A Fantasy Holiday - our first Disney Cruise, WDW, UOR, New York and DLR - COMPLETED 4/9

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 19 - Part 6 - Enjoying the Rainforest and meeting the King

We had booked a lunch reservation at Rainforest Cafe which is just outside the entrance to Animal Kingdom. As cheesy as it is we always love eating at the Rainforest Cafe. We slowly made our way there through the park from Africa.















Lunch was fine - classic American portions though (as in huge!) and we enjoyed watching the animals come to life and the ceiling flash with thunder and lightning (it is definitely not a quiet restaurant!).

After lunch we headed towards my absolute favourite stage show at Disney World, Festival of the Lion King. This was our first time seeing it in the new theater, while it wasn't really different something about the permanent theater made everything seem less thrown together. I also thought the lighting seemed a little better, so perhaps that was enhanced in the new theatre too. All in all it's a great show, full of fun acrobatics, daring fire-breathers, beautiful wire performers and energetic dancers and stiltists. This time we actually had a decent camera to capture it to!





We were in the Lion section, and so we had the King as our animal float! We had booked a Fast Pass for the show, only because we didn't really need to use our 3rd Fast Pass for anything else however we were glad we had booked one as the Fast Pass guests were shown in first and the guests without Fast Passes were only really able to get seats up the back of each section once they were let in.

























Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 19 - Part 7 - The Circle of Life

And so the show continued, and we sang along to Hakuna Matata, Just Can't Wait to be King, Can you Feel the Love Tonight, The Lion Sleeps Tonight...right up to the majestic Circle of Life ending!























In the Circle.....The Circle of Lifeeee....Circle of ...Life.....BOOM! I so love that song!





When it was all over, and Timon had yelled at us to 'get out' (always love that part too) we made our way out of the Animal Kingdom and towards Hollywood Studios.

Continued in Next Post....

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 19 - Part 8 - The Studios and a Galaxy far, far away

We arrived at Hollywood Studios at 5:30pm and, as excepted, quickly discovered there were no more Fast Passes for any of the major rides for that day. We'd expected that and were happy enough to wait a little to ride Rock n Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror during the evening extra magic hours happening between 8pm and 10pm. Our plan had been to simply hit the major attractions at the park and enjoy dinner at the Sci-Fi dine-in theatre (minus Toy Story because we knew the chances of easily getting on that one without a Fast Pass were slim and we would be able to see it at Disneyland). On our way to our next attraction we stopped and had some pictures with Walt's head in the Hall of Fame section of the park.





We made our way over to Star Tours, which had no wait, and rode it twice. We managed to get the Wookie planet in our first combination (which is a planet I'd only visited once before on Star Tours) and Naboo, which is another of those planets that doesn't seem to come up a lot. We got the storm trooper start on our first ride and then the Darth Vadar start on our second, so had a mix of both starting videos and then ended up at the Wookie planet again (seriously, this would become a theme of our visits to the Star Tours universe on this trip) followed by the Death Star orbiting Genosis. It was a pretty good mix to only get one duplicate scene.











Love the security check droid. I could listen to his silly jokes forever!





After our trip to Star Wars we took pictures on the Imperial Speeder photo op near the ride.





Have no idea why Jared thinks it's a horse but he is certainly riding it like one!







Up next was a trip to the Animation Theater and Animation Academy. We arrived about 5-10 minutes before the next session and were told by the lovely CM that we would be on standby to enter the theater and we may not get a seat but we would be able to get in and sit at the front with a drawing board on our lap. He was a really lovely CM (I didn't write his name down) and chatted with us for a while. He noticed Jared's birthday badge (that he finally remembered to put on again) and his Captain America T-shirt and so he made sure to say 'Happy Birthday Captain', which made Jared's day (although I thought it was hilarious to insinuate he was Captain America when he is actually some guy from Australia with an Aussie accent). We were very surprised when we got inside the Animation Academy to discover that we were able to get a seat at one of the main desks.



