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This is our recommended itinerary for seeing the highlights of Disney-MGM Studios (which everybody simply calls MGM Studios, so that's what we'll do from now on). It makes a few assumptions: You're traveling with small children, you don't place a high priority on riding the thrill rides, you've got one day and one day only to see the best of what's there, and you have no prior experience with MGM Studios.
Oh—and that you have precisely the same tastes in everything as we do. But since we have such most excellent tastes in things, that's not an issue, right?
Note that there's a lot of descriptions of stuff in amongst everything here, so if you want just the itinerary, we've summarized it at the end. But anyway, enough with the intro. On to the main event:
MGM Studios is, in our opinion, the least geared toward children of the four Disney World parks. It is also the smallest of the parks in terms of the amount of stuff to see, but we have never managed to successfully get through it in a single day. We're not entirely sure why this is, but there are two main reasons, we think: First, MGM Studios usually closes earlier than the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, and those couple hours really do make a difference; second, and probably more importantly, the rides and shows at MGM Studios tend to be much more time-consuming than those at any of the other parks.
This means that what's suggested here will look like a very, very sparse itinerary, compared to those at the other parks. It will still, however, fill your day, and you may even have to cut stuff from this to get it all to fit in.
MGM Studios isn't divided into different "lands" quite as clearly as the other parks, but you can divide the park into different sections, and most maps actually more or less color-code the park based on these, so we'll use them in this outline: Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Commissary Lane, and Mickey Avenue and Animation Courtyard (those last two are two parts of the same area). When you enter, you enter into Hollywood Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard is geographically huge—it has the two biggest thrill rides, and extends from them across Hollywood Boulevard to a small pond called Echo Lake. The mouse-eared water tower (a major landmark for the park) is back behind Mickey Avenue and Animation Courtyard.
Like all the other parks, MGM Studios' hours change day to day. Since the park closes a couple hours earlier than Epcot and the Magic Kingdom most days, you may find it worthwhile to spring for the park-hopper option to see the fireworks at one of those parks (if you think you'll still have the energy). And, speaking of MGM Studios' hours, if you're there during the Christmas holiday season, all bets on your itinerary are off, especially near the backlot section of the park, because (most years) Disney puts up a frighteningly huge Christmas light display—with synthetic snow falling in subtropical weather!—back there, and the whole dynamic of the park's crowds is different, especially once night falls. If you're there then, go see the lights (even if you don't do Christmas yourself)—it's an amazing show. Just realize that you may need to trim some of your itinerary earlier in the day.
Anyway, first bit of advice: Get to the park a little bit before it opens. If you're not going to try for the thrill rides this isn't as big a deal as the other parks, but like we wrote earlier, it's tough to get through this park in a single day, so it's best if you start as absolutely early as possible.
A stroller isn't as much of a necessity at MGM Studios as at the other parks—MGM Studios is a wonderfully compact park. However, if your kids are prone to getting too tired to walk after a long day, it's probably worth your while to bring or rent one. If you rent one, rent a double stroller, even if you only have one child, so that you have space to stash stuff you get tired of carrying around.
Food at MGM Studios, as is the case everywhere at Disney, is expensive. However, like Epcot, parking (especially if you get there early) is remarkably close to the park entrance, so it's possible to bring lunch and picnic in your car. Unfortunately, unlike Epcot, there isn't much in the way of accessible shade near the parking lot, so this might not be doable on a hot day. Be sure to get your hand stamped and such as you exit the park so that you can get back in if you do this.
Speaking of food, there's also water. You should bring some. Walking in the sun requires a lot of water, and even though MGM Studios seems to have been designed at least somewhat with the concept of shade in mind, you'll need a good amount to drink. (By the way, don't let the mention of shade lull you into a false sense of security—you'll need to bring and use sunscreen, too.) Bring at least a bottle of water for each person (preferably frozen, so it can melt over the course of the morning and you'll have cold water). Happily, though, the water fountains in MGM Studios, while not delivering perfect-tasting water, have perfectly drinkable water. This is another reason to bring your own bottle of water, because it means that once you've drunk all of your own water, you can simply refill at the park's water fountains and not have to pay the insane prices Disney charges for water.
