First Trip With Our Princesses April 2012 - Day 7 - Hollywood Studios

[moosha]

Previously on this trip:

Pre-trip Report

Day 0 - Travel to Gatwick

Day 1 - Travel Day

Day 2 - Epcot

Day 3 - Sea World

Day 4 - Animal Kingdom

Day 5 - Magic Kingdom

Day 6 - Almost a Rest Day

Day 7 - Friday 13th April 2012

Extra Morning Hours at DHS today but after last night we struggled to get up. It was about eight when we arrived at the lighthouse on the Boardwalk to get a boat to the Studios. We were all very tired, and my husband in particular was a delight to be around that morning. We had appeared to have just missed a boat to the studios, and I was really annoyed to have to wait for the next one. Incidentally, as a tip, we were told by a CM at the Yacht Club reception that it would take 'about 45 minutes' to walk to DHS from the hotel. We had asked him if it was possible to walk, and he had looked at us as if we had just asked the most absurd question possible. We assumed that walking it would be a bit of a nightmare so waited for the boat, all the while imagining the fastpass time for Midway Mania getting later and later :angry:

After about ten minutes, the boat arrived. We made a stop at the Swan and Dolphin dock and it took ages for everyone there to get on. Our extra hour was slipping away and I was getting more and more fed up. As we headed down the waterway to the studios, we could see people strolling along the footpath in the direction of the park. A couple of minutes later, we pulled into the dock at the entrance to DHS and we vowed we would be walking home. Getting slightly ahead of ourselves here, and not to cut our fun day short, but our walk back to the Yacht Club was a very pleasant stroll that took only 20 minutes. That's after a full day at the park, at a gentle pace and with a four and five year old in tow. Disney transportation is great, but if we were staying in future at the Yacht Club, Beach Club, Boardwalk or Swan / Dolphin, we would use only our feet to get to Epcot or Hollywood Studios. The waiting around for boats etc is just not very efficient and eats into those precious EMH too much

Following our pointless boat trip, we then had a wait at bag search as the security CMs were being very thorough. Eventually we were in, and headed for Midway Mania to get fastpasses. The park didn't seem to be laid out as I remembered it (and the Toy Story bit wasn't there on our last trip 11 years ago) so it took us a few minutes to get our bearings and head in the right direction. The queue for fastpasses was short and our return time was 11.45 am - 12.45 pm which we were happy with. Actually, I should probably mention that this was the first morning we had arrived at a park and found it to be - whisper it - pretty quiet. It was such a welcome relief, and felt very strange

Toy Story fastpasses sorted, it was time to fill our tummies. We settled on Starring Rolls for breakfast. There was a really good choice of bagels, pastries etc and this was one of my favourite breakfasts we had. Mat and I shared an Everything Bagel with Philadelphia and a big apple Danish. Yum. The girls had muffins or cereal and we all had bananas. We sat outside to enjoy our food, and it felt like the day had finally got back on track. The only bad thing was the coffee, but we'll gloss over that and move swiftly on

Stitch and Donald & Daisy came out to do a meet and greet by the 'big hat' as we got up from breakfast. As there weren't many people around, there were no takers for a Stitch character interaction...until Seren eagerly approached him. Stitch is her favourite Disney character



There were only a few people queuing to meet Donald and Daisy too, so we lined up for a couple of minutes to meet them too



We didn't really have much of a plan for our day at Hollywood Studios. Now that we had Midway Mania FPs, we decided to wander towards the other rides we wanted to do. We were still struggling to find our way around the park but made a decision to go and meet Lightning McQueen and Mater first while the park was still quiet. We had to ask a PhotoPass photographer in Streets Of America where the Cars meet and greet was, and she took some lovely photos of us too

We walked down the New York street and took photos by one of the Brownstones and the Subway station. We told the girls that it looked just like New York in preparation for our arrival there in just over a week, only that the Disney version was much cleaner



Seren loved meeting Lightning and Mater, she had a big grin on her face the whole time, but Freya was a bit intimidated as the cars were very big and noisy. While we were there, I got a Lightning coin from the coin pressing machine for my nephew who is obsessed with Cars. What a good auntie I am



