Disney Day 3

Disney Hollywood Studios
Wed March 31, 2010

This park didn't open til 9am, and there weren't any "extra special magic" hours so we could have a leisurely breakfast and sleep in a bit more today.

We ate our breakfast at Garden Grove at the Swan again which was fine. We then took the ferry from our dock at Swan to DHS. Super easy and the girls loved it.

As soon as we got in the gate, around 9am, we headed straight back for the Toy Story ride Fast Passes - we got our fast pass for 12-1pm time slot. Now it was 9:15 - what to do? We headed to Playhouse Disney show - it was a puppet show featuring Tigger and Pooh, MM Clubhouse, Little Einsteins and Handy Manny. A giant puppet commercial for all the disney cartoons.

Then we hit Voyage of the Little Mermaid. This show was SUPER cool. The effects were awesome - water sprays you as the ship gets tossed about in the storm. The girls screamed with delight.

We headed to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, where you are smaller than an ant. The girls loved that. Then it was almost time for lunch - I didn't realize I had signed us up for a character lunch. It was at Hollywood and Vine - Leo, June, Jojo and Goliath were there. The girls were in heaven! Viv wanted to monopolize the characters' time and wanted to run up to them when they were visiting other kids' tables. We got autographs from all the characters. They also did songs and dancing in the middle of the lunch. Getting my abstinent food was a bit trickier here, but I did OK.

After lunch, it was time for the Toy Story ride. This was so fun! Definitely worth it. Then we saw Beauty and the Beast show. I love musicals, what can I say? This led us to the worst experience we had so far in Disney - the Backlot tour. We waited in line for 30 minutes - then were led into a water studio, with a PT boat and simulations of bullets and bombings. It was showing you how they made effects for the Pearl Harbor movie. Then we were led to the tram car.

There is ONE special effect on this whole ride - the only things you see are the old Walt Disney plane Walt used to fly over and scope out the Disney property. The special effect we were going to see - a tanker getting blown up and a flood of water didn't even work! We sat in the "canyon" set for 20 min, and finally we just left without getting a show at all. A colossal waste of time. Universal Studios backlot tour is 100 times better.

By now it was 2:45pm and at 3pm was the Block Party parade. The girls were begging to go back to the hotel to take a nap - the sun was getting pretty warm - I was loving it. We got to see the parade start and all the Toy Story and Monsters Inc characters come out. Then we hopped the ferry back to the hotel.

The girls took NO nap.. .just laid in bed giggling and getting their second wind. We dressed, hopped the ferry again to DHS and hopped a bus to Boma, the alleged best restaurant in all of Disney at Animal Kingdom Lodge. I was able to get abstinent food here, but the food at ESPN was much better and cheaper than the abstinent food at Boma. Almost everything here is cooked with sugar. But this is the only place they had caffeine free diet coke.

At the bus stop, Viv said she had to pee really, really bad. She couldn't wait. No bus was in sight. Just as I grabbed her hand to take her across the street to pee behind a palm tree, my lasik vision reveals the bus we need! I tell her to hold it - our bus is here. Thank goodness, she didn't pee her pants on the bus.

We finally got home and couldn't get their teeth brushed fast enough! They are fast asleep now. All day, Sophie kept saying, Viv, only zero more days til Magic Kingdom!!! As she ate her dinner, she said, Viv I have zero more chicken nuggets, and zero more days til Magic Kingdom. They are all set to wear their costumes tomorrow - Sophie will wear her Minnie M. costume and Viv has chosen her Aurora dress, compliments of Grandma Cindy.