Anyway, all that said, you'll eventually get to the park entrance. One thing that's worth noting is that, out of all the parks, MGM Studios does the best job of setting things up before you even get into the park—from the road leading to the parking lot to the turnstiles, you're slowly sucked into the art deco surroundings of old Hollywood. Not a bad trick, really. Enjoy it, and let it get you into the mood, as you walk through the turnstiles to find yourself in the commercial center of the park:
After you walk through the turnstiles, the first thing you should do is get a map. This is an important step, because it's easy to lose your bearings in the park. After that, you should walk down Hollywood Boulevard to its intersection with Sunset Boulevard. At this intersection, there's a board with wait times for various attractions, which can be useful if you find yourself with extra time at the end of the day, and you want to find out what you can do.
Aside from that board, Hollywood Boulevard doesn't have anything other than shops, so it's time to move onto your first street with actual rides and shows:
As you stand at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard, you'll notice that lots of people are turning right down Sunset Boulevard. The reason is simple: The major thrill rides are down that direction. You will, then, take advantage of everybody heading that direction by turning left, and continuing down until you get to Commissary Lane. Soon you'll see Star Wars vehicles; this is the entrance to Star Tours. There's a height limit on this ride, so you and your kids might not be able to go on it; also, it's a (relatively mild) motion simulator ride, and some people don't like those. If you want to and can go on it, though, it's worth a go. To be honest, the ride itself isn't that amazing, but the maze of corridors you go through to get there had a lot of thought put into them. As you're waiting to get on your "starspeeder", you may be able to see video of the group currently riding the ride on the attendant's control panel, which makes for kind of an interesting suspension of your suspension of disbelief. (And yes, there was a dangling modifier there. So?)
From Star Tours, continue on to Jim Henson's Muppet★Vision 3–D (which I'll just refer to from here as Muppet★Vision 3–D—and there's supposed to be a star between "Muppet" and "Vision", if your browser is showing something weird). This is MGM Studios' 3–D movie, and of each of the parks' 3–D movies, this is the one that's most directed toward the grown-ups, if only because the grown-ups will get more of the Muppet references; it's fun even for the kids, though. If you have to wait a while in the holding area for the pre-show, by the way, don't consider it time wasted—there are a lot of fun details not just in the pre-show, but in the room itself. Take the time to wander around and look at the stuff on the walls and (especially) suspended in the ceiling.
As you leave Muppet★Vision 3–D, heading toward the backlot, find the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure. Don't take the time to go there now, just take note of where it is. It's a good place to take your kids if they're getting restless and need a place to work off some energy. (And here's a fun game for the adults when you're there: Find all the embedded advertisements!)
You may note that we haven't recommended that you go on the Indiana Jones™ Epic Stunt Spectacular. The main reason for this is that it's a large chunk of time with long lines, and (in our opinion) very inconvenient showtimes. It'd be nice to see, but you don't have time. (We also haven't mentioned Sounds Dangerous—Starring Drew Carey yet, but we'll come back to that one later.)
Anyway, as you pass the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, you get to the end of Commissary Lane and head to the two rides where they show you bits of how big-budget movies are made:
There are two big rides/shows (one's definitely a show, the other's kind of a hybrid) at the back of the park, where Sunset Boulevard and Mickey Avenue meet: the Lights, Motors, Action!™ Extreme Stunt Show (which we'll just call Lights, Motors, Action—that's easier to type) and the Backlot Tour. We're going to recommend both of them, even though we never saw Lights, Motors, Action—it opened right after the last time we were at MGM Studios—but the word-of-mouth we've heard has been extremely positive. The Backlot Tour is time-consuming, but worth it in our opinion.
Anyway, Lights, Motors, Action is still new, and so draws serious crowds, which means you will probably need to FastPass it. If the wait is short, go ahead and get in line; otherwise (as is more likely), get your FastPass and get in line for the Backlot Tour.
