Monday, December 15th, 2014
Hollywood Studios
Predicted Crown Level: 3/10
Actual Crowd Level: 4/10
Reservations for the Day:
Toy Story Midway Mania: 9:55AM-10:55AM
Twilight Zone Tower: 3:00 PM-4:00 PM
50's Prime Time Cafe: 4:00 PM
For the First Time in Forever-A Frozen Sing Along 6:40 PM-6:55PM
This day happened to be one of my favorite. It was really relaxing, low key, and we just went with the flow for the most part. We woke up, had breakfast in our room, got ready and headed to the park. It opened at 9:00 AM and we were there right around opening. It was another beautiful day too.
The big thing to remember with Hollywood Studios is that it is mainly a lot of shows. So you have specific times you had to be at places. You would think this would be hectic but it wasn't The first thing we did when we got there was head to Animation Courtyard to Disney Junior: Live on Stage. Elsie loved this show. It took place in a theater and you just sat down on the floor. Which was fine for Elsie and I but John was a bit uncomfortable :).
The show consisted of different scenes which featured characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sophia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
I think what Elsie loved the most was that throughout the show things would happen like, bubbles would come down on us and it would "rain" gold coins. And of course it finished with a confetti to celebrate Minnie's birthday.
After that we made our way to Pixar Place where Toy Story Mania is located. We had a fastpass for this so we didn't have to wait in line-thank goodness. This ride is one of the most popular at Hollywood Studios and the lines is almost always and hour or longer. Elsie had fun on this ride too. Like Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom, your ride around and it is arcade style ride where you shoot at different things to get points. The difference is this one is 3-D. It was a lot of fun.
After the ride we made our way back towards Animation Courtyard to Voyage of the Little Mermaid. This was really good too. It had a live performer singing and also inluded some elements that made you feel like you were "under the sea". After this we made our way down to Hollywood Boulevard.
It was 11:15AM so we decided to use some of our snack credits and pick up a couple drinks for lunch. We actually packed a lunch for today-peanut butter and jelly, carrots, oranges, granola bars (or gorilla bars as Elsie calls them). I had read that you could bring food into the outdoor theater where Beauty and the Beast performs and eat while you watched/waited so we decided to do that-we enjoyed our lunch while we waited for the show to start and it worked out perfectly.
Elsie watching the shows
I would definitely say Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage was one of the best shows at Hollywood Studios. It was so good!!
After Beauty and the Beast we made the long trek to Indiana Jones. This was one that really dissapointed me. It was kind of boring and there was a lot of down time and fillers. About half way through Elsie said she had to go to the bathroom and I hate to say it but I wasn't sad to have to leave. We grabbed some ice cream, walked around a bit and before we knew it, Elsie was taking a nap. We decided to change our game plan this day and instead of trying to rush back to the hotel for nap, we would try to just let her nap in her stroller. So I walked around and let John go on some of his rides. He went on Star Tours, rode Rockin Rollercoaster and used the single rider line, and then used his fastpass for Tower of Terror. He said that Rockin' Rollercoaster was the best one in all of Disney World.
John on Tower of Terror
Rockin' Roller Coaster
Elsie napping while John is having all the fun ;).
After the rides, we walked around a little bit, walked through a few stores and Elsie happened to wake up when we were in a Frozen Store. She ended up buying a Frozen doll with her birthday money. If you flip it one way it is Anna and then other way is Elsa. She also found a lollipop. Something she had been asking for all day long and a good part of the day before.
We also stopped along the way to get a picture in front of the Sorcerer's Hat. What I thought was an iconic symbol of Hollywood Studios. A few weeks ago, Disney announced they would be disassembling the hat and removing it from the park.
We made our way to 50's Primetime Cafe. We wanted an early dinner since we knew we would be having a lighter lunch and wanted to get dinner out of the way so we could enjoy the evening activities. This restaurant is themed around a 50's era home and your waitress is called "mom" who will be quick to correct your manners. The food was really good. I ordered the Mama's Favorite Sampler which had meatloaf, pot roast, and fried chicken. You can't go wrong with any of those. John got the chicken pot pie and Elsie ordered the chicken fingers-and didn't eat hardly at all.
This was the decor from the "Living Room" aka the waiting area. The dining room looked much like you would see in a traditional 50's home kitchen.
After eating we made our way to For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing Along. We chose to go to the 6:00 show vs. wait until the 7:00 show and use our final fastpass for the day. This show was actually one of the biggest disappointments of Hollywood Studios. It was recently added due to the whole "Frozen Frenzy" and you can tell. It is pretty much just sitting there and there are two "historians" who talk you through Frozen and when the time comes for a song they play clips from the song on the main screen and the lyrics on the two side screens. It barely featured an characters from Frozen except the first five minutes and the last five minutes at most. Elsa doesn't show up until the final minutes of the show. Elsie enjoyed it because it doesn't make much to make a three year old happy but I thought it was poorly done, especially compared to the Little Mermaid show and Beauty and the Beast show.
Terrible pic of the show but the only one I got-well because up until the very end there was nothing to photograph.
When we walked out of theater we were so turned around. It took awhile to find our stroller because they moved them all from the entrance to the exit which was in different locations. And we walked right out into Osborne's Spectacle of Dancing Lights. We had planned to see this next so it was convenient to be right in the middle of it all. Let me just say this was one of my favorite parts of the trip and made going during Christmas time so worth it! I just loved it! There were lights everywhere and the pictures just don't do it justice.
We finally let Elsie enjoy her lollipop and boy did she ever :)
I just loved how the lights coordinated with the music and it was just so festive! I could have just say here and watch all night. But of course, we couldn't. We wanted to get to Hollywood Studios nighttime show: Fantasmic which was all the way at the other end of the park.
After reading some reviews I had heard that this is kind of a "dark" show that highlights some of the villians of Disney. It starts with Mickey all happy, and then the bad stuff happens and ends with Mickey overcoming the bad people and being all happy again. So, we prepped Elsie a little and told her that everything is just pretend, even the scary stuff. The show uses pyrotechnics, fireworks, and water displays during the show and was pretty cool. It was definitely more "dark" than other Disney stuff and Elsie seemed to do okay but she didn't like how loud it was. Also to avoid the whole wanting to buy things, we packed some glow sticks for the night and she loved playing with those while we were waiting for the show to begin. She had quite a few and was so sweet wanting to share with all the kids around her. '
I didn't take too many pictures during the show but the above two were all that I really got.
After the show the park closed and it was time to make our way back to the resort. It was close to 9:00PM and we were ready to climb into bed anyways. Like I mentioned before, this ended up being one of my more favorite days.