From there, we thought it was about time we actually went on a ride so headed for Star Tours. The CM at the entrance wanted to measure Freya, and she was about a centimetre over the minimum height. He said to her 'The good news is you can ride, the bad news is you're also big enough for Tower Of Terror.' She looked horrified as Mat and I had both vowed never to go on Tower Of Terror again since we both hated it in 2001. We had made the girls very aware of how awful and scary we found it. So we reassured Freya that there was no way she would be going on ToT. In the ride's defence, I think it's very well done but I just don't like the sensation of my stomach turning (unless it's a little Thunder Mountain 'weeee' type tummy flip)

We were all really looking forward to Star Tours, and Mat and I were excited about the refurb as we thought the Paris one seemed a little dated in 2011. We weren't disappointed with the new Star Tours, it was great fun. I don't know much about Star Wars, but our ride was set in a forest with Wookies. I was a bit concerned throughout that little Freya might come flying out of her seat, and also I was aware that Seren was not enjoying it. Afterwards she said she hated it, she didn't like the bumping around or even simulated drops. I think she must get her wimp-ish ways from her Dad

Next was Muppet Vision 3D which Mat and I loved, the girls loved most of it but freaked out about the fireworks. Afterwards we had to stop by the Muppet Store but found there wasn't as much Muppet merchandise as we were hoping as what looked like a big shop from the outside stocked other Disney brands like Club Penguin too. We were surprised at the lack of Muppet merchandise, particularly after the success of the recent Muppets film, but really they didn't have much more than our local Disney Store. However, Seren came away with a toy Fozzie, Freya with a Miss Piggy, and Daddy with a Muppets t-shirt

We decided to take the Backlot Tour next. The girls had hated Catastrophe Canyon in Paris the year before, and were really apprehensive about it this time too, but we dragged them on anyway. The Disneyland Paris tour is very short and pretty rubbish as they only have a handful of props to show and not a lot else. I was disappointed with the Florida one too this time. We liked looking at the stored props in the queuing area, and were pretty indifferent about the pre-show with the CMs demonstrating the water special effects. Back in the day, there seemed to be so much more to the Backlot Tour and it used to be one of my favourite parts of Disney World, with the costumes and sets. I understand that DHS used to be a working studio and things change. I still enjoyed the brief glimpse at the Costume Department, but I understand now they are mostly making costumes for the parks. That's still interesting but for me, lacked the magic of Hollywood costumes

The girls survived Catastrophe Canyon (mostly by burying their heads in our chests) but were a bit braver than they had been last year. Freya, of course, was braver than her big sister. The whole Backlot Tour didn't seem to take as long as I would have expected and before we knew it, we had left the tour and found ourselves at the entrance to the line to meet Mike and Sully, which had to be done. The couple in front of us asked me to take photos of them with the monsters which I was happy to do but in the event I floundered with their swanky SLR camera so the PhotoPass photographer stepped in and took the photos. I was impressed that he was quite happy to use their equipment and didn't suggest they use PhotoPass as well

Mike and Sully were great, we got some very good photos of the monsters with our monsters



We'd had to wait ten minutes or so in the line to meet them, and when we had finished we were into our Midway Mania fastpass return time, so we rushed over there after struggling with our bearings again

The standby line at Midway Mania was 80 minutes when we returned for our fastpass at about 12.30. Although I understand this ride always has a long queue, the park was of course much busier now and I was glad we had got the fastpasses first thing. The fastpass line was not as short as some other fastpass lines, I think we still had to queue for about ten minutes which we were a bit annoyed about at the time but I guess it's quite a slow loader. After experiencing the ride, it was well worth the wait (in fact we went standby line on our last day which was looong, but we knew how good the ride was then and didn't mind queuing)

We all really liked Midway Mania. The girls (especially Freya) struggled with the games but had fun and enjoyed the experience. It's so much better than Space Ranger Spin, which was kind of what I was expecting. It was definitely my favourite ride at Hollywood Studios

