Day Two: Disney's Hollywood Studios

What a fun day!! We started early (again) and kept going all day! After breakfast at the Residence Inn, we drove to Disneyworld to check into our resort there. Because we wanted to get to the park nice and early, we got to the hotel before our check-in time. Like hours before. No problem. We left our bags at the resort to be delivered to our room and were given our room keys, which were also our tickets to the parks, our dining passes, and our credit cards, since we could use them to charge items to our room. What more could we need? Our camera, so we grabbed that and were on our way. We decided to start with Hollywood Studios because we didn't figure it would be that busy on a Sunday and it isn't our favorite park so we wanted to do that first.

So what was our first ride at our first park? Star Tours of course! While Tegan rode it when we went to Disneyland three years ago, Janica was too small. Tegan loves Star Wars so Janica has seen all the movies and was excited to experience the ride too. Sadly Kierra was too small. How did we get around it? Well Disney has what they call a "ride swap," which is where one adult will ride, while the other adult stays with the younger child. When the first adult is finished, the second adult can ride. We used this feature a lot today and so there are many of pictures of Kierra by herself, waiting for the older kids to ride. So back to Janica and Tegan. They LOVED Star Tours! Another benefit of using the ride swap option is that Tegan and Janica were able to ride these rides two times in a row. It was fantastic.


Another "ride" we really enjoyed was the Muppets 3-D movie. I have come to the conclusion that there is definite window where children really enjoy and appreciate Disney entertainment. Janica falls into that window. She is old enough to ride rides and understand movies and be excited about characters. She was so fun during this 3-D movie! Unlike Kierra, she kept her 3-D glasses on for the entire movie and unlike Tegan, she believed it. She kept reaching out to touch the images that were coming towards her. She kept jumping out of her seat for fear of being hit by a pie in the face and loved all the corny jokes. I like the Muppet attraction, but it was really fun for me doing it with Janica.

Please don't think that Tegan wasn't fun today. He is at the right age to enjoy the more "scary" rides. He thinks they are fun and is excited to be big enough to ride them. He really loved the "Tower of Terror." Janica really did not. Maybe we were pushing our luck having her ride that ride. Tegan rode it at Disneyland when he was Janica's age, but Janica is more timid about these things. Janica was actually very insecure about any ride for the rest of the day. Oops! Well who knew.


Lunch was almost another attraction for us. We ate at the 50's Prime Time Café, which is like eating at home, except with a server is more attentive. She chastised Jason and me for putting our elbows on the table, and gave stickers to everyone who cleaned their plate. I didn't get one. I didn't like the bread on my sandwich! It was really fun. The kids got a real kick out of it.

There is a new ride at Hollywood Studios. It is called the Toy Story Midway Mania. It was so fun! It was like being in a carnival where you try to earn more points than the person next to you. Because it is new, it is also very popular. It was very crowded. We walked right on Star Tours, but needed a fastpass for Toy Story. That didn't stop us and we rode it many times. We also liked it because Kierra could ride, so the whole family could go together. To pass the time, we also took a bunch of pictures waiting in line to meet Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Yes it was still a line, but at least we have pictures to show for it, right?



We ended the day by watching Fantasmic. I love that show! There are great special effects and fireworks and of course the requisite happy ending. The kids were thirsty and whining so Jason went to get some drinks before the show started and ended up missing the first half of it. I videotaped it, but I know it isn't the same as live. I could tell the kids loved it too because once the show started, the whining stopped. They all sat still, even Kierra, and couldn't take their eyes off of it. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful first day!