Walt Disney World Day Four: What a Lovely Day

Today was just a lovely day. I think I'm a bit surprised to be saying that because we spent the day at Disney's Hollywood Studios. I have long heard that this is "just a half-day park." I can see why many people would feel that way - and really, in the future, I probably will, too. But our day today was lovely.

We did learn some lessons. I do not need to ride The Great Movie Ride again in the future. That has been done. Our guide was painful. One might even say she was patronizing. Her "on stage persona" was rather melodramatic and painful to experience. But at least Doc and I got a few good looks in to each other. And now we know.

Let me back up... Upon arriving, Doc went ahead to Toy Story Mania to acquire Fast Passes. When he came back we saw Chip and Dale but they were going to get some acorns. The Cast Members told us they would be back at 10:30. That gave us enough time to visit the Great Movie Ride and then return to see Chip and Dale.

We walked through Pixar Place and found a Toy Story Meet and Greet where we were able to meet with Buzz Lightyear. As we came out, Doc found the Luxo window we hoped we would see. A nearby CM confirmed that Luxo dances every 15 minutes and it was now 10:56. We waited around and enjoyed Luxo's performance. The boys also met Green Army Men.

Next we watched the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. Our Indiana Jones loving sons were in heaven with the show! As we came out of the show, we consulted our show schedule for the park. This park lists character meet and greet location and times on their daily schedule. We read that the Monsters would be near-by so while Doc fetched Fast Passes for Rock & Roller Coaster, the boys met Mike and Sully.

We strolled through One Man's Dream, a tribute to Walt Disney, but ran out of time to see the 15 minute movie because it was time to check-in for our lunch reservation at Sci-Fi Diner. The gimmick of this restaurant is an indoor drive-in movie theater. Most of the tables are "cars" with three rows of seats. Most have 3 bench seat booths but some have one long table surrounded by chairs. (HCA accessible!) The restaurant has a loop about 30 minutes long, of old, cheesy sci-fi movie trailers, a couple of cartoons and drive-in theater intermission and refreshment stand clips.

The food wasn't amazing. I can't lie. But the atmosphere was delightful. The boys love it and it was totally worth the visit. Mr. Genius ordered a shrimp pasta dish with spinach, feta, artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes. He asked for no kalamata olives. Yeah, the olives. Left the spinach and feta in the pasta, just as long as there was no kalamata olives. His meal was very good. I had a reuben sandwich. The bread was wrong and there was not enough sauerkraut. (Say it with me: you can never have enough sauerkraut. That's right!) I usually have to ask for extra thousand island dressing, so that part did not bother me, but the bread was a dark bread but not a rye bread and there were no caraway seeds in it. The bread had a strong flavor but it was the wrong flavor for a reuben. The portion was plenty filling. That said, we had a really good time at lunch.

After lunch we rode Toy Story Mania with our fast passes.

Dear Disneyland Resort in Anaheim: Your Toy Story Mania queue is just sad and pathetic. Someone at Walt Disney Imagineering hates you. I do not know why but it must be true. There is no other reason to justify what they did to your queue as opposed to what they built in Florida. I am so sorry, Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, because you deserve a lovely queue, too

From there, the balance between DLR and WDW shifted again as we experienced the backlot tour. It was a sad, strange little attraction. It was just too oddly short. They clearly wanted to compete with Universal Studios.

Dear Disney's Hollywood Studios: Universal Studios wins. And I don't even like Universal all that much.

At this point, a Cast Member lied to us. We read that the Up characters were available for a meet and greet in the Animation area of the park. When we went to find them, the CM said that we would have to watch a movie to proceed to the room with the characters. With our Rock and Roll fast passes due, we wanted to get to that area of the park first.

Captain Stubborn is too short for this attraction, so I took the big boys on the first ride while Doc waited with CS.

I am sure that I have read about this attraction in the past, but whatever it was that I knew, I had forgotten. I knew that I wanted to ride the roller coaster with Aerosmith music and so I went on it.

Oh.My.Goodness.

I forgot about the launch. And the loop. And the corkscrew. Did y'all realize that all of this was going on in the dark?

