Disney World mishandles attempt to correct one of three mistakes in Toy Story Land
Disney Mistake No. 3: Theme of the new sit-down restaurant
Disney opened Toy Story Land in June of 2018. Since then, Disney’s Hollywood Studios has also introduced a Star Wars-themed area called Galaxy’s Edge. Neither of these new “worlds” inside the park had a sit-down restaurant. That was a big mistake on the part of Disney. It required patrons to have to walk all the way back to the front of the park to find table service dining. This was a miss on Disney planning.
The good news is that Disney learned from their 2018 and 2019 blunders. In March 2023, Disney opened the Roundup Rodeo BBQ – a table service, sit-down restaurant for everyone to enjoy. The restaurant is an American western-themed dining experience that is fun for the little ones. The theme inside matches the rest of Toy Story Land. It is fun and makes toy-sized items like blocks and dominos look as big as tables and chairs – once again making it seem like you are a toy.
The best thing you’ll find with this new restaurant is when Sarge shouts “Andy is coming” over his walkie. When this happens, everyone (cast members and guests) is supposed to freeze as if they were a toy inside the movie Toy Story. This just adds a little more fun to the experience.
Disney World mishandled the attempt to fix its 2018 blunder though. This new sit-down restaurant should have been a "Pizza Planet" instead. Hollywood Studios already failed once with a previous Pizza Planet that was located in the Muppet's Courtyard area. That quick-service restaurant was rebranded prior to the opening of Toy Story Land and is now PizzeRizzo - another quick-service restaurant featuring Gonzo's favorite rat friend, Rizzo. The original Pizza Planet was not themed well though as it did not resemble the arcade-style pizza restaurant from the beloved Toy Story movie.
Disney also failed to properly theme Alien Pizza Planet inside Disneyland's Tomorrowland. This location was at least themed better than the original one at Disney World, but not by much. Neither of them looked like an arcade. It makes some sense to not offer an arcade inside a theme park, but Disney World could have made everything extra large just as they did inside Rodeo Roundup BBQ. Patrons could have seen a giant claw machine and whack-an-alien game. Disney could have once again made it seem as though people were the size of a toy and just emulated actual arcade games.
We are glad that Disney learned from their mistake and opened this new restaurant, but it just should have been a better version of Pizza Planet instead. Now that Disney loosely fixed one of their three mistakes, maybe they will also look to add more artificial shade within Toy Story Land as well. I don’t think they will ever change the name of Woody’s Lunch Box to Andy’s Lunch Box, but "fixing" two out of three mistakes would not be too bad.