Ride Ready Guide Independent & unofficial

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Echo Lake

A small lake ringed by 1940s roadside architecture, holding two of the park's three best live shows.

  • Opened1989
  • Attractions5
  • Places to eat10
  • HeadlinerStar Tours: The Adventures Continue

Echo Lake curls off the left side of Hollywood Boulevard and is dressed as a stretch of Californian roadside Americana: a dinosaur-shaped ice cream stand, a beached steamer selling hot dogs, a Streamline Moderne diner. The lake itself is small and does nothing, but it gives this corner the only water feature in the park.

The programming here is show-heavy, which is what makes it the right place to spend the hot part of the day. The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular has run since 1989 in a covered amphitheater; the Frozen sing-along runs roughly hourly in the coldest indoor theater in the park; and the Mickey Shorts Theater plays a cartoon program with almost no wait at any hour.

Star Tours is the ride here, and it is a genuine headliner that people underrate because it opened in 1989. The current 3D version randomizes each flight from a pool of scenes, so consecutive rides genuinely differ. It also has a 40-inch requirement and is the most reliable nausea trigger in the park.

Just off the lake, a short side street holds the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater and the ABC Commissary. Guests searching for Commissary Lane are looking for that spur; it is a few steps from the lake and easy to walk past.

Do not miss

  • Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, running since the park's opening year
  • Star Tours, with a randomized flight on every ride
  • The Frozen sing-along, the coldest and largest indoor theater in the park
  • Mickey Shorts Theater, which almost never has a wait
  • 50's Prime Time Cafe and the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, the two most distinctive dining rooms at Walt Disney World

Echo Lake tips

  • Sit high and on the left at the Indiana Jones amphitheater; those blocks get shade first and catch whatever breeze exists.
  • The alley beside the Indiana Jones theater where the funnel cake stand sits is one of the few genuinely shaded standing spots in the middle of the park.
  • If you cannot get a 50's Prime Time reservation, walk into the Tune-In Lounge next door. Same kitchen, same menu, walk-ups accepted.
  • Ride Star Tours before eating rather than after. It affects more people than any other attraction here.

Attractions in Echo Lake

Star Tours: The Adventures Continue

40"102cm

Simulator · 7 min · Multi Pass

A randomized 3D flight simulator through the Star Wars galaxy, with dozens of possible scene combinations so no two flights match.

Star Tours opened at this park in December 1989 as a straight simulator ride with one fixed film. In 2011 it was rebuilt from the ground up in 3D with a randomized structure, and that is the version you ride today. The ride computer assembles each flight from a pool of opening scenes, planet destinations, hologram messages and finales, which produces a very large number of possible combinations.

Tips for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
  • The 40-inch requirement is measured strictly with shoes on. Borderline children get an all-day wristband at the first measurement so they are not re-measured at every ride.
  • Ask a cast member at the load door for a specific starting planet and they cannot help you, but the ride does bias toward newer destinations at busier times of day. Riding twice in a row almost always produces two different flights.
  • This is the single most reliable nausea trigger at the park. If you are the kind of person who cannot read in a car, ride it before you eat, not after.
  • 3D glasses are recycled bins near the exit, and there is a stack of larger frames on request for anyone wearing glasses already.
  • Repeat visitors: the pre-show scanner bit selects a rebel spy from the group standing in front of you, and standing directly beneath the scanner meaningfully raises your odds of being the one on screen.

Full guide to Star Tours: The Adventures Continue →

Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!

Any height

Stage show · 30 min · Multi Pass

A 30-minute live stunt show in a covered amphitheater that stages and then explains big-budget action sequences, running since the park opened in 1989.

This has been running since the park's opening year and the concept has never needed changing: performers stage a series of action sequences as though a film crew were shooting them, then a director character stops and explains how each effect was achieved. It works because it takes the audience seriously. The show is genuinely teaching you about squibs, breakaway props, fire gels and fall pads while entertaining you.

Tips for Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!
  • Sit high and left. The upper left blocks get shade first, catch the cross breeze, and have a better view of the marketplace rooftop stunts than the center does.
  • Volunteers are chosen from people already seated when the doors open, not from the queue, so arriving early is the only way to be considered.
  • The pyrotechnics are loud enough that noise-reducing headphones are a reasonable call for sensitive kids; the concussive hits land around the twelve and twenty-five minute marks.
  • Never burn a Lightning Lane Multi Pass on this. The amphitheater holds two thousand people and standby seating almost never fills to the point of turning people away.
  • Repeat visitors: the between-scene patter changes performer to performer and the truck-fight cast improvises off the crowd, so the show is not word-for-word identical the way the projection shows are.