We soon discovered we would be drawing Goofy, and this was the start of my drawing of him!



Final result - not too bad if I do say so myself...



The desks were so cute - I couldn't help take a photo of them after everyone else left!



I really love doing the Animation Academy (this is only the second time we've done it). Its a great way to stop and relax and have some artistic fun all at the same time. It also helps that, unlike every other attraction where you are pitted against your friends and family or partner (I'm thinking of the laser shooting rides here), I always do well at Animation Academy (well maybe your not actually made to compete at Animation Academy, but the competitive person in me always wants to!). I am always better at drawing than Jared is (sorry bubba but it's true - remember your Daisy Duck who looked like a frog!).

Back out in the studios night was falling and we had a sci-fi dinner to get too, still we took a few pictures of the park at night.



The carriage from Cinderella, the 2015 live action movie, was being displayed near the theatre in the Streets of America. Boy was it beautiful! I can't wait to see this movie.



Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 19 - Part 9 - Previews of Coming Sci-Fi Attractions...

Dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine in Theater was so much fun! If you have never visited before I strongly advise you to. The food is very basic quick service type food but the atmosphere is so much fun. If you haven't visited the Sci-Fi Dine in Theater a bit of information (we hadn't before this trip, but I think we will try visit every trip from now on), it is themed to an outdoor drive-in in the year 1957. You eat your dinner inside a car while you watch 'previews of coming sci-fi attractions' and other cute and silly 1950's style ads, all of which are very entertaining. Jared and I loved the place and really enjoyed our somewhat antisocial meal there (it's not the best restaurant for conversation as you don't face each other and have a giant screen to distract you from conversation!).




In our car, we were lucky enough to be seated in the front row so we had no heads blocking our view.





I think Jared ordered ribs and I had a burger, nothing fancy but fairly good for quick service food.

Here's where the food came from - the snack bar! A really adorable touch and as someone who has visited a drive-in theater (yes we still have a few here in Australia) a very realistic touch!



The Previews of Coming Attractions were about to start!





An empty car and our car behind it (you can just see the top of Jared's Captain America shirt)



Oh look now you can see all of him!



Well timed pictures - Walt talking about the miracles of science and innovation and the effects on the future, the segment, which I assume was filmed for one of the Disneyland television programs, fit well in the Sci-Fi 1950's setting.



Later I noticed that the cars had Disney logos!! The small details are always what amaze me when it comes to Disney.





I love that the restaurant has that 'perpetual night-time' feel, much like the Blue Bayou at Disneyland. I think theming anything to make it look like it's night-time inside a building is always awesome.







Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 19 - Part 10 - Night at the Studios

After dinner we decided to see how long the waits for the Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror were. We started with Rock n Roller Coaster, which had a 30 minute posted wait. Our wrist bands were checked (to make sure we were hotel guests) and then we got in line ready to wait and to our surprise only waited about 10 minutes! We rode again straight after, and the posted wait was down to 20 minutes and we only waited about 5!













The wait for Tower of Terror had been 110 minutes before we rode Rock n Roller Coaster, so we were dreading how long we might have to wait for if if we wanted to ride. When we got off our second ride on RnR the wait was down to 40 minutes so we decided that we'd just wait as we really wanted to ride this version of the ride (its far superior to the version at DCA).

The wait was definitely 40 minutes (and felt like it) but luckily there are planter walls you can sit on in the first part of the line.

When we finally rode we had a ball, Jared made the ride photo memorable too!



Back out in the park we got out the trust tripod for a few night photos of Hollywood Studios.











We thought about waiting until well past close for more pictures of an empty street but it had been a long day and we were beat so we grabbed a couple of photopass photos and headed back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge.





That concluded our time at the Walt Disney World resort. This was perhaps my favorite trip to Disney World and I think it had a lot to do with where we stayed and how we took advantage of the more resort activities, dining and relaxing, with less theme parking. I've always preferred Disneyland to Disney World (still do) but I think I got more of a feel for the really awesome part of Disney World this time, it's ability to enclose you in a bubble of Disneyness, like a Resort island, where everything feels more magical than the normal world.

