Halloweenqueen
Whenever Candle Lights Flicker...
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2007
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Chapter Nine- Saturday at Disney MGM Studios with Star Wars Weekend Activities and Fantasmic Dinner Package
(revised title, courtesy of Goofylover!
)
This was the day I looked forward to most. I've been pumped up for Star Wars Weekend for months. I am the Star Wars dork in my family, a title I hold proudly.
The rest of my family humored my obsession. It was obvious that they were along for the ride. My eldest daughter kept asking me who was on her shirt....
Who doesn't know Han Solo???
Anyhoo...we arrived at MGM later than planned. Dad and the kids didn't care about rope drop today. Matt thought it would be a zoo with the Stormtroppers opening in the park and all the die-hard fans trying to get at the collectibles, so we hung back to around 11am. We made it to the turnsiles after parking the car somewhere in Jacksonville and were immediately impressed with "the look" of MGM.
I doubled checked my husband's phone to make sure it was operating and on ring and sent him for fast passes. The kids and I were going to head to the Star Wars area and grab information about the program times. The SW parade had already passed (that was okay, I knew we wouldn't make it). What I didn't anticipate was the hoardes of people returning from the parade route back to SW. It was complete grindlock.
My kids saw the determination in my eyes, so they didn't question my quest for anything SW at this point. We finally made it to the first character greet and was thankful to see a small line for Queen Amidala. There was only a couple people waiting so we thought we could sneak in line and get one character under our belts before we tried to hook up with Dad. There were 4 families in front of us, but the line was moving very slowly. We were second in line when the handler comes up to us and says that the Queen is about to take a break and would be back in a hour and a half. We would be the last people to see her before lunch. Great.
Actually, not so great. There was a lone lady, in her twenties in front of us. She was dressed entirely in black, with a metal suitcase terrorist might use to blow something up. The suitcase was covered in SW and Hello Kitty stickers (odd combination ) She walks up to the Queen and gives her the longest hug, like one would give a long-lost relative. It went on forever. Then she grabs the Queens hands and proceeds to talk with her for 15 minutes. At first I thought they must know each other, then I notice how uncomfortable the Queen was. The Queen had to be dying under all those robes and make-up, dreaming of AC and lunch and this stalker lady wouldn't let her go. The photographer comes up and asks if she wants her to take some photos, hoping to move things along. She isn't interested. She just wants to talk. And hug. And talk....
I start to think that our hopes for meeting the Queen were slim. I finally resort to nasty tourist mother tactics and start making those comments that sound like I'm answering my dear child when my child is prefectly fine sitting in her stroller....
"yes, baby, we will get a drink after we get our picture taken with the Queen"
"I sure hope we didn't miss your Dad"
"no, son, I don't know why this lady is taking so long"
And so it went. She finally left and we got our pictures. Hooray!
We call Dad and quickly find him outside Indiana (hello, we were going to SW! ) We head over to Jedi Training, but none of the kids get picked. They seem to concentrate on 4-6 year olds. We decide not to watch and try the next session. We head over to more character greets and get in line to see Anakin Skywalker. We wait 20+ minutes and then see him pout away for a break. The handler tells the crowd he will be back in an hour. 
I can't believe how these character greetings work. They should have someone counting and stopping the lines so people don't wait for hours in the heat for nothing. I was pissed and the kids were whiney. This trouble for Anakin. What was I thinking?
So we head next back to Jedi Training. Wait there for 30 minutes and do not get picked again. We head to Jedi Mickey next because he is housed in the Drew Carey Sounds Dangerous Attraction. It is supposed to be a half hour wait, but heck it is in the AC so we wait. A half hour turns to almost an hour before we see the Big Cheese in a bathrobe.
Now everyone is turned off to SW and I decide we should head to an attraction. The kids want Honey I Shrunk...Playarea, so we go. Dad walks them through and I sit at the counter restaurant next door to have a cool drink and think of our next move.
Oh, I forgot to mention...Rock N Rollercoaster is closed. For the day.
Dad was able to get fastpasses for Tower of Terror. My kids are very disappointed because that was the ride they were most excited about.