Flagging a bit, we decided to chill out at the Disney Junior show that was about to start. We had enjoyed this in Paris (apart from the really irritating performing CM who was an English girl.) We loved the puppets and liked sitting on the floor and joining in with all the songs from the TV shows. The guy in the show in Florida was so much better, but the best thing was that they had replaced the Winnie The Pooh characters we'd seen in Paris with Jake and the Neverland Pirates. We love Jake, and the puppets were so cute (even Captain Hook and Mr Smee)

When we came out of the theatre, there were meet and greets with Jake and Handy Manny. We really wanted to meet the characters, but Manny was currently on his break (insert joke about lazy workmen here) and there was a long line for Jake who was also about to take a break. The CM was saying it would be 30 minutes before the girls would get to meet him. We hesitated in the line for a few minutes, then decided we didn't have time to wait and should go off to get a snack. This didn't go down too well with the girls. The Jake line seemed to be moving pretty fast, so we changed our minds as we didn't want to miss meeting the characters altogether but annoyingly, having stepped out of the queue we were now behind an extra couple of families

I think we waited about 20 minutes in the end to meet Jake, and he was really good with the girls. He wasn't a 'face' character and couldn't speak but he interacted well and expressed to the girls that rather than their Donald and Marie pens, they should have a Jake one. We got some good PhotoPass photos too, the photographer was great and took quite a lot of interesting shots like a close-up of each of the girl's faces while they were hugging Jake







When we finished meeting Jake, there was no queue to meet Handy Manny so it would have been rude not to say hello to him



We were still in need of refreshment so decided to go and find some drinks and ice creams. We remembered the dinosaur ice cream place near the Indiana Jones show from our previous visit so headed for that as we wanted 'whippy' ice creams. We found a small patch of shade and ate our ice creams. Freya decided she didn't want hers when it started getting messy and dripping down her, which descended into some very stroppy behaviour from both her and Mat. In the end at least a couple of the ice creams were thrown away unfinished

Trying to get things back on track, I steered us towards the Beauty & The Beast show. It was about 30 minutes before the next performance, so the theatre was nice and empty. We bagged some nice central seats, and then relaxed and enjoyed the air con. The only fly in the ointment was the uncomfortable metal benches which gave us numb bums after a little while

I don't remember being particularly enamoured by this show on previous visits. This time Belle was a bit irritating, to me it felt like she was new or an understudy, but the Gaston was very good. The show overall was very impressive, the girls and I loved the costumes and the non-human characters like Lumiere and Chip. Beauty and the Beast is not one of my favourite Disney films, and Belle is not my favourite Disney princess but this time the show got me, and I had a little cry at the end. It was one of the highlights of my day and I came away with a big smile on my face after my latest dose of Disney magic

By now it was about 45 minutes before the start of the Pixar Parade and people were starting to line the streets to watch. We were all excited about the parade and had high expectations. Unfortunately waiting for the parade became the low point of the day. The parade only covers a small section of the park which meant that pretty much all space along the route was already taken. In Paris in 2011, we had literally walked into a prime spot to watch the Stars and Cars parade at the studios five minutes before it started (we hadn't realised it was on until the announcement just before.) Clearly the parade at Hollywood Studios was more popular

We couldn't find a spot and it was baking. Mat didn't want to stand around and roast and so wanted to give the parade a miss altogether. The girls had been looking forward to it, so I wasn't about to say 'actually, let's do something else.' We found a tiny patch of shade which felt like an oasis in the desert, but as soon as we stepped into it and breathed a sigh of relief, a CM came over and told us we had to move behind the white line beside us. The area she wanted us to move into was in the sun and also had a slightly obstructed view so you can imagine how well this went down with us. There was still about twenty minutes until the parade started so we protested but it fell on deaf ears. The atmosphere within the family at this point could be described as 'heated.' When we moved at the CMs insistence, other people tried to jump into our space and received the same stern response from the CM

Plenty of people were trying to find a viewing spot and struggling. I think Disney could do with either extending the parade route or putting on more than one per day when the park is very busy. We killed the wait by slathering on the sunscreen and the girls took photos on their disposable Rapunzel cameras I had bought them from the Disney Store. The intention had been for them to have their own photographic record of our magical holiday but Freya used all 25 pictures in that twenty minutes; snapping the floor, the sky, her hands and Seren's legs. Hmmm...perhaps she was a bit young for her own camera this time around