A couple of notes on the Backlot Tour. First of all, the Backlot Tour will take a lot of time. The official time is thirty-five minutes, but budget forty-five minutes or so, plus time spent in line for the pre-show. The line between the pre-show and the tram tour itself is interesting, since you go through a warehouse filled with props for various movies; it's fun to look at their tags and see if you can remember what scenes they might have been in. When you get on the tram, you should know that the experience is a bit more intense on the left side of the cars, so you may want to make sure your children aren't all the way on that side. Also, when you exit the trams, you go through—along with the obligatory gift shop—a few rooms with a handful of costumes and models from a few hit movies (technically, this is called The American Film Institute Showcase), which you may find interesting.
That's the backlot. From here, head down:
Mickey Avenue is a street lined with shows—definitely shows, not rides—of varying degrees of fun; to orient you, we'll first list them, starting from the Backlot Tour, and heading down Mickey Avenue into Animation Courtyard; all of them will be on your left, except for the very last one, which is more or less straight ahead.
The first show that you hit is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire—Play It! The next show is Journey into Narnia: Creating The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (we'll just call it Journey into Narnia); this is followed by Walt Disney: One Man's Dream. Next (as Mickey Avenue morphs into Animation Courtyard) is the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, followed by The Magic of Disney Animation, and then finally Playhouse Disney—Live on Stage! (another one where the exclamation point is part of the name of the show).
So, there's six shows along this stretch of "road"—and, as you can imagine, visiting all six shows would take up much more time than you have. Therefore, you have to pick and choose.
The first one, as it says above, is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire—Play It! This is an audience-participation show based on the once-wildly-popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; similarly, this show was once wildly popular enough to merit giving out FastPasses, but now they're no longer necessary. If you're really into trivia games and competition, this would be fun for you; Jeanne, for example, finds this show amazing fun. However, in the interest of time, consider it optional. Don't assume that your kids wouldn't like it, by the way—if nothing else, they'll have fun pushing the buttons.
Journey into Narnia is a very recently opened exhibit, a blatant attempt to draw people to this park by giving people a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of one of Disney's recent hits. If you or your kids are huge fans of the movie you can go in, but otherwise skip it.
Walt Disney: One Man's Dream is a movie about Walt Disney's early career, including the story of how he came up with Mickey Mouse. Perhaps more interesting than the movie is the pre-show, which is a number of different exhibits of various animation techniques, and highly detailed models of various buildings (including all of the Cinderella's Castles) in Disney theme parks around the world. Jeanne and I have actually spent a fair amount of time looking through these exhibits without bothering to go in to see the movie when it starts. Recommended, although you may have to skip it if you went into Journey into Narnia.
Voyage of the Little Mermaid is, as you might expect, a show that goes through the story of the movie The Little Mermaid. You should go to this one—the movie's storyline and characterization are insipid (yeah, we know it's got lots of fans, but could Disney have given us a lead female character for our daughters to adore with somewhat less common sense?), but the stage show is done very nicely, and has some amazing puppet work. The atmospheric effects are very well done, as well.
The Magic of Disney Animation is forgettable. It's just a short movie about the process of animation, and a couple exhibits. It used to contain a working animation studio that you could watch in action (the studio that produced most of Mulan, in fact—a much better movie than The Little Mermaid), but Disney pulled the plug on that studio several years ago, so there's nothing much there to see. Skip it.
Playhouse Disney—Live on Stage! is a must-see. Even if your children, like ours, don't often watch any of the Playhouse Disney shows, they'll still probably be familiar with at least some of the characters from friends and books and such. In fact, even if they somehow aren't familiar with them at all, it's an excellent show. It even has a little bit of a plot to make it seem less like you're flipping channels between shows and more like it's a story that just happens to have a wide variety of characters. (One complaint, though this is less about the show than Disney's take on Winnie the Pooh: Eeyore is supposed to be clinically depressed, not simply narcoleptic. Why not just deal with the characters as A.A. Milne came up with them?) In any event, a most excellent show.
You've made nearly a complete circle around the park, so it's time to return to nearly where you started:
At this point, it's time to look at how you're doing for time. If you've still got a good bit of time left, and if there are any more of these shows still to go (sometimes showtimes for these end early), you can go to Beauty and the Beast—Live on Stage. This is, as you might expect, a stage version of Beauty and the Beast. It's not as creative as Voyage of the Little Mermaid, but it's a reasonably well done script. Be warned, though—it's a covered theatre, but still outdoors. That is, there's no air conditioning—this can be a very real problem some days.
