they would want something new at the parks to go along with it in 2016 at the latest.
I’d say 2016 is a longshot given how long construction has been taking at Walt Disney World. Look at how long New Fantasyland took. If they do Star Wars Land right–and they should–there’s no way it opens by 2016.
I really have to agree about your feelings towards DHS. While I do enjoy spending time in the park while I am there, once I complete what I want to do there, I no longer have a desire to stay in the park. It doesn’t “grab” me. I could walk around MK or Epcot with absolutely no agenda what so ever and be perfectly content, but after a few hours in DHS, I feel done for the day (or the trip). I do hope as well that whoever’s hands the future of DHS is in, they make some big changes.
Love the beautiful, creative shots…you always have new ways to view the parks. I admire your eye for inspiration. As an artist, I understand how this enthusiasm can fade, but yours is always refreshing. Thanks.