Silver Anniversary Trip, Day 9

[spencem]

Monday, January 20th, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom After Hours

Today was another planning fail, failing to plan for a proper afternoon rest. We had FastPasses booked for the morning at Hollywood Studios, the last being Slinky Dog at ten to three. Julia was also booked to build a droid at 2:30, something she’d been looking forward to since seeing the first videos from Galaxy’s Edge’s opening. We then had an ADR that had changed a few times before settling as Kona Café at 5pm ahead of Julia and me doing Magic Kingdom After Hours until midnight. Something clearly had to give if we were going to last until Midnight and so we decided to skip the morning at Hollywood Studios and just go over there for lunch and the droid building.

We had some laundry to do and so packed that up in a case and headed over to work out how to use the washing machines and grab some breakfast while it was doing. The first thing we noticed going outside was that it was much colder today than when we went to bed. Sunday had topped out at 26 degrees, opening the door this morning it was more like 8! Still the cold did come with one of those gloriously clear blue skies we all love so much.


The resort looked lovely under the cloudless sky.


I was surprised the gators were so active in the cold.

The washing machines turned out to be very simple to use but did require one of the few uses of our credit card this holiday; you’d think they’d be linked to the Magic Band system by now. I did see that they bill as ‘Change Point Laundry’ and not Disney when my statement came in, so I guess that explains why you can’t just tap your bands. Machines loaded and running we went to find some food for the 30minutes they take.


The sun was very warm, but the air had a distinct chill.

I forget what we had for breakfast, but it was nothing amazing. I think Julia had a bagel and I probably had some fruit and something. We both had taken our resort mugs and made use of them as well. By the time we’d eaten it was time to move our laundry to a drier and so we did that before heading back to the room for the hour that took. We read for a bit, I did some more trip report and we collected our dry laundry before another hour or so’s relaxing. We headed out to find some lunch at Hollywood Studios about half twelve.


Seriously, how good does that sky look?


Much better than the weekend storms we’ve been having all month at home.

As we walked up the street we found a photographer with no queue, he wouldn’t believe us that we’d been married for 25 years. 😉


Still chilly enough for hoodies, even if the temperature had climbed into the high teens by now.

We had a bit of a married couple’s moment about where and what to eat. I really wanted to try the food in Galaxy’s Edge, but Julia was put off by the exotic names and colours and so didn’t. We settled on the ABC café, and Julia decided to try mobile ordering. Well, first of all she tried to order a kid’s meal, despite the kerfuffle last night and knowing she couldn’t. Then she ordered the default chicken sandwich meal, despite wanting to substitute the side and change a topping. If that photographer had been listening to all this he’d have had no problem believing we’d been married a while. We gave up in the end and walked to the restaurant where we found the regular queue out of the doors. I then used mobile order to get what we wanted while Julia started the search for a table. Eventually I got Julia her chicken sandwich with green beans instead of fries and myself a chicken salad and Julia had managed to get us somewhere to sit.


A good sized lunch.

Lunch eaten and true love restored we went to have a wander around Galaxy’s Edge before Julia’s appointment at the Droid Depot.


A few more people than last night.


Chewbacca was wandering around keeping an eye out for the First Order.

Julia parked the ECV up just outside the market area and we had a good wander around the whole area, but nothing really caught our eyes to buy, not even the various plush creatures although the horned overgrown guinea pigs came close to coming home with us. As we came closer to Julia’s appointment we reclaimed the ECV and took a trundle around the outside to that end of the outpost.


Turn a corner and there’s the Millennium Falcon.


Even the sky is alien, well to us in the UK winter it is anyway.

When we went to check in at the Droid Depot we overheard someone else being told there was currently a 90 minute wait to entre the shop if you hadn’t pre-booked. Luckily we had pre-booked and were waved straight into the internal queue in the shop.


The theming inside is also top notch.

