WDW 2019 day 8

[Silvercat]

Previous day is here

DAY 8 – Wednesday 04 December

Plan : Hollywood Studios
Actual : We originally had quite an early start today with our FastPass for Star Tours, but last night I managed to change this for a later one, as we had quite a late night planned today. Therefore, we slept in a bit this morning, and woke up to a sunny and warmer day, thankfully. We got ready for the day, had some coffee, and then drove across 2 car parks to park near the Skyliner station at the yet-to-open Riviera Resort. We struggled to find somewhere to park, and ended up in the next car park across from our room – this would be the last time we took the car to the station, as we realised it was only a few minutes’ walk from our room.

We walked into the station with ease, and were welcomed by the Cast Members there. The Skyliner station was quite quiet, and we were the only people in the carriage, which was a Princess & the Frog wrapped one. I have to say, we LOVED this mode of transport! It was so smooth and we loved sailing over the top of the resort, looking down at the beautiful views around there. A cool breeze flowed through the carriage and kept it from being too warm, and we could see for miles from up there. We disembarked at the main station, and crossed the station to the Hollywood Studios line, (there is also one that goes to Epcot from there), boarding a non-wrapped carriage for the next trip. This was lovely too, we loved just sailing over the traffic and within a matter of minutes we were descending into the Studios’ station. DH hates driving to the Studios, the disabled car park there is a nightmare – too small for the number of cars wanting to use it, and you have to cross the path of the bus lanes to get there, so to know we didn’t have to drive there but could use this really fast and exciting way of getting there was amazing!

We walked towards the park entrance, with DH stopping for a quick smoking break before we went in, and headed for the Hyperion Theatre to use our first FastPass of the day at the Frozen Singalong show. The show was great fun, although the Historians seemed to be trying a bit too hard to be funny and because the female was speaking so quickly and over the top in order to try and maximise the laughs, we unfortunately missed several of her lines. She was a tiny bit irritating with how much she was swooning over Hans, too, in a really over-dramatic fashion. Anyway, we still enjoyed the show, and there was a holiday overlay at the end which was lovely.

We were thinking about getting some lunch, so headed towards the Backlot Express, but then we saw that Star Tours only had a 10 minute standby queue, so we diverted into there! It was a really great show, every scene we saw was new to us, and lots of fun. After this, we went into the Backlot Express and DH went off in search of a table, (it was busy in there), while I went up to order. Backlot burger (with pulled pork) and fries for DH, chicken tenders and fries for me. Coffee for him, and I got another strawberry daiquiri slushy – yum! For someone who barely drinks alcohol, and doesn’t like rum at all, I was really enjoying these!

When we had finished lunch, we left our outside table and walked towards the back of Indiana Jones in order to get to the lake area, and as we walked past another table, a small child in a pushchair grabbed my walking stick, pulling it backwards towards him. Luckily, I had spotted what he was going to do a fraction of a second before he grabbed, so I was able to slow my stride and gently pull it off him, laughing off his parents’ horror! I was fine, and there was no harm done. Little monster, LOL!

I found a bench near the Sci-Fi Dine-in, and sat there with our bags, while DH went back out to the front of the park for a smoking break. When he returned, we headed for Galaxy’s Edge for our first exploration of this new area here. We were keen to see how it compared to the one in Disneyland, which we had visited six months before. We mooched our way around till we got to Smuggler’s Run, which had a standby queue of 60 minutes, and I got us a Guest Assistance Pass return time of 40 minutes later. We carried on strolling around, and had a look around the marketplace. Our consensus of opinion was that this land seemed a bit less intensely themed than Anaheim’s land had, but Florida’s Galaxy’s Edge is a lot larger and so plants and trees from Earth were a lot more prevalent, giving it a “greener” feel.

We sat on a wall for a short rest, feeling tired again, but then realised we had been exploring parks for 7 days in a row without a break. Next time I need to book us a rest day after 3 or 4 days there. I always used to do this, I have no idea how this slipped, but we really needed a break by now!

Anyway, we finally went into Smuggler’s Run, and were assigned the role of pilots. I was very excited about this, in California we had only been engineers, but I felt we were ready for the step up in role. However, it turned out to be too much pressure and responsibility for us! It was a great ride, but as we were riding with a family group who didn’t interact with us or each other at all, we felt that we had to perform perfectly as pilots and therefore came off the ride completely exhausted after keeping the Millennium Falcon safe! Next time, I think we will try to be something other than pilots. As we left the ride, we were surprised to see that Galaxy’s Edge was closing at 4.00 p.m. that day, and there were lots of TV crews and screened off filming locations around, so we wondered if there was going to be a soft opening for the media of Rise of the Resistance, which was due to open to the public tomorrow.

We took a slow stroll over to Muppets 3D, which had a 10 minute standby queue, we still love this show after all these years and still laugh in the same places, even though we can quote most of the script off by heart!

