Wed Morning we got up and went and checked out the breakfast options at the hotel. Now they have this odd thing for a counter service meal, and as we were on the Disney Dining plan and had one counter service, one sit-down, and one snack per person per day- we went into the counter service restaurant. They actually sit you down at a table and have a waiter/waitress get your drink order for all the adult meals (Alex is 10 this year and once you reach the age of 10 at Disney, you cost the same as an adult- Adult cost of tickets, and on meals), and then you go and order your breakfast from different “Pod’s” areas that they have set up for different meals. The kid’s meals you order the breakfast and get the drink with that. The kids all wanted Mickey Waffles, so Rich and Alex went and got that, while Angela and I got my meal.
Ashley and Alyssa stayed at the table and colored the pictures with the crayons they had for the kids. I got a good breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon. Nice and filling to get through the day. Alex got upset because he felt his breakfast wasn’t big enough. He wanted a bowl of cereal, a bagel, and something else… the downfall of going to hotels with breakfast buffet’s is that when you go to a hotel that isn’t a breakfast buffet- the kids don’t understand that you have to pay for each item and they don’t need to have all their caloric intake for the day at breakfast. (I mentioned earlier how much Alex loves the buffets. He is definitely a breakfast person and since I rarely make breakfast at home and he gets cold cereal most of the time- he loves the breakfasts he gets on vacations.) So other than Alex’s disappointment that he couldn’t get all the breakfast foods he wanted it was a good meal. Then we headed over to the bus stop to take the bus to Hollywood Studio’s.
We got to Hollywood Studio’s right as they were about to open the park. We followed the huge crowd through the park and over to the newest ride: Toy Story Mania. We were amazed at the line that we saw for the fast passes! I think the line for the fast passes probably was at least 45 minutes long when we got in line for the ride- and our line for the ride was about an hour long. It was a long line, but the great thing about Disney is even though a line is long, it isn’t always boring.
The que line was completely decorated to make you feel like you are miniaturized and in a room full of toys. The floor and ceiling are game boards for candy land, chutes and ladders and other games. There are toys all over the place- to look at and see hanging from the ceiling and painted all over the walls. It really is almost an overload of stimulation.
Angela had a hard time with the noise of the line and I tossed her into the sling so she could feel a little more secure and not as overwhelmed. Now I am not a big sling user, except for our trips to Disney. I find in that setting that it is very convenient to have a sling to put on and cuddle Angela into when she get’s overwhelmed in crowds, or is sleepy and needs to just cuddle for a little bit. It saves by arms and shoulders by preventing her weight from overwhelming me when we are in line for a long time. We finally got through the line and onto the ride. It’s a 3D interactive ride. You are in these little buggy things and have a “shooter” and get to shoot at 3D games on big screens as you go through the ride. A lot like Carnival games that you shoot things to get a high score. They did a great job on the ride and everyone enjoys it. Angela had a hard time figuring out how to hold her 3D glasses on her head, and aim the gun and shoot it… but she had fun.
After that we headed across the park to the Tower of Terror and Rockin Rollercoaster. Our friends had slept in a little later than us and were just getting to the park. They meet up with us there and we grabbed fast passes for Tower of Terror. After that we went to go on Rockin Roller Coaster, swapping kids so everyone that wanted to ride could- but the ride broke down. We decided to go and ride the Great Movie ride while we waited for our Fast Passes on Tower of Terror. The Great Movie Ride always amazes me at how long the line is to it. Outside it looks like you are going to just walk on the ride, but the que line weaves through a building into a large que theatre where they roll clips from famous movies, over and over and over and over… I think we saw the roll about 4 or 5 times and by that time we were really ready to get on the ride. On the ride it’s pretty fun. You go on a ride “through” the movies and even have a little adventure happen along the way. It’s a little funny because there are a lot of classic movies referenced in the ride, and I haven’t seen all of them, and my kids have barely seen any of them- so the kids are looking around at the movie scenes not familiar with them at all, but the animatronics they have are so neat the kids still enjoy the ride.
When we were done on that ride we hiked back across the park to the Tower of Terror. We split up and the Dad’s took the kids wanted to ride and the mom’s took the others. Then we swapped and took the kids that wanted to ride it a second time. It was so much fun. I definitely like the ride better in Florida than in California… it just has a little more to it that makes it neater. The Dad’s picked up some fast passes to Rockin Rollercoaster while we were on the ride.