I have to say that I felt the whole reality of the crowds and having to queue to pay, queue to collect your parts, queue to build has taken the shine off of the experience we saw on the various media YouTube videos we’d seen prior to coming out. The whole experience felt a bit rushed and chaotic as the staff did their best to marshal the various queues. You could tell that for them it has gone from trying to provide everyone with the very best experience to just trying to keep everything moving and footfall through the shop as high as possible. For instance, I got told off, none too politely, for daring to try to stand next to Julia and help get the parts from the conveyer belt rather than directly behind her as I’d been told. This was because they were trying to jam as many people as possible in front of the belt at the same time. We had to swap places so I could get the bits from the back of the belt for her. Also, while Julia was trying to work out what she needed the cast member who was probably there to help out with questions like that was busy pushing the last person out of the way and the next one into their spot.

We did find out what was needed and collected the bits before joining the last queue of the experience for Julia to build her new pet. Again, I was told I could only stand directly behind and so couldn’t really help out. I guess we were lucky it was not me building as Julia would have seen nothing around my bulk.


Purple BB8 is built.


Taken later back at the hotel.

Once out of the shop we worked out how to get the backpack onto the ECV and then made our way out of the land and over to use our FastPass for Slinky Dog Dash. Apparently, the droids will interact with one another and various things in Galaxy’s edge, but how you are supposed to see that with it in a backpack on your back isn’t clear to me. Also, I think you need to purchase an extra personality chip for them to do so, but in the rush that wasn’t explained at all. Julia was asked if she was buying the chip, but they never explained what it was or why you might want one. As we headed straight out afterwards, we didn’t get a chance to try it out anyway.


A toy we could actually play with.


BB8 rides into battle.


Julia’s still grinning from building her droid.


Wheezy would be better employed keeping the queue entertained I think.

We did worry a bit about leaving the droid with the ECV at Slinky and so rather than park up outside as she normally does Julia rode the ECV through the FastPass queue and left it at the station. That did mean we had the usual issue with the cast members trying to push it between load and unload, but I jumped in and lifted it for them. Happily BB8 was still where we’d left him when we came off this great ride.

As we came off of the ride we spotted the Green Army Men just finishing up entertaining the queue. Of all the new generation of rides Slinky has the plainest queue, there really isn’t anything to look at as you wind around the switchbacks and so it was good to see some entertainment being provided.


Patrol over, time to head back to base.

Our patrol was also over and so we headed out of the park about 3:30. The plan had been to go over to the Magic Kingdom for a while before our ADR, but Julia decided she’d had enough to eat at lunchtime and would rather have a rest before our late night than eat and so we headed for the hotel.


You don’t see skies like this on summer afternoons.

I dropped Julia back at French Quarter and picked my big winter coat up at the same time before heading over to park at the Magic Kingdom and catch the monorail around to the Poly. I did think I could walk from the TTC to the Poly, but with all the construction going on I couldn’t make out a path and so simply caught the resort monorail that one quick stop. I got there ahead of Sandra and Brian, who had been off doing their own thing all day and so had time for a quick poke around having never visited the resort before.


It certainly has an impressive lobby.

Sandra and Brian soon arrived and we were quickly shown to our table as we were the first of that night’s ADRs at 5pm. Our server was earning her ears, but her mentor seemed to know what they were doing. There was a bit of confusion with allergies and dining plans, but nothing the two of them couldn’t sort out. We ordered our drinks and I had one of their non-alcoholic cocktails, it was very green and I’m not sure why it came with ketchup.


I wasn’t brave enough to add the ketchup to the drink.

Seriously at the time this was delivered we had only just placed our orders and the ketchup was on the same tray as everyone’s drinks. Further, when they cleared our main courses later the ketchup was left with my drink?

I made a mistake here in what I ordered; I didn’t enjoy it at all. I had the turkey sandwich, which came with stuffing but also pickled red onion. The onion flavour was really strong and vinegary and really didn’t go with the stuffing flavour at all. As I may have mentioned a few times I have been making the effort to lose weight and the fries that came with the dish were the first I’d had in months and I really didn’t enjoy them either.


