WDW July 2018 Recap: Day 5, Thursday July 5th - Hollywood Studios (& Epcot & Magic Kingdom & Animal Kingdom)
Back to Hollywood Studios! A little background before we go into the day: originally this was planned as a full day at DHS. We didn’t know if we were going to do EMH on Monday, and we figured lines would be longer, so we wanted a full day there later in the week. However, we got a lot done on Monday and realized that we wouldn’t need a full day, so we decided to take a mid-day break to go to Disney Springs, then back to the hotel to chill for a little bit. After a less-than-stellar experience at Disney Springs on Wednesday, Beth speculated that we might be better off going back to MK and doing our shopping there (mostly at the Emporium), so we decided that we’d do Thursday morning at DHS, lunch and shopping at MK, back to the hotel for a break, and then back to DHS for the late afternoon/evening/night.
Okay, back to the story.
We got up stupid early again and were headed to the bus stop around 5:45ish … and we saw a bus pulling away as we were approaching the stop. Grr.
But then … another bus came (or possibly the same bus circling around waiting for people), so we got on. And had a bus all to ourselves.
While on the way to DHS we heard our first bus driver rumor of the trip – the bus driver told us that they’d be opening DHS half an hour early. We got to DHS around 6ish and we were first (and second) in line at our tapstile – but we still had to wait until 6:15ish to be let into the park. So … no signs of early opening. I grabbed a spot to wait while Beth went to
Trolley Car Café to grab us some coffee.
Beth returned with coffee, and a few minutes later, at approximately 6:23am, CMs started walking us back to Toy Story Land. I guess the bus driver was right. Score!
To skip the boring parts … I was freaking out and I couldn’t figure out why, all while trying to drink all of my coffee very fast. I ended up finishing my coffee before we hit TSL, and Beth finished hers during our 5 minute wait for
Slinky Dog Dash. And by 5 minute wait, I mean that’s how long it took us to get through the queue and on to our Slinky Dog. We got off and the CM at the exit/entrance was saying that we could go through again … so we did. That time we waited about 7 minutes. But … we rode Slinky Dog Dash twice before 6:45am. After our second Slinky Dog, we made our way over to
Alien Swirling Saucers, where not only did we not have to wait, but they were just opening up one of the sides, so we got to be in the first group on one side – we had to unbuckle the seatbelt! Next up was
Toy Story Mania!, which we got off of around 7:02am. So we basically got all three attractions done almost before the park was supposed to open. Wow.
(Fun Fact: This picture of us and Slinky Dog's Butt is the background on my watch face)
We weren’t quite done with Toy Story Land yet – before exiting the land for the morning, we stopped by to meet our favorite Space Ranger,
Buzz Lightyear, and some Western pals,
Woody and Jessie. And then we left Toy Story Land. Still during EMH.
After stopping for a few pictures around the park, we continued the character theme of the morning with a few more meet and greets …
Mickey and Minnie Starring in Red Carpet Dreams,
Celebrity Spotlight (Olaf), and
Chewbacca @ Star Wars Launch Bay.
Originally we had FP+ for late morning/early afternoon (plus a late afternoon Alien Swirling Saucers), but since we had gotten so much done, we wanted to try to move them earlier and maybe see if we had time to hop over to Epcot and hit up Spaceship Earth and Test Track before lunch. By this point in time the park was open to day guests, so next on our agenda was the first showing of
For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along (I took a picture to send
@jennamfeo, because she hates
Frozen and I’m mean, but I didn’t send it until much later because of time difference), followed by a trip on
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
(No idea why I look so terrified in this picture ... I actually like RNRC)
We knew we’d be back later in the day for our Aliens FP+ and Fantasmic!, so we decided to leave the park and take a boat over to …
By 11:15ish we were entering our second park of the day. We wanted to meet Sadness, so we checked on the line, but it was longer than we were willing to wait in. Beth wanted soda, so we took a trip over to
Club Cool, where she had a little bit of Fanta Melon something or another. It tasted very melon-y (I had a sip too). Next up was another Epcot icon,
Spaceship Earth, which had a very long line, but we survived. We made our way to
Test Track, which also had a very long wait, but single rider was manageable, so we did that (of course, there was a tour group right in front of us in the single rider line, but they were only medium annoying and we survived).
We took some giant golf ball pictures (see above) before exiting the park and taking the monorail (to the TTC and then) to …
For those of you keeping track … that was our third mode of transportation for the day (bus from hotel to DHS, boat from DHS to Epcot, monorail from Epcot to MK).
Anyway, Magic Kingdom. We were hungry, so our first stop was
Plaza Ice Cream Parlor for ice cream lunch. There was some discussion of the Mickey's Kitchen Sink Sundae, but I wasn’t sure if we could have all the toppings. And that was probably too much for us anyway. We ended up getting double scoops (in cups/bowls) – Mint Chocolate Chip for Beth, and Cookies and Cream for me. When I got to the bottom of my bowl, there was some Mint Chocolate Chip there, which meant that they don’t clean the scoopers between scoops. I can’t really eat mint (it has to do with the smell), but it’s not an allergy, so I was okay. If I actually had a mint allergy … that would have been a huge problem. If it hadn’t been so crowded in there, I would have gone back in to complain. This is really not okay. But whatever.
