Magic is Calling - Day 6 - November 2021 - Hollywood Studios & California Grill

[AJ86]

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Day 6 - 19 November 2021 - Hollywood Studios & California Grill

Today I wake and 730 and F wakes soon after me. Today starts like the days previous of breakfast from the hotel whilst we get ready to head out for the day.

Today's plan is for Hollywood Studios, and I have decided to give Genie+ a shot so my first booking is for Toy Story mania at 1130 and I also book a lightning lane for Mickeys and Minnies Runaway railway for 1430. As we are off site I would have loved to have book slinky but i’m sure that went in seconds to the onsite guests.

We arrive to Hollywood Studios for around 1100, and take the chance to book a second lightning lane for 1445 for rock n roller coaster. All parked up at the end of a line of course and what felt like the furthest spot away from the entrance we headed into the park. I do miss those trams!

Once in the park we take a look around the shops and eye up what we would like and continue our hunt for the elusive purple spirit jersey. Our first lightning lane is approaching so we head to Toy Story Land and to Toy Story Mania, it sure is good to skip that 65 minute wait, we breeze through and look at the poor souls stuck on the other side of the rope. The ride is as great as ever and F wins beating me in the final game of the holiday with the scores 2-1 to my wife.

Its just before 12 and the smells from woody's lunch box are calling us so we get our grilled cheese toasties before the mad lunch rush. The lady notices my anniversary badge and also gives us a couple of cupcakes which was lovely.

Whilst waiting for lunch and eating I was keeping an eye on slinky dog but it never came back as a lighting lane nor the queue would go less than 2 hours which was a bit gutting.

So we leave Toy Story Land and pass through Pixar area pick up another wonderful cookie, between the 2 of us it is devoured in seconds!

We love looking through walt's dream and is always a must do in Hollywood studios, we skip the eternals clip at the end as have no interest in it.

I had seen on one of the many Instagram and vlogs I watched about the 50th anniversary food, so today I went for the Glimmer Shimmer cookie from backlot express. It was huge and way bigger than I expected. If you like coconut this is the cookie for you! It’s super sweet and I managed around a quarter of it, especially after just having half a num num cookie around 15 mins ago. So I ask for a carton to take away to eat later on.

It was now coming up to our paid lightning lane for Mickey and Minnie’s run away railway. So we skip a 1h 30 line and we are onboard with Goofy in about 10 minutes. I had never done the great movie ride before so didn’t know what to expect, but it was amazing and I really enjoyed the story. We like watching the Mickey shorts anyway which definitely helped.

Keeping with the shorts theme we headed over to Mickeys vacation fun short and again loved the show and the exclusive park short. On the way out I was pleased to see the photo ops and wasted no time in heading to potato land!

Our next genie+ was coming up so we headed to rock n roller coaster again skipping a 1hour queue. We board our limo for a cross city ride and my half eaten cookie also comes along for the ride surviving pretty well.

I manage to book a next genie+ for tower of terror, but it is for much later in the evening, as we were feeling a bit tired and had plans this evening I let it go for someone else to use. We head out via the shops taking a look at more stuff we can’t afford and luckily my no regrets policy is not used today. On the way out we come across Santa on a cavalcade escorted by a reindeer and Pluto. I do like cavalcades often we would just come across them with little to no planning.

We do our trek back to the car, and head back to the hotel getting back at 430.

After showers and a rest we leave the hotel for tonight’s meal which is the 50th anniversary at the California Grill.

Our table reservation is not until 920 this evening, but we want to view the Magic Kingdom Fireworks before hand. So we arrive with plenty of time to spare getting to the contemporary at 720. We check in with the staff and as there is no one else waiting for the fireworks we head to the gift shops for a look around.

We get back to the podium for the fireworks around 740 still first in line but a line soon shows up soon after. They get us in the lifts around 750 ready to view on the balcony. We grab an amazing spot. It's fairly windy with very overcast skies and just before it is due to start, it starts spotting with rain. It continues to drizzle a little but the view for the fireworks is amazing and great to see it from this perspective. 10 minutes in the rain gets heavier and half the guests on the balcony give up heading inside. We see it out, and end up fairly soaked through.

We head back inside and back down to the podium, and ask if a table becomes available earlier can we go in. She puts our name down but says it is doubtful that we will. So we head on the monorail and decide to look around the Grand Floridian. You can guess what happened next, as soon as we pull up to the poly we get a text to say our table is ready and to head to the restaurant. So we stay on completing the loop back to the Hotel.

We are seated for 840 and are introduced to our aptly named waiter - Walter. Who was amazing throughout the meal and extremely happy to see UK guests back.

We had of course picked out our food weeks before arriving in Florida and we shared most of the meal, going for…

Starters
Duck pizza
Beef wontons

Mains
Beef filet
Pork

Dessert
50th dessert
Chocolate tart

The food is amazing, and the pork and the beef are our favorites for the night. It’s comes to payment and would our credit cards work, of course not! Luckily we brought enough cash to cover the bill, otherwise we would have been washing the dishes.

We sort the bill out just in time to watch the fireworks from the after hours event, and of course it’s tipping it down with rain again, so this is the second time viewing and the second time in the rain!

We really enjoyed the meal, watching the fireworks and the overall experience. We don’t drink, so our bill was just for the set menu and refill soft drinks so including tip we paid around $255. If we came again during the celebration I doubt we would go back (mainly due to the price) but super glad we did it.

Upon leaving the hotel the rain got even heavier, so I ran to the car and picked f up before heading back to our hotel for 12.

Really enjoyable day at HS followed by an amazing meal at California Grill.

Day 7 coming soon

[Dr.JumbaJookiba]

Looks like a great meal at Cali grill, we've had Walter a few times and he really is one of the best.

[Goldia]

It sounds like you really enjoyed your meal at Cali Grill topping off a fun day at the studios.

[mick]

Sounds like a good evening at the Contemporary, your food looked great.

Shame about the rain but it didn’t seem to spoil your enjoyment


Joan

[StorybookCircus]

I am so thrilled to find another Potatoland fan 😂 I really hope the photo op is still there in a month’s time as I’ve bought my partner and I matching T-shirts!

[AJ86]

Originally Posted by StorybookCircus

I am so thrilled to find another Potatoland fan 😂 I really hope the photo op is still there in a month’s time as I’ve bought my partner and I matching T-shirts!

See more...

I do hope it is still there, but these t-shirts sound amazing, please can I have a sneak preview?

[StorybookCircus]

It doesn’t seem to be available to buy any more, but there are loads of Potatoland designs on Teepublic, Redbubble and Etsy 😅 Most sites let you choose the colour so our shirts are potato brown!

[AJ86]

Originally Posted by StorybookCircus

It doesn’t seem to be available to buy any more, but there are loads of Potatoland designs on Teepublic, Redbubble and Etsy 😅 Most sites let you choose the colour so our shirts are potato brown!

See more...

I love it!

[Fuellady]

That was such a good day! I'm a little lost with the new Genie+ and lightning lane passes, but it sounds like they made your day a bit easier.

Lovely evening at the Cali Grill despite the rain during fireworks.