TheOneWithTheTriplets
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2018
Park Day Five: Hollywood Studios (TP Crowd Level Predicted and Actual 8)
After our long day at Animal Kingdom, the girls managed to sleep until 6:45am. This was still earlier than their typical wake up, but I took it as a win. We were slated to have a lazy-for-us morning, which meant we wouldn’t have to be downstairs for our breakfast reservation until 8:45am. We let the girls zone out to Dis Jr, I went down to grab coffee for the adults, and we started the oh-so-fun process of rolling dirty clothes into packing cubes. Since we hadn’t planned any total rest days this trip, I had built in a few chunks of time for the girls to decompress and the adults to keep the mess in the room to a minimum. Once we had dirty clothes shifted into the suitcase and the rest of the clean clothes pulled out, the adults even had a little time to mess around on the internet before our ADR. The forecast was 85 degrees and sunny, so we dressed accordingly and headed down to breakfast.
Our Bon Voyage Breakfast ADR was for 8:45am, but they were fine with us checking in ten minutes early. The hostess told us it would be about a 15-minute wait and suggested we grab a seat in the already crowded waiting area. Once again, I asked for a text instead so that we could wander and she was happy to oblige. For anyone traveling with young children, I think table-ready text is a must. Even if it just means getting a little energy out in front of the restaurant, being able to move is much better than being crammed into a tight waiting area answering the “But, when, Mommy?” question a dozen times.
On our way out to the boardwalk, I was flagged down by the mom of the chatty twins from our AK bus wait the morning before. She wanted to thank me for the advice on FoP drop times as she, too, had been able to score same day FPs for her family of five, much to the kids’ delight. I was thrilled to hear it had worked for her, too, because those boys really wanted to ride it. While we were chatting, Hubby and the girls headed out front and you’ll never guess what they did.
I’m not sure why they were making a “shush” face, but they got a kick out of it. Soon after their pictures were done, we got our text at 8:47am and were promptly seated. The characters were all on break, so we could actually get the girls to focus on selecting their meals before the CM came to take our order. There were no specialty drinks included on the DDP for the kids, so they got juice and the adults got coffee and adult beverages. Hubby went for a mimosa and I repeated the magic star cocktail. I also asked the CM to wait to being those until the food was out as both of us wanted to enjoy them with food in our stomachs.
The pastry plate that comes out to start was awesome. All of the treats were tasty, although our crew was unanimous that the chocolate croissant was the best. The plate was a bit small for a typical family of five, though. I was glad we didn’t have too much as I broke things up for the girls to each have a small taste without filling up on sweets. If your kids are older or aren’t going to share, I would suggest asking for a second pastry plate right off of the bat.
Our food came out just as Rapunzel and Flynn were being announced.
They took a quick walk around the restaurant together, then started meeting separately. We were at the back of the room, so we had about ten minutes to eat before our first visit. Everyone liked their meals, but the breakfast calzone was the star of the show. Hubby and I both wanted to order it but we knew it’d be way too much food, so we agreed to split that and the steak and eggs. The steak was good, don’t get me wrong, but the calzone was phenomenal. Half was plenty for each of us, but, if we had to do it again, I think we’d have ordered one to eat and one to go straight up to the fridge in our room; it was that good. The Tangled crew made their way to our tables while we ate.
The characters at this meal were great. They were fun to interact with and two of them are unique to the meal. Plus, the small space meant the wait was always short and we were able to see them coming with plenty of notice to wipe sauce off of faces and get autograph books ready. Eric and Ariel were then announced and the kids were invited to swim along with them in a parade around the restaurant. The girls took the direction literally, using a combination of freestyle stroke and diving to make their way around.
Forgive the photos, but my action shots are all blurry. They started swimming with moderate enthusiasm and, as the parade rounded past Rapunzel and Flynn, she said, “Oh my gosh, look, they’re actually swimming.” That’s all my little hams needed to hear to kick it into high gear; they were going to dive their way all the way around the room. After the parade, Eric and Ariel started greeting at the front of the room and our server came to check on us. He wanted to apologize about the wait for our drinks as the bartender was doing double duty running food and had gotten backed up. Hubby and I were both happy to take our drinks to go, as we would rather enjoy them at our leisure. We also asked for the check, since we our meal was otherwise winding down and Eric and Ariel were only a few tables away.
The Little Mermaid was always my favorite, so I had to get a solo shot with Eric, too! He was quickly followed by Ariel, who told the girls that they were the first guests to swim with her in the parade. They wanted to commemorate the occasion accordingly.
