Hollywood Studios, Day 3

For our third day in the DisneyWorld parks, we decided on Hollywood Studios.

I was most excited about Tower of Terror! Harrison hates that ride more than anything, so I made a deal with him that we would only go on it once.

On the bus ride to the park we found out it was a Star Wars Weekend, and we had no idea... but were curious about how it would affect the number of people in the parks. (all in all it ended up helping the rides to not have such long lines, because everyone was there to stand in line to meet characters!)

We didn't have much of a plan going in to the park, so when we first got there we thought we would go to the Great Movie Ride. It is a delightfully fun ride, similar to the Jungle Cruise, where you are being talked through the ride and awfully awesome lame jokes all the time. This one is done by car. We walked straight on to the ride since it was the first thing in the morning, but I might not have minded waiting a little bit in the que, there were costumes from movies and some interesting things to keep your attention. The ride is 20 minutes long, so it seemed like it would be a good ride for when your feet need a break--and let me tell you, it was day three and I had a HUGE blister. So even though it was our first ride, it was about time that I needed to rest my feet! (Que foreshadowing...)

Since it was still early we thought we might check out Toy Story Mania, but it already had an outrageous wait time and while we love the ride, we did not think it was worth the wait.

So we walked through the Walt Disney: One Man's Dream. It is a nice walk through exhibit with bits of history and a little video at the end that talks about how Disney came to be. It is really neat, especially for those who love Walt Disney himself.

It was finally time for our delightful ride on the Tower of Terror! As we walked up, I somehow was so excited that I ran into one of the poles and got a huge bruise. Was this park out to get me?

I LOVED Tower of Terror, it is different from the one in California Adventure, and I delighted in the change and thought the ride was perfect, but since Harrison hated it so much I felt bad for making him go... we did not end up returning.

We are in the back corner

Post Tower of Terror, it was time to finally get some breakfast! We stopped at Fairfax Fare. It was alright breakfast food. We did have a lovely visitor...

We had some time before our fast pass to Rock N Roller Coaster with Aerosmith, so we walked the street and looked at some of the gift shops.

Harrison found the Power Rangers!

 The Rock N Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith blew. my. mind. I was no prepared for this ride! In the que, you stop by the sound studio and find out that Aerosmith is late for their concert, but they want to take you with them in a high speed limo! So you walk through the doors and get into a stretch limo... once strapped in, you ease around a corner and see a sign that counts you down, and from there on out you are going 60 MPH! As soon as you shoot off they take your picture.

I had no idea, it is a neon and black light kind of ride, and wow. I think I was a little unsteady getting out of the ride because it is so fast!

Rocking out after the ride

Next stop was the Studio Back Lot Tour, which was pretty neat. We saw how a ship/water scene was pieced together with a random family from the audience who got soaked, it was fun to see them act it out and then for the camera guys to stitch it together in a different sequence and make it epic. You then walk through a storage room of props, then you get on a bus and experience a fire and flash flood scene which was awesome! We saw Herbie.

Harrison channeling his inner Nicolas Cage, stealing the Declaration of Independence

Water tower with Mouse ears and a plane

Herbie

Harrison with Indiana Jones' whip

After the ride you walk through a memorabilia exhibit and then to a bookstore/gift shop --very clever.

They had promoted the Lights, Camera, Action Stunt show, so we went to that next. Before you enter the stands they have bottled drinks--the first time I saw something other than Coke! So I got some Mellow Yellow.

The car stunt show was incredible! I wasn't too interested in it to begin with, but it was really fun. They show you how cars drive backwards, how they jump things, people falling off buildings, everything catching on fire... it was awesome.

Ballet Chase

Ballet Chase

Lightning McQueen showed up

A forwards driving car and a backwards driving car

Man about to catch on fire

Everything on fire

The show was a lot more exciting than I had anticipated, and it was a great time to put my feet up! It's about a 40 minute show.

Jumping Jenni Star Wars Action Figure!

Harrison Collier, Star Wars Action Figure

We were hungry after the stunt show, so we went to Pizza Planet Arcade for lunch. The pizza was quite greasy, but the Darth Vader Chocolate cupcake was soooo good!

 We got in line for our fast pass to the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! Luckily we sat on the front row and Harrison got chosen to be a part of the show!! I took pictures with one hand, while filming with the other, and it was just great. Lots of stunts were explained and then shown. And of course, Harrison got asked to strike a pose, and I have video of when he was asked to walk like a model.

