Day 8...DHS Part 4
Following our excellent lunch at the Brown Derby, we headed back to The Great Movie Ride. I wanted to revisit the ride one more time so that I clearly had the different areas in my head (just in case it would work out for a vow renewal dinner setting in the near future). I took a ton of pictures but being as I didn't use the flash (and didn't get it on the right setting for pictures without flash) they didn't turn out at all. Ha ha. Where was MouseTriper when I needed her?!
After my daydreaming ride, we made our way over to the marked parade route on the DHS map. Also marked on the map were two areas where block party bash sort of festivities would occur. We chose to sit across from Sounds Dangerous (the marked route went past this spot). While we were waiting for the new parade to come by, dh staked out the bench with
Goofy and our
LP while the other two boys and I made our way into Sounds Dangerous.
Stitch had never experienced this attraction before. I was surprised when he enjoyed it as much as he did. He spoke about Sounds Dangerous when he talked about his favorite Disney attractions (still does if anyone asks). I never would have guessed that he would have enjoyed it so much!
Back to the 'parade'. From our seating area, we could see the block party in the distance. It was full of dancing, characters giving high fives, dancers, trampoliners (is that a real word), loud music and LOTS of energy. It was basically a show sort of like the High School Musical show. A float rolls up, does a short show and then rolls out. We didn't want to wait in the block party area because we didn't want our littlest guy out in the broiling sun for an extended period of time. It really was a scorcher that day.
The block party was neat. Again, think along the lines of the HSM show with the crowd interaction, the music and dancing and then throw in some characters and trampoline artists and you have a pretty good idea of what the block party was.
All of that said, I was not a big fan of the parade portion of this offering. It was really nothing more than the cast of the block party moving past. All of the stages were folded up into big giant cubes. I know they have to keep the route clear for the large stages and speaker vehicles to make their way to and from the block party areas and maybe the only way they can do this is to call it a parade? For me, that was a big stretch. I know that someone must like it, they did borrow the idea from
Disneyland (so it must have gotten good reviews) BUT that someone is not me. To me it's like calling the HSM float a parade when it rolls back by. Sure, you see the HSM float-stage roll by, but it's not a parade, is it? To me a good parade is an event in and of itself, not just a quick procession (and it was only a handful of minutes before this particular procession was done and past us).
I did get some pictures...and they seem more 'paradish" then I remember it being. And our
Little Prince did love the bright colors and snappy music rolling past him.
Here is one of the closed up stages (aka a giant brightly painted cube) that rolls by. A lot of these big 'boxes' rolled by.
There were characters on top of some of the moving stage cubes. Here is a picture of Frozone.
There were other sorts of floats in the parade. I really did think they were neat. I also thought they moved by too quickly. Here they are.
A giant potato head. He was also hustling by quickly as well. I thought he was super cool looking though!
Lots of the giant orange safety cones rolled past.
Lots of piles of blocks rolled by.
Dispersed among the blocks, cones and cubes that were rolling past were a few floats with Pixar characters. I did adore these. Here is a few shots of the Monsters Inc one.
And the Monster's Inc themed stack of blocks.
The floats were all mini stages for the block party.
It was neat to see the more unusual Pixar characters.
I know I seem very down on this parade but it just really was not a parade that seemed up to the standards of Disney parades to me. So many of the same thing (the blocks, cubes and giant orange cones). The speedy pace. And although I dearly love the Pixar characters and was happy to see them, my glimpses were very brief because of the speed of the procession (and to me, that's what it was, a procession, not a parade). The characters and entertainers also had no sort of high fiving going on (at least in our area) and they weren't doing any 'shows' as they moved past (the way they sometimes have characters or CMS dance past in a formation or something). The performers were just dance stepping past and pumping their arms/ clapping in time to the music.
