Disney World Day Two – Hollywood Studios

On Friday, we went to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

We made plans to go to Hollywood Studios on this day because my sister had arranged for us to attend a character brunch at 11.  Even though it was obviously totally for the boys, the whole family attended, which was sweet of them (to pay $35 a head for mildly decent food and a chance to meet Jake the Neverland Pirate, which is frankly only thrilling to humans under the age of about 8).

When we walked in and approached the giant hat, we saw Donald Duck loitering around allowing pictures to be taken with him.  As this was the first (and last) time we ever saw a character that the kids could meet that didn’t have at least an hour wait, we hustled them into line and the Professor caught a photo.

Then everybody went and rode on some rides I couldn’t do, and I wandered about checking out various things, such as this Statue of Miss Piggy-Liberty outside the Muppet Ride.

This was the start of my own personal Most Boring Disney Day.  Not a huge fan of Hollywood Studios.  I would have liked the Star Wars Ride and Tower of Terror, but couldn’t do it. We went to take the kids on the Toy Story ride, but after we waited in line for forty minutes the ride “broke down until further notice,” and we never had the heart to try again.  The rest of Hollywood Studios is all shows, shows, shows, kid shows and stunt shows and that sort of thing.  We tried.  We would get to a line and discover we’d have to wait through 2-3 showings of the thing before we could actually get in the theater,  and meanwhile Liam is losing his mind with the boredom of waiting, so then we’d skip over to another line that was shorter and get in a show and then Jack would freak out because it was dark, and I’d have to leave with him.  (Jack’s sensory sensitivities reared their ugly head on this trip – when he was just acting sort of normal-afraid we’d usually make him stay, but occasionally he reached a level of wild fear that required a hasty exit . . . or he’d be normal-afraid, but whining so loudly that he was ruining the experience for others, so again I’d take him out and then sit stew about how boring it is to just sit and wait outside of rides, blech.)

We whiled away the morning line-hopping until 11 am, and then it was time to meet a bunch of humans dressed as cartoon characters.  My sister had booked this particular character brunch weeks before as it was the only one with spaces left in any of the parks for the entire time we were there.  She was stressed that the characters – admittedly somewhat B-list Disney Junior guys – would not impress the children and it would be a waste.  SHE WAS TOTALLY WRONG YOU GUYS.  They freaking LOST THEIR MINDS at this thing.  It was truly the only fun thing I really did at Hollywood Studios.

You basically go in at your “seating time” and there’s a buffet, the characters stand at the front and do dances every twenty minutes or so, and otherwise walk around and greet the children.  Since they can’t talk, and we truly have no idea who’s under those suits (I think they’re usually girls, because girls are smaller, but not necessarily), I found it all mildly creepy.  But not my boys.  Jack especially was very earnestly into the whole thing, leaping up to dance every time they did a little dance number, and waiting patiently for his turn to meet them as they walked around, his eyes always laser focused on Jake, wherever he was.

After we’d heard Handy Manny sing “You break it, we fix it!” four hundred thirty seven times, and had taken pictures with the characters at least three times, it was time to go.  We all headed out and then split up again – my mother stayed with our nuclear family, and everyone else went to ride Tower of Terror again.

We did more unsuccessful line-hopping, bought Jack a $17 spraying fan thing as his present for the day (he really did love that thing), and finally made it into a line for a show that was not an unreasonably long wait.  This was another Disney Junior show, with little vignettes by the characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  As these shows are all huge favorites at my house, I figured it’d be a success.  I did NOT figure that my huge pregnant butt was going to have to sit on the FLOOR for this one, but as we slowly filtered into the theater and I noticed that it lacked seats, I resigned myself to my fate.

The boys loved this one – no fears or tears from Jack.  It was cute – puppets mostly, with one live person leading the show.  At different points they rained down bubbles, fake snow, and even confetti on us, which Jack and Liam carefully collected and grubbily shoved into their pockets, where it would remain until I did the wash, at which point it would cover an entire load of laundry in little bits of paper.  Ahhh, Disney mem’ries.

And that was it for us for the day.  We left at maybe 3 or 4.  Since, again, everything closed early that night unless you wanted to pay $65 more per person to get back into the park you’d already bought a daylong ticket for, to go to Mickey’s Stupid Halloween Dumb Party.  Which we did not.  So we grumpily went back, put both kids down for a nap, and spent the rest of the evening in the hotel, eating PB&J for dinner.  LAME.

I was determined to take the following day by storm, however.  And take it by storm we did . . .