Saturday, the fourth of July, was going to be our last park day. Since we had made our final rounds at the Magic Kingdom and Epcot the day before, today we’d make our last visits to Disney Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. We got up around 7:00 and made it to the bus stop at about 8:15. We had to wait another 15 minutes for a bus to Hollywood Studios, and got to the park just before 9:00.
As we entered the park walking up Hollywood Boulevard, a cast member gave us little American flag pins, so we put them on our shirts and wore them proudly. Then we ran into a photopass photographer. Since we hadn’t gotten any photopass pictures at this park when were were here a few days before we decided to stop for some.
One with my camera first.
Then theirs.
What’s that blue shirt to the right of us in this photo. Could it be a member of a Brazilian tour group?
This looks like the sign-off of “The Dating Game”.
(And I think I see more blue shirts back there!)
Then the famous “balloon” photo. I think I upstaged Judy and Lauren since they have the back of their heads toward the camera. But Marlene will not be upstaged. In fact, you can see she’s acting her little heart out. We really look like we’re tackling this park commando-style with all of our fanny packs and water bottles and everything, don’t we?
Okay, now that we had some photopass pictures behind us it was time to get some fastpasses. Our plan of attack was for me to get fastpasses for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster while the rest of the gang headed to Toy Story Midway Mania, where Judy would get fastpasses using our the VIP fastpass cards that we had gotten at the DVC event a few nights before. They were good for two rides, so this would be the first. Anyway, while they went in the direction of
Pixar Place, I headed down Sunset Boulevard to the fastpass distribution machines for RnR. I went to the far-right machine, which had 2 or 3 people in line and waited. And waited. And waited. Man, the person at the machine was taking a long time. I leaned over to get a look at them, and realized that they were a Brazilian tour group leader!
So, I moved to the line at the far-left, and soon realized the the person at the machine there was also with a Brazilian tour group. They had stacks of park passes that they were feeding into the machines. The guys ahead of me had no idea who they were and were really getting disgusted. Eventually they finished and the rest of us got to use the machines. 10:05 wasn’t a bad return time, but I wondered if the whole Brazilian tour group would be there at that time too?
On my way to meet up with Judy and the kids she called me wondering where in the World I was, but I soon caught up with them. She had gotten the Toy Story fastpasses, but since the standby line was short we decided to ride it once standby and use the fastpasses later. While in line I remembered that the day before we had called Judy’s mom to ask her to check us in on Southwest today, and our flight time was approaching, so Judy called her mom to remind her. It was a good thing she did, because she had forgotten about it. Then, she was having trouble figuring out how to do it since she had never done it before.
Judy was trying to explain it to her while Mr. Potato Head was doing his carnival barking. “It’s a game, it’s a ride!” So Judy had to explain what all the commotion was in addition to giving directions on how to use the Southwest website. And, although it was stressful for all, MIL got us checked in and we got decently-low boarding numbers.
As we moved to the loading area I took a picture to give you an idea of what it looks like. I apologize that it’s blurry.
Here are Marlene and Lauren ready to get their game on.
And James would be riding with me.
My score on the left; James’ on the right. (Ha! Take that James!)
A couple of happy players.
Then we all met up after the ride and compared scores and found out that Judy had the highest this time around. James and I concluded that it was because she rode alone, and didn’t have to compete with anyone for targets. (That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.)
From there we decided to go to the Animation Academy. But wait, our fastpass window had opened! So, first I had to detour to Tower of Terror and get fastpasses. I realized that I hadn’t taken pictures of the Toy Story fastpasses yet, so took a picture of both. (Notice that the Toy Story ones are “instant” fastpasses, good for the time when you get them at the machine, not later.)
Okay,
now we could go to the Animation Academy.
I had seen the presentation before but hadn’t done the actual drawing class so I wanted to try that. We found the room where they conduct those and were one of the first people in line. The instructor decided that we’d draw Goofy.
Then the instructor proceeded to effortlessly draw circles and ovals and lines while we all followed along, trying to keep up. It was so hard to draw circles that weren't ovals and ovals that weren't circular. After a short while, she had produced Goofy and we put the finishing touches on our attempts. Here are pictures of our finished artwork. I like all of these because I can see each member of my family in these -- just like you can see them in their handwriting.
Now James’ we had to rescue. He was frustrated that his didn’t turn out well (in his opinion) and he started to crumple it up. You can see he had started over at one point and tried to erase somewhere along the line. But we told him it was good, and we liked it.
Marlene’s.
Lauren’s
Judy’s
And mine. Not to be overly proud, but I love how this turned out! It was the most amazing thing because I was just following along, trying to make the circles and ovals, and that’s all it seemed to be. And not very good ones, at that. Then I did some filling in of the ears, eyes, and nose, stepped back, and was stunned to see….Goofy!
In the next installment: More July 4 at the Studios
Link to next installment
I will be there in 32 days - I can't wait!
who thought it was a very funny conversation. (No egos were bruised in the making of this anecdote!)
: So thank you for taking me back!
