Hollywood Studios

Day Two: Disney's Hollywood Studios! 

I knew after our long day at Universal the previous day, it would be smart to take it easy at our Hollywood Studios day. I made the last minute decision to forgo trying to get to rope drop super early in an attempt to ride Slinky Dog Dash on standby, since we were unable to get a fast pass for it. We ended up leaving the condo around 8:00 a.m. and were on the streets of Hollywood about 8:30 with plenty of time to use the restroom and get oriented for the day. 

We were definitely in the back of this huge pack, which was fine with us. It was a bottleneck heading back to Toy Story land but the crowd around us was very civilized and we all gave each other space. Our group got a bit separated after the slinky dog line started to form which was right as the land started. We headed right to Toy Story Mania which was a walk on. It was a fun queue to walk! 

Bonkers! 

You can see the Slinky Dog line behind the kids in this photo. I loved this land, I wish it were less crowded so I could have taken in more of the details. I loved the Fisher Price camper kiosk- eeee!! So cute.

We decided to ride Alien Swirling Saucers next but the wait time bumped up significantly just as we got into line. I want to say we waited 30 minutes? It seemed like forever and it ate up the rest of our first touring hour. It was a really fun ride, and I'm glad we did it. 

Our fast pass window for Star Tours was open after our ride so we hopped on. It was fun, I hadn't ridden it since our first trip in 2006! We all rode it, no need to do rider switch for this one! 

Afterwards, we waited in a 25 minute line to see Olaf. Michael was cleary being impatient waiting in the boring queue so Scott took him to do some things one on one (like watch the Jedi Training and look around the star wars shop some more). 

The girls loved meeting Olaf! They were pretty shy about meeting their first character but weren't scared. 

We met back up for the Star Wars show at 11:30. It was a neat diversion, showcasing all the different characters. It lasted about 15 minutes and we could sit on the ground until it started. 

Afterwards we headed to the Indiana Jones Stunt Show which was....standing room only! What!? I swear I have never seen that theater full in all our visits. We were lucky to have a wall to sit on but the view was pretty limited. We still enjoyed it! 

After the show: sack lunch time! We found a nice space across from the Tower of Terror where the girls could eat and play a bit while we did rider switch for the ride. Michael ended up only riding it the one time, he was pretty freaked out. I was too- eek! 

For some reason the fast pass line was ridiculously long, taking what seemed like 20 minutes to board. The cast member told us only half the ride was running but when it was our time to load they had just opened up the other side so we were first to board it. Luckily, no mishaps! 

We finished our lunch and then got a Starbucks while Scott and Denise rode again. We got in line for Frozen Sing-Along and saved two seats for Scott and Denise who joined us at the last second. We decided to skip our Toy Story Mania fast pass as the rider switch took so long with the long fast pass line on Tower of Terror plus we did not want to navigate the crowd all the way through the park again. I would have liked to ride it again, but we were happy with our rope drop riding. It was the only thing we had to skip on our plan! 

When on vacation, right? 

We LOVED the Frozen show and it was so fun to sing along to the music. Even the elderly gentleman next to me got into the spirit and Scott, too! :) The best part was the fake snow at the end, it was cold! The historians were so funny, I was laughing out loud the whole time. 

We had just enough energy and time left in our itinerary to visit some Star Wars characters! Up first was Chewy, yay! 

He did NOT like Michael's Darth Vader shirt! hehe

The line for Chewy went faster than anticipated so we hoped into the line for Kylo Ren and met him in just a few minutes. He was not one for small talk and I can see why people got through so quickly! He was reading our minds and told us "leave him with his thoughts". It was pretty neat, and a little spooky. 

He didn't ask me if I wanted to go to the Dark Side with him, only Michael. :( I would have said yes, Kylo!! 

That was a wrap on our day and we headed back to the condo for some swimming, dinner, and games! 

Overall it was a good day at Hollywood Studios. I feel like we did plenty and still kept it to a short day. I would have liked to do a few other things like Beauty and the Beast or Little Mermaid but adding new things like the character greetings and Frozen show changed that up a bit. It would have also been fun to go back at night for Fantasmic or the fireworks show but it is such a hassle to get everyone loaded up again, parked, etc that we decided just to use the time to enjoy our beautiful resort instead.