After a morning at the Magic Kingdom, my destination for the afternoon was the Disney-MGM Studios. I had a 1pm lunch Priority Seating at MGM and since I had some extra time before then, I decided to head back to the New York Street until the reservation time came up.
My first stop would be MuppetVision 3D. This is such a great show; I think that it is easily my favorite of all the 3D movies at WDW. After that, there was just a little time left before lunch, so I did a little browsing through the shops in the area. It wasn't long though until it was time for lunch though. The food was excellent and the atmosphere wonderful. My only complaint was it seemed that both here, as well as at Japan earlier in the week, that "priority seating" means "we'll save you a seat by the waiter's station even if every other table in the restaurant is empty". Oh, well. Other than that, it was excellent.
After lunch, I walked out onto the New York Street. It's was really quite a construction zone with the Residential Street demolished, facades being built, and the Hunchback Theater blocked off and full of props from the Osborne Lights. Combine that with the construction noises and the street sounds they pipe in through the speakers in the buildings and it just seemed like an unpleasant area to be in. My next stop would be the AFI Showcase to see the exhibit there.
After seeing the exhibit, it on to Sunset Boulevard to see how the waits for Tower or Terror were. On my way there, I passed by the Sorcerer's Hat where there was just a ton of characters doing meet and greets. I managed to see a couple that I had been on the look-out for- Meg from Hercules and Bert and Mr. Penguin from Mary Poppins. I got some pictures and headed down Sunset Boulevard. Lines were pretty long at Tower of Terror, so I grabbed a FastPass and headed over to Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast is my favorite show at WDW and it was just as good as ever. The performers were some of the best I've seen in the show and I was very pleased. Four for a Dollar who does the preshow also did a fantastic as well. When the show ended though, t started pouring down rain. It was so bad that nobody in the theater left. Everyone just stayed in the theater hoping that the weather would die down. It did start, very slowly, but after 30 minutes it was still raining. At that time, they started doing announcements telling everyone to slide to the middle of the row to accommodate more guests in the theater. I figured that this was a subtle way of saying that they wanted to get some people to leave so they could do the next show. I decided that this would be a good time to leave. Besides, my Fastpass window for Tower of Terror was going to open soon. I looked through some of the shops near the theater and then headed to the Tower.
Fastpass worked well. There was basically no wait, just had to walk through the queue. It was still raining, but not nearly as hard as it was. It was just enough to where it was OK with ponchos. Actually, the rain actually was pretty nice. It really gave going through the queue a very creepy feel- very in theming with the ominous hotel. The ride itself was fantastic- defiantly the best ride at WDW, even for me who I would never call a "thrill-seeker". Didn't really notice too much change since they made it "Tower 4" but I loved every second of it. After the ride it was close to 5:30. It was still raining lightly, but I thought that it was worth a try to head down to Hollywood Boulevard to see if the parade would be going. At 5:30, however, they said that the parade would not be running. Oh, well.
Since the parade wasn't running, I decided to do the Great Movie Ride before heading back to the hotel. This turned out to be the longest wait of the day. I don't know if they lowered composite of this ride when they rehabbed it, but it had lines throughout the day. It's been at least a good 6 or 7 years since I've seen the queue for this ride extend outside the building, but it did from when I got to the park around noon and still did at 5:30. The ride itself was wonderful. I could tell the changes they had made in the script and I had to say that they were nice. Also, the guide and the gangster were both excellent, really getting into their roles. After the ride, I checked out the pin shop under the Hat and Sid Cahuenga's on the way out. It was still raining and since there really wasn't anything in particular I was interested in seeing, I figured it would be nicer to head back to the Resort, be dry, and relax. After getting back to the Riverside, I got some dinner at the food court and headed back to the room. It had been a long day, but defiantly a great one.