Continued in Next Post...

 

[KarriTigger]

I read this whole trip report as you wrote it. Lovely job and I'm so glad it was a great amazing trip for you, especially coming from Australia! (I was down under in 2000 just after the Olympics...that was my Fantasy trip). Safe travels!

 

[LivingforDisney]

Loving this report and the amazing photos, can't wait to read the rest

 

[RachelleBeaney]

I read this whole trip report as you wrote it. Lovely job and I'm so glad it was a great amazing trip for you, especially coming from Australia! (I was down under in 2000 just after the Olympics...that was my Fantasy trip). Safe travels!

Thanks - I'm not quiet finished the report yet (still have Disneyland to go) but yes, we had an amazing trip. I'm glad you had a good time in Australia.

Loving this report and the amazing photos, can't wait to read the rest

Thanks - I'm excited because the most amazing photos (in my opinion) were the ones we took at Disneyland at night - I can't wait to show you those!

 

[Kristen28]

Hello from Newcastle, NSW. I have been reading your trip report for the past 2 days and can not wait to read about the rest of your holiday, it looks like you had an amazing time!! My sister and I are heading over to the USA in October/November for 7 weeks and we are very excited to be going to both Disney World and Disneyland, as well as to Universal in Orlando to check out the Harry Potter land. We have been once to Disneyland as little kids and are so excited to go back as well as Disney World for the first time. Your husband's pictures are fantastic and I have shown this report to my sister as she is quite good at photography, I have made a request that she get a picture of the castle just like the one in your first post. Can't wait to read about the New York portion of your holiday as this is one of the places we will be visiting for the first time!! Loved the pictures and posts about your Disney cruise, being an avid cruiser myself and having been on several cruises, it is always fun seeing pictures of other ships and hoping one day to get on it! We will be sailing from New York on the Norwegian Breakaway to the Caribbean so you have definitely raised my excitement levels!!!

Thanks again for sharing your holiday,
Kristen

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 20 - Part 1 - Arriving in New York

I know it's not technical Disney related, but we had such a good time in New York I wanted to share that part of our trip with you as well. If you are yearning for more Disney related trip info, I will be getting to the Disneyland part of the trip very soon! It was my third trip to New York, Jared's fourth but we had lots of firsts, like seeing snow for the first time anywhere but in a mountain setting or ice-skating at Rockerfeller Center.

Our flight from Orlando left around midday, which was nice as we had plenty of time to make sure we were at the airport early enough to get through security. Turns out TSA was a breeze that day as we somehow got pre-checked (they were testing some sort of pre-check system for all passengers) and so security was much quicker, we didn't have to take liquids or laptops out or take off our shoes, it was really nice (similar to security check in Australia). We arrived in New York at about 3pm and we excited to see this as we flew down over Queens.



SNOW! And lots of it everywhere! For those of you who think this is a strange thing to get excited about you have to remember, it does not snow in Australia - EVER. We get snow in the mountains in Victoria and New South Wales in winter but that's it - never in a city area like this was. And though both Jared and I have seen snow before (he in the mountains in Queenstown, New Zealand and me in the mountains in Victoria when I was a kid), we'd never seen snow just blanketing a city or town before and so it was so exciting for us to see!