In need of a coffee break, we went to the Trolley Car Café (Starbucks) for an Americano for DH and a peppermint mocha Frappuccino for me, which we enjoyed sitting just round the corner in the seating area. It was nice to escape from the crowds for a short while.

When we had finished, our FastPass time for Star Tours was open, so we went round there, and as we approached the attraction, a Cast Member sent us up a disabled entrance ramp that we hadn’t seen before. This took us straight to the loading room, and we were very quickly being lined up at a simulator. This was another great ride, again we had all new scenes. The only downside was that the woman sat next to me shrieked loudly all the way through it! So annoying. Also, after years and years of riding this, I still have yet to be selected as the Rebel Spy, despite my deliberately looking particularly spy-like on every ride. Also annoying.

After this we went to explore Toy Story Land, which was new to us in this park. What a fab place, it is huge, and so well themed, we loved it. Our last FastPass of the day was for Slinky Dog Dash, so we paused at Toy Story Mania to set up a Guest Assistance Pass first. It was dark by now, and I had really wanted us to experience Slinky Dog in the dark, because I had read that it was more exciting in the dark, with all the lights, so I was really pleased I had managed to get our FastPasses for later in the day. We boarded Slinky Dog, and sat there a little nervously. I was just about to pull a ‘scared’ face at a lady waited to board the next train after us, when she shook her head vigorously at me and pointed at her young daughter, who was standing with her and looking terrified, so I changed my expression to one of fake excitement and enthusiasm, and “yayyed!” at her little girl, hoping that would make her think the ride was fun. Anyway, we loved the ride, it was very fast but very smooth and so much fun! It really was fantastic in the dark, although I’m still not sure I would class it as a family coaster, we thought it was a bit too high and swoopy for small kids.

We got off the coaster, and, slightly wobbly, made our way back to Toy Story Midway Mania, to ride with our GA pass. We love this ride, but we are very competitive on it and fiercely try to beat each other! For the first time in all our goes on this ride, we scored EXACTLY the same at the end! We both got exactly 13,100 points, although DH scored 28% accuracy and I got 21%. It really was a great game – first of all DH lead, then I went ahead of him, then we were neck and neck for a while, it was so much fun.

When we left the ride, it was almost time for our Fantasmic Dessert Party, so we took a slow stroll down Sunset Boulevard to the Fantasmic theatre, and went up to the party check-in desk. We were given a lanyard with a light-up disc on it, (although mine didn’t last very long and the battery had gone flat before the end of the show, weirdly). For our drinks in the light-up mugs we both chose pink grapefruit Shoffenheiser beer, which was delicious! A very light ale, with a sweet fruity twist. Yum! We also got a large tray each with a branded cover, which contained Babybel cheeses, crackers, chocolate mousse in a tiny cup, 2 bright blue macarons, a few other cakes, and a large handful of grapes, plus a tiny bottle of water each. We found our way to the reserved seating area, and got as comfy as we could on the hard bleachers. We both ate about half of our goodies, and kept the rest for later as we weren’t very hungry. The show started, but lots of small things seemed to be wrong – Mickey’s fingers didn’t spray sparks at the beginning, only about half of the “love” scene boats came out, and then just before Chernabog rises up all big and menacing, the film projecting onto the water screens suddenly froze. All the lights came on, and an announcement was made that the show was cancelled due to “technical difficulties”! We were so disappointed, as was the rest of the audience.

We followed the rest of the audience out of the theatre, it had been full so there was suddenly a lot of folk spilling into the park, so we just decided to leave. (We had originally been going to wait around for the Jingle Bell, Jingle Bam fireworks and projection show after Fantasmic, but everywhere was so packed with guests, we decided to skip it). We walked out of the park, and towards the Skyliner station. We could see there was a huge queue for the Skyliner, but luckily this is a very high capacity form of transport and the queue went down really quickly. We changed carriages at the Caribbean Beach main station, and on the second leg of the journey we were joined by two guys who’d clearly been to the soft opening of Rise of the Resistance – they were talking about it to each other. We asked them about it, and they said the soft opening had been for press and Cast Members, (which is what we had thought earlier). They told us the ride was absolutely great, it has 4 segments and lasts for about 20 minutes. We wouldn’t let them tell us anything else about it though, as we want to experience it ourselves next time we visit. We weren’t willing to get up at 4 in the morning to queue for Boarding Passes to ride it this time round!

We collected our car and drove to Old Port Royale, where we got coffee and hot chocolate in our mugs. We were really tired and somewhat cold now as well, so we headed back to our room for TV and relaxation before turning in. (When we got back, I emailed Disney Guest Relations to complain about the Fantasmic Dessert Party as we obviously felt a bit short-changed. I know we did get the light-up stuff and the food/drinks, but the show itself obviously wasn’t running properly and then it was cancelled mid-way through. Had it just been a regular showing, and I hadn’t paid extra for the event, I wouldn’t have bothered. Anyway, they responded the next day and gave us a full refund for the party tickets, which was nice of them and much appreciated).

Next day is here

[mick]

Another good dayb


Joan