Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Florida Trip! Day 3 - Hollywood Studios & Magic Kingdom

This was another early morning, but we were meeting a friend, so we had to get our bums up. My friend from high school, Nan, was getting us in free (I know, right?) and met us at Disney's Hollywood Studios (it will always be MGM to this former Great Movie Ride employee!) We started heading over toward the re-done Star Tours ride, where the line was longer than we wanted, but we toughed it out. (Complaint-Disney doesn't have an actual baby swap, they just give you a fast pass for the second person to go, so you still wait twice.) We were pretty unimpressed with the ride, and we got away from there as quickly as we could because it was... Star Wars Weekend! Augh! We didn't want to be caught up in that mess. I watched the kids have a blast at the Honey I Shrunk the Kids play area while Jeff went on Rocking Roller Coaster, then all went to Muppets 3D. We waited in line to see Buzz and Woody, and that was really the end of our time there! We wanted to try the Toy Story ride they had there, but the line was an hour and the girls were tired, plus we were hungry. The line to see them took you through all these scenes from the movies that you could pose in for pictures (in a toy package, under the crate, strapped to the rocket.) Amie was pretty enchanted with Buzz and Woody - the Toy Story series makes the top of her list!

Lisie could not stop staring at the giant Woody!!

We headed out of Studios and opted for the car. We left Disney property to drive through for lunch at Checker's. This is some awesomely greasy fast food we don't have in Utah. It didn't disappoint! (We had to drive through a McDonald's, too, though to get milk for Lisie. Milk's not exactly Checker's fare.) This was a good move, as the girls got a nap while we were driving all around.
After our lunch foray, we headed to Magic Kingdom (of course with Amie wearing her Sleeping beauty dress.) I should note that the moderate temperatures and torrential rain of the day before were long long gone! That storm passed, leaving a blazing 97 degree sun in it's wake! Amie was pretty enchanted with the castle and kept asking if she could "go on it."

We got there right as the afternoon show in front of the castle was finishing up, and awhile before the parade. We walked kinda leisurely down Main Street, while we formed our plan of attack, which was to start in Fantasyland. On our way, we saw the meet and greet for Rapunzel, and hopped in line. We came to discover that this line is usually up to 2 hours, and our wait was just under 30 minutes!! I'm pretty sure that's because it was almost parade time. The line happened to be on black top with no shading, and we waited from 2:30-3 in the afternoon. I absolutely CAN NOT stress how awful this was! I was genuinely starting to worry about my little babes and heat exhaustion. One of the cast members even came over to us on her own and started telling us about their first aid and baby care. It may or may not be true, but I don't recall ever feeling so hot in my life! Thank goodness it was only a half hour! Anyway, they bring in a certain number each hour, and do a bit of a show. Each child gets a coloring page and crayons, then they put on the Rapunzel music and do a dance with them, A La town-square-dancing scene from the movie. It was super cute! Rapunzel and Flynn then come out and while you wait, you get your picture with a stuffed Pascal, which our girls loved. From the SECOND Rapunzel came out, Amelie was totally in love! When she is overload-excited, instead of her usual, loud jumping around, she just gets really quiet. She was silent for our entire wait, and just stared with her hint of a smile. I never thought I'd say it, but it was absolutely magical, and I'd gladly wait that wait again! When it was our turn, Amie just walked straight to Rapunzel and stood right in front of her, didn't really say much. Rapunzel said how beautiful Amie's pink dress was, and that she had a pink one, too, back at her castle:

Amelie STILL talks about that dress conversation! You can see Flynn in the back signing her color page.
Lisie and I caught up while Jeff manned the camera. Flynn gave some remarks about needing to get Alisa a frying pan after one of her great stern faces.

Amie is in pure heaven!
One last hug. I felt bad taking her away from them!
So, the little socket where we plug the charger into our camera has been broken for awhile now, and we were saving up the last juice in our good camera for this one particular meet up. I'm so glad we did! (We brought our ghetto camera for a few other shots.)
When we finished there, we did some major hydrating and shady resting before Jeff and I took turns with the girls while we fastpassed space mountain (he'd picked up one while we were in line for Rapunzel, then got a baby swap FP for the other.) We also went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, and Amie also still talks about shooting all the bad guys-she loved it!
We also headed over to the teacups. We didn't spin a bit, but Alisa was still a little unhappy with it. Amie had fun. We then waited in our longest Disney line, Dumbo, but the girls enjoyed that. Lisie even seemed to be loosening up by then. In Fantasyland, near Dumbo, they are doing a huge expansion, and had construction-blocking fences up everywhere, with life-size pics of characters all over. Amie kept wanting me to stop and take a picture of her with all of her favorites! (Belle, Dopey, the Beast:)
I have no idea where she got that finger crossing thing from, and she does it at the funniest times! Mickey's Toontown is also closed, I think for good, because of this. Bummer! I knew the girls would have liked it. Last thing we did in that area was Mickey's Philharmagic. We'd gotten many recommendations to go on it, plus it was very air-conditioned, so we did it, but I was unimpressed. Plus, the girls have a hard time with the whole 3D thing. After that, we knew we needed grub and ate at Pecos Bill's, then headed to Haunted Mansion, which we all enjoyed, then walked around by some other rides we were planning on going on, but by this time, the girls were falling asleep, and once they were out, we decided to just go. I was the only one sad about missing the parade and fireworks, but I decided a shower and going to sleep were plenty to console me! They totally did the trick.

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