- Ham and Cheese Omelette today at the Pop Century Food Court - still good but still pricey. Ethan continues to make his accordian fans and now airplanes out of the receipts.
- Grab the bus for Hollywood Studios at about 8:40 - looks like we might not be there right at the open
- We get there about 8:55 and the security line is huge and the entrance line after security about just as big. No fanfare on park opening like Magic Kingdom and Epcot unless we missed it. Looks like this park is going to be busy today.
- Line moves and we get to the fingerprinting / MagicBand station and Ethan's fingerprint isn't read again - but quickly fixed and we head for the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster off of Sunset Ave.
- The park is busy but it's early yet and we wait for only a couple of minutes. I ask people what the ride does as I have no idea but the person in front of me has never been on it either. We hop on for a super fun ride and Ethan does his first looping roller coaster in the dark. He loves it though - even though he was scared of doing looping coasters at Wonderland. This is not the kid from 5 years ago that had to wear earphones at the 67's game because of the sound being too loud either - this is a sensory assault (in a good way).
- Temperature seems to be going down and the wind picking up as Ethan starts complaining about it being cold. We really feel it as we walk down Sunset Blvd and over to Star Tours for our next ride. We catch a bit of Jedi training outside on our way in. However, Ethan is my padawan in the field of minimizing line waits so we head into the attraction after a short watch. After getting out Ethan notices soy milk dripping from our knapsack - rats - big mess with it all spilled in the bag but I clean it up with some napkins I had stashed from this morning.
- Head over to the Great Movie Ride but get a little lost trying to find it. I resist the urge to fit the male stereotype of not asking for directions, so I ask a cast member who directs us in the exact opposite direction we were heading. Ethan asks if some of what is happening is for real and I explain that it's all pretend just like in the movies.
- The park is getting really busy now as the posted wait time for Toy Story Mania is around 120 minutes. Good thing I booked this as a FastPass - but even with it, we wait a good 10 minutes. My competitive nature got the best of me back at the Magic Kingdom on Buzz Lightyear's ride so I let it slide a bit on this one and Ethan won 68,000 to 60,300. He's happy and announcing how he beat me and one other kid says "How did you beat an adult?" and Ethan says "I'm really good at this game". Good - confidence restored. I kept it real by being ahead of him at a few points in the game.
- Going to cut it a little tight for Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular so we hustle back to Echo Lake there and luck out on a couple of really good seats even though we arrived only about 5 minutes before the show was scheduled to start. Lots of explosions and action - Ethan loves it.
- Lunch time so we grab some food at Backlot Express. Busy restaurant but Disney manages it well and you still get your food pretty quickly (they have a guy at the head of the queue telling you which person to order your food from and that person just takes the order and a huge team of people is prepping the food and matching it with the people who ordered it - amazingly efficient). We eat outside, but sheltered from the wind so it's not so bad - but this isn't anywhere near as nice of a day as the others have been.
- Head down the Streets of America to the Studio Backlot Tour. Another fairly short wait of 5 minutes or so. More explosions and special effects - we get a little wet when the water comes down the mountain as we are in the back seat of the touring vehicle. I read you might be able to see the old submarine from the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction which I remember from my first visit to the Magic Kingdom, but I didn't see it. Walk out into the American File Institute Showcase and check out some of the exhibits there - Ethan is most interested in the Superman and Batman costumes.
- A few free minutes before our Tower of Terror FastPasses become active so we take our time going over there and I ask at a sit down restaurant if I need to make a reservation. I look at the menu and it seems like the same food as the rest of the places. Am I just unlucky or do they all serve the same stuff? I skip the dinner reservation and we head over to the Tower of Terror. We take a snack break on Sunset Blvd. and a pleasant cast member comes over and we participate in a survey. He asks for my email address and I joke "Is there anything free if I give it." - and he says "No". So I say "All survey's come with something free - are you sure?", and he reiterates his previous response so I pass on giving my email address. Then again, Disney already has it when I signed up for the My Disney Experience app, so I'll get the spam anyway.
- The Tower of Terror line is huge - 140 min wait is posted. Good thing we have FastPasses but again, even with the FastPasses, we wait probably 5-10 minutes as it's a low capacity ride. Ethan is pretty nervous - I had been joking with him all day that it's really the "Tower of Happiness" - "Tower of Terror" is a bad name - it'll be fun. Still he's a trooper and has now put his faith in me that what look like scary rides are going to be fun and they've all been fun before so why would this one be any different? He's amazed at the huge line we bypassed. Ethan loved it but it was my first time on that sort of ride so I probably screamed louder than he did - but who knows since everyone is screaming.
- We have some time before the next Lights, Camera, Action show and Ethan had wanted one of the "First Visit" buttons so we pop in a few stores as every store is supposed to have one - but the first 2 didn't. Disney vacations tears off a giant strip of Disney stickers for Ethan and he loves it - he counts them later and he got 27 stickers. We go to Guest Services and get the last "First Visit" button they had.
