September 5th - Toy Story Mania Mania
I am normally a be there for rope drop kind of girl, but when my alarm went off at 6:30 it still felt like the middle of the night. In my first day excitement I stayed up too late last night, and with the time change it actually was the middle of the night to my resisting body. I lay there debating with myself until I finally acknowledged that I wasn’t going to spring to my feet. I decided it made more sense to rest more and not struggle to get up, so turned off the alarm and slept until I woke up on my own. It was only 8:30 when starting the day didn’t seem impossible any more. I took my time, enjoying coffee in my new Mickey mug I bought last night and checking in with Stacy and the Weather Channel.
After a lovely fruity breakfast, I packed my park bag and headed to the car. The deep blue skies of yesterday were filled with
rain charged clouds. My original plan called for Animal Kingdom, but as I started to drive the rain started falling and I decided to go to Hollywood Studios instead. There are more indoor things there to spend time doing on a cloudburst kind of day.
I unfurled my new Mickey rain jacket and trammed in from the parking lot, arriving at about 10:00. Of course I went straight to Toy Story Mania, appreciating the sweet architecture of the studios along the way. From the wait times I’d been reading about, I expected to be picking up a Fast Pass for much later in the day, but then I got my first taste of low crowd fabulousness. Stand-by time
20 minutes? Really? Ok! Fast Pass for 10:40-11:40 then right into the queue.
Caution: Major spoilers dead ahead!
I have to say I loved being the size of a toy and walking amidst giant versions of my childhood favorites. Stepping into the
queue line you walk onto the colored squares of the Candy Land board path as though you were a game token. You pass by View Master reels,Tinker Toys, game tokens, dominoes, Barrels of Monkeys and more. Andy’s drawings are here too. The ceiling is painted with game boards from classics like Chutes and Ladders and Scrabble.
As you’re walking, you can hear Mr. Potato Head the carnival barker away in the distance, talking with people in the queue, telling jokes, singing songs and generally carrying on. The queue is built so that you see him for quite a while as you move along. There is a nice area built out for photo ops with the very animated spud. He is extremely talented, charismatic and entertaining.
Here is Minnie appreciating the queue and picking up her 3-D glasses.
After getting your glasses you move into the entrance to the carnival that the toys have put together. You walk up stairs under a striped circus awning. At the top of the stairs you get your first glimpse of the ride vehicles loading and unloading. The load area is
Andy’s bedroom, featuring his sky wallpaper, giant bed, door, nightlight and more toys. The unfolded box for the carnival games is the set for the entrance to the ride.
The ride starts with you rotating through the carnival set and arriving at a practice screen.
There is a screen in the car that first gives you instructions then shows your score for each game.
After Buzz, Woody, Jessie or the Dinosaur coach you on using your cannon and you practice shooting you whirl off to
the first game which is firing eggs at a barnyard set. Then you get to pop balloons in a Bo Peep set, break plates
with the green army men, toss rings in a set themed to the green aliens and outer space and finally shoot darts
in a western themed game. All the targets have point values on them in consistent color/value relationships
and the various projectiles that you launch are color coded to the color of your cannon. Hitting certain
targets, or groups of targets, will unlock new targets of higher values. In between games you pass by
carnival sets and booths. Slinky Dog sells corn dogs and Mrs. Potato Head is a fortune teller.
It is all in luscious colors with infectious happy music playing in the background.
The games are intensely interactive. If you hit certain targets you feel puffs of air or sprinkles of water. Objects seem to fly out of the games toward you.
Finally, you move to the prize booth where your total score is revealed and your prize jumps toward you from the screen on a scissor arm. A screen at the end of the ride shows the three highest scores of the day so far and also the highest score of the month.
Minnie celebrated her extremely successful game.
It was incredibly fun and for me turned out to be the crack of rides. I ran around to the standby line and rode again. Although the
time said 40 minutes I could see from the length of the line that it wouldn’t be that long. After my second ride
the wait had grown longer so I decided to check in to the Tower of Terror, my old favorite ride at HS. No waiting today for the spooky pre-show and great stomach lifting falling fun. Then it was time to get another Fast Pass for TSM. The rain had stopped
and it was steamy hot, which I totally appreciated after the lousy rainy cold summer we had in Seattle.
To kill the few minutes before I could get another Fast Pass I decided to seek some food. I was getting hungry and I
didn’t want to pass from ready to eat to grumpy from not eating. I walked down from
Pixar place past the
giant squirting Coke bottle and checked out the menu at the Backlot Express, the first food opportunity I came to. There was a grilled chicken with rice and beans option that sounded good and would be satisfying enough to keep me going for a while.
The chicken had a nice slightly spicy grilled exterior and was moist inside. The rice and beans were tasty and it was all filling and hot and quick.
Fortified, I picked up my second Fast Pass for the ride that had just taken over my life and then walked back through the back lot sets toward Muppets and Star Tours. I walked slowly through the queue for Star Tours, taking time to appreciate the
many inside references and jokes. One of my favorites is that the baskets carrying bits and pieces of equipment
and robots through the upper part of the queue have letters and numbers on them that are the initials and birthdates of the Imagineers who worked on the attraction. Here’s to you, clever and lucky Imagineers! Another favorite to look for is the
ribbon trailing from Rex the pilot that says, ”Remove before flight”.
After a thoroughly enjoyable few minutes careening through space, I went over to Muppets to appreciate their vaudeville style mayhem. The waiting area is so dense with jokes and hilarious props that I always find something new to laugh at. I also never
tire of the pre-show movie. I always think about Jim Hensen and have a moment of sadness that such an incredible funny creative sweet mind was lost much too soon.
I sat in the very first row for the first time, and found it even more immersive than a few rows back. When
I came out to the glasses return area, the rain was back with a vengeance, hammering down and creating instant
giant puddles. Some people just put on their ponchos or hats and ran out into the shower. I waited a
few minutes for it to slow down, then crossed over into the Muppets shop. The silliness of the attraction carries on in the shop, so I always pay a visit to enjoy the details in the signs and sets.
Then I went back to whoop my way through Toy Story Mania twice again.
That's all for now, but soon to come:
The much anticipated No Way Jose Sundae
Dinner at Jiko
MNSSHP
for TSM!!
