Disneyworld-Day 5

Day five, half our trip was already over! We headed back to where we were the night before- Disney's Hollywood Studios. It was a mad dash to the new ride, Toy Story Mania, where there was a ridiculous line at the fastpass machines due to people who didn't understand how the machines worked. They had gotten up early to secure passes for their families sleeping soundly in their rooms. You have to BE in the park for your card to work, people! Anyway, we got the passes and rode the ride. It is pretty cool. It's a midway arcade style video game ride, much like Buzz Lightyear but much better. I took some pictures of the line area, because it was so cool with the big retro toys. You wear 3D glasses to see the screens, and have a little shooter to score points. Even E did pretty well after the second ride of the day.
After that, we split up to do/not do "little kid" things. We had just missed the first showing of both the shows we wanted to see, so we had a bit of waiting. (All that stoller riding is SO exhausting!) The kids just COULDN'T stand up any longer and had to use dad's feet as a chair. The first show we saw was Playhouse Disney Live. It was a cute show, featuring Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Tigger & Pooh, and Little Einsteins. I'm sure they would be too cool for it if they were any older, but it was right up their alley, especially the bubbles and streamers. We then saw Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which was okay. It was time to meet up for the Indiana Jones Stunt show, but the rest got held up too long and we didn't get to sit together. I couldn't tell you much, E needed a diaper change a few minutes in so I left with him and we watched ducks in a pond and checked in for lunch. This is the stunt I saw:


Lunch (for our family) was a character buffet with Jo Jo, Goliath, and the Little Einsteins. Not so much for adults, so the rest went to the Sci-Fi Drive In Theatre, which I heard was cool. Here is a pic of the cars you sat in to watch the old horror flicks. We thought the buffet at Hollywood and Vine was really good. Evidently so did M, who opted to eat instead of meeting any characters. E got up and danced a few times with Leo.

After lunch, we headed to see Toy Story Mania for a second round, then saw Muppet Vision 3D and some went to Star Tours while we saved seats for Beauty and the Beast. It was SO hot. We thought the theater would be inside, but it was just a covered area, so no AC. It was a good show, but DH and I had seen it when it came to town, the real deal, so we left about halfway through to ride the "big" ride, courtesy of fastpasses from the brothers. Rock 'n Rollercoaster was really fun. Probably the biggest rollercoaster at Disney, and we like Aerosmith, who are featured, so it was fun. By then the show was over and we split up to do some different things. We really thought the kids would enjoy the parade, which featured all of the different Pixar movie characters and was more of a street show than a moving parade.


Unfortunately, it was just too hot and we all lost focus. What better than the ice cream cart and sitting in the shade to fix that? After we found the rest, who had been on "The Great Movie Ride," M, DH, and I headed to Tower of Terror, which M had flip-flopped about wanting to go on many times. He assured us that he DID want to go now, so we took him and he LOVED it. He would have gone again, but we had ridden it with fastpasses from mom and dad and we didn't want to wait in the regular line. (So spoiled by now, we didn't wait in a line over 7 minutes the whole trip!) So, he'll have to settle for waiting until we go to Disneyland sometime.


It was our plan to stay, do some more shows, use the fastpasses we had for Toy Story Mania Again, and eat dinner at Pizza Planet, but the heat and humidity got the better of us, E was asleep, and we were all cranky so all but my brothers (they did this) went back to shower, nap, and later swim and eat at Downtown Disney (we loved the Wolfgang Puck Express, and had to return!)

It was a good day, but trying to do it without a break was hard and we didn't last as long as we thought we could. There were quite a few rides we didn't ride, shows not everyone saw. It is a hard park to try and schedule, because the attractions take a lot longer for the most part.