Saturday, September 25, 2010

Dis pt 4


9/6

Now the real fun starts! Up early, breakfast in the room. Turns out my old hot pot from college does still work so that plus instant Quinoa is breakfast for Pete. I load up my travel bag with rain ponchos, trail mix, camera and my itinerary and RideMax plans. Plus all the other stuff I normally carry around. This time, I did remember my hat. Pete was responsible for the spray bottle and Katie and Zack each had water bottles.

Off to Hollywood Studios. It was my least favorite park last trip but this time I wanted to give it a better chance by doing more research and having a good touring plan. I did all our RideMax plans on the slow paced setting so that we would not have to crisscross the parks too much and would have plenty of time for pin trading, browsing and hidden Mickey searches. I also enjoyed knowing about a few surprises to show everyone else, like pulling on the rope in the well next to Indiana Jones.

Sadly, we never got to the Singing in the Rain umbrella.


Waiting for the ferry from the hotel to DHS. Really liked travelling by ferry rather than always using buses. More relaxing and they seemed faster but I'm sure that had a lot to do with proximity as well. (this picture might be from the night before tho...)

We arrived just before rope drop and cut through the stores to get a bit ahead of the crowd, yes, but mostly to avoid the stroller brigade. They are very difficult to dodge. I went ahead of Pete and the kids to get in line with the masses waiting for the Toy Story Midway Mania fast passes. It went much faster than I expected and everyone was well behaved and friendly.

Met up with the fam just as they finished taking pictures with Winnie the Pooh. I was really interested in using the photopass this trip so whenever I saw a photographer, I tried to get everyone to jump in line. Not always successful but we did get a lot of nice shots. Don't have them yet though, so none to post here. I think I drove everyone a bit nuts trying to hunt down and get photos with the photopass, but they all humored me :-)


Zack was fairly photo shy this trip, but Katie and Pete posed.

Here's one from later that same day when I was able to get us all together



So, I don't really remember what order we hit everything, but all were a walk on--I love travel in September!

I think we hit Star Tours first. Had to do it today, it was shutting down on the 8th for a two year (I think) renovation. Fun, but definitely needs the update. I think this was the first ride we left something behind on, so some time later, I circled back to it gather Zack's water bottle from under his seat. There were many "lost" items to follow.


Zack on a Star Wars vehicle

Here's other rides we hit, in no particular order.

The one with the Muppets--loved it! Loved the line, the preshow and the movie.

Tower of Terror--Katie was planning to ride ToT, I planned to leave via the chicken exit, but wanted to see the line theming and stay with the family. Turned out that Katie and I both ducked out like chickens.

We waited for the guys to get done in the area where they post the ride photo. There were benches and I kept sitting down and getting up, etc. I had taken Zack's water bottle and the spray bottle from Pete. After we met up with them we walked out a good ways and when I went to return the bottles to them, lo and behold, I was missing the sprayer--another circle back for me to retrieve it from the bench inside.

Back Lot Tour--Fun, I enjoyed the line theming, the ride is fine and a bit interesting and the AFI display at the end is nice and reminded me of my dad and the things he would have enjoyed about it.

Toy Story Mania--fun, and Pete and I rode this together, which was also fun, since I'd been on this ride at Disneyland last year. Wish the crowd levels-- being new, this one was NOT a walk on and has 90 min waits all day--had allowed us to ride more than once.


Katie and a Toy soldier.


Pete always takes pictures of us in 3D glasses at Disney. I have to remember to take a picture of him in them some time.

Narnia--we had enjoyed the original Narnia show the last time, this one was no big deal.

I had been told that the quick service restaurants we atrocious, so made plans to have lunch back at the hotel. Also to be sure that we did leave and take a break. We NEED these breaks. Otherwise we all get overstimulated, hot and cranky.

However, I did need to stop to see Pluto.


Got a nice shot of Katie with him.

Back for another nice ferry ride and straight to the Yacht Club for lunch at the Captain's Grill.


Zack steering us into the restaurant

Nice relaxing lunch, go before the long trek back to our room. Naps! I think we all napped, but really don't remember if anyone went to the pool.

Back to DHS for more rides! Again, I really don't remember what rides we did when, but here's some of what we did.

The Beauty and the Beast show--Beastly! A long display of bad acting and uninspired costumes and sets. Waste of time, wish we had skipped it and watched more of the street shows instead.

Pete and Zack hit the Rockin' Roller Coaster and that may have been when Katie and I hit the Little Mermaid show. Liked that show much much better and I wished the Beast show hadn't turned the guys off so much that they didn't want to do another. This one was much more interesting technically.

I think the guys also did ToT again, which Katie and I were again not sorry to miss.

We got caught in the rain and the ponchos came in handy. This was pretty much the only downpour we had all week, despite what the weather reports predicted, so we were pretty lucky.

On the way to dinner, we hit the Great Movie Ride. I was hoping for the cowboy version, but it was the gangster version again. Still I had forgotten most of it and I think they may have changed some of the movies and it was enjoyable.

Dinner at the SciFi Drive in was very fun, but a long wait beforehand. Zack got a little pixie dust thrown his way. The waiter thought Zack was a girl all through the meal, although we did try to correct him several times. Once we ordered dessert, Zack finally got through to him and he was so embarrassed that he brought Zack and extra dessert--nice! Zack thought he'd be willing to be mistaken for a girl more often if it always came with dessert.


Kate and Zack got to sit in the driver's seat at the Sci Fi.

Up front, is a large screen that plays clips from old Sci Fi flicks. It was like being part of MST3K and we all made fun of the films as they came on. I don't know if the people behind us (there was one more row in our car), enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed ourselves. Oh well.

Zack wanted to see the Pizza Planet restaurant which was freezing, so I stayed outside to wait. They enjoyed it, but I thought it was a lost opportunity and that Disney could have made it a lot more like the one in Toy Story. It looked thrown together and I'm glad we didn't go there for lunch.

We were ready to call it a night, but I didn't miss getting a picture of us in front of the sorcerer's hat on the way out. I'll add it once I get the photopass disk.

Next--The Happiest Place on Earth

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