*How many new things can we do this time?* March 2017 - DAY 4 - HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

[SleepingSophie]

Day 4

Another early start this morning as we were finally off to Hollywood Studios! Today was their early morning magic hours 8-9am and we were determined to not waste them!

So we quickly got ready and headed to the bus stop. A bus arrived pretty quickly and we were heading towards the entrance by 8:10am, not too bad going for us!

We stopped for some photopass outside the scanners where we had similar ones on our wedding trip.

Then we stopped for some more just inside the entrance.

Having also learnt our lesson last night we now knew we would be wanting hoodies by the time the sun went down this evening so we had packed a couple in a bag and we rented a locker for the day. Sorry I didn’t note down the price.

Both also pretty hungry we headed off to get breakfast, I was still sad to see my favourite Starring Rolls was closed, even though I had read online it was closing I was still sad to see it sat there all dark and empty.

With only one real option left we headed into Starbucks – little did we know this decision would suddenly become a game changer for our routines.

I was then known as Dave for a short time...

We used 2 snack credits to get a hot chocolate for me and a berry cooler for Dave, which he declared as being “meh”… and we purchased OOP 2 sausage egg and cheese muffins (so hard to not write MC in front of that…)and also a pain au chocolate for me and a blueberry muffin for Dave and we sat at one of the empty tables outside Starring Rolls.

It was only while I was noting this down on my phone that I realised I had forgotten to charge it and it was most definitely dying! Oh no!

But with little time to dwell our FP for Tower of Terror had opened up so we took the walk up Sunset Boulevard and stopped for a few more photos

and walked straight through to the pre-show.

Once we’d been suitably terror’d we looked in all the shops on the way back down the road. Road?! Street?! Anyway… Dave spotted a couple of tops and a hoodie he liked, but didn’t purchase anything at this point.

We wandered over to our FP at Star Tours now and again walked straight through into the loading bay. Im not sure if we were just lucky with the wait times of if the park really was that quiet. I didn’t note down the sequence we had but I remember something about Tattooine! (Note to self; brush up on Star Wars knowledge)

I actually can't remember when or where this photo was taken today...

And at this point my phone gave up the ghost and died. So, we took the decision to pop on a bus to the hotel and back to swap phones. We were back in the park by 12:30 which wasn’t too bad going I thought.

I took these photos and didn't realise until after Dave was even in one of them!

Both hungry again already we headed off to ABC Commissionary. We both had the 1/3 bacon cheeseburger, coke for me and fanta for Dave. I actually really like the burgers from here. I know they’re only quick service but they actually did have a lot of taste to them.

We had our next FP for Toy Story Mania due now. We love this ride and it really does make me laugh the whole way round. I was winning right up until the final screen when Dave managed to over take me and steal the win! That’s 2-0 Dave for shooting/scoring games.

Once we left here we felt a bit adrift. We had 5 hours until our ADR and our next FP wasn’t until 7:25pm. We had a look at the timetable for shows but there was nothing we wanted to see that had any times suitable.

With this we admitted defeat at Hollywood Studios and decided to take a trip over to Epcot. We did decide to use the boat to get there as this is something we’ve also never done.

This quick photo heading to the boat dock

Once we arrived at the international gateway bag check was quick and painless and we were in. We decided to leave the countries until another day so walked towards the front of the park and found ourselves in Mouskies (Mouse Gears). Dave tried on another hoodie and t-shirt but wasn’t feeling them so we left them.

Walked round to the Land pavilion and just for something to do we rode Living with the Land, with a 20 minute wait.

Everywhere seemed really busy and without much of a plan we just decided to grab a couple of drinks and sit and people watch for a while.

It was getting a bit cloudy and windy again and we had left our hoodies in the locker in HS, so we left Epcot via the front entrance and jumped on a bus back. Retrieved our hoodies and I logged on to MDE to see if there happened to be any FP open up but no joy. So I had a play with the meal times and managed to move our reservation at Hollywood Brown Derby forward from 6:15pm to 5pm, which was only 15 mins or so away.

We took some more photos waiting for the time to go...

Went and waited to check in...

We headed in at bang on 5pm and we were shown straight to our table which was a lovely curved booth table. Being a party of 2 we rarely get these!

Our server came round and asked if we were in the dining plan, we said we were, and I swear I could see her face actually drop! She asked what drinks we would like so Dave went for a Mojitio and I asked for a Malibu & Coke, I double checked they had coconut rum and she said yes they have Parrot Bay which was fine, she just wrote it down and walked off. A few minutes later our drinks appeared. Dave’s was fine, I very much had a Captain Morgans and Coke… not a massive issue because I will still drink it, but there were only 2 drinks on the order, how did that go wrong?!

A few minutes later our server appeared again to take our orders, I went for the Filet of Beef and Dave had Lamb 2 ways. Both meals were delicious. My beef was cooked perfectly. But once again, hard green beans? What is that all about Disney Chefs?

Sorry we ate before photos...

And for dessert the only options were a trio of mini desserts so I had banana cake, chocolate sphere and grapefruit cake. Dave had the same but switched grapefruit cake for Crème Brule. I barely touched any of it. The banana cake was unbelievably dry; the grapefruit cake was so wet and so sharp and the chocolate sphere just tasted like cocoa powder. Neither of us impressed. Shame really because for a 2 credit meal you expect better service and food, but neither of us felt that way and begrudged using 4 credits for the meal, we did still leave a fair tip, despite our less than magical server.

Once we left here we wandered back up Sunset Boulevard and back into the shops from earlier.

Dave did decide to buy his new hoodie and I got a new t-shirt.

We sat on the wall just outside ToT briefly to let our food go down a bit more before our Rock n Rollercoaster FP. We love this as always. Took a bit of time in the shop as Dave bought a t-shirt from here on our first trip back in 2012 and always looks to see if they have similar ones but no joy today.

It was nearing time for the Star Wars fireworks which we missed last year, so we walked back down towards the Chinese Theatre and grabbed a spot just at the end of the road. I know I’m probably going to be mobbed for this, maybe I just didn’t have a good enough view, but I could barely make out the projections on the theatre and there seemed to be very little fireworks? Maybe it’s changed or something but I just remember not being blown away by it. In fact we actually started walking against the crowd and back towards the exit before they finished.

Luckily there was a bus waiting at the stop AND we got a seat, which had also been a rarity so far! We discussed on the bus dropping our stuff at the room and heading back out somewhere, maybe to Disney Springs.


Once back Dave popped on the TV and the Proposal was on, once we sat down we realised how tired we were so just stayed put watching that until we fell asleep!

NEW THINGS WE DID TODAY

*Hollywood Brown Derby

*Boat to Epcot

*Made it to early morning EMH

*Star Wars Fireworks

[The Durrigan's]

Great day guys, pity about Brown Derby though