After waiting for a rather long time, our bus finally turned up and we headed back to the Boardwalk. We took a little break in the room before getting ready to head out for dinner. We decided to walk over to DHS, and it wasn't too bad of a hike. I wouldn't want to make this trek when it's super hot out, but on this particular day the weather was pretty nice as long as we stayed in the shade.
We got to DHS with a little time to spare before our 6:00pm ADR at Mama Melrose to grab Fastpasses for Rock N' Roller Coaster. Then we headed over to a brand-new to all of us restaurant, stopping on the way to get a few beers at the Tune In Lounge adjacent to 50s Prime Time Cafe. Jen and Eric had never been in this building and both left wanting to try out the restaurant sometime in the future. We took our drinks with us to Mama Melrose and checked in.
We were still a little early, so we got a pager and I sat down to wait. Jen and Eric had been wanting to get a picture for their Christmas cards, and I suggested they head over to the snowman set up near the restaurant. Ben went with them to play photographer.
They were gone quite a while and just when I started to wonder if they were ever coming back, the three of them turned up. Apparently, when they tried to pose with the snowman, people passing by noticed their interest and all decided
they needed pictures, too. One woman even spent a few minutes video taping the (stationary) snowman as her family walked away from her. After waiting for the crowd of people to get their pictures, Jen and Eric were
finally able to get theirs taken.
Not long after they got back to Mama Melrose's, our pager went off and we were seated. There was one drink on the menu that we all knew we absolutely
had to order: Italian Surfers (Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, Amaretto, and Pineapple and Cranberry Juice). At some point in the past few years, Ben and I started making these during parties at our house. We were excited to be able to order them here!
Funny story- last year, Ben and I were out with friends at a bar in the North End section of Boston. This is the 'Little Italy' part of the city known for its amazing Italian restaurants (and delicious cannoli!) and is mainly populated by Italian-Americans. Anyway, after ordering Italian Surfers (the first time these friends of ours had tried the drink), with our waiter at the table collecting our empty glasses, Ben asks: So how do you like our Italian server? Nicole and I both got shocked looks on our faces and didn't know what to say. Once the waiter (who was Italian) had moved off, I hissed at Ben that I couldn't believe he had just said that! He was confused... turns out, Ben was asking how we liked the Italian SURFERS, as in the drinks.
Back to the WDW trip:
Both Jen and I ordered the Penne alla Vodka and it was
really good! I don't remember what the boys ordered, but I am fairly certain they liked whatever they got. I absolutely remember Eric pouting because we said no to a dessert menu (the rest of us were stuffed) so I grabbed the waiter's attention and asked for one. But then Eric didn't want to order anything, anyway.
I am really glad we tried Mama Melrose's; the food and service were great and I loved the atmosphere. I'll definitely return here.
After dinner, Muppet Vision 3D was beckoning to us, so we popped in to enjoy the show. It was great, as always!
That's a random picture of our feet, while we were waiting to go into the Muppet pre-show. We had just missed a show, so we got to see the
entire pre-show- a first for me!
After, we took a trip on Star Tours which was fun but left us all feeling a little queasy.
Next, we used our Fastpasses for RnRC, and wanted to ride ToT. The Studios had evening EMH this night, and as we walked down Sunset Boulevard, we were engulfed in a ginormous crowd of people leaving Fantasmic!, mixed with a ginormous crowd of people lined up for the next show. It was completely overwhelming! None of us have any desire to watch that show and could not fathom waiting in that sort of crowd. It took us a while to get past all of that craziness, and the stand-by line for ToT was insane by that point, so we grabbed Fastpasses which would be could in a couple of hours. With time to kill and no real idea how to spend it, we kinda just wondered around. I suggested that we check out the Animation Academy (Jen and Eric had never heard of it), and we headed that way. As we got near Voyage of the Little Mermaid, we noticed that a show was starting in just a couple of minutes and we walked right into the theater. As we sat down, the three of them asked me what the attraction was and I straight-faced told them it was just clips of the movie shown in a themed theater. They all believed me. It helped that the show
does start this way- I had them going for a while. The low expectations they had from the beginning meant everyone
really enjoyed the show. Glad we tried it!
When we got to the Animation Academy building, we had a good chunk of time before the next drawing class started. As we waited, Jen and I started hysterically laughing while watching some other people around us. I don't remember
what was so funny, but I do remember crying because we were laughing so hard.
Once we got in to the class, we spent
forever deciding what to draw. The instructor kept asking who had drawn certain characters before and a couple of obnoxious ladies in the front raised their hands for
every single one. It was ridiculous. Somehow, we finally settled on drawing Eeyore.
Mine:
Ben's:
Once we were done in there, off we headed to use our ToT Fastpasses. This is everyone's favorite ride and we were excited!
I love how Jen and I are holding our Eeyore drawings, so it looks like we have diplomas or something!
By now we were all more than exhausted and needed to head back to the Boardwalk to crash. We took the Friendship launch back, getting off at the Swan&Dolphin stop because that ended up being closer to our room near the very end of the Boardwalk Villas.
As a bonus, here is a picture of Jen from this day:
I have no idea where this was taken, but it was definitely in DHS somewhere during this day.
Franklin's industry has a conference that is typically held in Orlando every few years and I'm just waiting for it to swing through again (gotta love APs). Are you guys buying the PAP for next year?
We always seemed to time ourselves so we're right on that street when it is getting out too, so this time, we tried to time it a little better, and it actually worked!
We always joke that there's one on every corner in Boston! 