Anyway we landed and got our luggage with little issue, then we hopped in a cab to get to our hotel in Manhattan (gotta love the flat rate taxi JFK to anywhere in Manhattan!) and landed THE best cab driver ever. He was the owner of his cab and was explaining to us how lucrative it was to own a cab in New York. When he got his cab licence 23 years ago it had cost him about $250 000 and today, he could sell it for about $1.2 million (they are rare and hard to come by apparently because no one is selling)! Cab owners can made around $15 000 a month in New York (if they don't employee staff and do the driving themselves) about the same as a mid-level executive in Manhattan! So, if you have a cab owners licence in New York you can make a lot of money! Anyway he was a Brooklyn local and gave us lots of great advice about where to eat (Hell's Kitchen), what area had the best international cuisine, where the best pizza in New York was, where to get cheap broadway tickets and what activities might interest us (like walking the Brooklyn Bridge, which we did a few days later). He also taught us how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (something we'd been struggling with the whole trip - by the way it's take 32 from the Fahrenheit amount and divide by 2 or times by 2 from the Celsius amount and add 32!). We decided to give him a very good tip as usually he wouldn't have been at JFK (with the flat rate it isn't worth the drive apparently) and he was like our very own guide to NYC so we figured he deserved some payment for that! The last piece of valuable information he gave us was to definitely do a carriage ride through Central Park (we already had one booked) because apparently 2015 is the last year carriage rides will be available in Central Park as the mayor has banned the horses due to the mess and congestion they cause! So, anyone heading to New York this year - take advantage of the carriages while you can!

After a long drive (mainly not moving - gotta love New York traffic!) we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Edison. We picked the hotel because, being on W 47th Street it was extremely close to Time Square and all the Broadway theaters we planned to visit, and we wanted to be close to our room after these shows when we were tired at the end of the night! We also picked it because they had recently renovated some of their rooms and they were very large for New York hotel rooms (there was even a King bed - even if it was a REALLY hard one!).

Our room...







Marble everywhere in the bathroom!





We had no plans that evening but to relax so we watched a BEAUTIFUL sunset over Manhattan out our hotel window!







As part of our room rate we were able to get a free pizza pie (well 3 large slices anyway) from a pizza shop just around the corner from the hotel! It was real New York pizza too (and as such it was HUGE and soooo yummy!) - Here I am eating a giant slice!



It was a wonderful welcome to New York City!

Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Hello from Newcastle, NSW. I have been reading your trip report for the past 2 days and can not wait to read about the rest of your holiday, it looks like you had an amazing time!! My sister and I are heading over to the USA in October/November for 7 weeks and we are very excited to be going to both Disney World and Disneyland, as well as to Universal in Orlando to check out the Harry Potter land. We have been once to Disneyland as little kids and are so excited to go back as well as Disney World for the first time. Your husband's pictures are fantastic and I have shown this report to my sister as she is quite good at photography, I have made a request that she get a picture of the castle just like the one in your first post. Can't wait to read about the New York portion of your holiday as this is one of the places we will be visiting for the first time!! Loved the pictures and posts about your Disney cruise, being an avid cruiser myself and having been on several cruises, it is always fun seeing pictures of other ships and hoping one day to get on it! We will be sailing from New York on the Norwegian Breakaway to the Caribbean so you have definitely raised my excitement levels!!!

Thanks again for sharing your holiday,
Kristen

Hi Kristen, hello from Perth! Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it! I actually lived near Newcastle for about 6 months when I was a kid - beautiful part of Australia! I am extremely jealous of you and your sister with your amazing trip ahead of you! You are going to have an amazing time! I'm about to start writing the New York posts, I hope they are helpful - definitely do a carriage ride in Central Park if you can because 2015 is the last year they'll be offered! Also there are a few activities we didn't do this trip that we've done on previous trips i'd recommend and that is a dinner cruise (great views of the city) and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (but don't stop at the Statue of Liberty Island, you can take great pictures of it from the boat and there isn't much on the island, but Ellis Island is really something to see!).

I'm sure your sister knows this, if she is a good photographer, but all our night shots (well the good ones at least) were taken with a tripod so if you want a picture of the castle like the one we have you will have to take one Also you have to wait until about 1 hour after the park closes for the area to be clear of people (2 hours for main street as its open an extra hour after the park closes). It's always a good idea to know what types of photos you want before you go, trust me I went through other peoples trip reports and showed certain photos to my husband so he knew what I wanted!

I'm really happy my report is helping you get excited for your trip! It sounds seriously amazing and I hope you post some photos of it on the boards as I would love to see them!

