Hollywood studios…after yesterdays heavy session at SeaWorld, it was time for a relaxing day at the studios…first full day at a Disney park this holiday, which meant I had to attempt to navigate Genie Plus and the Lightening Lanes…another early start it is then, up at 6:45 to secure our bookings. Oh and I feel at this point I should mention…Deb is actually away in holiday with us, she just doesn’t do anything eventful enough to make the cut for the daily blog 😂…poor bugger is awful disappointed so who knows, maybe she’ll make an appearance today 🤷♂️
7am booking time rolled on and boom, first 2 lightening lanes of the day booked…Slinky Dog Dash for a 9:25am session and Rise of the Resistance for around midday…great stuff, today was shaping up good already.
Everyone up and ready, and off to the Skyliner for a leisurely first ride of the day…btw, Alaska was dropped off to Deb (woohoo first mention) and Chris this morning to allow us hardcore ride fans a head start as they had visited to Studios yesterday.
Made it to the park by 8:20am just in time for early hours for the hotel guests. This was great as it allowed us to stroll past all the peasants that weren’t staying on resort…btw, I really feel I have no right to call others peasants when we’re staying in a hotel that’s apparently well known for having small rooms…or so I’m told 😉
We all took a big whiff of the Hollywood Studios air…ahhh, optimism, today was going to be a good day…we planned to make full use of both our fastpass and photo pass, and that we really did. Strolling down the Main Street toward the movie theatre, we had some awsome pics taken, and then walked on to our first real ride, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which was a great little surprise of a ride, and so much fun that even Grayson enjoyed it…then onto my fave ride of the park, Toy story Midway Mania…basically a target shooting game on tracks…now Im quite competitive, so I felt kinda bad for Gray when he decided to pair up with against me for the ride…as expected, I absolutely destroyed his score…NO MERCY…I don’t like to brag but I had a score of 177,900…hammered everyone else in my car…go me…fortunately he wasn’t bothered though, we’d actually found two consecutive rides that he enjoyed (although I did hear the quiet sobs from Jordan and Paige who had hoped that their measly score would have even come close to mine)…let’s go for the treble…
Quick brekkie break before we rode Slinky…Woodys lunchbox, and their famous breakfast bowl…delicious…one portion between the four of us was more than enough (after all, me and Paige were watching our figure, and Jo was limited anyway)…full up from breakfast we were on with the day.
Slinky dog was next, a fun rollercoaster that Bridged the gap between Woody Woodpeckers coaster and the Velocicoaster, and always gets mental busy…like kings among men, we used our Lightening Lane and confidently strolled past the regular line, receiving daggers from everyone who had been in line for over an hour…I could tell that todays fastpass selection would be worth it unlike yesterdays debacle at SeaWorld…I’m still not bitter BTW.
Anyways, Gray was absolutely blown away by Slinky Dog, his little face lit up as he rode it, and even wanted to go on again…don’t worry Gray, there’s much more fun to come 🙂
Hit up the Alien Saucer ride, where Grayson randomly decided to demonstrate use of his middle finger, before heading to Galaxy’s Edge…I’ve been looking forward to this since we were last here watching it being built.
FML it was immersive, and we got some more fantastic pics (again, making as much use as possible of our photo pass). On our way in, Grayson spotted some stormtroopers and made a beeline for them…waiting patiently for them to acknowledge him at first before becoming impatient and calling to them…One of the pair gave him a brief interaction, but that wasn’t good enough for Grayson, did they not know that he was the only kid in the park and they must spend time speaking with him??!! He was fuming, so he eventually caught the eye of the second trooper, and ignored him to return the favour…good one Gray, show them who’s boss!!
Little peruse around the market place and we stumble upon the droid workshop…oooo great, Gray you wanna build a droid (secretly hoping he’d say yes so I could ‘help’ him)…yep we were building a droid…how much??!! $200 for a droid and a backpack…oh and an evil talking chip…bugger it, we’re ok holiday, let’s do it Gray Gray…right, which model you want? C, R or BB (we all know the R models are the best)…he picked the shit one mun…nope Gray, I think you mean the R models yeah…anyways, let’s build it, what colours you want?…’red’…’all red?’…’yep, all red’…hell no gray, just paid a fuckton of money for this, let’s jazz it up a bit…yep we also added some white 🤣…ah it’s grays droid, let’s have what he wants…anyways, boss experience, got to literally put it all together and interact with it, and the guy helping us was Awsome and helpful…great stuff…bonus, I now get to look super cool carrying a droid around in a backpack all day.
Rise of the Resistance next…bugger me it’s an amazing ride…similar to ratatouille, but so much more impressive…and the atmosphere of the pre ride queue was super impressive (and rather intimidating). Sticking with the Star Wars theme, we then hopped onto Smugglers Run…and great stuff, we were appointed the roles of Pilots and Gunners…not shitty role of engineers (boo/hiss). Anyways, me and Jo to pilot, gray and Paige to gun…you’d thing gray would be in his element with his innate need to destroy things, but when the ride started, he just sat there in disbelief and loved it…Great for him, not so much for our team who got royally fucked up due to his lack of defence…whatever kid, the fate of the galaxy was resting on us, but you enjoy the ride…btw this was his 6th ride of the day and he was still enjoying them (turns out Disney know how to make kids enjoy themselves).