Then we went and watched the Beauty and the Beast show.
From there we went all the way to the far end of the park to watch the Lights Motor Action Speedway Show. Now this show has a massively huge stadium size audience area. I know it’s not easy to direct that many people into the area, but they need to do some reworking of how they direct the audience into seats…. How they fill them up or something. We walked over, across the backside of the stadium and around to the front. They had stairwells blocked off preventing people from climbing them to get up to the upper decks and everyone was funneled into this one staircase single file. From there we walked up the stairs to the top, across to the upper deck and to the top of the upper deck, across the back row of the upper deck to the center and then ½ way down to the bottom down the center staircase to where they were finding seats for 3-4 people at a time on each row. It was quite nerve wracking to try and keep track of all the kids we had in our group. We made the older kids all take a buddy’s hand and tried to keep everyone together, but we did get separated by the huge mass of the crowd and since it was a single file staircase, we couldn’t really stop and let others ahead to gather our group back together. Rich and I were on the front end, and our friends were at the back end of the group, so we just made sure all the little kids were holding onto hands, and the big kids were in between us and we grabbed them as they came to pass us to get a seat. Overall it turned out fine, but it definitely was a little stressful for me at least. The show makes up for the poor crowd flow though. It is exciting and fun to watch how they do a lot of the stunts with cars and stuff. The kids loved it and we were glad we got to see it- last year we didn’t make it over to see it.
From there we decided it was time for a snack for the kids and we found an ice cream cart. Nothing beat’s an ice cream bar, or Popsicle on a hot day for a snack to help the kids get over their crankiness. By then we figured we had just enough time to go and take the Backlot tour before it was time for our dinner reservation. On the Backlot tour there is more of the behind the scenes look at how they make special effects and stuff in the movies. It’s fun and interesting, and as everything else was that day- about a 30 minute wait in line.
The Backlot tour takes about 45 minutes so by the time we were done there, it was time to hurry back over to were our dinner reservation was. We had an early reservation of 3:50. We ate at Mamma Melrose’s Italian restaurant, and while the food was good, we were not impressed at all with the service of our waiter. I know taking 9 kids into a restaurant isn’t something waiters look at and are thrilled with, but generally all 9 kids were well behaved. The waiter was short and curt with the kids as we got their orders in, and very much gave off the feeling of being inconvenienced by having our group at his tables. It was really too bad because the food was good, and since we were such a large party the tip was guaranteed for the server- we couldn’t have shorted the tip on him for his service (well I suppose we could have called the manager out, and I could have noted his name to write a letter, but I hope he was just having a very off day- and I think the kids were too busy having fun with friends to notice his bad manners- but us adults all definitely felt the chill). The restaurant was cold and so I pulled out my sling for Alyssa to wrap around her shoulders because she is so skinny that she gets cold really easily. I forgot all about it and wound up leaving it there. That was a bummer too because I still had three more days at the parks that I would have used it if I had it.
After we filled up on dinner we headed back over to Rockin Rollercoaster to use the fast passes we had gotten earlier in the day. Again we swapped kids- this time our friends took all the big kids on the ride that wanted to ride, and then Rich and I took the big kids again while our friends took the little kids to try and see the Playhouse Disney Show. Unfortunately they didn’t make it in time, but they did go and walk through the Animator’s attraction they have. After that we went and got seats for Fantasmic.
Alex really, really didn’t want to be there, he doesn’t like loud noises like fireworks, so Rich left right as the show began with Alex, and then our friends little boy that was about 22 months old was not happy with all the noises, so the dad left with him. We had a great time watching the show, and then realized at the end that we had 7 kids to get out of the crowd with just the two of us mom’s to keep track of everyone. So we decided to wait until the crowd thinned out a bit. Rich and Brian had already gotten the strollers from the stroller parking area so we didn’t have to worry about getting through that crowd there, and so we sat around and then headed out another exit that seemed to be less crowded than the main exit. After a while of following that path I wondered if we would get lost, but since there was still a significant crowd going that way we just stayed with the crowd. Amazingly we came out right where Rich and Alex were waiting for us. We just had to wait for Brian to come over from where he was and find us. Then it was dark and we headed for the busses and back to the hotel.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10 & 11
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