For our first day in Walt Disney World, our first real day that is, we took the girls to Hollywood Studios. This is our only day scheduled in this park. We slept in this morning, as you can imagine. We’ve had almost no sleep leading up until now for around a week and with the drive and the late night in the Magic Kingdom last night – we were just beat. So we slept in very late and just took our time getting started this morning.
Our first stop of the day, and our one big set event, was not a ride but was getting lunch at the Hollywood & Vine where they do a Disney Junior character meal. Both girls love Disney Junior so this worked out really well as they were excited to meet characters that they really know well. The food was really good too. This was our first meal in Disney this year (other than the quick sandwich last night) and it was quite good. We were ready to eat too being so late in the day.
After the hectic meal, as character dinners are always a big, stressful deal, we went to our one really stand out favourite Hollywood Studios ride: The Great Movie Ride. That is one of the best rides in all of WDW and it is strangely hidden away in Hollywood Studios with all of the boring stuff. We rode it and Liesl just had so much fun. She thought that the whole thing was great and insisted that she was never scared at all, even though some parts of the ride are a little intense, like the shoot out scenes.
Next up was the Journey of the Little Mermaid stage show. It is a mixture of puppeteers and live action performers. It is pretty short but excellently done. Dominica had not really remembered it. The girls thought that it was cool.
Next up, Disney Junior… Live on Stage. Another live show and it was quite good. The girls really liked this too. We all had to sit on the floor, though, so it was decently uncomfortable by the end. It was entertaining and the actor who starred in it did a very good job.
We used our FastPass+ for the first time (it is new and exclusive to the Magic Bands) with Toy Story Mania. Liesl loved this, she did really well playing this three dimensional, full motion video game ride. I was really impressed by how well she was able to get into the game and she scored really well (it keeps track of points.) I think that she scored around a 37,000. Pretty good for a four year old on her first time on any ride like this, let alone this particular one and her first time playing a shooting video game.
Liesl wanted to see the Walt Disney Museum called “Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream” so I took her through that while Dominica took Luciana to deal with changing a diaper. Liesl liked it and wanted to stop and look at each of the exhibits. She was so cute. And the Disney girl watching over the exhibits sneaked over and gave her stickers because she was so good.
Next was Muppets 3D. This did not go over so well. The girls do not like the Muppets nor are they interested in 3D movies. And we had a pretty long wait before the movie started and the “show” that they do in the waiting area is not entertaining at all. It is supremely boring, actually, so the girls wanted to bail on the movie before we even got into it.
We did the Great Movie Ride again because the girls were getting restless and it was the one thing that Liesl really loved. We lucked out that we managed to get the “other” experience on the ride – for those unaware, there are two different “paths” that you can take through the ride. The stories don’t diverge too much but they do change a little and it made it a lot more interesting. Normally it is years between us getting to see the two different shows. This, I think, is the first time that I have seen both of them in one day. This time too, we were directly under the Alien and what wasn’t scary at all to Liesl the first time was surprising the second time and she screamed very loudly. It was hilarious.
We skipped tons of rides because we were tired and we did not want the girls to be upset about everything. So by early evening we were on the long bus ride back to the resort, the Pop Century. Our hotel room is in the 1980s section. We decided that we were so ready to just hang out in the hotel room that we just used a quick service meal from our meal plan to get food from the resort’s fast food court. I got the salmon burger which was very good, I highly recommend it.
We were in bed early. Probably before ten. Maybe even before nine! We were completely worn out but our first day was a success. A good starting meal and at least one classic ride that Liesl loved. Luciana is definitely much less excited about the rides than Liesl is, but we are really here for Liesl this time. We didn’t want to miss her being around five to really get that early, magical experience that you can only get when you are still young enough to not be completely sure which things are real and which are not. Although even in the really realistic parts of the rides that a lot of kids get fooled by, she did not have the slightest problem knowing that it was all pretend and that none of it was real but she still really enjoyed it.
Tomorrow we are off to the Magic Kingdom. We have to be up early because we have a now regrettably early breakfast planned at the Polynesian Resort.