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Day Four, Part Two: Disney Hollywood Studios

DHS is, as you may have guessed, a Disney park devoted to the movies and show biz. It also has, of all the parks, the least amount of child-friendly rides and attractions; hence our decision to go there in the late afternoon on Thursday. It also is supposed to have an absolutely spectacular fireworks show. Spoiler: We didn’t get to see that.

The first thing we did at DHS was the “Great Movie Ride,” which is, surprise, a ride that takes you through scenes of great movies, like The Wizard of Oz and The Searchers and some Jimmy Cagney film and Alien and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. General consensus: mostly goofy, and the robot thingies meant to represent the characters were not that good.

We did, however, get to see one of the carousel horses from Mary Poppins:



When we left the movies, it had started to sprinkle, so we ducked into the line for the Little Mermaid show:



…at which point it started to pour:



The show was very cute; it was a 15-minute version of the movie. (Mallory did say, in a tone of outrage: “They SKIPPED a LOT of parts!”) We exited to find that it was STILL pouring, so we decided to go find something to eat. As we walked through the rain, Phoebe suddenly shouted: “Hey! My shoes have bubbles in them!”



I guess her socks still had laundry detergent in them, and were sudsing all over the place. We all had a good laugh; this is still her favorite story to tell about our trip.

We ate dinner, and then went to stand in line for the Toy Story Midway Mania ride, which was supposed to be THE highlight of this particular park. The line was 90 minutes, but, since it was still raining, what else were we going to do? So we waited a long time:



But, the waiting area was adorable:









And the ride was so cool. You get 3D glasses, and you spin through a series of carnival games, and you try to score points by shooting the virtual pop-gun thing on your car. You aim baseballs at bowling pins, you try to land rings around little green men – it was so much fun. General consensus – best ride ever. I think we were all a bit giddy after it was over.

Next stop: the 3-D Muppet show:



It was awesome too, because who doesn’t love Muppets? (Although I heard a guy say, as we went into the theatre: “Kids these days don’t even know who the Muppets are!” Which is true, and sad.)

The kids found a snowman:



We were all pretty wet and bedraggled by this point:



Certain members of our party wanted to go on the Tower of Terror (Amy, Phoebe, Claudia), so we wandered that way. Certain people chickened out once it actually came into view (Phoebe). A certain other person thought she would probably hate it but decided to go on it anyway (me).

The Tower of Terror is a giant “hotel”; you get on an “elevator” and then get sucked into the Twilight Zone (or something), which causes the elevator to drop and raise and drop again and raise again and so on for an eternity. The worst part was waiting for the dropping to start – the elevator kind of creeps forward for a while, and weird music is playing, and you keep thinking that any second you’re going to fall to your doom, but no – not yet – not quite yet – and then it does start and you’re sure you’re going to die. I couldn’t even scream, I was so terrified. As we were getting off, Amy paused to let a guy stand up and go ahead of her, and his wife leaned over and said: “No, please go ahead – he’s not going anywhere for some time.” Ha! It was awful.

At this point, it was time for the fireworks to begin, but it was still pouring rain. So, no fireworks for us – we just went back to the hotel. It seems like we didn’t, after all, do all that much at Disney Hollywood Studios, but everything we did was pretty wonderful. It was a good evening. It certainly wore Phoebe out:



Next up: our last day! I’m almost done!

Comments

aimee said…
You are braver than I am. I would have never gone on the Tower of Terror. I get nervous even thinking about it.

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