Our second park day was a trip to Hollywood Studios. We were extra excited this morning because we had a breakfast booked at Hollywood and Vine with the Disney Junior characters first thing! We made it to the front of the line for rope drop again. Better yet, we were the first family to arrive at the restaurant. This resulted in a nifty little certificate and a photo op with Sophia the First, Handy Manny, Doc McStuffins, and Jake all together before the rest of the guests were let in! Breakfast was an all you can eat buffet complete with Mickey waffles. It was a hit, the Johnson family is a big fan of breakfast buffets :). Like the night before, each character came around to our table for pictures and autographs. They also did a little musical show between each character rotation. The first time Cora ran right up there to get in on the dance, but quickly realized there was a large crowd staring at her and retreated back to our table. Sylvie also did not want to be up in front of the crowd, but was perfectly happy shakin' her little booty at our table. Now like I said, breakfast was great and the kids were having a good time with the entertainment but it is a LOOONNG process if you want to see each one of the characters, especially with the little show in between. We ate, drank coffee refills, used the bathroom multiple times and were still left waiting for our final character, Doc, to make an appearance. We finally decided to skip out early so we wouldn't miss our Toy Story fast pass (sorry Doc).
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| First Family |
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| Gettin' her groove on with Mickey waffles |
Toy Story was definitely our family favorite for the day. This wasn't just a ride though, you got to shoot at targets and wrack up points all while wearing 3D glasses. The whole area was set up to look like Andy's room and there were giant toys everywhere as we waited.
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| Excited for Toy Story! |
The next ride was not so well received. We headed over to The Great Movie ride which was NOT at all great according to our kids, they thought it was way too SCARY! It was a slow moving ride that set you in the scenes of famous films. I had researched the ride and knew that it might be a little scary so I warned them ahead of time ("yeah yeah"... eye roll). It started mellow enough putting us in the scenes of some musicals followed by some gangster films where our car was hijacked by one of the "cast members". Lots of shooting and noise. There was one little kid crying by this point and mine were definitely scooting in closer. We moved into the Western genre where Cora nervously asked in a shaky voice "Mom, are those nice cowboys?" I told her they were and she looked mildly relieved until the car moved ahead into the scene of Alien. I'm not gonna lie this one was a little scary even for me!!! They have you convinced that you're trapped with an alien on the loose, and of course before you know it that alien is hanging directly above your heads. Yeah, this was all she could take. Cora was absolutely hysterical, sobbing, cowering practically on the floor of the car staring up at the alien. I tried to get her to close her eyes, look at anything else, assured her it was just pretend. But her eyes were glued on that alien. I even tried to cover her eyes for her but she whipped her head away and was not letting that alien out of her sight. All the while sobbing saying she wanted to get off and go home! Now really this was only a few seconds before we drove in to the familiar tune of Indiana Jones, but I think we may have scarred her for life! At this point I looked over at Beau who was sitting on the other side of Cora, yep...terrified. I was mildly relieved even with the snakes popping out in every direction as we traveled through Indiana Jones territory. That's when I looked at Luke and said "we still have to go through the horror film genre!" Now Luke had Sylvie, who never made a peep. I think she was too little to actually be scared, but she just looked around in wide eyed confusion having no idea what to think! But as long as Luke kept talking to her she stayed cool as a cucumber. Up next, you guessed it....horror. Luckily this section was very quick and consisted only of a few mummies and skeletons. Normally I don't think it would have even bothered Cora, but she was already so terrified that she continued to cry, hyperventilate and scoot as far away as possible! It was at this point where I was wondering how we were ever going to make it through this ride. I've never been so happy to see Tarzan in all my life. She finally began to calm down, however still asking me every 2.5 seconds if we were almost done. Finally we got to the last scene, The Wizard of Oz, when the ride broke. Yep smack in the middle of munchkin land and we are going nowhere. All I could think was thank God we didn't get stuck back in Alien!!!! We finally made it through the ride and got outside when Beau looks at me and says "Mom! Why would you make us go on that?!!?" Now don't get me wrong, it was a very cool ride, but to a 5 year old it was 20 minutes of sheer torture. For the rest of our trip before every single ride she would ask "is this going to be scary mom?" Needless to say we skipped Tower of Terror.
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| See how happy they look before the ride.... |
Hollywood includes lots of shows, so after Luke took Beau and Cora on the Star Wars ride, that's what the remainder of our day consisted of. We packed our lunch that day, and ate while watching Beauty and the Beast (which was a very cool little musical). I'd say our favorite show was the Lights, Motor, Action stunt show though. Once again it is made to look like you are on a movie set and they go through a series of stunts and then show you the tricks they use in the movies complete with a huge explosion at the end.