Looks a lot like a counter service meal to me, rather than the table service I paid for.

Rather than a dessert menu our server brought over a tray of tiny deserts to show us. We did hope the actual deserts would be bigger, but no they were just the size of a small tumbler. I had something they called key lime pie, it was nothing like a key lime pie, but it was very tasty and quite rich. Brian was not at all impressed with his having hoped for a proper Florida key lime pie.


The curl that looks like bark was in fact chocolate.

Continued Below

[spencem]

I gave Julia a call to see where she was and was not overly impressed to hear she was still reading back at the hotel. I had visions of her deciding to not bother coming out tonight and wasting our £130 each tickets for the event. As we had brought them for each other as our anniversary gifts I was even less impressed. She assured me she was thinking of getting ready and would see us later. We three boarded the monorail and headed over to the park.


We seem to have arrived just before 7pm.

They were just setting up the special event entrance at the park, closing off some of the tapstiles to regular guests. Just the other side of these there was a team giving out the event wristbands. I watched in amazement as two ladies blagged their way in. The were on ECV’s and when they presented themselves at the tapstile Mickey turned blue since they didn’t have event tickets, just normal park tickets. The cast member told them they couldn’t use that entrance and would have to back up and go over to their left to the regular entrance, but the two ladies kicked up such a fuss about not being able to reverse that in the end the cast member (having checked their bands on her iPad) waved them in. They then proceeded to roll up to the wrist band team and got given wrist bands! They were very pleased with themselves as they rolled off to enjoy a free event.

For reasons I can’t remember Sandra disappeared off for a few minutes and so Brian and I took advantage to get our picture taken together.


Brian doing his bit to cheer me up.

Sandra and Brian had a FastPass for Buzz and so we set off for Tomorrow Land. They didn’t have tickets for the After Hours event and so only had a couple of hours left before the park closed at 9pm.


Some people were already claiming their spots for Happily Ever After.

When we got to the ride they did offer to wait in standby with me, but since that was still nearly an hour and they really wanted to watch the fireworks I told them not to be silly. I knew I would be able to ride later with no wait at all. I did end up queuing, not for Buzz but rather for the restrooms by Star Traders. Yes, that right ladies, there was a queue for the men’s restroom, don’t worry the queue for the ladies' room was longer. By the time I’d experienced that popular attraction Sandra and Brian were back from saving the galaxy from a toy and we headed over to the hub to claim a spot for fireworks. I took quite a lot of pictures, I’ll share just a few.


The projectors are certainly very bright.


It’s certainly a colourful show.


Why is there always a kid on shoulders? Hold the child at the same height as your own head, I used to with Edward.


Ooh, sparkly.

This was the first time I’d seen Happily Ever After properly, the time we’d tried to watch it in 2018 we ended up with a tree between us and the castle, so had not seen any projection. I quite enjoyed the show, but most of the content if from a newer generation of films, one that I’m not familiar with. For me nothing will ever top the emotional impact of Wishes, that was the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen.

Julia sent me a message to say she was in the park just before Happily Ever After started and was being told she had to go to Tomorrow Land to collect her wristband. I sent one back saying no, she should be able to get one at the entrance or at guest services. In the end someone else at the gate pointed her in the right direction and she didn’t need to trek across the park. We were right in the centre of the hub and so there was no way she would have got to us before the show. Instead she waited outside the Plaza restaurant and we met up afterward.

There wasn’t much time left before Sandra and Brian would get thrown out, just enough time to ride Pirates which despite the hour still had a 20minute queue.


Yo ho ho, soon they’ll need to go.


Some people in this boat are more excited than others.

Sure enough by the time we got back from our voyage the park was closed to regular guests. We had a poke around the gift shop and I saw a tee shirt I really liked but didn’t pick it up so we wouldn’t have to carry it all night.

