Imagine, Just One Birthday Every Year ~ October 2018 ~ Day 7~ Hollywood Studios

[DisneyDaffodil]

"I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse."~Walt Disney

Index Here

As planned, we started this morning very leisurely. Today, we were going to go to Hollywood Studios later for our first FP and then stay until after Fantasmic! I woke up around 8am and Georgia slept until 10 to 9. We got dressed in pool clothes and went down to the food court for breakfast as I was weirdly really hungry this morning (which I shouldn't have been after all the food I'd been eating this week) We used one quick service credit and we shared a coffee cake, a cherry danish and I had an apple juice because my throat was still sore. We also got coffees using our resort mugs. Both of the pastries were really tasty and filling. My favourite was the coffee cake whereas mine was the Danish.

We then went and sat around the pool for a few hours. We really appreciated these times just sitting around and relaxing by the pool on this trip, as Disney is so hectic that we definitely needed more time to just sit down. The first few days of the trip had been extremely busy and I think we realised that we had to slow down a little more to really appreciate and enjoy the time that we had there.
Whilst at the pool this morning, we both decided to alter one of our evenings later in the trip. For our day nine, we had originally planned to spend the evening in Epcot. However, after missing Rivers of Light in Animal Kingdom the other night, we wanted to spend another evening there instead so that we could watch the show properly. Another thing that made us come to this decision was how busy Epcot had been the night before. We didn't want to spend another evening there if it was that busy, as it would be a waste of time due to how overcrowded it was. I was disappointed that we had to change our Epcot FPs, as I had wanted to go on Test Track as we'd never been on that ride in Epcot before but I knew that seeing Rivers of Light was more important to me.

We went back to our room and changed into clothes for Hollywood Studios. My outfit today was my favourite of the whole trip, as I wore a Spiderman dress and Spiderman make-up. We caught the bus into Hollywood Studios by 1:20pm. It was really hot as we made the long walk into the park this afternoon.

We had some really nice PhotoPass photos taken on our way in to the park plus a small child staring at me while I had photos taken

As soon as we entered the park, we used snack credits for two drinks and then walked towards our first FP, Beauty and the Beast live on stage. We know that you don't really need to FP this show but as we'd already Fastpassed everything that we wanted to in HS, we decided that this would be a good use of this FP. I love the Beauty and the Beast show because of its traditional, musical style. I really enjoy how the show simply tells the story of Beauty and the Beast and is a great show for young and old. I also enjoy sitting down for half hour

After the show it was time for our lunch at Mama Melrose's, so we made our way across the park to the restaurant.

I was looking forward to this meal as Italian food is my favourite and I was excited to eat some pasta. We booked this as the Fantasmic Package, so that we'd have priority seating for Fantasmic later that evening. We checked in and had to wait a few minutes before being shown to our booth. I had decided not to wear my birthday badge today (as it wasn't my birthday anymore and I didn't want it to rip the fabric on my Spiderman dress) but as soon as I entered the CM gave me another birthday badge with my name on it and wished me 'happy birthday' as my birthday had been recorded for all of the meals that trip. I attached it to my camera strap as I was worried about my dress I was surprised that Georgia's birthday was still being remembered but it was a nice touch that at most meals they wished her happy birthday.
I liked the booths that we sat in for this meal as they felt very spacious and separate from everyone else in the restaurant. I liked the theming and atmosphere here, especially the lighting and decorations on the walls.

We had our drinks first. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio which tasted crisp and refreshing but I wish they served larger glasses of wine, as they are slightly too small. I had the frozen cappuccino which was one of my favourite drinks ever. It had a good coffee flavour but was really creamy and delicious. The server also brought our bread rolls and herby oil.

Then we ordered our main meals. I had the chicken campanelle which was filled with loads of different flavours. It had a very creamy sauce and it was hot. The portion was so large and I couldn't manage to eat it all, which I really didn't want to leave and regretted it later (even though I knew I was too full to eat any more) My meal was nowhere near as nice. I chose the spaghetti and meatballs and it was particularly underwhelming. The meatballs were ok, but didn't have a lot of flavour and the sauce was salty and tasted like it had come out of a jar. I was so disappointed as I had looked forward to a nice pasta meal and it really didn't live up to my expectations at all.

As we had chosen the Fantasmic package, we had to have the dessert sampler for dessert which I find weird. Why can you have any meal but not choose your dessert? We knew this beforehand though so we were expecting it, but it was disappointing that we couldn't choose. Our server brought each of our dessert samplers. Mine had a candle in it, Mickey shaped edible confetti and an extra dessert, a cannoli which I had never tried before. This dessert sampler was tasteless and a big let down. I love tiramisu and swapped my lemon cheesecake with Mum for her tiramisu. This was probably the worst of the desserts though so I didn't eat mine or Mum's. My favourite was the cannoli, as it actually had a nice flavour and good pastry.