Quick lunch of Ronto Wraps and some Blue and Green Milk…they don’t sound good? They don’t really taste good either tbf…but ya’know..star wars init, so has to be done.
Gray had then decided he missed his sister (aww how sweet), and so off we went to meet up with Deb (oooo second mention) and Chris (also known as the holiday babysitters)…thanks for that by the way, it’s much appreciated.
Quick coffee in Starbucks for a rest and play around with the droid before we split up once more to make full use of our Genie Plus…me and Paige headed to Tower of Terror, Gray and Jo went back to see Mickey and Minnie before we went for food.
On our way Tower or Terror done, and then off for a little look around the shops before our character dining…my god Disney brings out some madness in people…just some of the sights spotted were a family using a bubble machine to enhance their photo shoot and some guy flinging his kid around violently aiming him anywhere possible whilst he violently threw up…ahhh Disney magic 🥰
Early evening meal with characters interactions…the kids met Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and Goofy…now, I’m not really an emotional guy, often Jordan things I’m dead inside…but seeing my kids laugh, smile, high five, dance, cuddle and kiss the characters melts my bloody heart and really does highlight the magic of Disney.
Enough of that, on with the day…Rock and Roller coaster next for me and Paige, and just our luck to be stuck on the train with a nutter who took it upon herself to try psych us all up for the ride…I thought that was Aerosmiths job, but whatever love, you crack on.
We checked Paige’s list of must dos for the day and found we had almost completed it…yay…one thing left, Fantasmic, the show had just returned today and we couldn’t wait to see it….one issue though, the show started at 8, and already (at 5pm) there was a queue reaching back to the park entrance…guess we’re not hitting that today then, save the list for another day Paigey.
This did have a silver lining though…this now meant that we could spend some quality time with the in laws, and now Deb could finally achieve her 5 day long dream of making it into the daily blog…that’s 3 mentions for those of you counting btw…
Here we go then, no Fantasmic, but there is the next best thing….Muppetvision 3d…woo…Deb’s (4) time to shine…take a selfie of us all Deb (5)…ok yeah I can do that…nah you can’t (evidence attached for reference)…
Paige and Gray hit up Midway Mania again whilst the rest of us take an evening stroll into Galaxy’s Edge (can you tell we like it here)…hit up every photographer on the way, and found that Alaska will only pose for pics when she’s throwing up threatening force choke poses…I’m not worried, are you?
This place is completely different at night, and the atmosphere is amazing, made for some crazy good pics for the album.
Now when I say that we made good use of our photo pass, we really did, and nothing emphasises this more than a whole line of people waiting behind you disappearing while you get a million pics taken…it’s easy to do though when Alaska steals the heart of the person doing the pics…like literally, the photographer adored her, and was so amazing with us all…was crying laughing mind, Deb (6) ever the poser was throwing all sorts of shapes for her modelling shoot with our new friend…all I could hear in the background was ‘Chris, just bloody look at me for the photo!!’…they did turn out decent though.
So we now also had a new plan, to hit up the 9:30 Fantasmic…surely this line would be less right? Nope, we’re coming back another night for it…bloody lunacy mun…
Off back to hotel, and to Chris telling us the story of how he had seen a snake earlier in the day, and proceeded to show us how through the art of modern dance…turns out he’d seen a goose BTW…think the Florida sun is getting to him.
Back to hotel for 9:30pm…way to early for Paige, we needed to go to Walmart…why? Fuck knows, we just did..ok off we go for our evening jaunt, be back in an hour or so Jo, just grabbing the keys…bloody safe had malfunctioned and my keys, money and ID was in it…ffs, hotel staff to the rescue…off to Walmart.
Uneventful journey there…still no coffee, but hopefully 4th time lucky…then off to maccas for a McRib for Jordan (after all we’d be back soon right?).
Maccas was bloody rammed and they royally buggered my order…2 McRibs and a coffee, how can you fuck that up? Turns out quite easily…30 min delay and off home to bed…unfortunately though my sat nav had other ideas and decided we hadn’t had enough of Hollywood studios for the day and for some reason we ended up at the entrance…how the hell did we get here? Where do we go? Why the hell did another 4 people follow me here?
Well it turns out, people are like sheep and if one person makes a wrong turn, there just may be a handful of people who follow 😂…don’t know who’s the bigger idiot, me or the people who followed me? Don’t answer that.
Anyways, we all turn around back the way we came, but it’s one way onto the main road…whilst most of us make our way across to the correct direction, 1 car disappears into the distance onto oncoming traffic (it’s bloody mental here).
Finally back to the hotel with Jordan’s McRib, only 2 hours late, and she has the cheek to be asleep…up you get…she only takes a few bites and gives up…well worth the journey 😂
Off to bed now for a chill day at Discovery Cove tomorrow…well done Deb (7) for making todays write up 👏
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