Delicious coffee in hand and the children's bellies no longer grumbling, we went to ride the Backlot tour. But when we got there, as previously mentioned, it was closed. We had always known we would split this day as there are a lot of boy things & girl things here that our families needed to do separately. The two things on our list were Little Mermaid and the Animations Studio.
We were to meet back at lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine-In.
So, coffee still in hand, we pushed past
Pixar Place. For those of you reading who have not enjoyed going to DHS post Toy Story Mania I just want to remphasize Pixar Place and the horror that it is. Especially trying to push a stroller AND drink coffee at the same time. I nearly spilled my coffee over and over. And the thing that is so crazy is there were no people anywhere else at this point. The streets of New York had been completely empty. But add a Potato Head and carnival games and you have, well, a carnival.
But we did make it through and I didn't spill coffee. It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway as we were all in black shirts.
To the animation studio! I haven't been here since it truly was an animation studio and they were drawing Mulan. I figured once it wasn't an active studio it was pretty boring. And you don't hear very much about it, so if no one is doing it it probably is boring. Wrong. We had such a good time here that when we asked the girls what they wanted to do on their last day at Disney, they chose the Animation Studio. No joke.
The first thing we did was go in and watch the little schpiel. It was an amusing little movie with two big screens and Mushu as your director plus a live CM who talks to Mushu. But I didn't really enjoy it. Because the CM's microphone only worked half the time. Which made watching it rather like trying to hear someone on a cell phone that is losing signal.
"I can hear you loud and clear."
"Oops, can you repeat that? You cut out."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, ok I've got you back."
The children did not seem the least bothered by this and were really into learning about movies. But I was totally and utterly caught up in the CM desperately trying to get his mike to work. It's all I could watch. And, obviously, all I really remember.
But I believe under normal circumstances, this is a cool thing to do. And there is no line at all.
Here he is still blissfully thinking his mike will work:
And here he is talking to Mushu with no amplification:
And here we are after the movie wandering through the animation hallways and spying our favorite cat:
And a super cool look at an animator's desk:
And then it was time. The time Mulan had been waiting for. Art class! After the hallway there is a huge open area where you can meet characters. As you are leaving this giant area there is a little seating area on the left that has a screen displaying different characters being drawn and you try to guess which character it is before you can see the whole thing. If you go sit here and wait 5-20 minutes you can go into a classroom that looks like this:
We enjoyed guessing the characters and we loved going into the classroom. Donald had volunteered, because he is the best dad/husband EVER!, to take Boo in the Ergo and wait in line to meet Bolt while we took the class. So I LOVED this class as I learned to draw Mickey Mouse with no baby anywhere near me.
Here is our instructor:
Yeah, it's a bad photo of her. If I knew her, I wouldn't have posted it cause it's just not nice to post bad photos of people. But I don't know her and it's the only one I have.
So. You sit down at a Mickey shaped drawing table that is lit from the bottom and there is a big piece of paper and a very sharp pencil awaiting you. Then she tells you there are no erasers as we don't have time to erase and you should start by drawing light lines and then darken them once you like them.
Then she starts drawing on her giant board. And taking you through drawing Mickey step by step. This lady was SOOOOO amazing. In addition to teaching us to draw she talked the whole time about the history of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney and his dreams and life. She talked about the Disney movies she had worked on and what that was like. She told us that when she draws Mickey she talks to herself and says things like, "I am a happy Mickey, a joyful Mickey. So silly. And friendly." Nice things. And when she is assigned to villains she uses words like, "Ugly and hateful. I am angry, I hate my life. I hate you." And that just like acting, animators gear themselves up to be the character and it comes out onto the paper.
I loved her. And I loved my Mickey that I drew. I still have the papers but they are in my scrapbooking room far away and I don't want to get up and photo them & upload them. Maybe later.
Bottom line, if you like to draw, this is awesome.
As we were leaving my phone rang. Donald was three people from the front. Yippee! By the time we got there we simply hopped under the rope around the actual characters and received our hugs.
Wanna know how I felt about this?
I'm not normally a dog person but I absolutely fell in love with this giant Bolt. He was INCREDIBLY fluffy. I mean, really, really fluffy. I had to keep reminding myself it was a person as I just wanted to take this giant, fluffy dog home with me. But his family probably would have missed him.
Here I am:
And here is how Boo felt about the giant dog:
Yeah, she's sobbing.
And here are the girls receiving love from a not so fluffy but very cute Mittens:
And their turn with my friend:
And all of us together:
See how Bolt and I bonded? Yup. We're best friends now. Hopefully you readers have seen this movie. You have, right? It's great. Really great. I thought it would be a dog movie which I dislike. But it was a travelling across the US movie. Which I love. And an action flick which isn't too shabby either.
And I love Bolt. The real, fluffy Bolt who lives at DHS.
And then, it was time to eat lunch. Just like that. We went out to the strollers and I had to use the potty. And I dumped the rest of my coffee as it was now gross and cold (yes, I did TRY to have a drink.) And we happily wandered off to the Sci-Fi.
But for that, you will have to wait. As Suzy is going to tell you how her hour away from us went and what they ended up doing. And you really need that before we're all back together, ya know?
I was wondering how much it ran you a night for the Windsor House? If I intruding please excuse me! I looked on line and I didn't see price quotes only email respons. Love you TR we are going in April with 14 people. 5 adults and 9 kids it is going to be intresting but at least the youngest will be 4. So no real babies. Look forward to reading more.
So we dashed over there trying not to plow too many people over with our strollers
. There was quite a line but it moves quickly and my kids are huge movie lovers so they enjoyed the old trailers. 
So I was praying the whole time that no one would be sick that night. 
Earlier Perla hinted at McQueen's anger issues and I was dreading telling him we'd have to go to Plan B. True to form he melted down
. I assured him that we would go to the very next showing which was at 2:00pm. This would be perfect because we had ADRs at Sci-Fi at 12:20 and that was right across the street and on and on I explained. Well, when McQueen has a fit there is too much smoke coming out of his ears so he can't hear too well. I had to think of something quick. So we decided to go to the Bug's Life playground while we regrouped. The kids had a blast here. Sometimes we Type A planners hate to "waste time" doing stuff like this but I always learn that it really is good for the kids to just have some time to play every once in a while.
Oh well, fortunately there's only one exit so I decided it I would just stand around there to make sure no one escaped. We played here for about 30 to 40 minutes until it was time to check back in with the rest of the group and meet up at Sci-Fi.
and irritated me. But the servers and other workers here were great. Here is pin trading:
After the show we went to the Backlot Tour and rode. No pictures of either of these though - sorry 
