The next morning we got up early and planned to get to Hollywood Studios right away to get fast passes for the Toy Story Mania ride that is the most popular ride at Disney right now! I had heard if you don't get there early, you'll have to wait 2 hours for the ride, or the fast pass return time won't be until that evening! Our plan was to stay at Hollywood for part of the day, because that is also where a lot of Andrew's favorite movie characters were, and then head back to Magic Kingdom to finish up a couple things we didn't get to on our first day.
This is Andrew watching a bus drive away. He was patiently waiting for our bus, and by this time, at least 15 other buses had come and gone! Something was obviously wrong with the schedule, so after complaining to 3 different bus drivers that came by, finally they sent a Hollywood bus. We had wasted about 45 minutes sitting at the bus stop, and as the minutes went by I worried more and more about us missing the greatest ride ever!
He was waiting so patiently, watching all the buses. I'm sure he was wondering when it was going to be his turn to get on! He wasn't the only one! Ha!
Well, have no fear! We made it, although it was an hour late and the fast passes were into the evening like I had suspected. So we decided to wait in line. It was about a 65 minute wait, but I figured we could do it. We honestly hadn't had to wait in very long lines the whole time at Magic Kingdom (thanks to fast passes!) so I thought we could tackle one long line. There was lots of entertainment and many things to look at while we waited, including a giant Mr. Potato Head that interacted with the audience, and lots of cool toys and games decorating the walls and ceilings.
I pulled this from the web to give you an idea of what this is like. You ride a little car and you shoot at targets while wearing 3D glasses. When you hit the targets, certain things happen, like Bullseye (the horse) will jump from behind a shed and make it look like he's coming right at you, since it's 3D. It is really cool.
(Another pic from the web). Of course, Andrew wasn't the best at shooting the targets so I had to get good at it to make the fun things happen throughout the ride. I got better as we went along. It was really fun, Andrew had a blast!
After the Toy Story ride we headed over to meet Woody and Buzz (again). He hadn't seen Woody yet so since they were together I thought that would make a good photo op too! Again, the line was fairly long, but they had things to entertain!
They could strap themselves to the rocket and pretend to fly! It was fun. Andrew did pretty good waiting in all the lines, much to our surprise.
They had the characters footprints leading the way... Woody...
and Buzz... Andrew even had the shoes to match! Ha!
This was another one of those moments that brought tears to my eyes. And one of the main reasons I wanted to bring Andrew to Disney. I just knew that he was at the perfect age to still "believe" that his heroes are "real." This was like a dream come true to him. This was the
real Woody and Buzz- no question. And I just think that it is so amazing to watch the joy on his face.
The scenery was just too cool. It looked like we were all Andy's toys standing on Andy's bed. See the headboard and the quilt? Everything was so clever! We all had so much fun meeting characters.
More favorites... Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc. Andrew is obsessed with this movie and I couldn't wait for him to see them. Seeing Sully was the first time he was the least bit apprehensive (after all, he is a giant monster! ha!) but once I reminded him that Sully was "nice" he was over it. He ran up and gave him a big hug, Mike Wasowski too!
Again, the scenery is just like the movie with the door behind us. For those who don't know, in the movie, when the monsters enter the door they go into a child's bedroom to collect their screams, which powers the monster world. It is a really cute movie!
And we can't forget Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater! Andrew just went nuts when he saw them! I couldn't even get him to stop looking at them or touching them to get a picture of his face! He was mesmerized.
Hollywood Studios is a really neat park. It feels like you are walking down the streets of Hollywood. There weren't as many kids rides (except for Toy Story Mania) but we saw a cute Muppet 3D show (Andrew was inconsistent leaving his 3D glasses on for all this stuff! I think he finally figured out their purpose after the 3rd show/ride!) The best part of Hollywood Studios for me was seeing Andrew meet all the characters. I just love seeing his face!
Cooling himself off with his spray water fan and Mickey sunglasses! Ha!
Daddy had to get in on it too! Ha! I think this was the hottest day the whole time we were there.
This is the big Mickey hat you see when you walk into the park.
Andrew on daddy's shoulders getting ready for the parade (at all the parks there is a 3:00 parade).
Waiting for the parade to start!
The parade had even more characters from Monsters Inc, Toy Story, and more!
After the parade Andrew was getting super tired (the second day with no nap, getting up early and going all day long!) He just kicked his legs up on his tray and took a little snooze~ Ha!
We couldn't leave without taking Sully and Mike with us! Ha! We jumped on the monorail to head back to Magic Kingdom to ride a few rides we missed, but also to see one character in particular that we also had missed...
Jessie! Andrew loves Jessie. We waited in a pretty long line to see her, too, and Andrew slept the whole time. We had to wake him up and he couldn't believe what he was seeing when he woke up!
Can you imagine? For a kid it's like waking up and wondering if you're still dreaming!
Woody was funny, he kept pointing at Andrew's shirt and then pointing at himself- he noticed he was on Andrew's shirt! Ha!
My mom took Andrew on a couple rides and Craig and I got to ride Splash Mountain! It was amazing because the line was about 75 minutes long and we had just gotten in line when these 2 guys were coming out and offered us their fast passes! So we basically got to walk to the front of the line and get right on! It was awesome! We had to sit in the back so we really didn't get splashed too much! Oh well! It was fun!
We had a great day!
We were so hot and tired that we decided to just head back to the hotel to enjoy the pool and our hotel for a while. We had been going nonstop since we got there, so we just needed to relax a little!
We were so glad we did! The pool was awesome and everyone enjoyed cooling off!
Andrew is getting to be quite the little fish in the water! He'll go totally under the water now and think nothing of it! He likes to make us "go away" and then he walks right off the step and sinks! He knows we'll come get him and he just laughs and laughs!
Daddy took Andrew down the waterslide, which he loved!
Look at that huge smile!
Splash!
Andrew loved swimming with all of us, but he is so funny because he wants us to let go of him!
He loved going under the waterfalls!
This was one half of the pool, the other half was to the right where the waterslide is.
This just cracked me up- Craig and I went to get dinner for all of us after swimming and when we got back to the room Ga Ga had Andrew all bathed and ready for bed, propped up eating grapes and watching Monsters Inc with all his treasures from the day! Ha!
We had a little picnic in our hotel room and it was such a fun evening! It was nice to have the room freezing cold and just relax and not be waiting in line or rushing to get on a ride!
One little monster was pretty tired! He fell asleep dreaming of all of his favorite friends he met throughout the day!
Here is a short clip of Andrew dancing at the Hollywood Studios parade...