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 21 - Part 1 - Horses and Carriages

Today we visited the Winter Wonderland that is Central Park after a decent snowfall. Technically it hadn't snowed since Sunday (and today was Wednesday) but there was still enough snow still on the ground to make the park look like a frosted magical garden.

I was so excited when we arrived - this is what winter is supposed to look like (what it usually looks like in Perth is moderate weather, some rain and it is a lot like any other time of the year - well except summer).







Pretty soon we were aboard our wonderful carriage trundling through the park and looking at all the beautiful snow.



















We were wonderfully snugged up under out blue fluffy blanket and protected from the wind so we weren't really feeling the cold and we just relaxed and took in the beautiful scenery. At one point our driver stopped to take some photos of us.





As you can see it was a perfect day - completely blue sky and white white snow on the ground, barely any wind it was just crisp and cool and wonderful!









A lone snowman guarding home base!





The ride was over fairly quickly and so we thanked our driver and our beautiful horse, but we decided we weren't done with the park and I was determined to walk on snow so we decided to continue walking up to the Boathouse, where we had made a lunch reservation.



Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 21 - Part 2 - Strolling in the wondrous winter wonderland

We began making our way towards our next destination, the famous Boathouse, walking through the wonderful snow as we did!







I walked on snow! Yes this is very exciting - I didn't expect it to be so crunchy! Or as sparkly and white as it was!





We made our way down The Mall, that famous Central Park walkway seen in every movie ever made about New York (ok maybe not all of them but lots of them!)















I think they'd had about 4 inches of snow the Sunday before we arrived - it was most evident how much snow had fallen around the park benches that were almost covered with the stuff!





I loved the gorgeous plaques that were all around on the benches around the park. This one read "Margie's Bench - Please use this bench to tell someone how much you care. Kiss, hug, cuddle, canoodle, touch, smile, laugh and do tricep dips and push ups!" - so adorable!




Dogs with socks on!! Just about the cutest thing I've ever seen!



Except for this crazy jumping squirrel. They don't seem to mind the snow too much - I guess they are adapted for it!



This one posed for us! Yes, I know they are basically rodent pests to you American's but we don't have squirrels in Australia, only actual rodents and I would much rather see a squirrel, they are much cuter!



Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 21 - Part 3 - Central Park Boathouse

We had finally arrived at the Bethesda Fountain, another very familiar part of Central Park as it too is seen in almost every movie about New York. What I didn't realize, perhaps because I was never really looking past the statue, is that the Boathouse and Boathouse lake are right behind the statue. The lake didn't look much like a lake this time of year! Everything was frozen over.





The Bethesda Statue is located right at the end of The Mall that we had just walked up.









Even the fountain was frozen!







And, hiding at the end of the lake, the Boathouse!









This part of the park looked like the Western Woods in Narnia! I love those books so I wanted a photo with the 'lamp post'!



We finally made it to our lunch destination!





And we were given a window table overlooking the lake!









Lunch was really delicious! I had pasta and I believe Jared had a roast, all of which was well made and hearty ,which you needed on a cold day. Although, it wasn't exactly cold in the boathouse, or anywhere inside the whole time we were in Manhattan. I didn't mind having to wear layers of clothes outside to keep warm but it was annoying that every time you went inside the heating was turned up to furnace hot and you had to take most of your layers off!

Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 21 - Part 4 - A Princess in her Castle

After lunch we still hadn't had enough of Central Park and I was telling Jared how I had always wanted to visit Belvedere Castle. So after our meal we decided to continue walking until we got to the Castle.

Leaving the Boathouse we saw this piece of snow that looked strangely familiar! Australia snow!





We also decided we wanted to do some 'vertical' snow angels, as we didn't really have water proof bottoms and we didn't want to get wet!