We said our goodbyes and Sandra and Brian set off for the park exit while Julia and I got the ECV back from stroller parking and worked out our plans for the next three hours in an empty park. We decided our first target should be Haunted Mansion and so set off for the breezeway past the restrooms, where we said another round of goodbyes to Sandra and Brian who had made a pit stop.


Extra spooky blue lights.

Julia parked up and we walked to the mansion gates, only to be told the ride was down. However, as we walked away back to stroller parking one of the cleaning cast members called out to us that the ride had just re-opened, so we turned around and were first in. The cast member at the front was checking you had an event wristband and did have to turn a few people away.

When we came out Julia wanted a hot drink to take her evening medication and so we went to one of the carts giving snacks and drinks away. I picked up a bottle of Sprite and a box of popcorn, but sadly they didn’t have any hot drinks. With the temperature now well into single figures Julia was not at all interested in cold drinks. We asked about hot drinks and were told we’d need to buy those from either Main Street Bakery our Cassey’s Corner and so we headed to Main Street.

Sadly, both places were still serving regular guests as well as event guests and were packed, so I wasted over half an hour in the long slow-moving line in Starbucks. With only three hours of the event we could have done without the place still being so busy. Maybe Disney could look at doing hot drinks for these events in the winter months, as well as the cold ones they give away?

Drink in hand we headed back to Tomorrow Land and my appointment with Buzz. There was absolutely no wait at all to get on, we simply showed our wristbands and walked straight onto an empty car.


Zapping aliens is serious work.

Julia’s tea had been too hot to enjoy before we rode, but by the time we came off, even with no queue, it had gone cold and was only tepid to take her pills with. Medication taken we next walked onto the People Mover to let the pills settle. Next I wanted to try a ride I’d never been on before as it always has a queue, the Astro Orbiter. Julia rather sensibly headed for the warmth of Space Mountain’s gift shop, after reminding me I don’t like spinning rides and so probably wouldn’t enjoy this one. There were only a couple people waiting for the elevator and so we were straight up to the ride platform where we waited for the current ride to finish. I just had time for a quick picture of the castle from up there.


Not a view I’d seen before.

Julia was right, I didn’t enjoy the ride, not because of the spin but rather because it was absolutely freezing up there in the wind. There are some great views over the park to be had from the ride and I’m sure on a hot summer’s day the breeze off of the Seven Seas Lagoon is most welcome, but it wasn’t at all welcome tonight with the ambient temperature heading rapidly for freezing.


Another walk on for me, Julia doesn’t like this one.

Space Mountain conquered I found Julia in the gift shop and we continued our lap of the park. We were heading for another ride we’d not done before, the Barn Stormer.


First we’d need to negotiate this crowd of three.


Someone was having a busy night.

We had a look over the fence at the Tron construction, where there were a few builders walking about despite the park being still open to guests, but there was no heavy machinery running. We both enjoyed the kiddie coaster, especially as we got the front seat and the other couple riding at the same time got the back seat.


Under the sea was our next destination.

We both enjoy the Little Mermaid ride, I think the transition going under the sea is especially clever. I’m not sure that we didn’t have the whole ride to ourselves, we never saw another guest in there certainly.


Another blue castle.

Around the other side of the mountain we found all the people, in the 10minute queue for Seven Dwarfes. The queue showed as 20minutes, but we were back off the ride in under 15minutes.


Look, people.


Hi ho and all that.

Seven Dwarfs was the only ride with a queue we found all night. On exiting we thought we’d better go and check Pooh Bear had found his honey again before walking around to check up on Peter Pan.


There were a few people in Fantasy Land.

Next there was another ride Julia sat out in Big Thunder. She would normally ride, but even Barn Stormer had left her a bit shaken tonight and so she didn’t risk it. She did have a bit of a wait as even when there is no one in front of you it still takes a while to walk from the ride entrance to the train.


Roses are red, castles are blue, mountains are pink, this doesn’t rhyme.