We paid our server the 18% tip and the meal would have cost $100 without the dining plan. Overall, we would not return to Mama Melrose on another trip. I think it's quite overpriced for the meal that we had and the food definitely wasn't the best quality food we had in Disney.
After the meal, we sat outside for a while and I rang Rob at home. Whilst I did this, Georgia pin traded with a young, male CM. Georgia seemed to be trading for quite a while and when she came back she was quite red faced and embarrassed. She told me the CM had complimented her on her dress to which I'd just replied 'thanks' because I'm so great at making conversation The CM seemed to be around her age and Georgia didn't seem to know how to respond to the compliment. He was very cute and I'm definitely not good at holding conversations with cute boys. I did trade for a really cute Daisy Duck pin though!

After my embarrassment, it was now time for our Star Tours FP. This had previously been another ToT FP but Georgia had been a chicken and refused to go on it a second time this trip, so we changed it to another Star Tours one instead. We sat at the back for this one, which was really fun, and the little girl next to us was chosen as the rebel spy, which was also cool as she'd been really nervous about riding it and her Dad had been reassuring her while we waited but she loved it after that.
I had some photos taken by the Hollywood Studios sign.

Although we'd seen it earlier in the trip, we went to see the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show again as it's one of our favourites. Ariel this time was a great singer, but seemed less emotional so I didn't cry for once, which is so unusual for me with anything related to Little Mermaid.

It was now time for our final FP and it was the one we'd most been looking forward to in Hollywood Studios, Slinky Dog Dash. I took loads of pictures while we waited to board as it's just so well themed. Slinky Dog's tail even moves like a spring! It's so wonderful.

This ride is so good! There's a video of me on this ride giggling very loudly all the way through. It had such a good feeling to this ride, there's no doubt that you're really on Slinky Dog and you're smiling the whole way through. I've never been on a roller coaster quite like this one. It's such an unique concept and it's come to life perfectly. Whilst it's fun for kids, it's also quite thrilling for adults too, although obviously tame in comparison to some other thrill rides. My only complaint about this is that it's a little too short mainly as I could have gone around on it all day.

After leaving Slinky Dog Dash, we saw a Photpass photographer by Alien Swirling Saucers. He was great and spent a lot of time taking pictures of both of us and Georgia on her own. We found that some Photopass photographers were excellent (this one being our best) and some really weren't good (we had some taken on my birthday in Magic Kingdom and they were really disappointing unless you like chin angles and shadows over your face )

We wandered out of Toy Story land a little sadly, as this would be our final visit to here of the trip. It's such a fun, unique area to Hollywood Studios and a great addition that we loved.

We wandered around for a bit and stopped to watch a pair of Stormtroopers. One of them was helping to put down the tape on the floor for the fireworks that evening and the other one singled us out of the crowd of people. He asked me if I had been 'assembling a rebel alliance' to which I replied that I had. He then turned to Mum and asked if she had been working with me. She took a step back, shaking her head while saying 'No, I don't know her, it's all her fault.' Thanks for the back up, Mum. I just didn't see the point in both of us being in trouble
There was a showing for Frozen Sing-a-long soon, so although we had seen this once already on the trip, we decided to watch it again as it's a nice place to sit down and I'll take any opportunity to sing This was probably the best performance of this show that we've ever seen. The characters had so much energy and their jokes were well received and lots of people in the audience were actually singing along (I wasn't the only adult singing for once) We were really glad that we'd gone in for this performance.
As I walked into the show one of the CM greeted me with 'Hi Spidergirl' It was really fun wearing this dress today as I had small children staring at it and pointing it out to their parents and lots of nice comments from CM throughout the day.

It was starting to turn dusk by the time we came out of the show and Hollywood Studios looked beautiful. I still think that Hollywood Studios is one of my favourite parks as I love the style and theme of it. The lights outside the shops and the street down to Tower of Terror look so pretty in the evening and it has such a wonderful, Disney feel to it for me, as it was the first park we visited on our first trip.

It was almost time for Fantasmic, so we decided to go to Hollywood Scoops and get ice creams before going in to sit down. We used a quick service credit (which took some explaining to the CM that we could use a quick service for 3 snacks but his supervisor came over to approve it) and had two chocolate brownie sundaes and a bottle of water. The sundaes were huge and absolutely delicious. They are a great use of a snack credit. It's a good idea to take a snack in to watch Fantasmic with and these are delicious ice creams.

