Sunday, July 7th - Hollywood Studios - Part 2
If you have read any of my previous trip reports, you know that Mother Nature basically hates us. I'm not sure what I have done to make her so angry, but any time she notices that the Kellogg family is traveling in central Florida, she laughs her evil laugh and lets loose a wrath that looks like nothing you have ever seen before. The rain in EPCOT the day before was just a brief shower compared to what we saw in Hollywood Studios.
After getting out of the Frozen Sing-A-Long and entering the dump shop, we immediately saw the buckets and buckets of rain coming down. It seemed to be a million times worse than the previous day. Our ponchos were barely dry from yesterday and my poor tennis shoes were still wet. Tony wears an ankle brace and getting that thing dry is not easy (helpful tip - baby powder helped absorb some of the moisture). So we huddled and had the familiar conversation of what to do next. The next fast pass was for Rockin' Rollercoaster, but we had some time. We decided to wait it out for a while to see if the rain would ease up, or heaven forbid, even stop altogether.
Surprisingly, after about 30 minutes, the rain let up enough that we felt that it was a good time to put on the ponchos and head to the next ride.
The rain letting up lasted about 2 minutes. Just long enough for us to be out in the open with no opportunity for cover.
Nicely played Mother Nature. Nicely played.
We finally came across an awning in between some stores on the main drag to seek shelter. And we waited. And debated. And the fast pass window came and went. And we waited and debated some more. People were soaked. The park just emptied out. We were wet and getting cold and I was just irritated. We had only ridden one ride and seen one show and it was late afternoon. After some time, the rain went from a ridiculous downpour to just a steady rain. We decided to go back to the room and change into some dry clothes and come back to HS for rides and dinner and we would close out the park. Now I knew that we would lose a lot of time on the bus rides, but I could not imagine continuing the day/evening soaking wet. And by the time we got on the bus, went back to the room, changed clothes and got back on the bus to HS, the rain had stopped!!! Yes, we have new life - we can salvage this day!!!
Since we had a last minute dinner reservation at Mama Melrose that evening, we decided to see what the Muppets had been up to before checking in for dinner. Have you seen the original "National Lampoon's Vacation" movie? When the Griswald family gets to Wally World and they are so excited and they are running thru the empty parking lot to the entrance only to see this sign:
That is how I felt when I saw the sign at the Muppets that said the attraction closed at 6:00 PM.
WHAT??? WHY??? REALLY??? I seriously had no idea that this was a thing - attractions are closing early for no apparent reason? Now I understand that this is not a hot ticket show, but who doesn't love corny jokes told by Kermit the Frog? And in 3D no less??? But it was closed and no amount of me pouting could make that fact change. Okay, fine, let's just go check in early for dinner. We were about an hour early, but I honestly thought that since the park was still fairly empty, we would have a decent chance of getting in.
Nope. They told us that we could not check in until 15 minutes before our reservation.
We did notice while stepping into the restaurant that it was freezing cold in there. Tony just could not handle that, so we decided to head back over to the other side of the park and find him a hoodie jacket to wear. Since his other hoodie jacket that he had earlier in the day was soaking wet back in the hotel. And since we were basically wasting time since there wasn't enough time to ride a ride, we might as well take some pictures!
I like his jacket, but Tony doesn't do well with white shirts. We are drippy kind of people.
Magic shot!
My hair was a fuzzy mess by that point. It just could not be controlled!
We had finally piddled enough to be able to check in for dinner. And we still waited a while before being seated. Neither one of us had been to Mama Melrose before, so for being a last minute reservation, I was happy with our choice.
We were seated a table in the back and it was not at all crowded, so the reasoning for not seating us early or making us wait to be seated when we were finally allowed to check in was unknown to me. But nonetheless, we were there and starving. So even though an appetizer was not included with our dining plan, we had to have one.
We started with the Crispy Calamari - served with sottaceto misto, spicy aioli, and charred lemon.
It was piping hot and the spicy aioli sauce (not in the picture) was so good. Not too spicy, but had a nice kick.
Tony ordered the sustainable fish (which was salmon) - with pappardelle pasta tossed with Puttanesca sauce and grilled asparagus.
He said this was an excellent choice. I'm not a fan of tomato sauce on fish, so I just took his word on the subject. I also think he exchanged the asparagus for a different vegetable.
I ordered the chef's special, which was short ribs over mushroom risotto.
There was all kinds of yumminess going on right here. The serving was huge and the meat was fall of the bone tender. We were both very happy and very, very full. Our sweet waitress noticed that our meals weren't being finished, so she offered to box up dessert for us. She said that the best dessert to be boxed up was the cannoli - house-made creamy cannoli filling with a hint of citrus and dusted with cocoa powder.
Yes please - two orders to go!!!
Now during dinner I had been attempting to get us fast passes for anything in Toy Story land, but nothing was available and then at about 8:00 the app said that no more fast passes were being distributed. But I reasoned that meant that we would be able to head over there and get on the rides.
Would that actually happen? You'll have to wait until the next installment to find out, because I'm out of room for pictures!!
Up next - the rest of our day in Hollywood Studios and the fall heard around the world!