I decide that the Muppets movie would be a good idea. I was happy to see smiling faces as they returned. There hadn't been much to smile about so far today. We head to Muppets and stop to listen to Mulch, Sweat, and Shears. They were great. We would have stayed for the entire set, but they were playing directly in the sun, with no shade anywhere.
Everyone collapsed on the floor of the Muppets preshow. It was so cool inside and the pre-show was cute. We dragged ourselves to the theater and had the place to ourselves for the most part. It was a great show, especially for the parents who grew up with the Muppets.
We decided to start for the Little Mermaid show next. Of course we had to go through the SW villian area to get there.
Darth Vader must have been returning from his break and started to walk right next to us! His line was very long, so we continued. The area was loaded with many different types of Stormtroppers, Jawas, and Clones. There were several character greeting areas roped off, but no characters. I ask a CM and he tells me that all will be returning soon from their lunch breaks. I turn to my family and beg for one more character greeting chance. There is Boba Fett, The Emporer, and Darth Maul lines. Everyone wants Darth Maul (Boba, would have been my pick). I get in line for DM and Dad starts taking the kids to the restroom by gender. We are standing in line with no shade. The lady in front of me says he is set to return in 20 minutes.
Now we have been waiting at least 15 minutes already. The commando in me sets in. My rationale to continue the wait is that we already have wasted 15 minutes, did we want it to be for nothing. The kids start to wonder about Mom's sanity and ask Dad to bring them to the gift shop. He brings a couple at a time to bask in the AC as Mom holds her ground in line. I am waiting silently alone, trying to position myself under a lone leaf of shade when I am shoved violently in the back, forward, off the sidewalk.
Aurra Sing is chasing a Gamorrean guard out of our line. The lady behind me actually shoved me and screamed because she was frightened by the little pig soldier. She apologized profusely, but I just couldn't get a full breath after that. I don't know if it was my smoke inhalation problem, the heat, or the punch to the back, but I was feeling very weak. Thankfully Darth Maul appeared and the line moved just enough that I was now under a tree. It had to be at least 20 degrees cooler. We waited another 10 minutes before....yes, again...the handler comes up to us and says that Darth Maul was going to take another break and would be back in 30 minutes.
The lady in front of me turns around and says that we will probably make it. She says the people in front of her are all in the same group/family. Then it is just her, then us. She goes on to tell me that this is the third time she has waited for Darth Maul. She says she can't help herself because he is so sexy.
We make it again...hooray! Darth Maul was a cool guy to meet. And the kids said the wait was worth it. (easy for them to say...they waited in the AC)
We are told that Star Tours has no stand-by line. We go there next, hoping to get anything SW related in our rearview. Everyone enjoyed it, but they need to bring that ride into the 21st century.
We have missed the next showing for Mermaid, so we head to The Great Movie ride. We get in line and wait awhile before we realized we never looked at the posted wait time. We couldn't find it, so we asked a CM. He tells us it is over an hour, plus it is currently not working. Why aren't they tell all the people who are getting in line?
We see a line forming for what we think is the parade. I check my phone for the time and see it is almost 4, not 3. This line is for High School Musical. My kids are practically jumping out of their Crocs.....they adore HSM. I go to get us some drinks and Dad waits with the kids. I go to two stands nearby, but neither has cold bottles of anything. I ask for a couple cups of ice and feel like I need to find a place to sit down. Fast.
Every available place to sit is taken because of HSM. I try to prop myself against a railing, but it isn't enough. I decide just to sit on the ground under a tree. My family can find my body later.
The kids are skipping towards me before long. Their hands full of red and white confetti. I guess they were able to get into the first row and danced right along with the HSM crew. I was happy to see smiles again.
Our ADR for Hollywood and Vine was at 4:40. There wasn't time to try anything else, so I went over to ask if we could get in a little early. The CM was very rude, deeply sighing and groaning over my question. She looked down at her little tablet and up to me a couple of times before telling me that we probably would just have to wait until our time. We picked a shady bench outside the restaurant and sat down. We waited about 30 seconds before they called us in.
