May 2011 Walt Disney World Trip Report - Day 6

Day 6 - 5/26 – Hollywood Studios and a Birthday Luau

She had been wearing her birthday pin religiously throughout the trip thus far, but today was DD’s actual birthday. When we had started looking at weeks in May for a trip, our initial priority was to pick a week before it got ridiculously hot (we have frequently gone in August) or ridiculously busy. Since most schools would still be in session in May, we thought that would be a great time to go. It dawned upon us that we could combine the trip with DD’s birthday – what better party could you hope for?

We packed some of DD’s birthday presents (books, Star Wars action figures) but left her largest present (a Littlest Pet Shop set) at home. We printed a picture of it and included it with her card and a note explaining that it would be waiting for her when we returned. Here she is pointing to the picture we printed.

After presents and a hurried breakfast, we hustled over to Hollywood Studios, arriving a little later than we usually do. We were a little nervous when we saw how long the lines at the turnstiles were.

We implemented the DHS Rope Drop Plan. After we went through the turnstiles, I collected the tickets and quickly (but without running) worked my way as close to the rope as I could. DW and DD, meanwhile, made their way up at a little more leisurely pace.

When the rope drops and we’re led over to Toy Story Mania, I stay as close to the front as possible, nimbly dodging four-year-olds being dragged by their parents, bags falling off strollers, etc. I get right into the FastPass lane and get FastPasses for the three of us. Meanwhile DW and DD head over to the standby line.

We usually arrive at the standby line at about the same time, and we ride together, with FastPasses in hand, and without subjecting DW and DD to most of the mayhem.

Once in the standby queue at park opening, it moves pretty fast. There’s always a holdup by the Mr. Potato Head while people take pictures.

After Toy Story we headed over to MuppetVision. Normally people would be heading over to Rock n’Roller Coaster, or Tower of Terror. But DD is frightened of Tower of Terror, and not tall enough for Rock n’Roller Coaster (which is one of DW’s favorites). We’re all fans of the Muppets, though.

On the way over we spotted these Star Wars shackles. They leave them up all week, even though they’re only used for Star Wars Weekends. Given some stuff that’s been going on at our house lately, I could have really used a set of these.

I like how everything at MuppetVision has a joke worked in.

After Muppets, the plan was to take DD to “The Bug Playground” while DW rides RnRC a couple of times in the Single Rider line. We had to stop for some more photo opportunities, though. Looking at this snowman picture gave me the idea of taking some Christmas Card photos at WDW during our October trip. Maybe bringing Santa hats or something.

 Unlike the crazy lines over the weekend, there was no wait to get onto the Speeder Bike.

We parted ways with DW, grabbed a quick trip on Star Tours riding standby, and then headed over to the Bug Playground. DD loves to organize the kids to pretend they’re ants and whenever the sound of the grasshopper plays, they all have to run and hide.

When she was younger I used to keep a closer eye on her, but now I camp out in a shady spot near the exit and ask her to come by every five minutes or so to check in. That way, I get to watch all of the parents on hands and knees crawling through tunnels after their kids, and I reminisce, which in my head sounds a lot like laughing.

After a couple of rides in Aerosmith’s super-stretch limo, we joined up with DW and had lunch at Pizza Planet. We had a really bad experience. The line took about 20 minutes to get through. This was at 11:30 with literally four people in front of us. None of the lines were moving. There were about 10 CMs on the other side of the counter looking alternately at us, and then back into the kitchen. But none of them were actually serving food.

Once we were served we went upstairs to find a table. They were all pretty messy (again, even though this was well before the lunch rush) but at this point we weren’t being picky. We wiped it down and ate.

This was a short day at DHS, because we had a birthday surprise for DD. We had reservations at the early Luau at the Poly. So we went back to the hotel for some swimming, and then got ready for dinner. DW found this tropical-themed dress for DD.

One of the things DD talked about a lot was how she wanted to drink out of a coconut. Since we read that they offered a tropical alcoholic punch in a coconut, we asked if they could bring milk or just water in the same thing. The waiter was more than happy to (charging us $10 for the souvenir coconut), and DD was excited.

