Hollywood Studios
We got to Hollywood Studios pretty close to opening, and headed right for Toy Story, of course! We already had to wait about half an hour but it wasn't too bad, and the ride was a lot of fun as always. DH beat me though:
Then we did Rockin' Roller Coaster, which had a 20 minute wait:
And then we had a FP+ for Tower of Terror. That ride does scare me (mostly in the "it makes me feel all weird" sense), and I scream the entire time. But secretly, I enjoy it - and it's DH's favorite!
After that I needed a bit of a rest from the rides, so we went to the drawing class, which I always try to get to. It took awhile to decide which character we were going to draw, but eventually Olaf was picked! I think mine came out pretty well:
We had a FP+ for Toy Story Mania at that point, we went and did that again. My score was better than last time... but so was DH's!
We still had a little time to kill before our lunch reservation, so we walked through One Man's Dream. I had been in there before but DH never had. He seemed to find it pretty interesting.
Lunch was very exciting because we did Dine with an Imagineer at the Hollywood Brown Derby! I thought it was a really cool experience. We got a 4 course meal, which I thought was delicious - especially the dessert sampler platter! There will be photos and details of the food over in my dining review later.
Our imagineer was really interesting, though I feel awful because I can't remember his full name or title, and I can't find my paperwork right now. I know his name was Patrick. He seemed to know a lot about what was going on and was very involved. We talked for 2 1/2 hours. Some of the other guests at lunch were a bit annoying, though. They seemed to use the experience as an opportunity to complain about things or tell their own personal stories.
I still thought it was worth it overall, but DH was so annoyed by some of the other people and how they made everything all about them that he didn't feel it was worth the money. It did get a little ridiculous - instead of learning about what this guy did or talking about Disney, we spent a portion of the time complaining about the setup of the bathrooms in various DVC units. Really?
We did get to learn a lot about building Art of Animation and the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train. If you want a really in depth look at our experience, I wrote about it on my blog:
http://disneyinyourday.com/2014/03/10/bucket-list-dine-with-an-imagineer/
Here we are with Patrick:
We also got souvenir name tags and plates that Patrick signed. Once lunch was done we decided to use a freebie FP+ (that we had gotten for waiting so long while they figured out our FP+ problems on our MK day) for Toy Story Mania.
We were headed to Star Tours next, but we actually bumped into characterpalooza, which I had never seen before! We saw all sorts of fun characters out, including the Evil Queen, Pinocchio, Smee, and others. I got in line to meet the Queen when it started to rain, and they were quickly ushered away. I took a photo with the umbrella instead, because that seemed appropriate:
We rode Star Tours, hoping it would stop raining once we came out, but no such luck. In fact, the rain was just getting heavier and worse. We ducked into Muppets 3D and watched that show. It was still raining so we ran back and did Star Tours again to escape the rain. It still hadn't let up though, so we decided to just head back to the resort. We relaxed a bit in our princess room before heading to our 7:30 dining reservation at Boatwright's.
Dinner was nice, and we both definitely enjoyed it. DH was really hungry! He ate a lot. After dinner we decided to try the pool, even though it was a little chilly. Even though the water was heated it was still a bit too cold, so we switched over to the hot tub instead! That was nice and relaxing... even though there were way too many little kids in there
I don't mind kids and I obviously expect a lot of them in Disney, but it confuses me a little when the hot tub signs specifically say there shouldn't be any kids under 12 in there. Oh well! It was still nice.
We got to bed at a good time for our Animal Kingdom day. Which, to leave you in suspense... began as one of the worst days I've ever had in Disney (up until this trip I literally just got back from... let's just say that getting sick in Disney is the worst!).