Why Disney's Hollywood Studios Will Be Confusing on Your Next Trip

Disney’s Hollywood Studios is my FAVORITE park for a number of reasons.

One, I’m a movie-lover and fan of all things behind the scenes myself (which is why I’m bummed I didn’t get the chance to experience the park as MGM Studios!), so the park’s theming is my favorite. Not to mention that I’m a huge fan of the new Villains Unfairly Ever After show here, piloting the Millennium Falcon is one of my favorite activities (as long as I’m not by myself with strangers, then I prefer a backseat), and grabbing am ice cream sundae at Hollywood Scoops and people-watching or watching Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage, or Fantasmic! However, I’ve got to admit something to you — I think this is the EASIEST park to get turned around in, and that’s only going to be more intense as more construction walls go up.

On one of my most recent trips, I hadn’t been in the parks ALL summer, so it had been about three months since I’d stepped foot on property in any capacity. I missed the parks a ton and was so excited to be back, and Hollywood Studios was my first park of the day.

I headed into the park about an hour after rope drop, took some PhotoPass photos right near the Chinese Theater, then headed off to the Villains show. Well, at least, that’s where I was INTENDING on going. Instead, I walked for about two minutes and almost went PAST the Frozen Sing-Along before realizing I was going the COMPLETE wrong way.

Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror

Remember, I write about Disney World EVERY DAY. I visit multiple times a year, and often know these parks like the back of my hand. And yet, after 90ish days of being back home and only looking at the parks from afar, I almost completely forgot how to get to Sunset Boulevard.

This sounds silly (and it kinda is), BUT once I was actually headed the right direction, I realized something as I walked down Sunset Boulevard — if you don’t look at a Hollywood Studios map ahead of time, it’s possible you could TOTALLY miss Sunset Boulevard in its entirety. I know, I know, you’re reading this post right now, so you might be going, “how in the world could anyone miss a whole section of the park?” but IT HAPPENS! Especially when people go into the parks without doing any prior research, which happens very often.

The entrance to Sunset Boulevard is more tucked away if you don’t know where to look. It’s right near The Trolley Car Café (so if you’re getting Starbucks in this park, then this entrance is hard to miss) and The Hollywood Brown Derby, but there’s also a building called Ticket Central on the corner that has a fountain right nearby, which most people just use as a seating area. If there are a lot of people crowded around here, it’s easy to take a quick glance over there, not see anything except lots of bodies, then get distracted by the impressive Chinese Theater right in front of you, and completely miss it.

Or, some people may glance down this, see just the shops (because you won’t see Tower of Terror super well unless you’re staring STRAIGHT down the street, otherwise from the side, it just looks like a taller pink building rising above the others), and think it’s just a street for shopping, and get to it later. Or, maybe someone DOES see Tower of Terror, but knows that’s not a ride they want to experience, and falsely assumes that’s all that’s down there. I would not be surprised to hear people say that they were at risk of almost totally missing Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and/or Villains: Unfairly Ever After.

Sunset Boulevard is also the only part of the park that isn’t included in the circle of the rest of the park. Even Animation Courtyard, which is now under a BIG refurbishment (that I’m very excited for — yay for the iconic Sorcerer Mickey hat coming back!). You can walk in a circle around the park and hit every single other land, but Sunset Boulevard is totally separate. If there were a shortcut between Animation Courtyard and Sunset Boulevard, THEN it would be included in that circle and be harder to miss.

So what’s my point here? Well, one, if you make a silly mistake in the parks, even though you consider yourself a pro, don’t beat yourself up; it happens. And two, if you’re not as familiar with the parks, PLEASE do some research ahead of time or at least grab a map inside the park (or use the digital map on the My Disney Experience App) to see ALL the restaurants, attractions, and more, so you don’t miss any offerings.