Day 1: Moonlight Magic Hollywood Studios Part 1
Highlights (Side note – I meant for this to only be highlights but it turned out to be my usual TR length once I got going. Sorry!):
First, I have to tell you about their reaction to the trip. If you’ve been following along, then you may remember that the boys didn’t know anything about this trip. We had kept the packing a secret. After they went to sleep, I moved all of D’s clothes except for the one outfit he needed and we put his new magic band (that we had also kept secret) on top. We also turned his alarm off. The next morning, C and I woke up about 7 (30 or so minutes past normal alarm time) but the boys were still asleep. A few minutes later, D came out of his room looking like this…
He was so funny trying to figure out why his magic band was on his clothes. He asked if it was for January. When he finally figured it out, he was so happy. G woke up about 15 minutes later and he was cranky. It took a few minutes to get him chill enough to tell him. Finally he said, “see animals, see water, no dark”. He was talking about Animal Kingdom Villas where we stayed the last time.
Travel to Orlando was uneventful. The boys had their toys, books, etc. and were great on the plane. In fact, security lines were so short at both airports that I think we need to go on weekday’s every time. Coming home, Orlando’s security lines were as bad as they always are when we come home on Saturdays.
We made it to Beach Club where our room was not ready. So we grabbed the stroller from Bell Services and headed to Epcot. C had booked us 3 FPs but we only used one.
On the way to the FP (we were pretty much running because we were about to miss the window completely), we almost passed by a rare character.
Louie was out too but the Cast Member told us they were about to head in so we needed to pick one. We’ve met Louie before.
Then we headed to our FP.
Our second one was for Mission Space but D wasn’t interested. Instead we walked onto Nemo and then checked out the fish a little bit.
Then C got a text that our room was ready so we decided to go drop some stuff off and cool off a minute before heading to HS. IT WAS HOT!!
When we finally headed to HS, it was thundering in the distance and the boats were not running. So we walked. We saw rain clouds up ahead but prayed it wouldn’t be too bad. At one point we went under and overpass and said “If it starts raining, we can come back and wait it out here.” Well, of course it didn’t start raining until we were too far away to turn back. AND IT POURED!!! We got the rain cover on the stroller and ponchos on us but our ponchos were pretty much pointless. G stayed perfectly dry in the stroller but D insisted on getting out and wearing a poncho. It was so windy and raining so hard that we were drenched within minutes. Now, with the construction, there is absolutely no cover from where the buses are to the entrance AND it is miles long!!! Or so it seems. Our shoes were filled with water. I would much rather be drenched from the ankles up than to have waterlogged shoes. It was terrible! And none of us had an extra pair of shoes (we’d packed light this time).
We finally made it to the entrance where we got our party bands and meal vouchers. C had put us down for 4 but we were told by 2 cast members that G didn’t need one (which almost came back to bite us in the rear).
From there we headed to the bathrooms by the Frozen show where we took cover for a bit. C got out the map they gave us so we could figure out our food options. It lightened just a little so we decided to go ahead and go to Backlot Express in hopes they had an indoor eating area. They did but it was crowded. I found a semi-covered place to park the stroller and we went in to order. This is where we had an almost issue. Because they didn’t give us a voucher for G, we almost weren’t able to order him a meal. The cast member finally called over a manager who basically just gave us a free kid’s meal (they had to staple each individual voucher to each receipt and since G didn’t have a voucher, the cast member didn’t know what to do). G was cranky as all get out at this point. He kept running off and scaring me to the point I had to pick him up. Then he just started pitching a fit and screaming. I finally left C to sort it all out while we went to find a table. Thankfully we found one inside and where I could see the stroller (I was afraid it would get moved because I was pretty sure I had parked it where I shouldn’t – but it was fine). C and D had trouble finding us but finally we were able to feed our hungry tummies, cool off, and even dry off a little. By the time we finished, it had stopped raining.
We then headed to see Starlord and Groot because we knew they were leaving for good. This line was a lot longer than we’ve ever seen it and we figured that was why.
They both love Groot!
Then we headed to the whole reason we went that night.
We immediately got in a fairly short line for….
And he signed D’s pillowcase! Previously, we were surprised on another trip where Buzz signed G’s pillowcase when we thought he would just stamp it. D got upset because Buzz hadn’t signed his. So this was all remedied that night and he was happy.
Then we just started walking around checking it all out. D saw a green army man,
we checked wait times on rides and went for the Alien Saucer Spin. One side broke down while waiting, but then it opened back up and we got on. G didn’t really care for the ride but D loved it. Wait time on Slinky Dog was 55 minutes so we didn’t get to try it. D was refusing to ride it anyway.
The line for Jessie and Woody was pretty long too so we decided to come back.
We did jump on TSM because the line wasn’t too bad. This was also our first time to walk through the queue.
Continued in next post