Day 8...Disney Hollywood Studios!
This day was one we had been looking forward to. DHS is actually
Aladdin's favorite park. Speaking of favorite parks, I just did a quick poll with my guys and it shakes out like this:
DHS-
Aladdin, dh and myself
MK-
Goofy,
Stitch and myself
EPCOT-
Goofy and myself
DAK-
Aladdin,
Stitch and myself
Notice I couldn't pick a favorite. I tried, I really and truly tried. The only park I could maybe remove from my favorite's list is DHS however, I love that dh loves it and I really enjoy him thoroughly enjoying himself at a park. And the more time I spend in that park, the more I come to love it. I guess when it comes down to it, I could no sooner pick a favorite park than I could pick a favorite child. I just happen to be Disney crazed and love them all!
But back to the point of this post, the eighth day of our vacation. This morning started in much the same way that every other morning had started so far, we slept in until our
Little Prince woke us and then we quickly got ourselves ready for the day and headed up to the wonderful Old Faithful Club's lounge. Ahhh! I know I have said it before, but I want to say it again. Starting our day in the club lounge at the WL was such a relaxing and beautiful way to start a day. I loved looking down into the lobby below. I had worried before our stay about the lounge set up. Having heard that it was just "out in the hall" and scattered around the edges of the railings I was worried that it wouldn't have the same charm that the lounge at AKL had. Or that it would have even more of a feeling of just being an afterthought than the Sugarloaf lounge at the GF (not my personal style of lounge at all). I needn't have worried. The lounge at the WL rocked! It was cozy and expansive at the same time. There was always room to spread out and I never once felt as if I were sitting in a hall area. I included this in my TR just in case anybody else has that same sort of worry. AKL is still my very favorite club lounge (hands down) so far, but the WL is a very respectable second and a lovely place that I highly enjoyed.
After what had become our routine breakfast, we headed to the valet stand for our van. Up pulled the van and in we hopped. The thought of taking a baby, three other kids, two adults and all of our requisite stuff was too scary for me to contemplate on a bus.
So, this week we stuck to driving. A short time after we pulled away from the WL we were pulling up at DHS. Everyone was all smiles and ready to fully enjoy our last park day. Here is a picture of the three oldest boys in the parking lot. I think you can see
Aladdin's excitement with being at his favorite park.
We quickly made our way into the park. We had approached from a side entrance (not sure how we got there) and we hit the bag check area in a different place then we ever had before. We were on the far right side behind the bus stops (we had crossed over early) and the path we were on was very shady and nice and most importantly...EMPTY! It felt like he park was opening just for us.
We had a very friendly security CM who had a conversation with our boys and then gave them stickers at the bag check area. While we didn't talk long, nobody else even came up to the bag check stand during our conversation. I wish whipping through bag checks were always that quick!
Once inside the park we headed in to one of the stores to do a bit of required shopping. Our Little Prince had spent over a week at Walt Disney World and was still lacking his own set of Mickey ears. To leave without a pair would not do at all. I was all set to remedy this, however, it didn't quite work out the way I had hoped. With giddy anticipation of a perfectly cute moment of Little Prince trying on his first Mickey ears, I grabbed my favorite pair off of the shelf and set them upon his little head. The second I did, his smile faded and he started to look upset. I thought that maybe the hat had something in it that was poking him so I took it off of him (and he started to smile again) and when I couldn't find anything that was poking him, grabbed another one just to be sure nothing would poke him and I tried it again. This time his reaction was a scream and a very red face. I didn't know if I should be comforting him (nothing was really wrong) or laughing at his reaction to Mickey ears. Who would have thought that a little guy who doesn't mind wearing any other hat we have ever put on his head would object to wearing Mickey ears?! But object he did! I didn't buy the Mickey ears after seeing his reaction, but I did take a super quick snapshot before I rescued him from the Mickey ears. The second I took the Mickey ears off of his head, he stopped crying and started smiling again.
I guess this means that he doesn't like Mickey ears.
This was the most upset he was the entire time we were at WDW!
Being as I didn't want to spend our day torturing our
LP, we made our way out of the store and started toward the Star Tours ride. It is one of
Aladdin's favorite rides. It was also a ride that
Stitch and
Goofy had yet to ride but that they were eager to try this trip. I was excited to be able to ride it again myself (it's another one of those rides I had to skip the year before due to being pregnant with our
Little Prince). Along the way we saw the Indiana Jones stunt show area and had to snap a few pictures (being the big Indiana Jones fans that we are).