- Still with some time we head in the direction of the show and see the Muppet Vision 3D attraction has a short wait so we pop in there. I love the real Statler and Waldorf muppets cracking jokes even though we didn't have a great angle to see them.
- We get out of there and go line up for the Lights, Camera, Action show. We saw a piece of it on the Studio Backlot Tour and heard lots of car screeches and revving engines so figured it would be right up Ethan's alley. It was indeed as it was filled with screeching, racing cars, explosions and lots of action. It had become quite cold and we were fairly high up in the stadium so Ethan was trying to put his whole body in his shirt.
- If were going to stay here until the nighttime Fanstamsic show, we're going to need a jacket. I dread seeing what the Disney premium is going to be on clothing, but Ethan is getting a bit irritable from the cold, and it's probably not going to get any warmer. We don't really have time to go back to the hotel and back to the park again in time to get good seats for Fantasmic so we hit a few stores looking for something warm. Of course, a lot of other people are doing the same and a bunch of stuff is sold out. We find something Ethan likes, although it's an adult small - but that's OK, he can grow into it. I find one for me and $100 later, we are both warm.
- We stop for a snack at what I think is a place that has waffle cones - I just want some ice cream, I'm not really hungry yet. The "cones" are Chicken, Bacon and Avocado bread cones and Cajun Shrimp Salad bread cone - not what I was looking for. Oh well, I can wait - hopefully I won't end up starving like the night before.
- We still have a FastPass left and some time so I book a FastPass for the Star Tours ride again. I heard from people the last time that each time it is different so hopefully we'll see something different. We arrive a bit early for the FastPass and have to let a few people in line ahead of us, but find out that it lets your arrive a few minutes early. The experience is different and a bit more fun than the first time around. Maybe it was because this time the crowd got into it a bit.
- Closing in on 5:30 at this time so we should head for Fantasmic so we get a good seat. I still haven't snacked but I luck out and get a concession stand that is selling roasted nuts. The last Senators game with Ethan, I walked all over the place looking for roasted nuts and couldn't find them and I get them here without even looking. A light beer and the roasted nuts sets me back close to $12 though. Same price as at a hockey game I guess.
- Ethan is excitedly waiting to see his mouse ears sync up with the show. Some young guys sit next to us all with the mouse ears on and drinking beer - kind of a funny sight. We sync up with home and then they put on a warm up pre-show. It was downright cold by this time so a "warm up" was needed. The show was awesome. With the wind we got a little wet from the overspray of the water - we would have been freezing if we hadn't had the jackets. (Well, "freezing" by Florida standards when you are in shorts and a T-shirt, it was still probably double digit temperatures.)
- Probably 5,000 people file out of the stadium and back into the park at once. We want to check out the Osborne lights before calling it a night - but we are not alone as the stream of traffic seems to be flowing that way. It's pretty packed but we squeeze our way in and check out the most Christmas lights in one place we've ever seen. We wait for the show and Ethan's mouse ears sync up with God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman by Mannheim Steamroller. I get some great snaps of Ethan - he is having such a good time.
- We head for the buses which aren't crazy busy as it's not park closing time yet. We get back around 8 and since it's early yet and we aren't super exhausted, we walk over to Art of Animation for a bit better dinner (at least not having to use plastic knives and forks). I have some pasta and Ethan gets more creative with the receipt accordian folding and makes a dress (likely inspired by all the princess dresses he had seen a couple of days earlier at the Magic Kingdom). Elliot's favourite Lightning McQueen is here so I get him a hoodie of the Cars characters as well and take a snap of a sketch of Lightning McQueen on the walls. Judging by today's crowd levels, I'm not sure Elliot would have enjoyed that at all. Waiting for shows wouldn't have been good either, even though they weren't super long waits. I've been sizing up how we would do this trip with Elliot as today would not have been a good day for him. He would probably like the water parks and maybe some of Magic Kingdom. At Friday's crowd levels it might be manageable, but Saturday and Sunday's - forget it - a recipe for disaster I think.
- Back to the room by about 9 to get packed and organized for the day tomorrow. I book the seats for the flight, Ethan should get a window seat again. I plan the Animal Kingdom FastPasses, get all the clothes packed up and the knapsack mostly ready to go in the morning. Animal Kingdom has early Extra Magic Hours tomorrow - but I don't think we are going to get there at park opening. This is supposed to be a vacation after all - getting up at 6 am I can do everyday.
- In bed by 10 and watch a bit of TV but asleep before 11 - good, cause tomorrow is going to be a long day.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Day 4 - Hollywood Studios
Getting up again at 7 am is a bit tougher today as it was a late night. I let Ethan sleep in a bit while I get things ready and wake him up around 7:30. After breakfast he tests the weather and it's still fairly warm though quite a bit cooler from yesterday so we figure we can still do short sleeves and shorts. I make the FastPass reservations as I was too tired the night before and re-jig the plan to take into account getting to the park a bit later and the new FastPass reservations.
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