{Disney 2018} Day 3 - Hollywood Studios

You can find links to all the entries of this trip report and previous trip reports HERE.


We spent our second night at the Grand Floridian in connecting rooms.  Hallelujah.  I forgot to mention this in my Day 2 post, but after Bell Services left with our luggage, the remainder of the moving process was fairly painless.  We received text messages that afternoon with our room numbers and our magic bands opened the doors to our new rooms.  We did have to call Bell Services to have our luggage delivered, but they arrived shortly after we placed the call.  And to answer my question regarding why they couldn't move us that first night, I believe Disney wanted to keep us in the same class of rooms.  Our new rooms were in the same building, on the same floor, with the same view.

We planned to visit Hollywood Studios on this day. The park opened at 8:00, but had Extra Magic Hours from 7:00 to 8:00 AM.  Yeah, so that was not going to happen for us, so our goal was to get to the park as close to 8:00 as possible.  Unfortunately, Emily was not feeling right.  I'm not going to go into this huge explanation as to why and how I knew she wasn't sick, as in contagious sick, but I knew she wasn't.  Also, there were six of us sharing beds and food and no one fell ill.  Further proof that how she was feeling was circumstantial and not an illness.  (I was ripped apart during a trip report many, many years ago because we thought Allie may have had an ear infection and gave her Advil, which caused an allergic reaction.  Some felt that I was irresponsible and on a mission to spread the plague throughout Disney.  I no longer feel obligated to publish or respond to comments such as these.)

What I will say is that the girls inherited my sensitive stomach.  It doesn't take much to set them off - eat the wrong thing, eat too much, don't eat enough and someone's bound to not feel well.  This doesn't make them "sick."  Emily is also very much like me when it comes to sleep and after two nights of interrupted sleep, looked very tired.  We ate breakfast in the room again before heading down to the bus stop.  Luck was on our side and a bus for HS pulled up right when we reached the area.

There's a lot of construction currently underway at Hollywood Studios.  Disney does a good job of hiding these projects in the park.  Outside the park is a different story.  Because of this construction, the bus stops have been moved so we were dropped off at what I feel is a ridiculous distance from the entrance.  We walked and walked and walked some more before reaching the bag check area.  So while this wasn't a big deal for me, poor Anna was hot and tired before we even made it inside the park.



We headed straight to Slinky Dog Dash, the new roller coaster in Toy Story Land.  This was the first FastPass reservation I tried to make right at 7:00 AM at the 60 day mark and there weren't any available.  By the time we arrived, the standby line was at 50 minutes.  This wasn't too bad so four of us joined the line.  Grammy doesn't like to go on a lot of these types of rides because of neck problems and Allie has to be in the right mood for roller coasters so the two of them found a spot to wait for us.



The wait time was actually about 35 minutes and we all enjoyed this new ride.  I would say that it's similar to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, a bit more intense though.  While we were waiting in line, I discovered that Emily had not eaten a breakfast bar like I thought she had.  She said she had a few bites which translates to she didn't eat anything.  Our first stop after riding Slinky Dog was to find her a bagel or muffin to eat.  There's a new counter service restaurant, Woody's Lunch Box, in Toy Story Land so we headed there as it was the closest place.

In my opinion, this was the most bizarre mix of breakfast items I've come across on one menu.



I ordered the kids' smoked turkey breakfast half-sandwich.  Who eats smoked turkey on their breakfast sandwich?  We certainly don't.  Bacon, yes.  Ham, sometimes.  Sausage, on occasion.  It actually had egg on it as well.  So, she didn't want to eat any part of the sandwich and I'll be honest in saying that it did not look appetizing.  The bread had been left on the grill for a little too long.  Emily ate a few bites of the orange and after determining that the situation could not be improved there, I offered to take her back to the resort to rest.  I also knew I could find bagels and other breakfast items she would eat there.

She agreed to return to the resort but Rich's reaction to my taking her was, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Of the three adults here, does it really make sense for you to go back?"  I'll expand on this later but I was The Planner, The Keeper of the Schedule, The FastPass Manager.  I had become an expert at using the MDE app, scrolling through wait times, thinking ahead to our next move, utilizing our time as best as possible.  Grammy offered to bring Emily back to the Grand Floridian.

We all walked up to the front of the park together and I brought Anna into First Aid in order to take care of her cathing needs.  After that, the four of us returned to Toy Story Land.  The girls and I rode the Alien Swirling Saucers.  I did comment on my opinion of this ride in my Hollywood Studios planning post but I'll repeat it here as well.  While the theming is fantastic, there really isn't anything special about this.  It's actually slow to load/unload and I can see this turning into one of those rides with a consistently low wait time, such as the tea cups in Magic Kingdom.

Next up was Toy Story Mania.  Believe it or not, this was our first time experiencing Toy Story Mania.  During our previous trips, it's had a long stand-by line and the girls were always meh when I mentioned it.  Maybe because they don't play video games.  Even on this trip, reading the description of what the ride entailed, they weren't overly interested.  I'm so glad I made them go on this because it was one of our favorites of the day!