Eventually the parade began and I must admit I was a bit disappointed with it. I can't decide whether the parade wasn't quite up to par or whether it was just because we'd not had a very good pre-parade experience, but it just felt a little flat for me. There was less character interaction with the crowd than at Magic Kingdom, and the parade itself seemed really short after such a long wait. Seren and Freya loved it though. We all love the Pixar films, and some of the floats and costumes were amazing. The Toy Story float was very impressive, and we all loved Boo

Parade ticked off, it was time for our 3.55 pm ADR at Mama Melrose. We had the Fantasmic dining package and this had been the first ADR I had made six months before. We had sat in our ponchos in the wet in 2001 for what seemed like flipping ages before Fantasmic started and I didn't want to repeat that with two small children. I had struggled to decide on of the three restaurants available and settled on Mama Melrose because, in our family you can't go wrong with pizza and pasta (I'm surprised we don't have Italian roots)

When I booked the Fantasmic dining package, it hadn't occured to me that the girls might be too scared to actually watch Fantasmic. We had talked about it a couple of times in the lead up and they hadn't been keen, but I told myself they'd feel braver once they had a bit more park time under their belts. In the event, we had been back and forward all day on whether we were going to do Fantasmic. By the time we had finished our meal at Mama Melrose, I had reluctantly agreed that it wasn't going to be very enjoyable for anyone if the girls were petrified. Seren's three biggest fears: fireworks, loud noises and fire. Freya's biggest fears: fireworks, loud noises, dragons (she can't even look at the one in Enchanted), sharks and alligators. Take out the sharks and alligators and I think we've got them all pretty much included in Fantasmic, haven't we?

So it was decided that we would go back to Winter Summerland when we had finished at the studios and play the winter course. They had given us a voucher the day before to play the second course for half the price. The voucher had to be used the following day (today) so while I would rather have spread out our two visits, it was a good deal that we decided to snap up

Anyway, back to our lunch / dinner (not sure what it was at 4pm really.) We had to wait a few minutes but we were a tiny bit early. I really liked the rustic Italian theming at Mama Melrose and enjoyed the overall experience. I found the server to be a bit lacklustre (this is Disney after all.) She was just a bit quiet and meek and not particularly enthusiastic. I enjoyed my Caesar salad appetiser, and the fresh bread rolls with olive oil and black pepper. The flatbread pizza I had for my entree was too cheesy for me and I didn't enjoy it. Mat liked it, and I think it was just me and my anti-cheese taste buds. Mat had minestrone soup to start which he said was pretty good. The girls had pasta with tomato sauce which is usually a safe bet, but they didn't enjoy it here. I'm not sure if the sauce was too herby or peppery, or if they just weren't in the mood for it. They each had a spaghetti and meatballs cupcake for dessert which they picked at. We ended up eating them as they were nicer than our own shared dessert plate of a nutty cheesecake and some kind of chocolatey thing (I know, I should be a food critic)

Our overall experience of Mama Melrose was that we didn't eat that well, but we liked the restaurant and I would go back. If our girls conquer their fears in the next few years and we go for Fantasmic dining again, I would probably go back to MM or consider the Hollywood Brown Derby which seems to have equally mixed reviews

Next stop had to be the Christmas shop where Seren, Freya and I each chose a bauble. Seren chose Stitch (no surprises there), Freya went for TinkerBell and I chose Dumbo. I also bought a pack of beautiful bell-shaped Princess tree decorations which had to be done. The young lady in the shop wasn't particularly warm or friendly which surprised me (Disney? Christmas? She should have been completely over enthusiastic.) I was also concerned that she didn't seem to have wrapped our precious decorations very well, so I made a point of saying how I hoped they would make it back to England in one piece. She said something that was supposed to be reassuring but didn't make any effort to add any extra wrapping. Luckily the baubles were all perfectly fine when we got home. Otherwise I would have had to make the effort of popping back to exchange them. What a chore that would have been