Past the Boathouse the park had less wide open spaces and more small lane ways and over hanging trees - it was very quiet and peaceful too. We were towards the middle of the park now and you couldn't even see the city on either side, let alone hear it. In a city as big, loud and busy as New York it is so wonderful to have a place to go where you can find peace and quiet!





I decided that, since these benches weren't covered in snow, I had to get some pictures sitting on them (it just seemed like a very local thing to do!).









Then I wanted to walk on snow again, but this time I discovered you need to make sure you walk on the snow others have already packed down for you otherwise your leg slips right through!



Someone had made a pretty amazing castle out of snow!



We approached the castle from behind through a staircase surrounded by trees that hid the big reveal you get of the castle from the other side of Turtle Lake (the lake below the castle), so we came out onto the castles main terrace to this beautiful view!



Looking up to the higher viewing platform



A Princess in her castle tower!







The stadium at Turtle Lake hosts lots of concerts during the summer months apparently.



You could even sit in the castles turrets! So we did!





Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 21 - Part 5 - Belvedere Castle revealed

Here's the Prince of the Castle...



Finally we began to make our way down to the front of the castle and around turtle lake so we could see it in it's entirety. Before we did though we made a small donation to the Central Park conservancy fund by purchasing some much needed gloves from the castle shop, the ones that allow you to use touch screens when wearing them!





The castle is interestingly created to look bigger than it is from a distance (I'm not sure if it actually uses forced perspective but it appears to me that the top parts of the castle are smaller than the bottom parts making the whole thing look larger from further away).







The castle was designed in the mid 1800s (1869) as a place to view the park from and was simply a shell, but in 1919 the inside was rebuilt to house the New York Meteorological Observatory. It overlooks the Great Lawn and Turtle Lake.



I think that was supposed to be my crown - not sure though!





Afterwards I sat on more benches, just taking in the park around me.



On our way out of the park we walked past the Great Lawn, the famous picnicking spot, which at this time of the year is indistinguishable from any of the lakes! It is a very large area though!



All kinds of snowman adorned the Great Lawn including this very amazing Igloo (seriously who can actually build an Igloo!).





We had spent the whole morning just wandering through Central Park and we had loved every minute of it. We'd visited the park on every other trip but usually just to do the carriage ride, or take a quick stroll through the part closest to us and we'd never seen this much of the park and spent this long in it and it was very worth it! The place was beautiful and peaceful and wonderfully beautiful with all that snow. Though I still think the park in spring is the most beautiful, I think seeing the park in winter was my favorite because it was so foreign and different covered in snow.

Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Day 21 - Part 6 - This is Amateur Night...

On his last trip to New York with work Jared discovered a wonderful wonderful thing called Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater. This Amateur Night show has been around at the famous Apollo Theater since the 1930's and is the basis for most of the TV talent shows today. Contestants showcase their talent (singing, dancing, comedy, anything really) and the audience then decide if they good or not by cheering or booing. If a contestant gets enough boos the 'execution' comes out to drive the person off stage. It's very high pressure for the contestants but it's also very rewarding if they win. The show also boasts a house band and a house comedian, all of whom are awesome!

The show always starts with a performance by the House Band and an introduction by the House Comedian. The comedian was hilarious and we really enjoyed the way he amped the crowd up.

The house band and the executioner opening the show.



The House comedian cracking us all up!





Up next came the kids. While the kids were performing no one was allowed to boo and everyone had to cheer and be supportive. I think this is a fair this to ask when kids are performing! There was a gorgeous little girl singing Let it Go but the highlight of the kids part of the show were the two AMAZING dancers!



I have a couple of short videos of the two kids dancing - they were pretty amazing! First up was the Michael Jackson impersonator!

The other kid was amazing too! He could pretty much dance every dance style ever invented!

At the end of the kids competition the crowd decided the winner and our cheers were measured on this 'cheer meter' - the dancer in the grey suit won!



The Comedian came back out and introduced the adult acts. We had a number of singers, one comedian (who was the only one to get booed off the whole night) and one dance troupe, who ended up coming second behind the first female vocalist we heard. I have a video of the here of the dance troupe's routine.

