The Parks Star Tours has outlasted trends, competitors, and two owners of the Star Wars license, but Disney’s Hollywood Studios may finally be ready to move on. The attraction has survived decades of changes and major expansions in the park around it, yet Disney now runs an entirely different Star Wars experience just a short walk away. That proximity is the problem. When a park offers guests two distinct takes on the same galaxy, one of them eventually becomes redundant, and simulators from the late 1980s don’t usually win that argument. Planning your Disney trip? Download Lightning Brain from the App Store or visit lightningbrain.app to optimize every minute of your park day. Crowds made their own argument this week. Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a federal holiday stacked on top of seven active school breaks, pushed all four Walt Disney World parks well past their normal levels on the same day. Animal Kingdom and EPCOT each ran a full four crowd levels above where they typically sit. Magic Kingdom matched them. Hollywood Studios landed three levels above its norm. There was no quiet park to retreat to, no soft day to lean on. If you were there, you felt it everywhere at once. Disney World guests relying on the Sassagoula River Cruise between Old Key West and Disney Springs hit a different kind of disruption. That boat route is closed through November 1, with the Old Key West dock shut down entirely and signage directing guests to bus service instead. Disney is running complimentary buses in the meantime, but anyone who booked Old Key West expecting a boat ride into Disney Springs needs to recalculate their evening. Out west, Disneyland’s Anaheim Resort Campus Shuttle just got more useful, adding two new hotel stops to its pickup and drop-off schedule. For guests staying at nearby offsite hotels, that’s a meaningful convenience upgrade, especially paired with the reminder that several non-Disney-owned hotels sit closer to the resort entrance on foot than Disney’s own three on-property hotels. Universal Orlando, meanwhile, is dealing with its own closure headaches. Islands of Adventure has confirmed four closures, and a major reopening has been pushed back further, with some attractions disappearing for good as Universal reworks its lineup. And in Georgia, Six Flags has temporarily shut down nine roller coasters across six parks following a fatal incident involving Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia. The closures span multiple parks, a sign Six Flags is treating this as a systemic safety review rather than an isolated shutdown. The Shows Walt Disney Animation Studios is leaning into witches for the holidays. Hexed, arriving in theaters November 25, follows 16-year-old Billie Doe, voiced by Hailee Steinfeld, as she discovers secret magical abilities and clashes with her overprotective mother Alice, voiced by Rashida Jones. The new trailer and poster bring fresh casting news too, with Henry Winkler and Dan Stevens joining what’s already a stacked lineup. The film is framed around the way an unexpected journey into a world of witches sparks a real connection between a mother and daughter who’ve never quite understood each other. And yes, there’s a three-eyed cat. On the shorter end of the content spectrum, Disney Channel’s Cartoonified! series has found a new target. Kiff and Barry, the stars of the show’s “machine,” turn their animation powers on one of Banana Ball’s biggest names this time around, a departure from the series’ usual run of Phineas and Ferb-adjacent bits. The Business Disneyland ticket prices just went up for late 2026 and 2027, covering select park tickets along with Park Hopper and Lightning Lane add-ons. The workaround window is narrow. Guests have roughly a week to buy admission at the old prices before the increase locks in, which makes this one of those rare moments where acting fast actually saves real money rather than just feeling like it does. Disneyland’s Magic Key program got a mercy policy. The widely disliked no-show policy for Magic Key holders is ending, a reversal MiceChat frames alongside other recent shifts, including commentary from former Disney CEO Bob Chapek and the quiet disappearance of penny press machines around the resort. None of these are blockbuster headlines on their own, but together they read like a resort quietly smoothing out friction points that had been building up with its most loyal annual visitors. Annual Passholders at Walt Disney World are getting their own incremental win. Nomad Lounge has introduced a new deal specifically for Passholders, continuing a 2026 pattern of Disney building out passholder-specific perks, discounts, and dining offers instead of treating the pass as just a cheaper ticket. The Details Disney World’s snack game got its seasonal stress test. Six new treats dropped across Magic Kingdom and beyond, spanning Main Street to the park’s farthest corners, and the results are mixed. Some land as genuinely craveable seasonal hits. Others prompt real questions about decision-making in Disney’s culinary development meetings. Not every pumpkin-shaped item is destined to become a carriage, as the reviewers put it, and this batch proves it. Universal’s Epic Universe has generated its own etiquette conversation, with theme park experts laying out a dozen very specific rules for how to behave inside the park, a sign the destination has become established enough to have its own unwritten social code. Golden Goose is sending Mickey Mouse and friends to the moon. The luxury sneaker brand, known for handcrafted, vintage-inspired designs, is launching a retro-futuristic collaboration with Disney that marks a first for both brands, pairing Golden Goose’s “perfectly imperfect” aesthetic with classic Disney characters in a space-age setting. And for families navigating accessibility needs, WDW Prep School shared a detailed account of a September trip built around the Disability Access Service, following one family’s planning and on-the-ground strategy across multiple generations, including a 76-year-old grandmother and two young kids, plus the celebration of a daughter’s physical therapy milestones along the way. Keep exploring Catch more Disney Deets coverage or get the Lightning Brain app for real-time wait times and routing. Sources Disney Fanatic Lightning Brain Disney Dining Chip and Co Mickey Visit Inside the Magic Attractions Magazine D23 The DisInsider Laughing Place Disney Tourist Blog MiceChat MickeyBlog Disney Food Blog AllEars Disney Parks Blog WDW Prep School Designed, trained, and directed by humans. Produced by Lightning Brain’s AI. Learn how we make this: https://lightningbrain.app/how-we-make-this Post navigation Gartner Takes Hollywood Studios, Prices Go Up Again Allergy Counters, Vision’s Finale, and a Ship Named Imagination