“Welcome to Hollywood!” Officer Peabody was on the beat today, keeping order and welcoming guests to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Let’s see what’s going on today.

If you’re ever curious about a good time to visit the Trolley Car Cafe (the Starbucks location in this park), the best would be right at rope drop. In the rush to make it to Toy Story Land, very few people think to get their coffee right when the park opens. Before the park opens and about an hour after, the line is much longer.

Merchandise

There were a few new limited edition pins recently released.

We also found this fun hat! Wear it as you conquer all of the Disney mountains. You can see more photos here.

Production Crews

They were filming some sort of commercial in the park. They had a whole crew and probably 15 “actors”.

Everyone who was in the promo was speaking Portuguese, so I’m assuming this was a promo for Brazilian markets.

In other news, I saw a half dozen Imagineers coming out from the back of the “Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad” show building with hard hats in hand. Good to know they’re actually working on it in there, we don’t have any way to know what’s going on when a project is entirely indoors.

The Brown Derby

I was able to grab lunch in the Brown Derby today. If you’ve never been, it’s absolutely worth your time. It’s based on the Brown Derby restaurants that used to reside in Los Angeles during the golden age of Hollywood.

Inside, they have a guest book signed by all sorts of actors and film-related people.

Today it was turned to page 41, which has the autograph of animator, Imagineer, and Disney Legend, Bill Justice.

The inside is pretty classy, as far as theme park restaurants go.

The walls are lined with caricatures of famous actors, just like the original restaurants were.

The food is fantastic, too! I got the chicken sandwich, and it’s honestly the best one I’ve had on property.

Construction and Maintenance

The Fantasmic! sign is still off. We had a little bit of luck last week when it was on for a day or two, but now it’s gone dark again.

In good news, this water fountain across from the ABC Commissary is fixed! It’d been out of commission for almost two weeks.

Work on the new security bag check and tram loop continues outside the park. More fences have come down and been replaced with “Disney Camouflage”, aka movable bushes.

I’m looking forward to the day this is all finished and I can walk into the park without dealing with a construction fence.

That’s it for today! Keep checking in with us as we get closer to the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Hollywood Studios! We’re in the home stretch, folks!