Once again we were up bright and early, and this time we got out the door in time to make it to rope drop at Studios. Boo had a little better night, probably because I just let her sleep with me from the start. She woke up once and was a little disoriented, but settled down much more quickly than the night before.
It was about 8:15 when we left our room and the girls were ready to be on our way!
The bus service in the mornings at Pop was wonderful and this was no exception. By the lack of a line in the queue we must have just missed a bus but we didn't wait more than about 5 minutes for the next one.
Before we knew it we were at the bag check. The lines were rather daunting, but it moved quickly and soon we joined the mass of people at the turnstiles.
For ESPN the Weekend, there were a couple of Streetmosphere characters done up in baseball jerseys making conversation with people in line. I wish I'd had my camera out, but keeping track of the girls and the stroller in that crowd I didn't go for it.
I did snap a few pics once we got through the gates and headed down to the stage under the hat.
It was about 10 minutes to 9 when we found ourselves in front of the hat. Mulch, Sweat, and Shears was set up off to the left of the stage and we listened to them play a few songs before the ESPN crew kicked off their opening presentation.
There was a short video clip from Mike & Mike, two of DH's favorite ESPN personalities, but they tape their show over at WWoS now and don't appear live at Studios. Then the cast members dropped the rope to the rest of the park and the crowd moved en masse to Toy Story Mania.
Now, I'm all for avoiding lines but this whole thing has gotten insane. I tweeted at 9:34 having just gotten our fastpasses, and the standby line was up to 90 minutes. It was 50min by the time I got to the ride at about 9:10, so we just grabbed FPs and settled for riding just once (and yes, you're reading that right - there was a 20min line just to get FPs, and our return time was 12:40. That was the longest line I waited in all day!).
I think the big touring plan sites are starting to become victims of their own popularity, at least during the "slow" seasons that attract us uber-planners. At two-ish when we headed over to see the Monsters the standby wait was 70min, which is about where it hovered all day according to the Lines app. That 90min first thing in the morning was the longest wait it posted all day.
With our fastpass mission accomplished, we headed over to Starring Rolls for a couple of muffins. On the way, I stopped to catch a few minutes of ESPN's First Take, which is DH's standard "morning show" TV habit, and snap a few pics for him.
After breakfast, we split up. DM & Boo were headed for Voyage of the Little Mermaid, while Pocahontas and I headed for the biggies. I didn't take my camera for this part of the day because the thrillers were on the agenda.
Pocahontas and I headed over to Rock n Roller Coaster, which was posting a 20 minute wait. Standing in line I devised a new game - count the people checking their wait-times app! We made it to 10 before we got into the building, but the actual wait was more like 12 minutes than 20. It took us 20 minutes to wait in line, ride, buy DS a souvenir guitar pick in the gift shop, and be on our way to Tower of Terror. The wait for Tower of Terror was even shorter, but Pocahontas decided she didn't want to ride so instead we spent about 20 minutes checking out the ESPN Sports Zone area before heading back to meet up with DM and Boo.
We caught up with them in the Magic of Disney Animation building, where they'd decided to stop to see some characters.
We really hit the jackpot here because in addition to the usual characters they'd moved the characters that are normally at the hat into this building! We spent the rest of the time before lunch going from one ridiculously short character line to another.
Boo had to give Mickey his kiss on the nose.
The girls loved Lotso!
Minnie's outfit here is so cute.
Boo was just cuddling all over the characters this trip, a nice change from the last trip when she liked them better from arm's length!
Boo's autograph book was probably the best thing I made for this trip (for those who didn't follow my PTR, the book is most DonNatalie's designs from the Creative DISigners board, with a couple I modified for Rapunzel & Flynn, spiral bound courtesy of Snapfish - total cost < $10 and a lot of fun!).
The characters just loved seeing their own pages, and a few made a really big deal of it. Like Stitch here, making his "that's me" gesture and showing his handler the book.
Pooh & Piglet liked their pages too, and did a little dance with the girls.
Big hugs for a big teddy bear.
Don't Donald & Daisy look snazzy in their Tinseltown outfits?
By now it was time to head over to the Brown Derby for our lunch reservation. On the way out I just had to get a pic of this for DS. He's a huge Star Wars fan, so there's probably going to be a Star Wars Weekend trip at some point in our future.
Up next, finally a ride on TSM and Boo gets to meet her Monsters!
We were very disappointed that we could not see the Cars topiaries.
He'd been there from before the doors opened for our show and stayed for the next one. I suppose as places to nap at Disney World go that's a good one, cool and dark at least. 
DH & DS may never ride it if it stays the way it is because I don't see them caring about any one ride enough to make rope drop. 
So we got to see all four fairies with only one turn through the queue.