Another one that you might consider if you're doing good for time is Sounds Dangerous—Starring Drew Carey. (This one's technically in the Commissary Lane section of the park, but it's right next to the Sunset Boulevard section.) This is a comic spy story that plays with the disjunction that sometimes occurs between what you hear and what you see. Parts of the show take place in complete darkness, so if your kids (or you, for that matter) are afraid of the dark, you should avoid it. (One time we went to this show and a woman completely freaked out. It wasn't fun to hear.) Not a necessity, but worthwhile if you can fit it in.
One thing that you should definitely see before leaving (though it is possible to see it too often—we kind of overdosed on it) is The Great Movie Ride. This runs you through (and we mean through—you ride through the middle of them) different movie scenes, mostly from the Golden Age of Hollywood, along with a couple of other things that happen. Pay attention to the Hollywood Hills scene next to the cars as you begin the ride—it changes as the ride heads toward beginning. It's fun to see how many scenes you recognize, especially at the end where you're faced with a montage of scores of movie clips.
And with the possible exception of Fantasmic! (see below—and yes, it's yet another show named with an exclamation point), that's everything. Before going on to Fantasmic!, though, we'll mention the rides that haven't been mentioned to this point:
MGM Studios has two major thrill rides, both of which are at one end of Sunset Boulevard: The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster® Starring Aerosmith (nobody uses the whole name—it's just the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster) and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™ (and nobody uses the whole name for that, either—it's just The Tower of Terror). Both of these have height restrictions, and both attract very, very long lines.
Of these two, David prefers the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. It's an indoor roller coaster that's (mostly) in the dark, and easily the best of Disney World's roller coasters. After a fairly silly pre-show where you're supposed to believe you're watching an Aerosmith recording session, you get funneled into what looks very much like an alleyway to get into your "limousine". You take off without a vertical drop (0 to 60 in all but no seconds!) and experience loops, which feel really weird in darkness, all to the tune of Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" reworked into "Love in a Roller Coaster". The only complaint is that it's over too soon.
Jeanne, on the other hand, prefers The Tower of Terror. This is, at core, your basic freefall tower ride, except that it has an amazingly creepy pre-show and you don't just drop once—you drop and pop back up a lot of times, all in the dark except for the times you make it all the way to the top (the thirteenth floor, of course), when a door to the outside opens up, giving you an excellent but brief view of the park. Perhaps oddly, David usually freaks out terribly on freefall rides like this, but actually likes the sensation of freefalling in the dark. Of the two thrill rides, The Tower of Terror has a lot more attention paid to the details of the landscaping and the building that contains the ride—there's a lot of little details for you to look at while you're waiting for the ride.
We don't recommend either of these, simply for time reaons and for the fact that they're too intense for small children (and, at least in the case of the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, the height restriction may keep them from even possibly going on it). If you come back some time without the kids, though, head for these first thing.
Anyway, you're done. There's only one more thing you need to consider going to, if you're around as the park's approaching closing:
Full disclosure: We never went to this show, which is staged in a specially-designed amphitheatre at park closing time. (Basically, it's done in lieu of a fireworks show.) It's an outdoor show, and so weather can cause it to be cancelled—and in fact, the one time we were going to make sure to go to it, a sudden thunderstorm that flooded the parking lot to a depth of four inches happened (yes, we got thoroughly and uncomfortably soaked). Therefore, we can't say anything about the quality of the show, except to say that we've heard it's good. It is possible that they'll run out of room and you'll get turned away, so if you want to make sure you see it, you should be in line a half hour before park closing. There's apparently some intense special effects (lots of fire, for example), which can be frightening for very delicate children.
And that's the end. Hold your children's hands as you leave, and realize ahead of time that you're not going to get out of the parking lot terribly quickly.
Here's the summary of the itinerary we've just outlined for you, then. First you arrive at the parking lot a bit before the park opens, get into the park, pick up your stroller (if applicable) and map, and then:
This page last updated 9 May 2006.
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