We all sat down, happy to be in AC again. The place was packed. We had only picked H and V out of default. We couldn't get the Fantasmic Package at any other restaurant. It was a pleasant enough meal. We didn't eat much because we were exhausted from the heat. Plus they sat us at a booth, which isn't a great set-up for a buffet. We got our precious Fantasmic passes and headed to Indiana next. We rushed there to try to make the last performance. We got there and I asked the CM if we had made it. He said yes, so I told Matt to get the baby out of the stroller. We walked to the entrance and the CM roped off the walkway right in front of us. It might have taken us 30 seconds max to get Holly out of her seat. He told us that he was sorry, but he had to close the line exactly at 5:15. Then he smirked at us and said "be sure to catch the next show...tomorrow at 10am)
We just stood there in a daze after that. I sat down and checked the program guide. All the shows were over, except the Car Show, which no one was interested in. We decided to try the Movie Ride again, but found it now closed. It was now 5:30, over 3 hours until Fantasmic. The kids voted to ride Star Tours again. So we went back. That burned maybe 15 minutes of our time. Enough time had past since dinner, so we decided to use our Tower of Terror fastpasses.
It was a very strange scene down Sunset Boulevard. Hundred of people just sitting or wondering around. It looked like a lot of people were just waiting around for Fantasmic already. I took the first group on TOT. The queque area is fantastic. We only went up and down maybe 3-4 times. They must have had the ride shortened, since it was about the only thing open at the park now. I took my group to the gift shops while the second group did TOT. I was becoming obvious that these gift shops were all pretty much the same stuff. We found a bench in the shade and waited.
It was now 7pm, and they opened the Fantasmic line. Hundreds of people filed into the theater, as we watched from our bench. Some with coolers!!!??? People were bringing huge picnic dinners into the theater. The second group exited TOT and I (big mistake) made the decision that we should make our way to the Dinner Package entrance at the front of the park. It took forever, swimming upstream from all the people headed to the theater. We got to the entrance, just to find that we would now be circling back behind the stores. We walked forever to get to the stadium. I positioned us exactly as the unofficial book recommends. Then a CM walks over to us and says we should just sit in the regular section because the seats are so much better.
We are soon sitting next to the very people with the picnic dinners that we left 40 minutes earlier while we did our marathon walk around MGM. We have almost an hour and a half until Fantasmic.
I was freaking out because I didn't see how the kids would wait so long. I broke out the snacks early and pulled out more glowsticks. I brought the remainder of our bracelets and necklaces. This was going to be our last night activitity so I started putting the glowsticks together and the kids started giving them out to nearby kids. We had about 150 bracelets, so soon the entire section was a-glow. The kids struck up a conversation with the family behind us. They were from Puerto Rico and were an absolute delight. They shared their snacks with the kids and the girls ended up sitting next to their daughters during the show. A security/cop? came up to our row and stood there and watch us for awhile. I was wondering what was going on. He asked some questions from the family across the aisle from us.
He was checking to see if we were selling the glowsticks!
I guess Disney doesn't want any competition!
My bum was starting to scream when finally the lights were dimmed. Holly came to sit on my lap. I was worried that the show would be too intense for her, but she enjoyed every minute of it. We were atleast 12 rows up, but we were throughly misted throughout the show. It actually felt very nice. Fantasmic was a great show, but I would never do the dinner package again. It was a complete waste. I watched that section from time to time and there was always better seats available right up to the dinner package deadline (30 minutes before the show).
We found our stroller and started to inch our way to the exit. The park had a second show that night, but our original plan was to ride rides after the first show. There really wasn't anything to ride, so we just headed back.
The plan was to return to MGM tomorrow for a second day. I told everyone in the car that we should check my Tour Guide Mike suggestions and maybe change our park plans. A huge YES erupted from the back of the van. It didn't look like we would be returning for a second day of Star Wars/MGM.
We got back to our fantastic rental home and jumped into the pool. It was so beautiful with the pool lights on. I went around and asked everyone their park pick. It was equal votes Epcot and MK. TGM suggested MK, so that was the plan. Tomorrow we would go back to MK a third time!
I think my kiddos were a little too young for MGM. And with Rock N Rollercoaster and The Great Movie Ride out of commision there was little left to do after dinner. I hope we can go back to MGM with fresh eyes, at rope drop, during a non SW weekend.