My personal feeling about this 'parade' is that I don't really need to see it again. If I do any future viewing, it will be of the block party itself. I think that show (which we watched from afar from our 'parade' route spot) looked very cute and would be a lot of fun. To me, the parade itself just seemed like more of a caravan to get their block party bash from one place to the other than a parade designed to entertain in it's own right. That doesn't mean that our
LP didn't seem to enjoy every minute of it.
A quick snapshot of Stitch's super cool new Wall-E
Crocs. I think they are so cute. Even the tread on the bottom looks like it would be left by Wall-E himself!
And a snapshot of a beautiful flower we saw as we walked to our next destination...The Art of Disney!
Once we made our way to the Art of Disney Animation area, we took the back way in so that we could go straight over to draw with an animator (one of our favorite things about DHS). We got there with about five minutes to go before the next drawing session started. Our family never minds having a wait here because of the fun game that is running on the TV screens above your head. They start to show a Disney character and you race to be the first one to guess who it is. The boys really like this. I think it's a lot of fun too. Here are a few snapshots of the boys happily passing the time waiting for the next drawing session to start. Notice that they are looking up at the screens.
Also note how empty it is behind them. This area of DHS has never been crowded when we were there (although I am sure when the Art with Animation show lets out, it can get pretty busy back there for a few minutes).
I took the three older boys in to draw while dh took our LP to meet some of the characters that were around. Dh said that our LP spent about five minutes playing with Frozone all by himself. I wish I would have been able to see that!
The character that we drew this time was Tinkerbelle. OUCH. She is a hard one to draw for sure! My Tinkerbelle looked more like a grasshopper on drugs or the lead singer of Aerosmith than it looked like the fairy friend of Peter Pan. And I am not joking! I will NOT be sharing that picture with anyone. HA HA HA.
After failing to create a recognizable Disney character we were off to see one of our favorite shows, The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. We snuck into the back of a show that had just started about two minutes before. We ate some frozen lemon ice's while we sat in the shade watching our favorite adventurer. All to soon the show was over and we made our way over to the restrooms for a quick potty break. It is then we realized that somehow, we were out of diapers. We set off to find the baby care area at DHS and came to find out that, YES, you can buy your diapers at WDW...but that you really shouldn't plan on doing so. DO NOT DO IT! OYE! We paid a lot of money for a very small pack of diapers. DO NOT let yourself run out of diapers at WDW! Do your wallet a favor, learn from our sad tale of diaper bag restocking woes. One good thing about our search for diapers is that it took us back to the front part of the park. It is here we ran into some very lively characters. This guy gave
Stitch a hard time about him not having paid to bring Yoda into the park and how everyone had to pay, no piggybacker exceptions. It was such a funny interaction.
As we started toward our next attraction, we were stopped by this guy.
Apparently he had lost his work order and he was sure that we must have known where it was and were pulling a 'fast one' on him. Hee hee hee. I adore Streetmosphere actors! They make me laugh so hard!
And I took this shot to show just how empty the park really was on this day. This picture was taken mid afternoon...look at how few people are milling around!
TO BE CONTINUED...
I think that would be so fun - as long as I didn't have to eat my dinner with the skeletons or under the alien 
). It's all only a dream at this point...but I am planning on getting down to business and really starting in on some serious planning discussions with WDW and dh when I finish up this trip report. 
Yes it was!! And her summerhouse dinner was wonderful too!! I think she may have done an Alice in Wonderland Tea party too. I know of 1 recent bride who had her reception in FOLK! Now that was cool!! private meal and a private show! the only problem with having it inside the ride is how LATE it's going to have to be. even on early closing days, 7pm, give them 3 hrs to clear out the park and set up, it's 10PM before you have your reception! Almost as bad at the 9am starting for inpark ceremonies!
Can you even imagine that?!
I am sure someone has tried to arrange that before...I hope it is possible...but I am guessing that it may not be. 
I'll probably just get something small and let mom and dad leave it in the room for him. They are flying so I don't want to take too much of their luggage space.
You think that no one ever wins these jackpots, and then BAM!
.