It's another example of the attention that Disney pays to detail when you really start to look at the area. See the machine gun on the roof?
Although we were having fun taking note of the cool details, we didn't linger for long. We were anxious to blast off with our own robot guide (however inept he might turn out to be
).
As we made our way past the Jedi training stage area, we saw that a Jedi master was about to begin training the young volunteers from the audience. I had read about Jedi training before arriving and wanted to make sure our boys had a chance to see a training show (and hopefully get picked to go up on stage) but we were arriving a bit late, so we made our way past the area and I made a mental note to return later in the day.
As we made our way into the queue for Star Tours, we saw two storm troopers waiting for their turn to appear on stage. They were totally creepy in a menacing sort of way. They just stood and stared you down when you passed, turning their heads to follow your movements. All three of the boys edged away from them as we entered the line.
There was really no line to speak of, and within minutes we were strapped in and off on our space adventure. Along the way, the boys were happy to see R2D2 and C3PO along with various other robots. I hadn't noticed all of the detail in this queue before seeing the boys look so closely.
After the ride, we got to talking to a ride CM that was near the exit. She told us that the voice of the robot piloting our spaceship was none other than that of Pee Wee Herman! My boys had no idea who he was.
I commented on how I didn't recognize his voice and she made us an offer we couldn't refuse...another ride on Star Tours! Here's where it gets strange, she didn't offer to 'let us in the back way', she told us to go through the queue again (there was no line so it was no big deal for us to do it) and that she would meet us at the start of the ride (where you load into your space vehicle). Before we left she told us to listen for someone being paged as we walked through the queue. So...we quickly made our way through the store, out the door, down the walk and back around to the start of the queue. We waved to dh and told him that we were going to take one more trip if he was game. He said sure and told us that he and our
LP would run over and get us fast passes for Toy Story Mania. He had been planning on doing that during our first tour through space, but I had forgotten to leave the park tickets with him. So I took off the small messenger bag I was wearing with our park tickets, cash,cell phone, camera and other 'important stuff' and passed it to him. Think of a relay handoff.
The boys were in that much of a hurry to ride again.
Stitch and
Goofy were very excited after their first ride and didn't want to waste time in doing so once again. We just beat the crowd that filled in right behind us after the Jedi Training ended. PHEW, there were a lot of people BEHIND us in line.
As we led the pack to the loading area we listened and heard someone being paged. We heard them paging 'EGROWEG SACULL'. Okay, no idea who that is, but we memorized the name to report back that we had heard it if the CM asked us once we got back to the loading area. When we got to the loading platform, the CM who we had spoken to wasn't there. We were sent to a row to watch the little pre ride video. We watched it and still no sign of her. I told the boys that I bet she had gotten busy. It was no big deal really, we were going to ride again anyway. We just wanted to know what she wanted us to notice about the page. Just as the rows started to load, she appeared and asked us to step out of line. While the rest of our spaceship loaded without us, she pulled us over to the side and asked us if we had heard the page. We said that we did and told her the name that we had heard "Egroweg Sacull" she asked us if we could guess who's name that was a play on. We had NO idea. Turns out I was spelling it wrong. We didn't hear them say 'EGROWEG SACULL' but EGROEG SACUL which is none other than GEORGE LUCAS backward! Another cool factoid that I was excited over learning! We talked with her about where we were from and the boys were more than happy to share their favorite Star Wars characters with her. She made them feel important by really listening to their answers. **FYI,
Stitch picked 'Master' Yoda (yes, he always says "Master" before he says Yoda, it cracks me up),
Goofy picked R2-D2 and
Aladdin said his favorite character was Obi Wan Kenobi.**
About this time the next group was finishing up watching their pre-ride video. For some reason, the row right next to us had nobody in it? Are you ready to hear the super cool, amazingly awesome surprise that I didn't have any part in planning?!
TO BE CONTINUED...
I agree with you. My time, especially my VACATION time, is just too valuable. I am soo angry for you. (rant over)
Once again I am enjoying your updates, pictures, reviews and just everything. Especially pictures of cake
!
Very cool he won the jackpot! 
Your dinner at The Wave sounded delicious. I'm so glad the WL went all out on his birthday decorations, and I love that white chocolate Dale on the top! 
What a nice evening for everybody!
Thanks! Do you know where you chapstick is?
