I am pretty sad this is already at day 5, I have been having such a fun time going over all the details and pictures!!
Day 5
Disney Park: Hollywood Studios (open till 9PM)
This day we started off by packing so Bell Services could transfer our luggages to a new resort! The first part of this trip has been at the Bay Lake Tower resort and we were moving to the Saratoga Springs Resort. We, ourselves, were going to eat some breakfast at the quick service inside the Contemporary Resort then head straight over to Hollywood Studios.
Before leaving on this trip, we had planned to meet up with a local family we heard was also going to be in Disney during the same week. We tried to make a FP together or two. Then more plans were made when we landed in Orlando with an old high school friend,too! Great day ahead. 🙂
We ended up having some spectacular weather this trip, and today was no exception. It was 84F, but it was dry and breezy. A perfect day, truly. When we got to the park we had good fun talking with the Disney photographer on Sunset Blvd, who was a retiree from Maine, and a sweet sweet man. I loved his ‘dad jokes’, like not knowing how to use iPhones so when he gave me mine back he told me that most of the guests he deals with go home with selfies of him. hahah None on my phone though, I kinda wish I did!!
From the entrance, we contacted our hometown friends to let them know we made it to the park, and we made plans to meet up after they got off Toy Story Mania..which was at an hour wait at that moment. So we got ourselves to our first FP for Star Tours at 11:35AM. I am not sure if you guys are noticing, I didn’t make one FP for before 10:30AM, not a one! We enjoy not having to run out extremely early on our days off. Our every day is getting up before 6AM, so when we go away we try not to do that much unless it’s absolutely necessary.
From Star Tours we took a quick jump to Muppet Vision, which is always a good time in the AC! I grew up watching The Muppets, and I can’t ever skip this attraction.. like ever. At about this time, our friends messaged us saying they were outside of Ariel to meet up, so we quickly made our way there. We had such a great time greeting one another, these friends have been over for parties, they are just so funny and a nice group of people. Their youngest daughter is besties with our oldest daughter, so they were so excited to finally see each other since they text all day as they don’t go to the same Middle School. They try to hang out as much as possible after school, but without being at the same school it’s just not the same. This crew was super hot by this time so we took a walk onto Star Wars Launch Bay to watch a quick video. Then we parted ways so they could eat lunch at their reservations and hit up their FP, we made plans to meet up for our last FP for Tower of Terror at 4:50PM that we booked together. So we went to get in line to meet Chewbacca as they went on their way to eat.
Well, we stood there for a quick minute then changed minds. The girls really wanted an ice cream, so we decided to break from the line to go get an ice cream. While we were eating the ice cream, we made our plans before meeting up with our friends again. We got back to meeting Chewbacca since the line was at under 10 minutes. What a fun character meet up. This costume was super impressive, and the CM in there did a top notch job interacting with my family. We laughed a lot… and he loved my Starbucks pin in my ears. 🙂 I only shared one photo cause my bruises in the other family photos were kind of sickeningly gross, even for me who had them! haha
Our next FP was for Indiana Jones, which our girls had never experienced last time we visited four years ago as it was under renovation. I forgot about how well choreographed this show was, and all the fire and action! The girls really enjoyed the show, and the tricks of all the stuntmen/women. And the Mickey Mouse face shaped pretzel they ate during the show, as well.
Once we hit the sunshine, we took our chances at waiting for Toy Story Mania. They weren’t processing FP for this ride while it’s been under construction, and the time for Stand By was 50 minutes. First, on the way, the girls wanted to check out the Walt Presents museum; so we decided to make a quick trip of it before we got in line for TSM. Glad to say that we didn’t wait more than 49 minutes. hahaha I am jk, it was more like 35 minutes, the longest we have waited in a line on any trip!, but we spent the time in line playing games, snapping and just enjoying the breezes.
