Me and My Boy Take 2 - Day 13 - Hollywood Studios - Twice!

[meandmyboy]

Sunday 23rd November 2014 - Day 13 Hollywood Studios Twice!

After a bit of a sleepless night, worrying about the whole packing situation, the plan for this morning was to head to Walmart to try and find a suitcase or bag to fit all of my toy purchases in. I had a really good, big size Amazon box which was currently holding most things, but I was worried that the height dimension was slightly more than the allowance listed in the Virgin baggage dimensions information. First stop though was the Art of Animation resort so we could get breakfast at Landscape of Flavours.

We both had a bounty platter which had a bit of everything - sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes, biscuit and was really nice. We had a brief look around the shop at the resort as I was hoping they might have a nice t shirt for Jacob with either the Lion King or Nemo on it but no such luck. Then it was a quick drive to Walmart and a browse around their luggage section. I picked the biggest but cheapest case I could find, paid for it and popped it in the trunk and then we headed over to Hollywood Studios.

We arrived in the park we stopped to get some photopass pictures done in front of the big hat. Jacob had insisted on bringing his toy Rudloph the Red Nosed Reindeer with us (it was a fab buy earlier in the holiday that sung the song when you press a button on his chest, whilst his nose flashed red!) so he appeared in the pictures with us too!

The main thing we were doing here today was watching the Beauty and the Beast show which we hadn’t seen last time we were here, and which I thought Jacob would enjoy now that we were both big B&TB fans. The show wasn’t until 11am I think so we pottered around the Hollywood Boulevard area, looking in the shops at all the Frozen stuff. Jacob was also taken with a pretty musical box which you could have with either Belle or Ariel in it. I think he would have loved one for himself but they were a bit pricey so I resisted!

We both had a restroom break and then wandered up to watch the people on Tower of Terror and have a look at the Rip Ride Rocket attraction (although that was actually closed). It was really quite hot and humid today and so I decided to get a frozen lemonade and a churro for us to share in the shade. Jacob didn’t fancy either so I managed to get both all to myself whilst he just stuck to his water. Eventually it was time to head in for Beauty and the Beast. We had a fastpass but this didn’t seem to really make much benefit as we were off to one side and didn’t have the best view. We waited about 5 minutes for the show to start and were both really enjoying it (despite Jacob’s constant worrying about something scary/loud about to happen) and had just got to the end of the Be Our Guest song, when suddenly the curtain came down and an announcement was made along the lines of “And that concludes our show for today we hope you all had a lovely time, thank you and goodbye!”. Everyone looked around at each other wondering what was going on, the one cast member at the back of the theatre looked equally confused, and so eventually everyone just started making there way out of the theatre!

After checking my watch I realised that with the show ending prematurely we now had time to catch the Disney Jnr show which was just about to start so we legged it back down Hollywood Blvd and round the corner to the Disney Jnr theatre. I hadn’t planned to do this show at all as we don’t have Sky at home and so don’t watch Disney Jnr - meaning Jacob had no idea who all the characters (apart from Mickey’s Clubhouse) were. However since being on holiday he’d been enjoying watching the Disney channels and now knew who Jake, Doc McStuffins and Sofia were so I thought he might enjoy it. And he did! I have to say it really is a lot of fun for kids, although not particular comfortable for the grownups sitting crosslegged on the floor! Jacob was very pleased to have been able to collect up several ‘gold doubloons’ and pop them into his trouser pockets.

At the end of the show we headed over to Pizza Planet stopping briefly at the Fastpass+ kiosk to see if we could somehow get a new fastpass for the later Beauty and the Beast showing...I was really disappointed we hadn’t got to watch the whole show as it was really the only thing left at Hollywood Studios I wanted to do. For some reason I couldn’t get one for the last show of the day only the mid afternoon one, which I knew we wouldn’t be able to make as I wanted to head back to the hotel to give Jacob a chance to nap. I got the available fastpass anyway, just in case. Then we got some lunch from Pizza Planet and ate it upstairs inside the building. As usual I had the pepperoni pizza and Jacob had the kids cheese meal. For some reason on both of our holidays, despite the numerous times we’ve eaten at Pizza Planet I’ve never noticed the arcade area so we’ve missed on on playing/exploring this bit... something to add to the list for our next trip I guess! Once we’d finished eating I got some cash from the ATM by the exit from the restaurant, took some pictures of Jacob with the snowman and then we made our way out of the park and back to our car.