Full guide to Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! →

For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration

Any height

Stage show · 30 min · Multi Pass

An air-conditioned 30-minute sing-along in the Hyperion Theater with on-screen lyrics, two comic hosts and appearances by Anna, Elsa and Kristoff.

Two royal historians of Arendelle narrate the story of the first Frozen film in a fast, jokey, heavily fourth-wall-breaking style, with film clips on a large screen and lyrics projected so the audience can sing. Anna, Kristoff and Elsa appear on stage at intervals, and the show ends with the song you already know, a snow effect and a lighting cue.

Tips for For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration
  • The theater is the coldest room in the park. On a July afternoon this is a legitimate thirty-minute recovery, and nobody will look at you strangely for going in without children.
  • Sit in the center block from row eight back for the best angle on the character platform and the clearest read on the projected lyrics.
  • Snow falls over the front and center. If you have a child who wants to catch it, sit forward; if you have a stroller full of dry things, sit back.
  • The show is on the Lightning Lane Multi Pass list, which is almost always a waste. Standby seating rarely fills, and the theater turns over completely between shows.
  • Repeat visitors: the hosts riff on the crowd and on each other differently every performance, so the version you saw five years ago is not the version running now, even though the songs are unchanged.

Full guide to For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration →

Vacation Fun: An Original Animated Short with Mickey & Minnie

Any height

Film · 10 min

A ten-minute cartoon program in the small Mickey Shorts Theater by Echo Lake, plus a walk-in photo set next door.

The Mickey Shorts Theater is a small, cool, almost always empty room that shows a compilation of the modern Mickey Mouse animated shorts strung together as a vacation story. It is not a headliner and it does not pretend to be. It is ten minutes of good animation in a chilled theater with almost no wait, which on a Florida afternoon is worth more than it sounds.

Tips for Vacation Fun: An Original Animated Short with Mickey & Minnie
  • The theater turns over about every fifteen minutes, so a full house means a short wait, not a long one.
  • The photo set next door is a separate line from the theater. You can do one without the other.
  • It is the closest air-conditioned room to Star Tours, which makes it the natural place to park a group while one person rides.
  • Repeat visitors: the shorts program has been re-cut since the theater opened, so the running order is not the one you saw in 2020.

Meet Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight

Any height

Character meet · 3 min · Multi Pass

An indoor, air-conditioned greeting with Olaf in the Celebrity Spotlight building on the Echo Lake side of the park.

Olaf greets guests indoors at Celebrity Spotlight, the small building on the far curve of Echo Lake. The queue is short, the room is cool, and the meet itself is unhurried compared with the character lines at Magic Kingdom.

Tips for Meet Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight
  • Waits are longest in the hour right after the Frozen sing-along lets out. Go before a performance ends, not after.
  • The building is air conditioned and the queue is entirely indoors, so this is a legitimate place to cool down for fifteen minutes.
  • Ask the photographer to shoot low. Kneeling shots with a short character read much better than standing ones.
  • Repeat visitors: character assignments at this location have moved over the years, so confirm in the app rather than assuming the same character is there.

Eating in Echo Lake

Table service · Echo Lake

50's Prime Time Cafe

A 1950s kitchen where the servers play your relatives, scold you for bad table manners and refuse to bring dessert until you finish your vegetables.

$$$

  • CuisineAmerican comfort food
  • ReservationsReservations recommended

Lounge · Echo Lake

Tune-In Lounge

The small walk-up bar attached to 50's Prime Time Cafe, serving the full restaurant menu in a 1950s living room.

$$

  • CuisineAmerican comfort food and cocktails
  • ReservationsWalk-ups usually fine

Table service · Echo Lake

Hollywood & Vine

The park's character meal: a large art deco dining room with an all-you-care-to-enjoy spread and characters working the tables.

$$$Book ahead

  • CuisineAmerican buffet-style character dining
  • ReservationsReservations essential

Table service · Echo Lake

Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant

You eat in a convertible car at a permanent night-time drive-in, watching a reel of science fiction trailers under a fake starry sky.