We then went straight in to the Fantasmic stage. We had a small paper ticket that we had to show to go to the reserved dining seating. We were so glad that we had booked the Fantasmic package as the view from here was excellent, even better than the FP seating we had had on our previous trip. I would definitely book a Fantasmic package again but probably try one of the other restaurants as Mama Melrose was not as nice as we had hoped.
As usual, we totally loved Fantasmic. It was our favourite show on our first trip and it didn't disappoint again. And, as usual, I was crying by about 5 minutes into the show. The music, the Pocahontas bit and the inclusion of some many different villains just makes me love this show so much. I completely agree with Georgia, this show is very emotional or maybe that's just us

After Fantasmic finished and we were just about to leave, a girl around 8 sat behind me tapped me on the back and told me that she really liked my dress. Her mother then said 'She'd been dying to tell you that throughout the whole show' It was so sweet and one of the things I love about Disney.
We followed the crowds our of Fantasmic as quickly as we could as we wanted to catch as much of the Star Wars fireworks as was possible. We saw some of the fireworks as we watched and I sang some of the Star Wars music as we couldn't hear it yet, which made a woman walking next to us laugh at me. We stopped and watched the fireworks as soon as we had a view of them and could hear the music. We felt a little underwhelmed at the end of these fireworks, as they weren't as loud as they had been on our previous trip. I think these fireworks need to be more dramatic than they are now, as they were before, and this change was definitely not for the best. However, ignoring the changes from our previous trip, we did really enjoy watching the end of them. I didn't take any photos of the fireworks as our view wasn't great and I wanted to record them instead to show to Dad when we came home, as they were his favourite fireworks on our last trip.
It was very busy as we walked out of the park this evening and a very long walk back to the bus. I think we felt a little sad at this point as we realised that our holiday was starting to come to an end, as it was our final day in Hollywood Studios.I took some final photos of Hollywood Studios on our way out.

We caught the bus back to French Quarter where I bought a can of Budweiser and I got a flavoured lemonade in my resort mug which we drank in the room while chatting before going to sleep.

Step Count: 19,400

[Cinderella]

Great day👍

[Palm trees]

Another lovely day, your Toy story land photos are fab

[DisneyDaffodil]

Originally Posted by Palm trees

Another lovely day, your Toy story land photos are fab

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Thank you, Georgia took hundreds of photos in Toy Story Land. We loved the whole area, it was nice to sit there and just notice all the small details of the theming.

[caitlinsmummy]

Another fab day, got to say we felt the same about Mama Melrose sadly. Also Fantasmic is my favourite show in the whole of Disney, I cried too as it brought back so many memories xx

[Kat11]

Another great day, thanks for sharing.

We noticed that on one of our Epcot days it was so quiet! It was a Tuesday night 30th October and a non late opening night. We've been on a Saturday night and it was unbelievabley busy, so I'm going to avoid weekends and late opening nights from now on.

Such a shame you didn't enjoy Mama Melrose as I thought the steak and cheese pasta was one of the best meals of the holiday, although I do agree that the dessert sampler is awful on the Fantasmic package. I'll be booking a regular Adr next time as I prefer to eat a bit later and don't want to eat that pudding again. 😂

Kat

[minnie52]

Another lovely day!

I loved Fantasmic today! Its such a brilliant show!

Shame about your meal - but at least the dining package seats kind of made up for it! We were pleased with the seating too and I'd definitely do again!

Slinky looks like so much fun! I'm gutted we didn't make time to ride it now!

[DisneyDaffodil]

Originally Posted by caitlinsmummy

Another fab day, got to say we felt the same about Mama Melrose sadly. Also Fantasmic is my favourite show in the whole of Disney, I cried too as it brought back so many memories xx

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I just felt Mama Melrose was ok, nothing special, although my main course was quite nice but Georgia’s sauce tasted like it came out of a jar. Plus we like a nice dessert and the sampler really wasn’t good.

I have heard they are thinking of changing Fantasmic but I hope not as it’s a big favourite of ours

[DisneyDaffodil]

Originally Posted by Kat11

Another great day, thanks for sharing.

We noticed that on one of our Epcot days it was so quiet! It was a Tuesday night 30th October and a non late opening night. We've been on a Saturday night and it was unbelievabley busy, so I'm going to avoid weekends and late opening nights from now on.

Such a shame you didn't enjoy Mama Melrose as I thought the steak and cheese pasta was one of the best meals of the holiday, although I do agree that the dessert sampler is awful on the Fantasmic package. I'll be booking a regular Adr next time as I prefer to eat a bit later and don't want to eat that pudding again. 😂

Kat

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Tuesday 30th was the day we changed 😂😂 Typical for us to miss the quieter day. But I will add that we did have a great evening in AK that day instead so not disappointed that we changed. I agree that weekends in Epcot are to be avoided especially when the food and drink festival is on, it was manic

My pasta meal was tasty, so maybe Georgia was just unlucky with her choice. But that pudding was terrible 😂

[DisneyDaffodil]

Originally Posted by minnie52

Another lovely day!

I loved Fantasmic today! Its such a brilliant show!

Shame about your meal - but at least the dining package seats kind of made up for it! We were pleased with the seating too and I'd definitely do again!

Slinky looks like so much fun! I'm gutted we didn't make time to ride it now!

See more...

I agree that the seating is great with the Fantasmic package so we would book the package again, just a different restaurant.

Such a shame you didn’t get to ride Slinky. I think it was my new favourite ride (although FoP is amazing too) It just felt incredible fun and we came off the ride with big grins as we had enjoyed it so much 😀