Drinks in hand, we were swimming our way out of the meal at 9:38am, not quite an hour after our ADR. We loved this breakfast and would recommend it again in a heartbeat. The food and characters are both awesome, it doesn’t require navigating a buffet line, and it’s the least expensive character meal on property. The cost didn’t matter for us on the DDP, but this is a meal that I wouldn’t hesitate to do OOP as well. If we hadn’t been staying right at the Boardwalk, I would have grabbed the latest breakfast you can get at noon and walked over to enjoy it as a lunch after RDing either Epcot or the Studios.
We headed back to our room to grab the strollers, change our outfits (the princess dresses for this meal had either been worn earlier in the trip or were earmarked for a full day later), and started walking over to Hollywood Studios. We were trying to make a FP for the 10:30am Frozen Sing Along. When I had booked it, I assumed that we would probably miss it, but at least it would use up one of our tier 2s. However, with our breakfast going so quickly, we had a solid shot at making the show as long as we were efficient getting into the park. On the boards, this walk is estimated as 15-20 minutes, but, even with strollers, we were closer to 10. Hubby and I are both runners who are perfectly comfortable speed walking with strollers, even in the heat. Granted, it wasn’t midday midsummer heat, but it wasn’t cool out, either.
We were through security quickly when I saw a character training happening off to the side. We were making good time, and I was sorely tempted to go over, but my girls hadn’t seen Mary Poppins yet and it was Bert who was out at that time. Despite the fact that I wanted to go meet him, I decided to play it safe and head straight in to use our FP. We tapped through, found the stroller parking by the theater, and were at the tap point just before 10:15am when they’d open things for standby. It was at that moment that C realized she didn’t have her magic band on and had no idea where it had gotten to. Luckily, I had brought along the RFID cards we got with our Undercover Tourist tickets. Before traveling, I wasn’t sure if the girls would actually want to wear MBs all day, and I didn’t want to end up with a sleeve of them, so I tossed the cards in a small change purse in the park bag. I fished out C’s card, tapped her in, and we found seats.
What a fun show! We had excellent historians for this showing who had us laughing out loud from start to finish. There was one moment where I was laughing so hard tears were rolling down my cheeks, although the drink from breakfast that I had brought in may have been a factor there. The girls loved it too, despite the fact that a lot of the jokes went over their heads. It was a Frozen show and they were five-year-old girls, so it was always going to be a win for them.
After the show, we tried to cut across the park toward our next FP, but we were briefly detained.
I hadn’t put the march into our plans because everyone says it runs so often it’s nearly impossible to miss, and that proved true for us as well. March complete, we loaded the strollers and headed up to use our next FP at Tower of Terror. All five of us had FPs booked, as the girls exceeded the shockingly low height requirement of 40”, but I knew we weren’t getting them on it. On FP day, I booked for everyone just in case they decided to go for it, but, after their displeasure on Soain’ and FoP which only simulate heights, I wasn’t sending them anywhere near a drop of that intensity.
At 11:14am when we got to the CM issuing rider swaps, there was a small mob of people tapping into the FP line so I left Hubby and the girls a few steps back and went up to get swaps. I told her my kids were tall enough but terrified of the ride, that Hubby would ride on FP, and that I’d need a swap. She loaded the swap and confirmed that it would be good until the end of the day. Hubby tapped in and headed into the line. I quickly used our RFID cards to just tap in the rest of us and use our second tier 2 FP. Knowing that the system can be spotty at treating an expired tier 2s as “used” for the sake of picking up additional tier 1s, I felt more comfortable physically tapping ours and knowing they were spent.
The girls and I hit the bathroom and then doubled back toward a coin press station we had spotted at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Blvds. The walkways were nowhere near as crowded as AK had been, so moving with the three of them was considerably less stressful. On the way, we saw a PP photographer with no line and decided to have a little fun. I told her that we were just killing time waiting for Hubby and asked what magic shots she had. She thought about it for a minute, smiled, and then said, “Let’s have some fun.”
We spent about 5 minutes running through her repertoire. She actually did the balloon and chip shots with each of the girls getting to hold them in turn, which they really appreciated. Once we had done every magic shot she had, we continued down and pressed our penny as planned. We also had time to limbo under a slinky dog and browse the shops before Hubby caught back up with us.
