January 8, 2016 – Hollywood Studios | This Happy Little Life

Once we had warmed up a bit (it was kind of cold for Florida!) we headed out to our park of the day! This time we did end up having a bit of a wait for a bus, according to the electronic board about 10 minutes. I still wasn’t feeling 100% from the day before, but I decided I had enough time to run to the bathroom inside the main lobby. Of course, the bus didn’t take even close to 10 minutes, and it showed up while I was inside. Luke told the bus driver to go ahead, we’d just wait for the next bus but he was actually ahead of schedule a little bit, and said he was going to wait for a few minutes anyways. I ended up making it with tons of time. Our bus ride was really quick, and fairly empty since it was well past rope drop. It had also started raining again, so that sucked – but it also meant a nearly empty park upon arrival!

After we went through the security line, Luke was approached by a man. It was raining pretty hard at this point, so Luke didn’t fully hear him and thought he was trying to sell him a rain poncho – to which he responded “no thanks”. This was met with a really strange look because the “strange man” was actually a security guard wearing a rain coat, and had told Luke he was selected for additional screening (which just meant he had to go through a metal detector). Oops! We quickly realized our mistake and headed over to the metal detector. After going through and having no issues of course, we grabbed a park map and headed into the nearly empty park. It was about 10:45 at this point, so way too early to go check in for our 11:30 lunch reservation. We studied the map for a bit, and then set off at a leisurely pace – no need to rush. We found the restaurant we were going to though, just so we knew where it was and then went to check on wait times for nearby rides. Star Tours had a posted wait time of only 10 minutes, so we hopped in line. We had loved this ride when we were at Disneyland last April, despite neither of us being Star Wars fans. The wait was pretty much exact, and 10 minutes later we were boarding the ride. The ride itself lasts about 5 minutes. Two of the scenes were from the new movie, which we did not go to see (are we the only two people on the planet who didn’t see that movie?!), but we still had fun! By this point it was about 11:15, so we decided to go check in early for our lunch reservation at 50’s Prime Time Cafe. I was really excited to eat here, as it had been highly recommended by a lot of people I had talked to. My review can be found here.

After settling our bill, we headed out of the restaurant for our First FastPass of the day – which of course was Star Tours. Yes, this was our second time on it that day. Yes, we are not Star Wars fans. Yes, I’ve never actually watched a single movie from the franchise… But it’s a great ride!

After our second journey through the galaxy, we had some time to kill before our next fastpass. I had to go to Pizza Planet – we had just ate lunch so there was no way I was hungry enough to eat again, but I love the Toy Story movies and the little green men. I also knew that it was going to be closing soon for renovations, so I knew I wanted to see it.

It was really cute in there! Hopefully it will be re-opened by our next trip, and I’ll actually eat there!

When I finished my last post, we were at Pizza Planet. After leaving there, we went to Muppet Vision 3D. We both thought it was really cute, but I don’t know if we would do it more than once per trip. For some reason I didn’t take any pictures by the Muppet Theatre… When we got over there we pretty much walked straight in with no wait.

After leaving there, we walked along the Streets of America. The Osbourne Lights were still up, but not turned on (this was also in the early afternoon, so they wouldn’t have been turned on anyways). I’m sad I never had a chance to see the lights in all their glory . When we first started planning our trip, the last night for the lights to be turned on was January 2nd, and we weren’t arriving in Florida until the 5th so we would miss them completely. However, shortly before we arrived in Orlando, I checked again and they had been extended until January 6th – which we already had planned as a Magic Kingdom day. I know a lot of people would have just switched to the 6th being a Hollywood Studios Day, but I would have had to move all of our Fastpasses at that point, as well as dining reservations. I knew I’d never be able to move our Be Our Guest dinner that we had on the 6th, it was so hard to get in the first point! So we just accepted that the Osbourne Lights would be something we’d miss out on. All that said, we were still able to see how many there were! Hopefully they relocate those somewhere else on property for next year!

While we were on the Street of America, we stopped for some Photopass pictures!

I love that second one! After those pictures we walked along Commissary Lane to the Centre Stage area. We were on our way to the Pixar area, but for some reason we had a really hard time finding it at first. Eventually we found it, and it was time for our second Fastpass of the day – Toy Story Midway Mania! We had been on this ride in California, and it’s essentially the same ride in both parks. I love the theming of the area around it in Florida though, so cute and the attention to detail was fantastic. I can’t wait to see what they do with the Toy Story expansion they are currently working on!