The second installment of the seven part series of my trip to Disney! It was real, it was fun, and I guess you could say it was real fun.
Enjoy!
Day 2
One thing I never understood about vacations are why you always wake up way earlier than you would on a weekend. But, there I was, waking up in the wee hours of the morning to get ready to head to our first park. Then again, I didn't really sleep all that much anyway. We got ready, packed our park bag, applied some SPF 50, and off we went to catch the Disney bus to our first park: Hollywood Studios.
Now, before we had left WV, I scheduled our FastPasses, made dining reservations, and pretty much planned each day to a "T". In order to do this, I did some really extensive research. I visited so many blogs, websites, and pretty much wherever my Pinterest search sent me. I looked at crowd calendars, checked restaurant reviews, and looked at each ride in the park (and also reviews of that ride). I wanted to experience everything and I wanted to make sure I fit it all nice and neat into my fun-filled week. This doesn't mean we didn't do our own thing and end up going off schedule, but we got to do everything we had planned and more!
Anyway, after all of my research and planning, we decided that Hollywood Studios was going to be our first stop and I have to admit, those crowd calendars are pretty legit. Tower of Terror was our first FastPass and we got there before our pass time, so we waited in line and still got right in. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but I enjoyed it much more than Wes.
(We're on the right side).
Wes was absolutely terrified. I thought it was great. Apparently heights and sudden drops really aren't his thing. Who knew?
He was really mad at me for making him ride it, but I think he was secretly thrilled!
Our next FastPass wasn't for a while, so we used our handy-dandy Disney app to see what wait times were like for the other rides. I also highly recommend this app, by the way.
We head on over to Rock 'n' Roller Coaster where we have a little bit of a wait, but not as long as it got later on in the day. But this ride was more than worth it! It was definitely our favorite roller coaster of *maybe* the entire trip. At least, it was for Wes. Even waiting in line wasn't bad. I got to serenade Wes with Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" and isn't that what really matters?
After our awesome roller coaster ride, we take a stroll through the park. Wes loves Star Wars so of course he was completely enamored by the huge stage where there would be performances and the Storm Troopers walking around. But we had better things to do. Like meet Olaf! We may have been the oldest people in line (aside from the parents, but at least they had kids with them), but I'm still a kid at heart so i was fine. And after all the fun Wes had in line waiting for Olaf and then getting cute pictures with him, we went to see more Frozen fun in "For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration".
We have some pretty great seats at this show, I'm talking like third row. We may also be the oldest people (aside from parents) in the theater, but ask me if I care! The show starts, it's a cute little story, but then I notice they're just retelling the movie and singing along to the songs. I whisper over to Wes, "How funny would it be if this whole show is just us literally singing along to songs from the movie?" Wes gives a half-hearted laugh because I think that might actually be his worst nightmare.
But, for me, it's a dream come true. I mean c'mon. I can sing as loudly as I want, surrounded by a bunch of little kids who know all the words to the songs, too!
And my dream did come true that day becasue that's exactly what that show was. By the end of it, I think Wes was secretly having a great time. I think he may have actually been singing along, too. But don't tell him I told you.
Lucky for him, the next thing on our schedule was food. And also the Beauty and the Beast show that started in about 30-40 minutes. Although the park food is obviously super expensive, I will say that it was pretty yummy. We ate at the little place across from where the Beauty and the Beast show was (chicken tenders, my staple in life) and then we ran straight over to the outside theater. It was seriously a perfect show. Also, if I was taller and could dance, I could be Belle. But don't get me started on Disney's height restrictions for princesses.
Next, we went to Pixar land, home of the Toy Story ride that Wes had been freaking out about all day. This is also when Wes discovered that the new land they were building was Star Wars, but I tuned him out after about ten minutes. The Toy Story ride was super fun, but I was super bad apparently. Or Wes cheated. I'm not sure.
After s trip back to the hotel for a couple of hours, we came back to the park for dinner (BBQ) and to explore around some more while we waited for the Fireworks to start. This is where all of our mistakes started. We looked through some shops until I finally gave in to Wes wanting to go to Star Wars land. We watched some little kids use the Force against Darth Vader (maybe Kylo Ren, they're both in black, I don't know) and then decided to get on a ride. Can I just remind you that not only did we just eat, but we both have been known to get motion sickness. And lucky for our weak stomachs, this ride was an inside ride that literally just turned and rolled and made me wish I had a barf bucket.
So there we were, sick and sad. Because right after we got off of the ride, the clouds rolled in, the lightning came out, and the rain came down. We quickly ran into a store to wait it out. Now, I knew storms in Orlando came and went out of nowhere. But, we waited forever in that store. And it's pretty hard to be trapped in a place that is full of things you like/want but really can't afford. (Disney prices are insane). Wes had had enough, and we tricked ourselves into buying those expensive rain ponchos that we should have bought for $1 before we left West Virginia. We called it quits on our day, saying there would be no fireworks in weather like this, and ran out the gates and to our bus.
As our bus pulled out, I look at the sky and see the sun come out, the clouds pull away, and rain disappear.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME FLORIDA? WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?
Disney-1 Bethany-0
The only thing I could do now is look forward to tomorrow: Universal Studios.