Once we had eaten, it was time to shop. First step was
Uptown Jewelers, where I dropped all of my spending money to pick up these:
That’s the newest Fantasyland set. There are two spacers – a Peter Pan and an “I live in Fantasyland”, and an it’s a small world bead. I love it, but it made my bracelet kind of uneven (because I had three other beads, and I put these in the middle, so now I have two beads next to one spacer and one bead next to the other). Also, they make a lot of noise. But I love them. Especially the IASW one.
Next stop was the
Emporium, where we planned to do most of our shopping. Except their selection sucked. We walked out with a 2018 pin for Beth and nothing else (and the CM gave us a hard time about me having to pay for things to get the AP discount – dude, we’re paying cash, and just because Beth’s holding the pin doesn’t mean I’m not the one paying for it).
Our shopping experience wasn’t the best, but we made up for it by seeing a character we had missed on our two previous MK days – we went to
Meet Tinkerbell at Town Square Theater! She was very chatty. Beth is a winter fairy. I’m not a winter fairy, which makes me a summer fairy (actually, I’m more of a fall fairy, but Tink didn’t really let me express that). So that was our new MK thing of the day.
We were in need of a break and it was starting to get rainy, so we went to grab a bus back to the hotel. A guy in a Pats hat let us go in front of him (we were coming from different directions), and then he saw my Yankees hat and instantly regretted it (we ended up having a nice conversation with him while waiting for the bus).
We got back to the hotel and did some quick souvenir shopping (picking up a keychain for me, a magnet for my parents, and a picture frame magnet for my aunt and uncle) before heading back to the room to chillax for about an hour.
Eventually it was time to head back to the park for our last FP+ of the day, another ride on
Alien Swirling Saucers.
We wanted to ride Slinky Dog again, but the line was long, so we decided to just head to the parking lot. We hadn't run in Florida in a few years, so we decided to run to a bus stop, hop on a bus, and eventually we were at …
(Yes, Beth is wearing a different shirt. It's a long story.)
So … explanation. Once we decided to head to Epcot, we realized that we would be hitting 3 of the 4 parks on that day. That’s pretty close to hitting all four parks … what if we went to Animal Kingdom too? We knew it would be tough, but the plan was to head to AK after Fantasmic! But then we ended up at DHS with almost 2 hours before Fantasmic! (and a FP+), so we figure we’d just hit up Animal Kingdom and get some
Tree of Life pictures.
We got there faster than we thought we would, so we had some time. There really isn’t anything to do close to the entrance (and we didn’t want to wander far), and even It’s Tough to Be a Bug (which I hate) had a line, so we didn’t think we had time for an attraction, and we just ended up wandering a bit … and saw something we hadn’t seen on Monday – a
Cotton-Top Tamarin. And so, we got our Tree of Life pictures, we experienced something we hadn’t experienced yet this trip … and it was time to head back to Hollywood Studios.
We had officially completed
Four Parks, Three Modes of Transportation, Two Mice … One Awesome Day. (The two mice are because we saw Mickey & Minnie early in the day … we were really reaching for the two there.)
A four-park day was not something that was at all on our radar, and it’s kinda crazy that it happened. We couldn’t believe it. But this whole trip was a little crazy … and it was really cool to be able to do this on what might be Beth’s last trip for a while (because school).
Four Parks:
Three Modes of Transportation:
With our crazy adventure complete, all that was left for the day was Fantasmic! and maybe some nighttime Toy Story Land. We made our way back to DHS and stopped in to deal with some PhotoPass issues (only one of which was resolved, but it mostly worked out okay in the end). By the time we were done there it was raining. Again. We put on our ponchos, tried to wait it out a bit, and eventually made our way to
Fantasmic! We sat down in the wet, open theater and just were annoyed. We were done with the rain. We were tired. We just wanted to see Fantasmic!. Ugh.
The show did end up starting about 15 minutes late, but I didn’t take many pictures because I just wasn’t feeling it. The show was as cute as always (although there were some things that we couldn’t tell if they were new or if we just didn’t remember them because it had been so long). The show ended around 9:45ish, and we left because the park was closed. It closed at 9.
You may see some websites and/or times guides that say the park closed at 10:30. They’re wrong. The park closed at 9.
(We were tired, and while we wanted to see TSL at night, the rain had taken a lot out of us and we just needed to get back to the hotel. But since we have to stay in the park until after it closes, we decided that the park closed at 9. And I won’t let anyone convince me otherwise.)
We got back to the hotel, had some food, and packed our bags … since it was our last night at Disney and we were leaving early the next morning
.
I'll definitely be tracking you at your race tomorrow! I like that I won't have to wake up super early for this one. Haha. 