The food was pretty good, but I thought the Spirit of Aloha show was really not very good. It was super campy. There’s a story line about a cousin leaving her family to go off to college. There were some fun parts, though. At one point they invited everyone celebrating a birthday to come up to do a Birthday Hula.

They also had a fire dancer who was really great. I’m not sure if he’s the same guy who juggles fire at the Festival of the Lion King show, but it was kind of like that, but a lot more intense.

After the show we made our way back through the Poly, with DD stopping for some photo opportunities. She broke into an impromptu hula dance by this palm tree.

We drove back to the hotel and went to sleep, with DD proclaiming it was the best birthday ever. It was no Chuck E. Cheese, I’ll tell you that much.

Tomorrow – Gramma in the hizzouse.

May 2011 Walt Disney World Trip Report - Day 5

Day 5 – 5/25 - Magic Kingdom & PhotoPass Phun

After staying out late the night before watching fireworks, we slept in a little this morning, got ready in a leisurely fashion and arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 10:00. We grabbed some FastPasses to see Mickey Mouse at the Town Hall, and headed straight for Frontierland to see what kind of waits were in store at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

We grabbed a FastPass for Splash Mountain and hopped on BTMRR. This time DD was much better about holding the ‘big arms” a little longer…

…but not too much longer.

From here we made our way over to the Haunted Mansion. We hadn’t had a chance to check out the new interactive queue, which had just opened. We had DD pose near the busts. Apparently, by reading the inscriptions and solving some kind of riddles, you’re supposed to be able to figure out who killed whom. But when it’s 90-degrees and sunny, playing Encyclopedia Brown wasn’t on the agenda.

 The new “hitchhiking ghosts” portion of Haunted Mansion is really cool. The way they’re able to make it appear that the ghost is removing your head – it’s pretty cool technology.

After Haunted Mansion we walked through to Fantasyland, grabbing FastPasses for Winnie the Pooh and riding the Carousel.

It was about lunchtime at this point, so we headed over to Cosmic Ray’s. As per usual, it was a mad house. DW and DD secured a table while I went to the different stations to get the food. I like that there’s a wide selection of menu items, but it gets so crowded in there.

After lunch I grabbed some FastPasses for Buzz, in case we came back to MK later in the evening, and we headed over to use the Pooh FastPasses we had collected earlier. From there we used the Splash Mountain FastPasses, and headed into Adventureland.

One of the attractions DD read about and wanted to try was the Swiss Family Treehouse. So while DW wisely waited in the shade below, DD and I climbed the gajillion steps and looked at what the Robinsons had built. I hadn’t been up there before, so it was kind of neat. DD absolutely loved it. When we were just about all the way to the top, I looked back down and noticed this:

Under that pavilion is an overflow queue. I *never* want to be at WDW when that overflow queue is needed for Swiss Family Treehouse. It’s a nice enough attraction, but really.

On our way out of the park we went in to see Mickey and Minnie at Town Hall with our FastPasses. What a great system! It’s so easy and quick to see them now. It used to be a long wait in ToonTown to get a picture with Mickey, but this new procedure is so much better.

It was when we were going to hand our PhotoPass card to the photographer that DW realized that she couldn’t find it. She searched through everything but couldn’t find it. We got a new one from the photographer, and then headed to the PhotoPass counter in Town Hall to see if they could help us out.

We had been using the card we lost for most of the trip, and it had all of DD’s Jedi Training Academy and Star Wars Weekend pictures on it. By telling the CM at the PhotoPass counter the time and location of one of the pictures, we was able to identify our card number and pull up all of the pictures that had been on it, transfer those over to a new card, and we were back in business.

He left us with this advice – take a picture (with a regular digital or cell phone camera) of the number of your PhotoPass card. That way, if you lose it, you’ll still be able to load the pictures into your PhotoPass account when you get back home.

With this lesson well learned, we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest, before cleaning up and heading over to the Poly for dinner. The Poly reminds us of a Las Vegas resort. It kind of smells like the Mirage or Treasure Island. The foliage inside is beautiful and they do a great job with the overall themeing.

