Disney 2012 Post 2: A talking potato and a plummeting elevator

Sunday morning burst forth with sunshine and it was time to hit the parks. We gnoshed on the breakfast items we had packed, threw all our stuff in our suitcases, and sent them with Bell Services to be transferred over to our home for the rest of the week, Bay Lake Tower.

Then it was off to the dock to catch a ferry ride to Hollywood Studios! I love this park!! Now, our plan/goal for this trip was to take it easy, do our favorites, and some new things, but also to be sure to have some 'chill' time every afternoon. There is a lot to do at Hollywood Studios...and we just did not get it all done! But we tried some new stuff and had a great time!

Toy Story Midway Mania is the most popular ride at HS in the sense that it's line is always the longest, and the fastpasses usually run out by about 1p.m. Travel tip: when you go to HS, be there at opening, and send someone in your party ahead with all the park tickets to get fastpasses for Toy Story. I had Matt do this, and we caught up with him there. Our fastpasses were for 10:30-11:30, but it was about 9:05 a.m. and the line hadn't really formed yet, so we went ahead and hopped on for our first spin.

The line area in this ride is so fun. 

"What? You've never seen a talking potato before?"

Giant tinker toys and lincoln logs 

If you have the TSMM Wii Game, this ride is pretty much like riding right through it. It's a fun ride for all ages, hence the popularity. While I wouldn't say it's the BEST ride at this park (I'd say that is Rockin Roller Coaster), it's the most popular because it's fun and for everyone!

After our first spin on Toy Story, we went over and caught the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show. We had not been to it before, and it was cute. The girls liked it. I tried to get some pics but they weren't fabulous. Part of the show they had these brightly colored sea puppets that were illuminated with black light. The people running them were all in black, so all you could see were the fish 'floating' around, etc. It was cool.

We hit the Great Movie Ride (which isn't bad but the girls don't like it), then went back to Toy Story to use our FPs.

I don't know how I failed to get pictures at Tower of Terror. We had spent months measuring Hannah to see if she would be tall enough for the 40" rides. Well, she made it! We had also bought the cheesey movie "Tower of Terror" so the girls could learn the story of the ride and not be so scared. I gotta say, Brooke is pretty much just a chicken no matter how much you prep her, but I'll give her kudos for trying it once.

We went on Tower of Terror, all four of us. And it was the BEST drop sequence Matt and I have ever been on! Perhaps a little too good for the girls' first experience?! I didn't buy the photo but in it Brooke and I are looking over at Matt and Hannah, and they are looking over at us. It was pretty classic. Brooke had an "oh shit" look on her face and Hannah had one of shock.

We got off that ride and Hannah said "I want to ride it again!!" Brooke said no, but it was about time for us to use our Fastpasses for Rockin Roller Coaster. So Matt and Hannah went and rode Tower of Terror AGAIN while Brooke and I went to Rockin Roller Coaster.

My.Favorite.Ride.In.The.Whole.Place.

SO So SO fun. Brooke didn't mind it but was not thrilled and wouldn't go again. :) Go figure. Maybe in a few years she'll be a thrill junkie.

Matt went to take his turn on the coaster, and the girls and I sat down to have a popsicle and cool off a bit. It was getting toasty pretty fast!

After this, we had hit most of our 'must do's' for this day, and were hot and hungry. We decided to take a bus over to Bay Lake Tower to see if our room was ready. The long travel day from the day before still had us kinda tired. We got to our home away from home, and God Bless America-our room WAS ready. We hit the Contempo Cafe for a yummy lunch before we went up to the room.

Since we were on the Disney Dining plan, all of our 'fast food meals' included a dessert. The Contempo has some AMAZING desserts. I got a dulce de Leche cupcake that day....and let me tell you, it was the BEST cupcake I have EVER EATEN. And that's saying a lot, because I make some good stuff! :) And then they didn't have it the rest of the week. Seriously that cupcake may have been the highlight of my day, it was so fabulous.

After some rest, and maybe a little swim (can't remember), we changed our clothes and headed off to the Grand Floridian for dinner.

Here is Hannah's attitude about that time. She was tired and she needed some food.

Funny how she chippered right up when her favorite Princess came to see us!  

The step-sisters were hysterical. 

After dinner it was off to the Magic Kingdom. Of course, this is our favorite park. It was a gorgeous evening and it wasn't too crowded. First week of May is a great time to go to Disney.

I love taking pictures of the girls walking in front of me. I always do it at the pumpkin patch too.

What is it about a Carousel that is so magical?! It makes everyone smile!

But not as much as the TEACUPS!!!! The girls and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the teacups. I love to spin them a lot!

All four of us squeezed into one teacup on the first go round. Mistake! There was NOWHERE for our legs to go! I think my feet were sitting on Matts. Funny.

We then went over to check out the new Dumbo ride! They are expanding Fantasyland (a lot), and making Dumbo into a double carousel ride, which  is good becuase there is always a line for Dumbo. It looks so pretty at night, and love that it is over water now.

After Dumbo, we decided to catch the train at the new Fantasyland train station back to the main gate. While we were waiting, I had one of those "What would you do" moments. You know that TV show? You should watch it, it's on Fridays. Anyways, we were standing behind this couple that had about a 3 year old boy in a stroller. The Train Cast Member came down the row talking to people and told the couple "You'll need to get him out of the stroller and get it folded up before the train gets here, because we can't have strollers out on the platform". She was very nice, just giving them a heads up so they could get their crap together, you know? Well the mom goes "I am NOT getting him out of that stroller now" and the worker said "Well, you do need to please before the train arrives at the station." The mommy got really pissy and said "Well, then YOU can hold him while he's screaming!" The girl just said "sorry" and walked back down the way. The mom then went on a tirade to her husband as they were gathering their stuff and their son "Did you hear how she talked to me? She told me I HAD to take him out RIGHT NOW. Why does she get to tell me what to do? I'm going to complain. That's just ridiculous. Oh that makes me so mad"..... she totally blew it out of proportion and was so very rude to the worker. I told Matt "I feel like I'm on 'what would you do'...like I should lean over and tell the lady that she was just explaining the procedure and policy to make boarding the train smoother for everyone".... and news flash. The train was there like 2 minutes later, and the kid didn't fuss AT ALL while they were holding him and waiting. It really was crazy. Why do people act like that?!

Anyways, one of the three things on my list of things to do this trip that we had not done before was catch the night time parade. We made it to the Main Street Station about 10 minutes before it started. I thought "oh, no...it's late, we're tired, whatever, we just won't do it' but Matt said "well we are right here where it starts and there's a spot up on the balcony where we can watch it!" The girls were not falling apart yet, so we decided to go ahead and watch it. The pictures were only so-so because i don't have a very fancy camera and the balcony rail was kind of in the way. But I'm glad we stayed, we loved it! Everything is more magical when it's lit up with lights! And one thing was officially checked off of my 'must do' list!

The Dwarfs loot 

As soon as the last float came by, we snuck down the stairs and got out of the park before the crowd. I imagine most people stuck around for fireworks, but we knew we'd catch those another night. It was a nice walk from Magic Kingdom to our hotel, and we crashed quickly!