The show was amazing, fun and energetic and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting New York!

We had to take a picture of this - Lynette Williams is my mum's name and apparently, she was performing at the Apollo!



Continued in Next Post...

 

[Aussie Wendy]

More great pics. I am impressed with the clear shots in the Flights of Wonder show - the birds fly so fast we always fail at capturing pics.

 

[GoDux]

Day 19 - Part 8 - The Studios and a Galaxy far, far away

We arrived at Hollywood Studios at 5:30pm and, as excepted, quickly discovered there were no more Fast Passes for any of the major rides for that day. We'd expected that and were happy enough to wait a little to ride Rock n Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror during the evening extra magic hours happening between 8pm and 10pm. Our plan had been to simply hit the major attractions at the park and enjoy dinner at the Sci-Fi dine-in theatre (minus Toy Story because we knew the chances of easily getting on that one without a Fast Pass were slim and we would be able to see it at Disneyland). On our way to our next attraction we stopped and had some pictures with Walt's head in the Hall of Fame section of the park.





We made our way over to Star Tours, which had no wait, and rode it twice. We managed to get the Wookie planet in our first combination (which is a planet I'd only visited once before on Star Tours) and Naboo, which is another of those planets that doesn't seem to come up a lot. We got the storm trooper start on our first ride and then the Darth Vadar start on our second, so had a mix of both starting videos and then ended up at the Wookie planet again (seriously, this would become a theme of our visits to the Star Tours universe on this trip) followed by the Death Star orbiting Genosis. It was a pretty good mix to only get one duplicate scene.







Love the security check droid. I could listen to his silly jokes forever!









After our trip to Star Wars we took pictures on the Imperial Speeder photo op near the ride.





Have no idea why Jared thinks it's a horse but he is certainly riding it like one!







Up next was a trip to the Animation Theater and Animation Academy. We arrived about 5-10 minutes before the next session and were told by the lovely CM that we would be on standby to enter the theater and we may not get a seat but we would be able to get in and sit at the front with a drawing board on our lap. He was a really lovely CM (I didn't write his name down) and chatted with us for a while. He noticed Jared's birthday badge (that he finally remembered to put on again) and his Captain America T-shirt and so he made sure to say 'Happy Birthday Captain', which made Jared's day (although I thought it was hilarious to insinuate he was Captain America when he is actually some guy from Australia with an Aussie accent). We were very surprised when we got inside the Animation Academy to discover that we were able to get a seat at one of the main desks.



We soon discovered we would be drawing Goofy, and this was the start of my drawing of him!



Final result - not too bad if I do say so myself...



The desks were so cute - I couldn't help take a photo of them after everyone else left!



I really love doing the Animation Academy (this is only the second time we've done it). Its a great way to stop and relax and have some artistic fun all at the same time. It also helps that, unlike every other attraction where you are pitted against your friends and family or partner (I'm thinking of the laser shooting rides here), I always do well at Animation Academy (well maybe your not actually made to compete at Animation Academy, but the competitive person in me always wants to!). I am always better at drawing than Jared is (sorry bubba but it's true - remember your Daisy Duck who looked like a frog!).

Back out in the studios night was falling and we had a sci-fi dinner to get too, still we took a few pictures of the park at night.



The carriage from Cinderella, the 2015 live action movie, was being displayed near the theater in the Streets of America. Boy was it beautiful! I can't wait to see this movie.



Continued in Next Post...

We never went to animation academy until this last trip. It was so much fun we did it twice! Love your goofy drawing. You will have to frame it.

 

[RachelleBeaney]

We never went to animation academy until this last trip. It was so much fun we did it twice! Love your goofy drawing. You will have to frame it.

Thanks Todd Yes I was proud of my efforts! Not sure it's frame worth though! It's so much fun to draw the characters though - usually, even if you are the worst drawer in the whole world your picture will still come out recognizable as the character you were trying to draw! They make it so easy!