After Toy Story Mania, we joined the line, which was a complete cluster, to meet Woody and Jessie.  A cast member did attempt to straighten the line up but this was after we had passed the messy part.  Three times other parties cut the man in front of me.  Three times I directed said parties to the real end of the line and all three times, they apologized.  The man in front of me just shrugged.  If he had moved up like he was supposed to instead of attempting to keep his sleeping kid in the shade the entire time, this wouldn't have been a problem.  By the way, this family all left the line at one point and then returned because apparently now an empty stroller can keep your place in line.

So, anyway, yes, Woody and Jessie.  The line is very slow because the characters spend a fair amount of time with the guests.



Woody and Jessie loved the outfits!

We were all getting hungry for lunch but we needed to use our FastPasses for Tower of Terror first.  Anna's commentary after riding Tower of Terror:  "That was kind of a baby ride."  Seriously?  We decided to grab lunch at the quick service place right before Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller coaster.  We've eaten here before and it's just okay.  I would have preferred a different quick service restaurant but this one was super convenient because we had FastPasses for Rock 'n' Roller coaster that we would need to use after we ate.



Grammy had been texting me with updates on their return trip to the resort and on how Emily was feeling.  Emily had eaten a bagel and then they had shared a salad with grilled chicken.  She had not slept, but she was feeling better and wanted to come back.

Allie and Rich decided to pass on Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.  They experienced it during our last trip and that was enough for them.  The FastPass line was somewhat of a SlowPass line and we ended up waiting at least 20 minutes before we got down to the ride.  Anna said it was more her speed than Tower of Terror.  (This kid cracks me up.)

Grammy and Emily met up with us over near Tower and Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster.  Emily wanted to do both but I suggested she skip the roller coaster, especially as I was the adult who would have to ride it with her and I was all set.  Allie decided she didn't want to go on Tower of Terror again so she and Grammy found a place to hang out and wait for us.



We had 5:30 dinner reservations at Chef Mickey's which is located at the Contemporary.  The girls wanted to change out of their Toy Story outfits beforehand so we had planned to return to our rooms for a bit of a break after leaving HS.  If you've used Disney's transportation, you know you need to give yourself more time than you think you'll need to get from Point A to Point B.

Because we were getting low on time, I suggested we ride Toy Story Mania again, seeing as Emily and Grammy had missed it that morning and we had loved it so much.  Everyone agreed.  Anna needed cathing again though so she and I headed back to First Aid while the others wandered over to Toy Story Land.  I want to point out that side trips such as this take a decent chunk of time.  We needed to walk out of our way, weaving through guests who are meandering about.  We are usually in First Aid for about 10-15 minutes.  By the time we met up with everyone in front of Toy Story Mania, we had lost about 25 minutes.  We're used to having to do this but it still isn't any less frustrating for Anna.

On our way out of the park, we stopped to met Olaf.  It's so interesting to me how quickly popularity can fade.  Not that Olaf himself was particularly super popular, but no one can deny the popularity of Frozen a few years ago.  Now, there was no line at all to meet Olaf.  A cast member welcomed us at the entrance to the maze leading up to the building.  However, when we wandered in, the handler and photographer seemed surprised to see us and asked how we got in.  It appeared that they had been chatting with Olaf, who, as you may or may not know, doesn't speak.

Afterwards, I pretended to be Olaf telling the other cast members how he couldn't wait to go on break and have a smoke.  The girls were not amused.  Also, I took three photos of the girls with Olaf and they all are terrible.  Usually I take a test photo while we're waiting and then adjust accordingly.  We were sort of rushed through and the lighting was terrible.  Oh, well.  This turned out to be an extremely low photo day.

So, remember how at the beginning of this very long post I mentioned the construction outside of the park and how the bus stops had been relocated farther away from the entrance/exit.  You guys know I walk/run all the time.  It is not physically challenging for me to do so.  The walk from the exit to our bus stop, which was the second to last one, was absolutely ridiculous.  It was so incredibly long.  And of course, before we could reach the sun umbrellas, which would soon become rain umbrellas, the clouds opened up and it POURED.  It happened so fast we did not have time to pull on rain ponchos.  I grabbed mine and wrapped it around me like a cape to protect my backpack which contained all my camera gear.  It was a slow, wet commute back to our rooms.

I'll talk about our dinner at Chef Mickey's in my next post.  Our day didn't go quite as planned with Emily not feeling so great at the start, and then all of us leaving shortly after 3:00 because of our dining reservations.  There were a couple of things we were going to do if we'd had time, but we ran out.  So here's a list of everything we experienced at Hollywood Studios:

1.  Slinky Dog Dash
2.  Alien Swirling Saucers
3.  Toy Story Mania
4.  Meet Woody and Jessie
5.  Tower of Terror
6.  Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
7.  Tower of Terror - Again!
8.  Toy Story Mania - Again!
9.  Meet Olaf

~To be continued~