Time was getting on and we realised we only had time for Pirates or Haunted Mansion but not both. I gave Julia the choice of what to repeat and she picked Pirates, so we walked past the sadly closed for refurbishment Splash Mountain and into a deserted Frontier Land.


Did the park close already?

It was a bit eery walking around the deserted park, we were glad to see the cast member stood guarding Pirates’ entrance as they were the first person we’d seen since walking away from Big Thunder. The ride itself was equally deserted and not only did we get a boat to ourselves there was no one in the three in front of us or the two behind. We took advantage to turn the ride into the tunnel of love, well as much as our multiple layers of thermals and coats would allow.


We did wonder if such a raunchy picture would come out.

Thankfully the gift shop was still open when we finished our romantic Caribbean cruise and so I was able to pick up that tee shirt I’d seen earlier on the way out. Sadly though this was to be our last ride of the night as it turned midnight as we left the building and the staff were understandably very quick to close everything up behind us.


Time to go.

We made our way back to the hub where we paused briefly for a couple of pictures, before heading down a surprisingly busy Main Street. The Photopass photographers were still out working and so we got a couple of pictures to finish the night off.


Partners.


Where did all these people come from?


Nice to get a picture without crowds behind.


We’d had a great night.

As we got to Town Square the music started for the Kiss Goodnight. I was very happy to hear that it is still narrated by the Blue Fairy, she brought back happy memories of Wishes. I’d hoped to get a picture of Roy and Minnie with no one behind, but there was a guy waiting for an empty Main Street picture sat on the rail and he wasn’t moving for anything.


The other two partners.


Quite an early finish compared to the summer months.

The monorail was down for the night when we got outside and so everyone was being sent to the ferry. One arrived as we got there, but then waited until the other got back from the TTC before setting off for our own journey back.

Being at the front of the boat we were first off and with Julia’s drive turned up to full we stayed at the front of the group. When we got back to the car park there were cast members waiting by the temporary tram stop to help people out. As we went to go the other side they called across to us asking where we were headed, I was able to point to our lonely car in the disabled lot and simply reply, “just there”. They were busy telling everyone else not to rush as the tram waiting for them wasn’t going anywhere until they were all aboard when hilariously it drove away empty just as the first group got to the rails. There was another one waiting to take its place, so no one had to wait and most did laugh.

There was no queue to get out of the parking lot and so we were soon pulling into French Quarter where the gate guard did take a good look at us out of her hut given the late hour. We’d had a really good night and enjoyed the empty park experience and being able to walk onto everything except the ten-minute wait at Seven Dwarfs. The only improvements the event needed were hot drinks, or to close Starbucks to non-event guests and it could do with being longer than 3 hours.

We were back in our room at ten past one and asleep just a few minutes later.



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[Tinkermom]

Full day! Shame the droid build was a bit rushed, still looked fun though.

[spencem]

Originally Posted by Tinkermom

Full day! Shame the droid build was a bit rushed, still looked fun though.

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If you're a hard core Star Wars fan then the droid build is probably worth it, for the rest of us not so much. Julia absolutely loved it, she was 7 again playing with her Star Wars toys after seeing the first film.

[mick]

A busy day with some fantastic photos

Joan

[spencem]

Originally Posted by mick

A busy day with some fantastic photos

Joan

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Thanks, we did have the whole morning off, so it wasn't too busy.

[Gemelos]

Really enjoying your reports! Thanks for posting 😊

[spencem]

Originally Posted by Gemelos

Really enjoying your reports! Thanks for posting 😊

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Thanks for reading and commenting.

[Palm trees]

I'm always slightly taken a aback when k see Disney photos with people wrapped up against the cold. You paint a good descriptive picture of the weather, it sounds like you had a great day anyway.

[spencem]

Originally Posted by Palm trees

I'm always slightly taken a aback when k see Disney photos with people wrapped up against the cold. You paint a good descriptive picture of the weather, it sounds like you had a great day anyway.

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Our first trips to Florida were in February and so that was normal for us. When we went for the first time in August that was a real shock.