I really wanted to go on the Great Movie Ride next as it had been one of my favourites when MGM had first opened when I were a lass. We were both quite shocked how rubbish the animatronics look now. I love the concept, I just think it needs a massive makeover. Also, our guide must have been about 18, but he was really good. As good as can be with such a cheesy script anyway. The girls loved the Wizard of Oz part. We hid them from the Alien bit as I found that scary even as a teenager. I left feeling a bit sad actually. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was over-awed by how much ride technology has improved in the last 20 years or so. Maybe I'm just scared of change. Or maybe revisiting something that seemed so good when I was a teenager made me feel old

I cheered myself up with the Little Mermaid show. Ariel is my favourite princess (along with Rapunzel) and I love the film. The show doesn't seem to be showing its age, in contrast to the Great Movie Ride. We all loved it, and the Ariel we saw was much better than the Belle from earlier on. Afterwards I tried to take some photos outside with the ride exterior in the background but some very inconsiderate girls jumped in my shot and didn't move for what must have been five minutes so we gave up and included girl in the blue t-shirt in our photos. The same thing happened two weeks later in New York outside Carrie Bradshaw's house (with a different group of girls. Otherwise that would have been freaky.) That was even more annoying as we had taken a detour and made an effort to visit and then couldn't get a decent photo. How difficult is it, people? You take a couple of snaps and then you move on. Ggrrr



I could feel our surplus of snack credits burning a hole in my pocket so decided we should get a drink to walk back to the Yacht Club with. Mat and I had frozen cokes from outside Midway Mania which I had been eyeing up when we got our fastpasses first thing that morning. It was scrummy. Mat didn't think so. We must have bought the girls an ice cream or something too, otherwise I would never have had five minutes peace to enjoy my frozen coke

We said our goodbyes to DHS for now, and as I said earlier, we took a very pleasant, relaxed 20 minute stroll back to the Yacht Club. When we arrived at the hotel, I think we went straight through the lobby to the car park rather than risk going up to the room and crashing out

Our second visit to Winter Summerland was not as enjoyable as the first. It was much busier and we had to wait for the people in front to finish at pretty much every hole. We also had people waiting for us to finish most of the holes which I didn't enjoy, and we kept letting parties go ahead of us so they didn't have to wait for us slowcoaches. Aren't we nice?

Freya was really messing about and not joining in properly. She kept wandering off and finished up having a big meltdown. In the end, Mat took her back to the car a couple of holes before the end and just Seren and I finished playing by ourselves. She and I had a good time, but it was a shame we hadn't all been able to repeat the great experience we'd had the previous evening. I did love the winter theming though

Freya was asleep by the time we got back to the Yacht Club so Mat took her up to bed. Seren and I walked to the Beach Club Marketplace to get some snacks as we were all a bit peckish. We got a little late night picnic: a twix, a muffin, cashews, yoghurt parfait), fruit salad, milk and Pepsi Max. The three of us chilled out with our snacks and then had a reasonably early night

Day 8 is here

[disney owl]

lovely photos of your girls again, waiting to read more of your reports.

[moosha]

Aaw, thank you Disney Owl, hoping to post the next day tomorrow

[lady emz]

I love the walk from the Boardwalk resorts to either Epcot or HS but not many people do it for some reason?

Midway Mania is the best ride, I am glad you had a little Disney magic moment in the Beauty and the Beast show too, Disney is for adults too hehe. xxx

[mrsbigbeak]

Lovely pics with manny my dd loved him and jake x

[moosha]

Originally Posted by lady emz

I love the walk from the Boardwalk resorts to either Epcot or HS but not many people do it for some reason?

Midway Mania is the best ride, I am glad you had a little Disney magic moment in the Beauty and the Beast show too, Disney is for adults too hehe. xxx

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I love that walk too. I think I would try and do it next time even if we're not staying at a Boardwalk hotel. I like the idea of walking from Epcot or HS to one of the lovely Boardwalk restaurants

Beauty and the Beast show Every trip report I read seems to mention how great the show is, and how it makes people emotional. I really hope those rumours that it won't be there for much longer are not true

Originally Posted by mrsbigbeak

Lovely pics with manny my dd loved him and jake x

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Manny and Jake were great, and the PhotoPass photographer did such a brilliant job. Freya is still obsessed with Jake and the Neverland Pirates a year later