$$$Book ahead

  • CuisineAmerican diner
  • ReservationsReservations essential

Quick service · Echo Lake

ABC Commissary

A large air-conditioned quick-service cafeteria on Commissary Lane, with the most indoor seating of any counter service in the park.

$$Mobile order

  • CuisineAmerican
  • ReservationsNo reservations

Quick service · Echo Lake

Backlot Express

A quick-service counter themed as a studio prop and scenery shop, with indoor seating rooms full of genuine set-dressing detail.

$$Mobile order

  • CuisineAmerican
  • ReservationsNo reservations

Quick service · Echo Lake

Dockside Diner

A walk-up window built into a beached steamer on Echo Lake, serving hot dogs, nachos and cold drinks at outdoor tables.

$Mobile order

  • CuisineAmerican
  • ReservationsNo reservations

Snack cart · Echo Lake

Dinosaur Gertie's Ice Cream of Extinction

A soft-serve window inside a giant green dinosaur on the shore of Echo Lake, and one of the park's original 1989 structures.

$

  • CuisineIce cream
  • ReservationsNo reservations

Snack cart · Echo Lake

Peevy's Polar Pipeline

A small drinks window by Echo Lake serving frozen slush drinks, sodas and a couple of spiked options, with a Rocketeer reference in the name.

$

  • CuisineFrozen drinks
  • ReservationsNo reservations

Snack cart · Echo Lake

Oasis Canteen

A funnel cake stand tucked beside the Indiana Jones amphitheater, with a rotating topped funnel cake and short lines.

$

  • CuisineFunnel cakes and desserts
  • ReservationsNo reservations

Snacks worth stopping for

Fried Chicken

50's Prime Time Cafe

$26.99

Buttermilk-brined fried chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables, served by a waiter playing an exasperated relative who will check whether you finished the vegetables.

Our take: The best table-service dish in the park and genuinely good fried chicken, not theme park fried chicken. The dish the whole restaurant is built around.

Do not leave without it Savory

Peanut Butter and Jelly Milkshake

50's Prime Time Cafe

$10.99

A thick hand-spun milkshake blended with peanut butter and a fruit jelly swirl, served in a metal tin with the extra poured at the table.

Our take: Very sweet, very rich, and the item people remember from this restaurant. Order one for the table rather than one each unless everybody has a serious sweet tooth.

Near the top of the list Drink Vegetarian

Dad's Electric Lemonade

Tune-In Lounge

$15

A tall blue vodka and rum lemonade served in a glass fishbowl with a light-up cube, the signature drink of the lounge attached to 50's Prime Time Cafe.

Our take: Sweet, strong and considerably larger than a normal cocktail, which is why it looks like better value than it is. Fun once; you will not want a second.

Drink VeganGluten-friendly

Hand-Dipped Milkshake

Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant

$9.99

A hand-dipped milkshake in a rotating set of flavors, delivered to your convertible by a carhop in the darkened drive-in dining room.

Our take: A good milkshake made better by being handed to you in a car under a fake night sky. The setting is doing most of the work and that is fine.

Drink Vegetarian

Funnel Cake

Oasis Canteen

$10.99

A funnel cake fried to order at a small stand beside the Indiana Jones amphitheater, served plain with sugar or under a rotating topping.

Our take: Made to order, which puts it well ahead of the pre-fried versions sold from carts elsewhere. Get it plain; the topping of the moment usually adds cost rather than quality.

Near the top of the list Sweet Vegetarian

Soft Serve Cone

Dinosaur Gertie's Ice Cream of Extinction

$5.99

Vanilla soft serve from the window in the side of a fifty-foot cartoon dinosaur that has stood on Echo Lake since the park opened in 1989.

Our take: Overrated on the strength of the building. The ice cream is ordinary soft serve; buy it as rent for the photograph and set your expectations accordingly.

Sweet VegetarianGluten-friendly Walkable

Nearby

Disney's Hollywood Studios map See where this land sits All attractions Every ride in Disney's Hollywood Studios Hollywood Boulevard The entrance street, running from the turnstiles to a full-scale replica of the Chinese Theatre at the far end. Grand Avenue A short stretch of contemporary downtown Los Angeles that now functions mainly as the walkway into Galaxy's Edge.