paul riley

We wandered back to the main central area, mainly to refocus and regroup, and noticed that some of Disney's characters were out on a meet and photo opportunity session, this was something we had all but overlooked in or plans for the park visits. Unfortunately we had missed the opportunity that time but the characters are out regularly with times and locations detailed on the Times Guide, so we took the chance to eat, it was already lunchtime pretty much, and our plans to keep our energy levels up appeared to be working.

Finding ourselves by the Chinese we thought we'd do the Great Movie ride, none of us knew anything about it but the rating in the guide book we took with us indicated that it would not scare the children. The queue for the ride took you past a number of movie artefacts before you passed through a 'cinema' showing trailers for a number of very famous films of yesteryear.

Once through the cinema you climb aboard a train that takes you on a journey through various films with a combination of animatronic, projected and live action scenes, at one point your train is hijacked by a cowboy who eventually becomes a victim of a mummy's curse. On the whole the family enjoyed the journey though found elements such as the scene from Alien a little bit scary.

By the time we had come out of the ride we found we had timed our chance to get Disney characters autographs and photos perfectly, with the characters returning to the meeting areas as we entered the sunshine, the result two very happy kids and Goofy, Pluto and the Chipmunks autographs collected and photo's taken.

After a successful time with the Disney characters we decided that rather than head off to a specific attraction we would wander and see where it took us. This park, more than any of the other parks, has the feel of a movie studio, with large portions built like movie sets, a facade to the world, scaffolding behind the scenes. This is not a negative statement, and rather than conforming to the stereo type of being a bit 'Mickey Mouse' in its construction, it adds to the ambiance of the park, and you almost expect to find filming going on around each corner.

Soon we found ourselves in an square at the bottom of Streets of America, in the centre of the square is a fountain full of Muppet characters, this in itself appears to be popular with young children. Beyond the fountain is a theatre where the Muppet Vision 3-D attraction can be found

The idea behind the attraction is that the Muppets have, in their special research facility, been working on bringing their theatre and 'talent' to a wider audience, the show is a combination of 3D cinema (with wind and water spray effects), animatronic characters (Waldorf and Statler seated in their box pass judgment on the Muppets capers) and towards the end an actor dressed up as Sweetums (large shaggy monster) wanders across the front of the theatre looking for a Muppet that's gone missing. All in all I think there can be nobody that doesn't enjoy the Muppets, and therefore everybody will enjoy this attraction.

After the Muppets we stopped for another snack, everyone was copping well with the day and I feel that the early start and the regular snacks contributed to this, then we decided to wander the set-like Streets of America some more. Streets of America is an area of the park designed to look like a American city streets set (hence the name), with at one end a number of the 'buildings' merely painted, whilst the streets are faced with building that are just facades. Cleverly the buildings themselves are so generic that the streets can be dressed to look like almost any street in any city in the world, something we witnessed when on one street we found a couple of the house and the street itself dress as a British street, complete with street furniture.

At the end of the Streets of America set is a new attraction for Disney World this year, after having successfully wowing the crowds at DisneyLand Paris the Lights, Motors, Action Extreme Stunt Show comes to Florida. A huge arena has been built that houses a French town square, complete with wharf, and in this setting the presenters show how the stunts we see in the movies are made. As the title of the attraction indicates, there are a lot of car chases, smoking tyres, jumps, motorbikes and even a high fall and man on fire. However there is more to this than just stuntmen showing what they can do, as with each scene completed and 'in the can' you build to the climax and the showing of the completed movie chase.

Our final attraction of the day was the Studio Backlot Tour, a look behind the scenes at some of the departments that actually items seen in the movies, including the costume department, and some of the props created for the movies, mainly vehicles. You will see how the special effects can reproduce an aerial attack on a hapless ship, complete with a crew made up of members of the audience, before you join the train that takes you around the backlot. The highlight of the tour is Catastrophe Canyon were amidst a rain storm a flash flood washes away a burning oil tanker only feet from were you sit.

After having spent a good six hours at Hollywood Studios we decided that we would call it a day in the knowledge that we had found a way that would enable the kids to cope.