We made our way into Toy Story Land to use our last FP of the morning. As soon as we got in the land, we started to feel the lack of shade and pulled over for a sunscreen break. The land was busy enough that there wasn’t a way to get out of the way, but we huddled off to the side near a little merchandise cart. Just as we finished up, another set of troops marched by.
We marched behind them to where they set up their show and decided to watch. There was a group of high school (maybe college?) age kids waiting, one of whom had brought her own drumsticks. The sergeant spotted her right away and told her to keep them out for later. About three quarters of the way through their set, he invited her up to show off her skills.
She did a great job, and he gave her a set of his own green sticks at the end, too. If you have a percussionist in the family, it may be worth bringing along a set of sticks and seeing what happens. When the performance was done, we ended up marching behind the army men again on the way to Slinky Dog. At 12:14pm, they headed over to perform for the standby line while we whizzed by with our FPs. The family just ahead of us in line was a set of parents with a girl about our trio’s age. The kids started chatting and I asked the mom if she would mind if we went up to the CM as a party of 8 so that our extra child could ride with their extra parent. They were happy to oblige and we were boarding our coaster at 12:22pm.
Important note: if you want your small kids to be visible in the ride photo, put them in the front or on the right in the car. Four of us loved this ride, but B was on the fence. She liked parts of it but said some of it made her belly feel weird. She’s the type that needs to try a ride a couple of times before she feels confident: at our local amusement park, she used to be very hesitant on the coaster but now she wants to ride every visit. Unfortunately, the nature of a Disney trip is very different from being passholders who can visit a park all summer long, so we didn’t have enough rides on any of the coasters for her to totally get over her anxiousness and just enjoy them. The rest of us had a blast, though, and she wasn’t upset enough that it lingered past the ride exit.
Our coaster ride complete, we weren’t totally sure about what to do next. The plan was to grab lunch and see the Frozen show, but no one was hungry yet and our excellent timing in the morning meant we’d already knocked the show off our to-do list. While we were considering the Little Mermaid show and looking up times for the next Indiana Jones, the girls asked if we could go back to swim at the pool. While we hadn’t planned to leave the park so early, it was only getting hotter as the day wore on. Plus, our second HS day was only slated to be a half-day as the park didn’t hold two full days worth of touring for us, especially with Beauty and the Beast under refurbishment during our trip. Since we had a few hours to play with and we weren’t sure how many good pool days we’d actually get, we agreed with the kids and headed for the exit.
After our long day at Animal Kingdom, the girls managed to sleep until 6:45am. This was still earlier than their typical wake up, but I took it as a win. We were slated to have a lazy-for-us morning, which meant we wouldn’t have to be downstairs for our breakfast reservation until 8:45am. We let the girls zone out to Dis Jr, I went down to grab coffee for the adults, and we started the oh-so-fun process of rolling dirty clothes into packing cubes. Since we hadn’t planned any total rest days this trip, I had built in a few chunks of time for the girls to decompress and the adults to keep the mess in the room to a minimum. Once we had dirty clothes shifted into the suitcase and the rest of the clean clothes pulled out, the adults even had a little time to mess around on the internet before our ADR. The forecast was 85 degrees and sunny, so we dressed accordingly and headed down to breakfast.
Our Bon Voyage Breakfast ADR was for 8:45am, but they were fine with us checking in ten minutes early. The hostess told us it would be about a 15-minute wait and suggested we grab a seat in the already crowded waiting area. Once again, I asked for a text instead so that we could wander and she was happy to oblige. For anyone traveling with young children, I think table-ready text is a must. Even if it just means getting a little energy out in front of the restaurant, being able to move is much better than being crammed into a tight waiting area answering the “But, when, Mommy?” question a dozen times.
On our way out to the boardwalk, I was flagged down by the mom of the chatty twins from our AK bus wait the morning before. She wanted to thank me for the advice on FoP drop times as she, too, had been able to score same day FPs for her family of five, much to the kids’ delight. I was thrilled to hear it had worked for her, too, because those boys really wanted to ride it. While we were chatting, Hubby and the girls headed out front and you’ll never guess what they did.
I’m not sure why they were making a “shush” face, but they got a kick out of it. Soon after their pictures were done, we got our text at 8:47am and were promptly seated. The characters were all on break, so we could actually get the girls to focus on selecting their meals before the CM came to take our order. There were no specialty drinks included on the DDP for the kids, so they got juice and the adults got coffee and adult beverages. Hubby went for a mimosa and I repeated the magic star cocktail. I also asked the CM to wait to being those until the food was out as both of us wanted to enjoy them with food in our stomachs.