Next Installment- Characters or Bust!
(revised title, courtesy of Goofylover!
)This was the day I looked forward to most. I've been pumped up for Star Wars Weekend for months. I am the Star Wars dork in my family, a title I hold proudly.
The rest of my family humored my obsession. It was obvious that they were along for the ride. My eldest daughter kept asking me who was on her shirt....
Who doesn't know Han Solo???
Anyhoo...we arrived at MGM later than planned. Dad and the kids didn't care about rope drop today. Matt thought it would be a zoo with the Stormtroppers opening in the park and all the die-hard fans trying to get at the collectibles, so we hung back to around 11am. We made it to the turnsiles after parking the car somewhere in Jacksonville and were immediately impressed with "the look" of MGM.
I doubled checked my husband's phone to make sure it was operating and on ring and sent him for fast passes. The kids and I were going to head to the Star Wars area and grab information about the program times. The SW parade had already passed (that was okay, I knew we wouldn't make it). What I didn't anticipate was the hoardes of people returning from the parade route back to SW. It was complete grindlock.
My kids saw the determination in my eyes, so they didn't question my quest for anything SW at this point. We finally made it to the first character greet and was thankful to see a small line for Queen Amidala. There was only a couple people waiting so we thought we could sneak in line and get one character under our belts before we tried to hook up with Dad. There were 4 families in front of us, but the line was moving very slowly. We were second in line when the handler comes up to us and says that the Queen is about to take a break and would be back in a hour and a half. We would be the last people to see her before lunch. Great.
Actually, not so great. There was a lone lady, in her twenties in front of us. She was dressed entirely in black, with a metal suitcase terrorist might use to blow something up. The suitcase was covered in SW and Hello Kitty stickers (odd combination ) She walks up to the Queen and gives her the longest hug, like one would give a long-lost relative. It went on forever. Then she grabs the Queens hands and proceeds to talk with her for 15 minutes. At first I thought they must know each other, then I notice how uncomfortable the Queen was. The Queen had to be dying under all those robes and make-up, dreaming of AC and lunch and this stalker lady wouldn't let her go. The photographer comes up and asks if she wants her to take some photos, hoping to move things along. She isn't interested. She just wants to talk. And hug. And talk....
I start to think that our hopes for meeting the Queen were slim. I finally resort to nasty tourist mother tactics and start making those comments that sound like I'm answering my dear child when my child is prefectly fine sitting in her stroller....
"yes, baby, we will get a drink after we get our picture taken with the Queen"
"I sure hope we didn't miss your Dad"
"no, son, I don't know why this lady is taking so long"
And so it went. She finally left and we got our pictures. Hooray!
We call Dad and quickly find him outside Indiana (hello, we were going to SW!
) We head over to Jedi Training, but none of the kids get picked. They seem to concentrate on 4-6 year olds. We decide not to watch and try the next session. We head over to more character greets and get in line to see Anakin Skywalker. We wait 20+ minutes and then see him pout away for a break. The handler tells the crowd he will be back in an hour. I can't believe how these character greetings work. They should have someone counting and stopping the lines so people don't wait for hours in the heat for nothing. I was pissed and the kids were whiney. This trouble for Anakin. What was I thinking?So we head next back to Jedi Training. Wait there for 30 minutes and do not get picked again. We head to Jedi Mickey next because he is housed in the Drew Carey Sounds Dangerous Attraction. It is supposed to be a half hour wait, but heck it is in the AC so we wait. A half hour turns to almost an hour before we see the Big Cheese in a bathrobe.
Now everyone is turned off to SW and I decide we should head to an attraction. The kids want Honey I Shrunk...Playarea, so we go. Dad walks them through and I sit at the counter restaurant next door to have a cool drink and think of our next move.
Oh, I forgot to mention...Rock N Rollercoaster is closed. For the day.
Dad was able to get fastpasses for Tower of Terror. My kids are very disappointed because that was the ride they were most excited about.I decide that the Muppets movie would be a good idea. I was happy to see smiling faces as they returned. There hadn't been much to smile about so far today. We head to Muppets and stop to listen to Mulch, Sweat, and Shears. They were great. We would have stayed for the entire set, but they were playing directly in the sun, with no shade anywhere.