We drove home to All Star Music and Jacob had a nice long nap, whilst I tried to repack the toys from the Amazon box into the new suitcase. Immediately I could see that the big boxed toys were just not going to fit in the case, so that was completely useless. I now had no choice but to leave everything in the Amazon box, however I figured that now I’d got rid of the damaged toy I could actually cut the height of the box down a bit making the whole thing fit within the Virgin luggage dimensions. Problem solved (I hoped!), but I now had an unwanted suitcase, and stupidly (why? ) I had already pulled all the sales tags off of it! What a waste. Feeling rather annoyed with myself I settled down to catch up on emails/the internet whilst Jacob napped.

Once he woke up we got ourselves ready again and headed back out and over to Hollywood Studios, stopping on the way at Art of Animation resort’s Landscape of Flavours again for some dinner this time. Jacob had the kids grilled cheese meal and I had the same as I’d had here before the Surf and Surf burger which I really enjoyed. By the time we got into Hollywood Studios again we didn’t have too long to wait until it was time to head in for the Beauty and the Beast show. I tried to explain to the Cast Member about how we’d used our fastpass on the earlier show which had been cancelled half way through and she just told us to head straight in and sit wherever we liked. This meant we were able to get a really good spot right at the top and centre of the theatre, with a nice central view of the stage.

We had about 10-15 minutes to wait until the show started but I managed to keep Jacob entertained by giving him my phone so he could look through all the old photos/videos I have on it. He was actually really well behaved whilst waiting, and because we’d been in the same show this morning he wasn’t nervous or scared this time around. This made it all much less stressful and enjoyable for me, and once the show started I was even able to get some pictures.

Watching the start of the show for the second time that day, I think I worked out what might have caused the show to have ended so abruptly. I have a feeling that the prop of the rose in the glass case hadn’t been there at the top of the staircase in this morning’s show - which obviously would have caused the actors some problems as the show moved along. Maybe they couldn’t find it in time, or Disney felt it would be more unprofessional for someone to bring it onto the stage half way through the performance, or maybe it was something else all together! Either way, this time we got to watch the whole thing through and really enjoyed it.

Whilst we were in the show there had been some heavy rain showers, but fortunately they had stopped by the time the show let out, and so we made our way over to the Streets of America part of the park to have a look at the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights. We both loved this last year and Jacob really wanted to see the snow falling (he remembered this unprompted from last year which amazed me!). I think is so amazing when the music starts up and the lights start dancing, we stayed there for quite a while watching the lights and waiting for the snow, which didn’t come. I got myself an egg nog from one of the vendors nearby, Jacob didn’t fancy trying it, and then I asked a Cast Member whether they were doing the snow this year or not, only to be told that they don’t do it when there has been rain or it’s forecast. What a shame! Jacob was gutted and I was really sad we wouldn’t get another chance to see the lights/snow now on our holiday.

We decided to make our wake back out of the park and head back to the hotel, we’d had a good evening apart from the lack of snow. As we parked up the car in the car park at All Star Music I saw some animals running past a little way away from us, towards the very back of the car park. I think they were raccoons which was really exciting as I’ve never seen wild raccoons before (not that I really got a good look at them this time either!). We’d also managed to see a massive eagle/hawk type bird sitting on a railing right outside some of the room, next to a little water pond/river as we left the hotel earlier so it had been quite a good day for wildlife spotting!

Tomorrow would be our last full day of the holiday, and if I’m being totally honest I was only slightly sad about that. I was really tired and ready to go home, although obviously not looking forward to the actual journey bit, but we’d done pretty much everything I wanted to do this holiday, and I was flagging. I think Jacob was too. That’s probably why our last full day ended up being such a disaster!

[roxie2001]

Osborne lights look fab, shame about the snow.
Its really tiring pounding the parks everyday. At the end of our Orlando part of the holiday, oh and I had a massive row in sea world, where he stomped off to the car.

[Excitedx4]

Brill trip report looking forward to the end! I have my very own Jacob too, he just turned 4 at the end of January so very similar ages 😄

[kansaskitty]

Osborne lights look fab, shame it's something I'll never get to see!
Hollywood Studios twice in a day and only minor strops, like I say I think you guys are pros!