After two straight days of rain, the sun finally came out for our last day at Disney World. As it was the only park we hadn’t visited yet, we planned to spend the morning at Disney Hollywood Studios. Hollywood Studios has always been my least favorite park at Disney World, but my opinion changed about it during our trip in 2021. After recently riding Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland, I wasn’t as eager to return to Hollywood Studios (partly because it was forecast to be 10/10 for crowds due to the Holiday) as I expected after our last visit. After going back and forth about it for a while, I finally decided that we would start the day at Hollywood Studios and then utilize our Park Hopper to head back to one of the other parks after lunch.
We got up early on our final day to head to the Studios, but first, we made our only Individual Lightning Lane purchase of the trip for another ride on Guardians of the Galaxy – Cosmic Rewind at Epcot. We headed to the Studios for early park entry and got right in line for Rise of the Resistance (top). After riding it multiple times, the theming and immersion of that attraction and the whole Galaxy’s Edge area are amazing, but the cast member interaction was noticeably less than on my first ride.
After our first ride of the day, wait times were already high. We headed to Toy Story Midway Mania, which is always enjoyable. After that, we waited in a long line for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, because I was not too fond of it on our last visit to the Studios and I was hoping it would redeem itself with another ride through but it did not. This is a controversial opinion within the Disney Fan Community, but I prefer Remy’s Rattatoi Adventure at Epcot for the same ride system. Runaway Railway is very jerky and I just do not like it. It’s safe to say that I will skip it the next time I’m in the Studios like I did in Disneyland. Finally, we went to Muppet Vision 3D (which needs an update, if you ask me), and by that point, it was 45 minutes before our lunch reservation and all of the waits were higher than that so we ended up sitting on a bench outside 50’s Prime Time Cafe just waiting to be able to check-in.
This was my second time dining at 50’s Prime Time, the last one being when I was about 10 years old and the waiter yelling at you schtick gave me anxiety so I have avoided it since. People online love 50’s so I figured we would give it a chance. I considered telling our server that we were not interested in getting yelled at, but instead, we just followed all of their rules and were able to eat our food in peace. The food at 50’s Prime Time is old-school classics, as the name implies. I had the Chicken Pot Pie and Chris had a sampler with meatloaf, pot roast, and fried chicken and the food was all good, but it was honestly boring compared to the other places we had eaten earlier in the trip. If you have picky eaters in your family, or you want your children to get yelled at on vacation, 50’s is a great choice, but in the future, I will probably skip it for more adventurous cuisine.
After lunch, we hopped on one of Friendship Boats for a leisurely ride to Epcot. It was the final day of the Festival of the Arts so we spent some time wandering around appreciating the art that was mostly covered up during our Epcot day because of the rain. We also walked through the new Journey of Water inspired by Moana. It is a walkthrough attraction and it will be an enjoyable way to cool off in the hot Florida summers. It was a beautiful illustration of the water cycle and had some great photo ops as well. In my opinion, this was a great addition to Epcot’s World Nature neighborhood.
We rode a few of our favorites including Livin’ with the Land and Spaceship Earth again and then it was time for our Lightning Lane. Once again, Guardians of the Galaxy – Cosmic Rewind was so much fun! After that, it was time for us to head back to Pop Century, grab our bags, and make our way to the airport. At the time, I was disappointed by the crowds and the high wait times of visiting Disney World during a holiday weekend, but looking back on it, with the exception of Monday, we were able to ride pretty much everything we had wanted to. We said we were going to take a couple of years before heading to Disney World again, but Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (R.I.P. Splash Mountain) opens next month, so we will see how long we can stay away!
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For lunch, we ate at the Sci-Fi Drive-in Theater Restaurant (left). Sci-Fi is located on Commissary Lane, not far from Galaxy’s Edge. The theming of the restaurant is an old Drive-In. Diners sit in booths that look like cars from the 50’s and enjoy their dinner while watching trailers for ridiculous sci-fi movies and commercials for the concession stand. We ate here once when I was a kid and I really enjoyed it so I wanted to bring Chris. While the food is good, expect burgers and fries, you choose Sci-Fi for the theming.
This day we waited in the longest lines of the weekend, but with the Studios being such a small park, we still ended up riding everything we wanted multiple times. We did Rise of the Resistance twice, Slinky Dog twice, Midway Mania twice, and Smuggler’s run twice. I even finally got to ride Rock n Rollercoaster (I could never justify the wait last trip), but it didn’t live up to Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Storyland.