Everyone collapsed on the floor of the Muppets preshow. It was so cool inside and the pre-show was cute. We dragged ourselves to the theater and had the place to ourselves for the most part. It was a great show, especially for the parents who grew up with the Muppets.
We decided to start for the Little Mermaid show next. Of course we had to go through the SW villian area to get there.
Darth Vader must have been returning from his break and started to walk right next to us! His line was very long, so we continued. The area was loaded with many different types of Stormtroppers, Jawas, and Clones. There were several character greeting areas roped off, but no characters. I ask a CM and he tells me that all will be returning soon from their lunch breaks. I turn to my family and beg for one more character greeting chance. There is Boba Fett, The Emporer, and Darth Maul lines. Everyone wants Darth Maul (Boba, would have been my pick). I get in line for DM and Dad starts taking the kids to the restroom by gender. We are standing in line with no shade. The lady in front of me says he is set to return in 20 minutes.
Now we have been waiting at least 15 minutes already. The commando in me sets in. My rationale to continue the wait is that we already have wasted 15 minutes, did we want it to be for nothing. The kids start to wonder about Mom's sanity and ask Dad to bring them to the gift shop. He brings a couple at a time to bask in the AC as Mom holds her ground in line. I am waiting silently alone, trying to position myself under a lone leaf of shade when I am shoved violently in the back, forward, off the sidewalk.
Aurra Sing is chasing a Gamorrean guard out of our line. The lady behind me actually shoved me and screamed because she was frightened by the little pig soldier. She apologized profusely, but I just couldn't get a full breath after that. I don't know if it was my smoke inhalation problem, the heat, or the punch to the back, but I was feeling very weak. Thankfully Darth Maul appeared and the line moved just enough that I was now under a tree. It had to be at least 20 degrees cooler. We waited another 10 minutes before....yes, again...the handler comes up to us and says that Darth Maul was going to take another break and would be back in 30 minutes.
The lady in front of me turns around and says that we will probably make it. She says the people in front of her are all in the same group/family. Then it is just her, then us. She goes on to tell me that this is the third time she has waited for Darth Maul. She says she can't help herself because he is so sexy.
We make it again...hooray! Darth Maul was a cool guy to meet. And the kids said the wait was worth it. (easy for them to say...they waited in the AC)
We are told that Star Tours has no stand-by line. We go there next, hoping to get anything SW related in our rearview. Everyone enjoyed it, but they need to bring that ride into the 21st century.
We have missed the next showing for Mermaid, so we head to The Great Movie ride. We get in line and wait awhile before we realized we never looked at the posted wait time. We couldn't find it, so we asked a CM. He tells us it is over an hour, plus it is currently not working.
Why aren't they tell all the people who are getting in line?We see a line forming for what we think is the parade. I check my phone for the time and see it is almost 4, not 3. This line is for High School Musical. My kids are practically jumping out of their Crocs.....they adore HSM. I go to get us some drinks and Dad waits with the kids. I go to two stands nearby, but neither has cold bottles of anything. I ask for a couple cups of ice and feel like I need to find a place to sit down. Fast.
Every available place to sit is taken because of HSM. I try to prop myself against a railing, but it isn't enough. I decide just to sit on the ground under a tree. My family can find my body later.
The kids are skipping towards me before long. Their hands full of red and white confetti. I guess they were able to get into the first row and danced right along with the HSM crew. I was happy to see smiles again.
Our ADR for Hollywood and Vine was at 4:40. There wasn't time to try anything else, so I went over to ask if we could get in a little early. The CM was very rude, deeply sighing and groaning over my question. She looked down at her little tablet and up to me a couple of times before telling me that we probably would just have to wait until our time. We picked a shady bench outside the restaurant and sat down. We waited about 30 seconds before they called us in.
