Disney World Day: 4

For our 4th day at Disney World we visited Hollywood Studios.  This is Disney's movie themed park.  The weather today was a lot better than yesterday as the humidity was lower.  There was some smoke blowing in from the east but it eased up after a little while.

The first thing we did was to go have breakfast with the characters.  This dining experience was a lot better than yesterday. We got right inside without waiting more than 30 seconds.  At no time during breakfast did the restaurant fill up.  This was probably due to the fact that the characters in attendance were B level characters.  However, for us they were A list celebrities. Walking around were Leo and June from Luke's and Alyce's favorite show Little Einsteins and also Handy Manny and Secret Agent OSO were there. We scored some major points with Leo and June because Luke was watching an episode of Little Einsteins on our phone when they came over.  Leo even stopped to watch for a few minutes. During breakfast they played some music over the speakers and Alyce and I got up to dance with them.  It was a good time.

After breakfast we attended the Disney Junior Live on Stage show.  This was a live action show with all of our kid's favorite characters.  The characters were puppets with a few live people on stage.  There were the Little Einsteins, Handy Manny and his tools, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and the cast of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Our kids ate this up. They were riveted the entire show.  The one problem for me was that we all had to sit on the floor and after 20 minutes with a kid in my lap my leg and foot fell asleep.

After the show we crossed the park for the Toy Story Mania ride.  I grabbed Fast Passes earlier while Mom was heading towards breakfast.  It was probably a good thing too. When the park opened there was a mad dash to this ride and there was even a line for Fast Passes! By the time we reached the ride the Fast Pass times were up to 6:00 that night. The thought occurred to me to try and sell our passes as I bet there were a few not so prepared families out there with more money than sense. I quickly dismissed the thought and we hopped on the ride.  It was a cool ride but needed 3D glasses so Luke didn't get a lot out of it as he wouldn't wear them.  Alyce needed some help aiming her gun at the screen too.

Following that I left the party for a bit to go ride a ride by myself while Mom hung out with the kids at a playground.  When I caught back up with them Alyce and Luke were red in the face from running around but still seemed in good spirits. Rather than take a break for lunch we got a snack of ice cream sandwiches before we went on to our last ride of the day.  As part of the meal plan we had at the resort we each got a single snack a day.  A snack could be a soda, bottled water, piece of fruit, candy, and most importantly ice cream! It is pretty cool getting $15 in ice cream and not having to pay for it.  We really did pay for it when we booked the trip, but at the time you are surprised to see $0.00 on the receipt.  We had a bottled water and 3 ice cream sandwiches between the 4 of us. As the temperature was increasing they went down very easily.

Our last ride of the day was the Rock n Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith.  On our honeymoon this was our favorite ride and now having ridden it again I'd say it is the best ride out of all of the parks. Like Expedition Everest Mom and I had to take turns with the kids while the other rode. Mom went first and I had dad duty for the next 20 minutes. Luke was busy watching Dora and Alyce made a friend by sharing the Road Runner cartoons playing on my phone. It was really neat seeing the two strangers laugh and giggle in such close proximity. By time my ride was over Alyce's friend was gone; sadly never to be seen again.

That evening after naps we took a quick trip over to EPCOT.  We knew there wasn't a lot there for kids but we did have a few things we wanted to see.  The first thing on our list was the Leave A Legacy sculptures.  On our honeymoon we bought two squares; one with our picture and one with the date of our marriage. These two squares will be there for a total of 30 years and we are already 9 years into those 30.  It's crazy how time flies. Once we found the pictures it was pretty amazing seeing ourselves from so long ago. We were so thin!

Next before the fireworks we took a quick trip over to the Finding Nemo ride.  We thought this would be an easy win as it is a slow paced ride where you get to see lots of fish.  Amazingly even Alyce was afraid of this. She was afraid she'd see the big shark from Finding Nemo and she did. The sharks didn't do anything aggressive so her panic was unwarranted. Luke on the other hand kept cheating by looking at the next scene ahead rather than the scene we were on. At least he sat down for the entire ride.

When the fireworks started up both kids flipped out.  Both of them had sat through fireworks displays in the past so their fear this time was surprising.  Alyce got into the stroller and closed the top so she couldn't see the display and Luke dove into my shoulder and whimpered at each explosion.  We took an early leave of the show so we could hit the buses quickly and as we got further away the kids relaxed enough to finish the display. Perhaps they were just too close?