And that brings us to FROZEN. Ah Elsa, I'm not sure how you have managed to captivate every 5 year old girl on the planet, but you have done it well. I wasn't able to get a fast pass to meet the Frozen sisters, however not for lack of trying! Yes, I was up until midnight clicking the refresh button 30 days before our trip trying to score one of those babies, but to no avail. Anyway, I knew a 2 hour wait to see the Queen of Arendelle was probably not in the cards so this would be the only Elsa sighting of the trip. It was basically a half hour of Frozen karaoke, which left Beau less than thrilled. They did however, have hosts that put on a cute little comedic narration to make it bearable for the parents. Of course they made it look like Elsa would be coming out at the very beginning. Cora was literally on the edge of her seat! Just kidding, only Anna (poor Anna). Finally at the end of the show...is it really her?! Yes! Elsa has arrived. All kidding aside, I would sit through Frozen 1000 times to see that look on her face. I think she was slightly disappointed that Elsa didn't actually shoot ice daggers at the crowd, but she did make a bubbly "snow" fall on us. Even Beau (although he'll never admit it) thought that part was pretty cool. He tried to stifle his grin by complaining that "UGH! This stuff is getting all over me!" but he liked it. :)
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| Beau "NOT" enjoying himself |
Sylvie and Luke did not make it to the Frozen festivities. Sylvie was tired and going downhill fast in the line for the show. By the time we were getting in our seats she was in full fledged tantrum mode. Normally a quiet child, her tantrums are LOUD and angry! My husband in all his awesomeness left the show, managed to tame the beast, and somehow by the time we met again was pushing a sleeping angel cuddling with her blankie, and had a beer in hand. Like I said he rocks.
I'd like to tell you she took a good nap and woke up a well rested happy child. In reality, Beau and Cora immediately ran over to the stroller "WHERE'S SYLVIE? IS SHE SLEEPING?" as they proceed to stick their heads in the stroller. Well, no, not anymore! The tantrums weren't far behind as a groggy 2 year old turned around and demanded "nack....NACK!" Oh yes, remember those fruit snacks we continuously pumped her full of on the plane, yeah she had decided she would prefer that trend to continue throughout our trip and quickly discovered that the louder she screamed the more quickly we would shove a bag of fruity goodness in her face. This is just the reason that fruit snacks do not live in our house. I long ago realized that my children were not the kind of kids who you give a bag of fruit snacks and they nibble on them as they move about their day. I've seen kids do it so I know they exist. I've even seen kids consume a single gummy in multiple bites. Those children are not mine. No, in our house it looks more like dumping the entire bag in their hand and consuming the fist full in 2 bites, resulting in the entire box of said snacks being gone within an hour of arriving home from the store. Now, I do daycare, I knew as well as anyone that the only way to break the "NACK" cycle is to say no, let her scream and throw her fit while the answer remains no. However, you know when your kid is the one SCREAMING in the middle of a huge crowd and you get the feeling everyone is about to come at you with pitchforks and daggers if you don't make the noise stop? (no...just me??). Logically I know that every corner Disney World is filled with other moms and dads dealing with small children throwing massive sized tantrums and the only thing they were thinking was "thank God it's not my kid (at this second)", but in the moment.....pitchforks. Well we had reached a point where we had had all of the ridiculousness that we could take so.... I locked us in the companion bathroom, told her she wasn't putting anything else in her mouth until supper (I was not down on my knees using the patient understanding mom voice that the moms in the magazines use...you get the picture). The expected screaming ensued, I stared at her and did nothing (momentarily fueling her rage) until defeat turned the screams into sniffles. We walked out of the bathroom, crossed the road once again looking like a happy Disney family right to the Mickey ice cream (picture me hanging my head in shame). Some of the bathroom intervention must have stuck however because the "NACK!" demands returned to requests and were much less frequent for the remainder of our trip. I'm not going to lie, a trip to Disney includes almost an equal amount of parenting fails as it does "magical moments".
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| Mickey ice cream, don't judge ;) |
We finished our afternoon with a quick stop at the Honey I shrunk the kids playground, The Little Mermaid, and a Disney Junior show. We headed over to Pizza Planet for supper, which was pizza plus arcade games. I don't think I've ever seen Beau leave pizza on his plate before. Luke had given him a dollar to cash in for quarters (because Heaven forbid we dip into the $60 worth of quarters we had reserved for our pressed penny collection!). We were still finishing up our supper when we got to witness a teenage boy with a group of his friends leaving the restaurant. The boy noticed Beau struggling to feed his dollar into the change machine. He stopped helped Beau get his dollar straightened out, made sure he got his quarters and then ran to catch up with his friends. Just a little thing, but gives you hope for future generations doesn't it? I can only hope that I raise kids who will not be too busy or too
cool to stop and help others, even if it's just a "little kid" struggling to get some quarters. We finished with a few games before walking through the Art of Animation attraction. Although they weren't on Disney's character schedule for the day we were surprised to get to see Hiro and Baymax! It was extra lucky since Baymax was the one character Beau really hoped to see. Unfortunately we just missed the line cut off to meet them, so we had to try to get some pictures from behind the ropes, resulting in Hiro, Baymax, and random kids who got in on the meet and greet. We grabbed a book to organize our pressed pennies on the way out of the park. Sylvie fell asleep on the 10 minute drive back to the hotel, only to wake up fully rested for her nightly shenanigans.
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