Kona Café is one of our favorite restaurants. The food is wonderful – we’ve never had a bad meal there. It’s our usual “date night” place, when we drop DD off at Simba’s Cubhouse. But tonight we decided to bring her along.

After dinner it was back to the hotel. Tomorrow is DD’s birthday, and we’ve got to get to Hollywood Studios for Rope Drop in the morning!

May 2011 Walt Disney World Trip Report - Day 4

Day 4 – 5/24 – Magic Kingdom & Wishes

The morning started with more homework before we left for the parks.

There’s some debate about whether its faster to drive to the Magic Kingdom, park at the Ticket & Transportation Center, then take a monorail or ferry to the turnstiles, or simply take a bus from your resort directly to the MK, bypassing the T&TC altogether. Whenever we’ve had a rental car, we’ve driven. It’s usually 25 minutes or so from the time we get into our car in the AKL parking lot until we get to the turnstiles.

I say, “usually,” because for some reason, we were held on the monorail tracks just outside the MK station, for about 5 or 10 minutes. This made our trip about 30 minutes door-to-door. 

We were afraid we’d miss the welcome show, and we could see the Walt Disney World Railroad waiting on the tracks, full of the Disney characters. But we made it just in time and caught the show.

May 2011 Walt Disney World Trip Report - Day 3

Day 3 – 5/23 – Le Cellier

After a late night at Hyperspace Hoopla, we decided to take it easy and sleep in a little bit. Since we had pulled DD out of school for the week, her teacher was kind enough to prepare an assignment for her to do each day. It was a travel journal with questions to answer about each day, and a place for drawing a picture.

After homework was done and we were up and at ‘em, we headed over to Epcot. After grabbing some FastPasses for Soarin, we rode the Seas with Nemo and Friends, and headed over to Turtle Talk with Crush. In the queue area are a couple of tanks with some rays and fish. This puffer fish kept coming over to DD and it seemed like it was looking right at her.

May 2011 Walt Disney World Trip Report - Day 2

Day 2 - 5/22 - Star Wars Weekend

About a year before our trip, DD started getting into Star Wars. I don’t remember how it started, but over that period of time we watched the original trilogy together, she watched most of the first season of Clone Wars, as well as the Clone Wars movie, and I found some old Star Wars toys on ebay that she enjoyed playing with. Santa even brought her a lightsaber and some Star Wars books.

When I told her that Star Wars Weekends would be happening when we were at Walt Disney World, she had no idea what I was talking about. After I explained what Star Wars Weekends were, she got crazy excited.  If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a fantastic site that will have all the details: http://sww.studioscentral.com/main/.

In preparation for our trip, we made a couple of Star Wars-themed shirts for DD.

And so, appropriately dressed, we made our way to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We got there about 7:15, 45 minutes before parks were scheduled to open, anticipating huge lines. Not only was this the opening weekend for SWW, it was the opening weekend for the refurbished Star Tours ride.

We were confused when they let us through the turnstiles – apparently they had made the decision to open the park early. DW took DD into the long line for Jedi Training Academy sign ups, while I got Fast Passes for Star Tours. Because of the especially large demand for JTA during SWW, they do signups in the Indiana Jones theater, and run JTAs about every 30 minutes, using the normal stage, where participants battle Darth Vader, as well as the space in front of the stage, where participants battle either Darth Maul or Ventress.

DD was really excited to do JTA, but as we got closer to the front of the sign up line, she started to explain that she only wanted to do it if she could fight Darth Vader. She said Darth Maul would be too hard to defeat because he has a double-sided light saber. We explained that there wasn’t any way to guarantee who she’d fight, and that if she didn’t want to do it, she didn’t have to. And that even if she changed her mind at the last second and didn’t want to do it, it would be OK and we wouldn’t be upset.

So with that anxiety behind us, we headed over to the new Star Tours. The standby line was posted as only 5 minutes long, so we got right on, and when we were done, we rode it a second time. They did a fantastic job with it. Not only are the effects and sound better than ever, they have a randomized experience. Each ride, there are three separate segments, separated by two mini segments. When you calculate all of the possible combinations, there are 54 unique rides you can experience.