We all sat down, happy to be in AC again. The place was packed. We had only picked H and V out of default. We couldn't get the Fantasmic Package at any other restaurant. It was a pleasant enough meal. We didn't eat much because we were exhausted from the heat. Plus they sat us at a booth, which isn't a great set-up for a buffet. We got our precious Fantasmic passes and headed to Indiana next. We rushed there to try to make the last performance. We got there and I asked the CM if we had made it. He said yes, so I told Matt to get the baby out of the stroller. We walked to the entrance and the CM roped off the walkway right in front of us. It might have taken us 30 seconds max to get Holly out of her seat. He told us that he was sorry, but he had to close the line exactly at 5:15. Then he smirked at us and said "be sure to catch the next show...tomorrow at 10am)
We just stood there in a daze after that. I sat down and checked the program guide. All the shows were over, except the Car Show, which no one was interested in. We decided to try the Movie Ride again, but found it now closed. It was now 5:30, over 3 hours until Fantasmic. The kids voted to ride Star Tours again. So we went back. That burned maybe 15 minutes of our time. Enough time had past since dinner, so we decided to use our Tower of Terror fastpasses.
It was a very strange scene down Sunset Boulevard. Hundred of people just sitting or wondering around. It looked like a lot of people were just waiting around for Fantasmic already. I took the first group on TOT. The queque area is fantastic. We only went up and down maybe 3-4 times. They must have had the ride shortened, since it was about the only thing open at the park now. I took my group to the gift shops while the second group did TOT. I was becoming obvious that these gift shops were all pretty much the same stuff. We found a bench in the shade and waited.
It was now 7pm, and they opened the Fantasmic line. Hundreds of people filed into the theater, as we watched from our bench. Some with coolers!!!??? People were bringing huge picnic dinners into the theater. The second group exited TOT and I (big mistake) made the decision that we should make our way to the Dinner Package entrance at the front of the park. It took forever, swimming upstream from all the people headed to the theater. We got to the entrance, just to find that we would now be circling back behind the stores. We walked forever to get to the stadium. I positioned us exactly as the unofficial book recommends. Then a CM walks over to us and says we should just sit in the regular section because the seats are so much better.
We are soon sitting next to the very people with the picnic dinners that we left 40 minutes earlier while we did our marathon walk around MGM. We have almost an hour and a half until Fantasmic.
I was freaking out because I didn't see how the kids would wait so long. I broke out the snacks early and pulled out more glowsticks. I brought the remainder of our bracelets and necklaces. This was going to be our last night activitity so I started putting the glowsticks together and the kids started giving them out to nearby kids. We had about 150 bracelets, so soon the entire section was a-glow. The kids struck up a conversation with the family behind us. They were from Puerto Rico and were an absolute delight. They shared their snacks with the kids and the girls ended up sitting next to their daughters during the show. A security/cop? came up to our row and stood there and watch us for awhile. I was wondering what was going on. He asked some questions from the family across the aisle from us.
He was checking to see if we were selling the glowsticks!
I guess Disney doesn't want any competition!My bum was starting to scream when finally the lights were dimmed. Holly came to sit on my lap. I was worried that the show would be too intense for her, but she enjoyed every minute of it. We were atleast 12 rows up, but we were throughly misted throughout the show. It actually felt very nice. Fantasmic was a great show, but I would never do the dinner package again. It was a complete waste. I watched that section from time to time and there was always better seats available right up to the dinner package deadline (30 minutes before the show).
We found our stroller and started to inch our way to the exit. The park had a second show that night, but our original plan was to ride rides after the first show. There really wasn't anything to ride, so we just headed back.
The plan was to return to MGM tomorrow for a second day. I told everyone in the car that we should check my Tour Guide Mike suggestions and maybe change our park plans. A huge YES erupted from the back of the van. It didn't look like we would be returning for a second day of Star Wars/MGM.
We got back to our fantastic rental home and jumped into the pool. It was so beautiful with the pool lights on. I went around and asked everyone their park pick. It was equal votes Epcot and MK. TGM suggested MK, so that was the plan. Tomorrow we would go back to MK a third time!
I think my kiddos were a little too young for MGM. And with Rock N Rollercoaster and The Great Movie Ride out of commision there was little left to do after dinner. I hope we can go back to MGM with fresh eyes, at rope drop, during a non SW weekend.
Next Installment- Characters or Bust!
At least with the kids being so sad you know they had a great time 
to get to your Laughing Place! 