I had visions of my glasses, my one lone remaining pair of clear eyeglasses, flying off my face!!!! So while my body forgot how to breath and just stopped and my stomach started to reveal its displeasure in all of this, I tried to grab and hold on to my eyeglasses. I closed my eyes. I reminded myself to breath. Eventually I removed my eyeglasses and the ride came to an end. (I wish I had removed my glasses in the first place.) I admit that I felt better at the end of the ride than I did during the ride.

I might decide to ride it again knowing that I should take my glasses off before I start.

I might. I don't really need to but I might.

I planned to try the WDW version of Tower of Terror but after Rock and Roller Coaster, I decided to give my stomach a break. Doc took all three boys on Tower of Terror, even Captain Stubborn. Although he did not make a sound during the ride, and had a death grip on one of Doc's arms, CS esemed to enjoy ToT.

Here is where we learned about the lie. We returned to the Animation building and Mr. Genius told the CM that we were there to watch the movie so that we could meet the characters. This CM told us that all we had to do was go through the art gallery to get to the character signing room.

REALLY?

Really.

Thank goodness he did! We arrived in the large room filled with a variety of characters, only to see Carl, Dug and Russell from Up. How wonderful! We got in line only to be told a few minutes later that in 5 minutes, Russell would be leaving for the day. When we were almost to the front of the line, I told their handler that Doc was going as a Wilderness Explorerer Leader for Halloween and we had to meet Russell. The CM was scheduled to cut off the line right before us but upon hearing our story, she let us be the last family to meet Russell! Russell was very happy to meet Doc and they did the WE cheer together! Carl offered me his arm for the photo opp. I can't wait to get that picture from Photo Pass!

But it only got better! Sorcerer Mickey, who CS will be for Halloween, was just across the way!

This Mickey was one of the best characters I have ever seen in a Disney park! He was posing his guests. He was so cute and friendly with them. And when we told Mickey about CS's costume, Mickey asked the big boys to step aside so he could give CS some Sorcerer Mickey posing tips! He then called them back in and posed them with CS! When we were finished, I gave Mickey a hug and thanked him. Among my several comments to Mickey about how wonderful he was, I told him that he was a joy to watch and was the best I had ever seen, even with all of my trips to Disneyland as an AP. Mickey gave me a very, very big hug.

In the end we even visited more characters: Mr. & Mrs. Incredible, Stitch, Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. Walt Disney World really does seem to do characters right!

Hollywood Studios closed at 7 but Animal Kingdom stayed open late for resort guests tonight, until 9:00 pm. We stopped by our resort food court to grab pizzas for the kids and headed to the Animal Kingdom to meet with the swanies. They had a plan: Ride Kali River Rapids at night, when they could easily return to their hotel immediately after and change out of their wet clothes.

We met at Expedition Everest at about 8:15 pm. Mr. Swanie and Miss SBS were just coming off the ride. Mrs. Swanie had a Rider Switch Pass which would allow her to take two people on the ride. Miss SBS wanted to ride again and it was her family's ticket so of course we would not argue this. SBS still had an iffy tummy after his roller coaster and tower trips at Hollywood Studios. Doc agreed to let Mr. Genius take the remaining spot. He would come back on Monday to ride. A nearby cast member heard this discussion and gave Doc a fast pass and so the group of four proceeded to Expedition Everest. They were off quickly and we proceeded to Kali River Rapids.

Now, for those who don't know, PerkyMommy does not get wet. It's just my thing. I do not do snowball fights. I do not play water balloon fights. I do not like to be wet unless I can immediately and conveniently go to a bathroom, dry-off and get dressed. But this offer sounded pretty close to that and so I put on a poncho and got on the ride with everyone else. We told Capt. Stubborn that he had to try it one time. He also opted for a poncho.

And so the ten of us climbed into a 12-person raft, we rode the ride and we got wet. As the ride ended, almost everyone wanted to go again and so we did. We did not even get out of the raft or undo our belt buckles. Capt. S was not happy but we did it. After the second trip, most of the kids started chanting "GO A-GAIN! GO A-GAIN!" And so we did. A third time. In a row. By the end of this trip, Capt. S and I were done. We climbed out of the raft while the others remained behind. Trip number four quickly passed and they continued with trip number five. At five, they got out of the raft and they were all soaking wet.

Being almost 9:00 pm, we left the park at this point. Doc and I went to the food court at our resort and picked out dinner. And so yes, tonight, we had... in room dining.

What a lovely ending to a lovely day.