Sunset Boulevard (Disney's Hollywood Studios)
| Sunset Boulevard | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disney's Hollywood Studios |
| Land / area | Sunset Boulevard |
| Type | Themed land |
| Opened | 1994 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Sunset Boulevard is a themed land at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida. Modelled on the real Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles as it might have looked in the 1930s and 1940s, it is lined with period shops, billboards and theatre marquees, and it runs from the end of Hollywood Boulevard to a single dominant landmark: the ruined Hollywood Tower Hotel, home of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. It holds two of the park's best-known thrill rides and two of its longest-running stage shows.
History
Sunset Boulevard was the first major expansion of the park, which was then called Disney-MGM Studios.[1] The original park, opened in 1989, had been built relatively small, and a new street gave it both capacity and its first true thrill attraction.
The street opened in the summer of 1994. A rebuilt Theater of the Stars, previously located on Hollywood Boulevard, began hosting Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage on the boulevard on June 15, 1994.[2] Its anchor followed on July 22, 1994, when The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror opened at the end of the street.[3]
The boulevard kept growing at the end of the decade. Fantasmic!, the park's nighttime spectacular, opened on October 15, 1998, in the purpose-built Hollywood Hills Amphitheater just off the end of the street.[4] On July 29, 1999, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster opened beside the Tower of Terror, giving the land a second thrill ride and the park its first roller coaster with inversions.[5] Together, those additions turned a decorative street into the park's thrill-ride district, a role it still holds.
Attractions and entertainment
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror — a drop-tower dark ride set in the Hollywood Tower Hotel, supposedly emptied after a lightning strike in 1939. Guests board a maintenance service elevator that rises, moves forward through the hotel and then drops repeatedly in a randomised sequence.
- Rock 'n' Roller Coaster — an enclosed launched roller coaster in which guests are launched at high speed into a night-time drive through Los Angeles, with inversions, in limousine-style trains. Long themed to Aerosmith, it is presented as a rush across town to the band's concert.
- Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage — a Broadway-style musical condensation of the 1991 film, performed in the covered Theater of the Stars since 1994.
- Fantasmic! — a nighttime show of water screens, fountains, fireworks, boats and live performers in the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater, in which Mickey Mouse's imagination is invaded by Disney villains.
- Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy and Sunset Showcase have provided additional show and events space at the far end of the boulevard in more recent years.
Dining
Most dining on Sunset Boulevard is concentrated in the Sunset Ranch Market, an open-air collection of counter-service stands near the Theater of the Stars. Its outlets have included Rosie's All-American Cafe, serving burgers and hot dogs, Catalina Eddie's, serving pizza, and Fairfax Fare, serving hot dogs and barbecue-style dishes. Hollywood Scoops sells ice cream nearby, and the boulevard's shops and carts sell drinks and snacks for guests heading to the evening Fantasmic! performance.
See also
- Disney's Hollywood Studios
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
- Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage