After getting ready for the day, packing and reloading our things, and having some breakfast (Phil and I weren’t too impressed with breakfast, but Caleb ate 5 waffles, and I think Seth ate more than that); we drove to Hollywood Studios and reached the parking lot right at opening.
Bag checks… tickets at the turnstiles… handed them off to Phil… and he took off running! I really wish I’d thought to pull the video camera out at this point, because the kids were just in awe. Among our soundtrack was, “Wow!” and, “Dad took off like lightning!” and, “I didn’t know Dad could run that fast!” Please insert the Rocky theme music here…
Just minutes after park opening, we held 6 Toy Story Mania fastpasses for 12:15-1:15pm in our hands.
We took in the Little Mermaid show as well as Disney Junior. Miah is pretty excited at this point every time she sees, “The Mouse” (as she has dubbed both Mickey and Minnie). “Ducky” (both Donald and Daisy) are a close second.
What to do… what to do…
Back to Epcot in an attempt to ride Soarin’!
The park sign said that Soarin’ had a 55 minute wait, so I dragged my four biggest kids through The Land while Phil took off with Miah in an attempt to finish my penny quest. When we arrived at the Soarin’ entrance, the sign said 75 minutes instead of 55, and there were still fastpasses available for 2:55pm-3:55pm. Unfortunately, I did not have my phone on me, and Phil and Miah were already long gone with the tickets, so with no way to communicate with them, we got in line.
It was definitely 75 minutes, and it was definitely worth it. I didn’t expect Ian to love it, but he was in awe. Just moments into the flight, he turned and looked at me with huge eyes and said, “Is this real?” He wanted to ride it again, but we really didn’t have another 75 minutes…
Phil and Miah had a nice stroll around the showcase and presented me with pressed pennies from Japan and China. The machine in France is still broken… quest over.
With precious little time, we ran back to the parking lot… got in the van… drove across the street (in a sort of roundabout way) to Hollywood Studios (who would have imagined we would enter that park 4 separate times on this trip)… ignored the parking attendants and grabbed a better parking spot… ran to the entrance… went through bag checks and ticketing again… booked it to the ride… and presented our fastpasses for Toy Story Mania! This was especially exciting for Phil and Ian who did not get to ride in ’08, because Ian was sleeping! Toy Story Mania is a great ride, and for the first time in my life, I had the high score (amongst my family) on an interactive game ride, so it’s all good…
We stopped at Pizza Planet for lunch and sat in our “regular” spot with our favorite aliens…
And then it was time to say good-bye to the parks…
I had Phil drop me off at Downtown Disney to spend the remaining Disney Dream Reward Dollars we had accumulated, and he went to the Hess station with the kids to fuel the van and get ready for our return trip…
And I have been blogging ever since to make up for the crazy schedule we’ve kept on this trip!
Final thoughts to come…
Lisa
Day 15 Photo Count: 24
Photo Highlights:
Seth has the right idea... We're beat...
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