The pastry plate that comes out to start was awesome. All of the treats were tasty, although our crew was unanimous that the chocolate croissant was the best. The plate was a bit small for a typical family of five, though. I was glad we didn’t have too much as I broke things up for the girls to each have a small taste without filling up on sweets. If your kids are older or aren’t going to share, I would suggest asking for a second pastry plate right off of the bat.
Our food came out just as Rapunzel and Flynn were being announced.
They took a quick walk around the restaurant together, then started meeting separately. We were at the back of the room, so we had about ten minutes to eat before our first visit. Everyone liked their meals, but the breakfast calzone was the star of the show. Hubby and I both wanted to order it but we knew it’d be way too much food, so we agreed to split that and the steak and eggs. The steak was good, don’t get me wrong, but the calzone was phenomenal. Half was plenty for each of us, but, if we had to do it again, I think we’d have ordered one to eat and one to go straight up to the fridge in our room; it was that good. The Tangled crew made their way to our tables while we ate.
The characters at this meal were great. They were fun to interact with and two of them are unique to the meal. Plus, the small space meant the wait was always short and we were able to see them coming with plenty of notice to wipe sauce off of faces and get autograph books ready. Eric and Ariel were then announced and the kids were invited to swim along with them in a parade around the restaurant. The girls took the direction literally, using a combination of freestyle stroke and diving to make their way around.
Forgive the photos, but my action shots are all blurry. They started swimming with moderate enthusiasm and, as the parade rounded past Rapunzel and Flynn, she said, “Oh my gosh, look, they’re actually swimming.” That’s all my little hams needed to hear to kick it into high gear; they were going to dive their way all the way around the room. After the parade, Eric and Ariel started greeting at the front of the room and our server came to check on us. He wanted to apologize about the wait for our drinks as the bartender was doing double duty running food and had gotten backed up. Hubby and I were both happy to take our drinks to go, as we would rather enjoy them at our leisure. We also asked for the check, since we our meal was otherwise winding down and Eric and Ariel were only a few tables away.
The Little Mermaid was always my favorite, so I had to get a solo shot with Eric, too! He was quickly followed by Ariel, who told the girls that they were the first guests to swim with her in the parade. They wanted to commemorate the occasion accordingly.
Drinks in hand, we were swimming our way out of the meal at 9:38am, not quite an hour after our ADR. We loved this breakfast and would recommend it again in a heartbeat. The food and characters are both awesome, it doesn’t require navigating a buffet line, and it’s the least expensive character meal on property. The cost didn’t matter for us on the DDP, but this is a meal that I wouldn’t hesitate to do OOP as well. If we hadn’t been staying right at the Boardwalk, I would have grabbed the latest breakfast you can get at noon and walked over to enjoy it as a lunch after RDing either Epcot or the Studios.
We headed back to our room to grab the strollers, change our outfits (the princess dresses for this meal had either been worn earlier in the trip or were earmarked for a full day later), and started walking over to Hollywood Studios. We were trying to make a FP for the 10:30am Frozen Sing Along. When I had booked it, I assumed that we would probably miss it, but at least it would use up one of our tier 2s. However, with our breakfast going so quickly, we had a solid shot at making the show as long as we were efficient getting into the park. On the boards, this walk is estimated as 15-20 minutes, but, even with strollers, we were closer to 10. Hubby and I are both runners who are perfectly comfortable speed walking with strollers, even in the heat. Granted, it wasn’t midday midsummer heat, but it wasn’t cool out, either.
We were through security quickly when I saw a character training happening off to the side. We were making good time, and I was sorely tempted to go over, but my girls hadn’t seen Mary Poppins yet and it was Bert who was out at that time. Despite the fact that I wanted to go meet him, I decided to play it safe and head straight in to use our FP. We tapped through, found the stroller parking by the theater, and were at the tap point just before 10:15am when they’d open things for standby. It was at that moment that C realized she didn’t have her magic band on and had no idea where it had gotten to. Luckily, I had brought along the RFID cards we got with our Undercover Tourist tickets. Before traveling, I wasn’t sure if the girls would actually want to wear MBs all day, and I didn’t want to end up with a sleeve of them, so I tossed the cards in a small change purse in the park bag. I fished out C’s card, tapped her in, and we found seats.
What a fun show! We had excellent historians for this showing who had us laughing out loud from start to finish. There was one moment where I was laughing so hard tears were rolling down my cheeks, although the drink from breakfast that I had brought in may have been a factor there. The girls loved it too, despite the fact that a lot of the jokes went over their heads. It was a Frozen show and they were five-year-old girls, so it was always going to be a win for them.