The entrance was sweet. All the new graphics, and imagery. Since we are all big Pixar fans, we enjoyed the revamp going up to Andy’s room. From Toy Story Mania we got ourselves up Sunset Blvd for our meet up with our friends to ride Tower of Terror. They were leaving this day so basically after Tower of Terror they had a short time to make it to the airport. The best part of this was that both moms of the families opted out of the ride, which gave the kids an extra FP each to ride it again…and for us, margaritas and sunshine. Which was a perfect way to spend time. The people watching in Disney is absolutely entertaining and not to be missed. The things I had seen this trip, like the bald man sitting in front of us during the Star Wars Launch Bay film with HIS full face – mustache and sunglasses- tattooed on the back of his head, were memorable. That must’ve hurt, that’s all I am saying about it.
Ok, so sadly, after Tower of Terror, we walked towards our dinner reservations and had to say goodbye to our friends. 😦 We all had a fun time together, but sad it had to be cut short… I am looking forward to our hang out this Saturday though!
Our dinner reservations were to a place we had taken our kids last trip, and they DID remember, 50’s Prime Time. Why did my kids remember this place? Well, it was the first restaurant we let them have a milk shake with dinner and there was a TV at the table. (We don’t have TV in the kitchen, cause I don’t allow it. I don’t allow it many parts of the house actually. Especially NOT their bedrooms. I grew up with one in my room, and well, I don’t want that for them.) This restaurant is such a fun experience for all of us. We had a crazy waitress, who cracked us up the entire meal with her indifference and jokes. She would call the girls to the kitchen entrance to grab things, which confused them, and threw straws at them when they got drinks, which sounds horrible but it was funny.
We sat at a cute corner dinette set with a vintage TV just like the 1950’s. My husband and I both got the fried chicken, and the girls meatloaf. They, of course, got milkshakes, my husband a cocktail that lit up and I got a glass of NZ sauvignon blanc. My fav wine. I can’t believe it, but I ate my entire dish of chicken. Something I rarely do!
I think my favorite part of the meal was, aside from the insanely good fried chicken, was talking about our family during this time. Because my parents didn’t grow up in America during the 50s, my stories of my parents past during the 50’s are totally different than what my in-laws had experienced. That quintessential modern era Americana. So we got to talk to the girls in good detail all about the fun things my husband learned from Grammy and Grampy about this era and what we know of it. They were so into the conversation with so many questions and comments.
I LOVE THESE TWO KIDS! They are so inquisitive and smart, and beautiful. That’s a bonus. 🙂
While finishing dinner, I got a message from my friends from our second meet up of the day! Our plan was to get together after dinner to see Fantasmic and maybe the Star Wars show. Before getting to the arena, we grabbed a cider and wine, and set up the girls with their light up garb. Our friends got to the seats first, saved us a bench. We were about 8 rows from the show, and my kids were really excited. We had met up with these friends a few times during our trips to Orlando before, last was in 2016 when we took a trip to Universal after a Caribbean cruise out of Ft Lauderdale. They have a young daughter, but she was so little last time that she basically stayed in her carriage. My kids didn’t get to play with her much, plus another two sets of friends were with us at that time too, which both had children their age keeping them busy, it was a lot of people.
It also meant that I got reacquainted with her this night, too. From the second the word hello fell from my lips, she was enchanted. (little girls seem to like me, idk why. haha) And when I told her that my baby girl had the same name as she did, well, that was it, they were besties all night. I gave her some light up necklaces to match my kids, and well, she was all into being my bestie, too. She sat on my lap then my daughter’s, stood next to me, next to her, narrated the show, told me who her favorite characters are and cracked us all up dancing and singing.
We followed Fantasmic with watching the Star Wars fireworks show, Galactic Nights, together. We stood to the right within the plaza. We really enjoyed the theatrics and pyrotechnics of the show, it was quite thrilling actually. The feel of the fire shots that they let out towards the end was blasting us all with so much heat, I felt happy (on the account that I love hot weather!).
We said our goodbyes then hopped on the bus to go over to our new resort..Saratoga Springs! We were all excited to check it out, and sleep! Ok, I was excited to sleep, I was wiped!
We checked in, grabbed our luggage and were driven to our room. All in the dark, so we had no clue what anything looked like. We were in building 65 on the second floor. The room was way bigger than at the Bay Lake Tower. The layout was different, too. Like, the bathroom sink was unattached, and bonus they had a large entrance to the room. We had a pretty great day at Hollywood Studios, loved seeing all our friends!
Valeria Out Loud 