 Having seen the Aladdin live action broadway-esque play in California, I was certain that Beauty and the Beast would be just as good, and I needed to rest my feet again, as while we were walking to the play my blister popped. (sidenote, I had broken in my shoes, but my feet were not use to walking 10 miles a day.) So we went to the play with high expectations. It is in an outdoor theater, covered...but already Aladdin was winning in our books because theirs in indoor with lots of great air conditioning. The play fell very short in our opinion. The acting was not very good, but Gaston, he stole the show for us. As he was rallying to gain a crowd to defeat the beast, he gets distracted by his reflection in his knife, it was truly the best part of the show. It did not seem like anyone was actually mic'ed, and it was not our favorite. We now have a joke about roaring though, because the beast's roar was him literally saying Roar. so bad.

After that we needed to have something better, so we walked and were able to walk straight on to Star Tours! and it was delightful as usual. We thought we might just do it again since we were able to walk on, but we stood in the same spot for five minutes and did not move.. so we left.

You should know that by this time, we had already walked the park probably 4 times, because we didn't really understand where things were or how it was set up, and we didn't have a good plan of staying in one area at a time, we kept popping in to other places. so our feet were dead.

We decided to walk to the back of the park to take the singing in the rain photos, and on our way we saw a Storm Trooper.

"Charlie's Angels"

 Every so often the umbrella would start to rain! That was fun.  Well I found on the map a Little Mermaid show called The Voyage of the Little Mermaid, 15 minutes long. so we walked across the park to check it out. SO GOOD! There are lazer lights, bubbles, glow in the dark fish, so much better than the Beauty and the Beast show. It was only 15 minutes, and it was awesome. After that we went to check out a pirates themed something, so we got a pass to come back later to that because they decided it should be a ticketed thing.

 I had thought that the Backlot Express would be right next to the Back Lot Tour... but no. It is next to Indiana Jones. So, we had walked the long way to get there. Did I mention how many times we walked the park? How dead my feet were? Oh well. The food there was awesome, it was really good. I got a salad and Harrison got a burger, and we split the Yoda Hazelnut Cupcake.

We liked it a little bit better than the Darth one. It seemed a lot lighter in the flavor, not so much Death by Darth.

After dinner it was time to walk across the park to go to the pirates thing, which ended up being interesting... since my feet were dead and it is a standing exhibit, movie?something... I did not love it. But it was fun, you got an introduction into the life of a pirate, you had a ship battle, it was a good experience. It was getting close for Fantasmic to start, but we had too much time to go and sit there, so we went back to the Little Mermaid, and even the second time it did not disappoint, it only got better!

We almost ran to Fantasmic because we were both so excited about it. I don't know where they find the space, but it is in an outdoor amphitheater, probably half a miles walk from the sign.

Waiting for Fantasmic to start

I did not take any photos, but man, it is a good show! I don't love the Fantasmic at DisneyLand because it features a lot of older Disney movies, but this one had a lot from more recent or at least my childhood type of movies, especially Pocahontas. Mickey seems to battle each of the evil witches, and we just loved the show.

The park would be closing soon but we thought we should try another ride... so we went back to Rock N Roller Coaster, and again, even though I knew what to expect this time, I was blown away! So good. As we were waiting in line we heard massive explosions because they were doing the Star Wars Fireworks. We did not see any, but I am fairly certain they destroyed a planet or too.  Since I knew when the photo was taken this time, I tried to do blue steel... but we were going so fast my face just looks funny!

Blue Steel face fail. Harrison rocks out

End of the night photo with the Mickey Hat in the background

16 attractions visited, 11 miles walked (at least!!)

 All in all, we loved Hollywood Studios... but please. Save yourself the foot ache of looking at the map before hand, and maybe getting there a little later in the day so that you do not walk more than you have to. We felt that there were a lot of times we just sat down to kill some time, which is always a good idea, but that we did it too much. I am glad we never waited in line for Toy Story Mania, because a 3 hour wait is not worth the games, they are super fun, but no. The streets can get crowded particularly in this park. And always remember, you can ask for water anywhere and they will give it to you!

Oh and last tip-- do not see Beauty and the Beast unless you what to hear what the "roar" is all about.