After the show, we tried to cut across the park toward our next FP, but we were briefly detained.
I hadn’t put the march into our plans because everyone says it runs so often it’s nearly impossible to miss, and that proved true for us as well. March complete, we loaded the strollers and headed up to use our next FP at Tower of Terror. All five of us had FPs booked, as the girls exceeded the shockingly low height requirement of 40”, but I knew we weren’t getting them on it. On FP day, I booked for everyone just in case they decided to go for it, but, after their displeasure on Soain’ and FoP which only simulate heights, I wasn’t sending them anywhere near a drop of that intensity.
At 11:14am when we got to the CM issuing rider swaps, there was a small mob of people tapping into the FP line so I left Hubby and the girls a few steps back and went up to get swaps. I told her my kids were tall enough but terrified of the ride, that Hubby would ride on FP, and that I’d need a swap. She loaded the swap and confirmed that it would be good until the end of the day. Hubby tapped in and headed into the line. I quickly used our RFID cards to just tap in the rest of us and use our second tier 2 FP. Knowing that the system can be spotty at treating an expired tier 2s as “used” for the sake of picking up additional tier 1s, I felt more comfortable physically tapping ours and knowing they were spent.
The girls and I hit the bathroom and then doubled back toward a coin press station we had spotted at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Blvds. The walkways were nowhere near as crowded as AK had been, so moving with the three of them was considerably less stressful. On the way, we saw a PP photographer with no line and decided to have a little fun. I told her that we were just killing time waiting for Hubby and asked what magic shots she had. She thought about it for a minute, smiled, and then said, “Let’s have some fun.”
We spent about 5 minutes running through her repertoire. She actually did the balloon and chip shots with each of the girls getting to hold them in turn, which they really appreciated. Once we had done every magic shot she had, we continued down and pressed our penny as planned. We also had time to limbo under a slinky dog and browse the shops before Hubby caught back up with us.
We made our way into Toy Story Land to use our last FP of the morning. As soon as we got in the land, we started to feel the lack of shade and pulled over for a sunscreen break. The land was busy enough that there wasn’t a way to get out of the way, but we huddled off to the side near a little merchandise cart. Just as we finished up, another set of troops marched by.
We marched behind them to where they set up their show and decided to watch. There was a group of high school (maybe college?) age kids waiting, one of whom had brought her own drumsticks. The sergeant spotted her right away and told her to keep them out for later. About three quarters of the way through their set, he invited her up to show off her skills.
She did a great job, and he gave her a set of his own green sticks at the end, too. If you have a percussionist in the family, it may be worth bringing along a set of sticks and seeing what happens. When the performance was done, we ended up marching behind the army men again on the way to Slinky Dog. At 12:14pm, they headed over to perform for the standby line while we whizzed by with our FPs. The family just ahead of us in line was a set of parents with a girl about our trio’s age. The kids started chatting and I asked the mom if she would mind if we went up to the CM as a party of 8 so that our extra child could ride with their extra parent. They were happy to oblige and we were boarding our coaster at 12:22pm.
Important note: if you want your small kids to be visible in the ride photo, put them in the front or on the right in the car. Four of us loved this ride, but B was on the fence. She liked parts of it but said some of it made her belly feel weird. She’s the type that needs to try a ride a couple of times before she feels confident: at our local amusement park, she used to be very hesitant on the coaster but now she wants to ride every visit. Unfortunately, the nature of a Disney trip is very different from being passholders who can visit a park all summer long, so we didn’t have enough rides on any of the coasters for her to totally get over her anxiousness and just enjoy them. The rest of us had a blast, though, and she wasn’t upset enough that it lingered past the ride exit.
Our coaster ride complete, we weren’t totally sure about what to do next. The plan was to grab lunch and see the Frozen show, but no one was hungry yet and our excellent timing in the morning meant we’d already knocked the show off our to-do list. While we were considering the Little Mermaid show and looking up times for the next Indiana Jones, the girls asked if we could go back to swim at the pool. While we hadn’t planned to leave the park so early, it was only getting hotter as the day wore on. Plus, our second HS day was only slated to be a half-day as the park didn’t hold two full days worth of touring for us, especially with Beauty and the Beast under refurbishment during our trip. Since we had a few hours to play with and we weren’t sure how many good pool days we’d actually get, we agreed with the kids and headed for the exit.