Sorry for the absence. I have been having an awful week having to work until 1-2AM each night. I need to get this TR wrapped up so I am going to get our last full day whipped out so here we go...
Unfortunately, we have arrived at the last full day or our saga. We have a late afternoon flight the next day so we will have some time in the AM but we were not sure yet if we were going to attempt to go anywhere. For today, I left it open as a wild card day to give my family a choice to make our way over to anything that we had missed but still wanted catch before we parted ways with our favorite vacation destination. The only set plans I had for the day was a 7:15PM Hoop Dee Doo Review reservation later in the evening. We have never seen this show before but based on so many stellar reviews I figured this would be an outstanding finale to cap off our trip. For our daytime entertainment we were considering hitting Typhoon Lagoon due to our missed opportunity earlier in the week but since We still had 2 days left on our park tickets and I am too darned frugal to waste these days and our water park tickets were from old non-expiring tickets we felt compelled to use up our main park tickets and we would catch Typhoon Lagoon on a future trip. It's always good to have some new experiences planned for future trips anyway. So now the question remained which main park do we go to? The family was undecided and then to my utter surprise I suggested DHS for the AM. Even though the park captivates me the least, we had spent the least amount of time there and I figured we could make our way over to one of the non-headliner attractions there that my wife and son have really enjoyed in the past. This would be in the animation building where you get an opportunity to draw along with an animator and sketch one of the characters. I can't draw worth a lick but even someone with my wretched abilities can get passable results if you follow along with the animator. I was a bit worried that it was a Fantasmic day at DHS with an added special added bonus of being the Sunday of Labor day weekend so I figured there would be some ugliness with the crowd levels but we were just going to stay until lunch time and then make our way to another park so I was hoping it would be bearable.
We did not rush along in the AM. We grabbed some breakfast at Everything Pop before heading to DHS. It wasn't until late morning that we were strolling into the park. As we were making our way in, my wife and kids wanted to give TSMM a look first just to see if the wait was horrific. My son had been looking for this guy so we had to stop for a photo op with him first.
Disney has so many intricate and impressive costumes. This is not one of them. What is going on with this? It looks like someone got a big roll of green cheesecloth and made some clothing out of it, wrapped it around a helmet and then covered the poor souls face. Actually, it looks a bit like an old tablecloth we once had when I was growing up. The poor guy inside this must cook in the sun. Mr. Green Army Man, whoever you are, I salute you for the service you are providing to our vacationing masses.
Ok, back to TSMM. The standby time was only 50 min. Ha, it is certainly is odd to put the word "only" as a qualifier to "50 min" for an but I expected worse at about 11:00 AM for the current biggest draw on property on a day that I thought would be a zoo. I was still not sure I wanted to sign up for the wait and I can't remember the last time I waited on a line that long at Disney since the wonders of Fast Pass. The rest of the family really wanted to take one last ride and the FP return time was too late for us so I gave in and we hopped in line. Unfortunately, this time the wait was longer than advertised and we spent about 20 min longer on this line than what they led us to believe. This may have been the only time on the trip though that we had a wait time noticeably longer than what was posted. Actually, most of the times the wait times were shorter than advertised so I guess I couldn't gripe too much about it. What I can complain about however is that this darned attraction definitely favors my wife over me. It can't have anything to do with my pitiful abilities so it must be that the ride had something against me and is rigged to give my wife higher scores than me. I can see no other explanation for being trounced so thoroughly time after time. This time I changed strategies from pulling the string like an utter madman to being more selective and focusing on the higher point targets. Perhaps that strategy works better if you can actually aim correctly.
It was not working for me.
After TSMM we hit the animation studio. I thought when we had done this in the past that you had to go through the whole "Magic of Disney Animation" spiel first before you go into the drawing with an animator part. So, we went in line outside and then sat through the same old preso with Mushu that we have seen a couple of times before. This show is definitely losing any entertainment value it may have once had for us. They should revamp this. Anyway once this ended I thought we would go to the next stage which was why we were here and that is the drawing. Instead though, that was the end of the attraction and we were put out into the rest of the building. What the heck? We sat thought this tired old Mushu preso when we did not need to? Ugh, why didn't I know this? We'll definitely know better the next time. There was a separate line inside for the drawing sessions. Before we got on that line though we had to go see the character from Up. We had really enjoyed this movie even though my daughter had tears in her eyes from the loss that it deals with (very nicely I might add). This may very well be the most touching Disney movie I have seen yet. We could not pass up the opportunity to meet Carl, Dug and Russell.
Once we were done with our character greeting we made our way over to finally get our drawing lesson in. The character chosen for us was Goofy. After the session my daughter asked the animator for his drawing and he nicely signed it and gave it to her. I thought my picture was passable until I compared it to the animator's drawing.
When we got done drawing it was about 2PM and we had not eaten lunch yet. I was so hoping to be out of DHS by lunch time so that we could catch a better CS place. At this stage though we were hungry and it would take too long to make our way to better places so we headed to ABC again. This time I wanted something different though so I headed to Studio Catering while the family waited on line at ABC. Holy cow, there were a lot of people milling around the streets of America. Perhaps LMA had just let out. Unfortunately, a lot of these people ended up in front of me in the food line as well so it took a while to get the food. I eventually got the chicken with black beans and rice and brought it back to ABC to re-join with the family. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the food from Studio catering. It was pretty good so it was worth the extra trip there.
After lunch we wanted to go to spend some time at EPCOT. When we got in, I was going to take the kids to Test Track but the kids had somewhere else on their mind. I don't need to ask you to guess this time. That's right it was time for one more go with their new favorite swine. Haven't we had enough of them yet? Apparently not. Ok, so I run over to TT to get a FP anyway and say I'll met up with them at Innoventions. When I got to TT though I found that the return time was too late for us in order to make our way over to Fort Wilderness later. I guess the crowds were big everywhere today. Perhaps it is a good thing the kids are captivated by the piggies who have a small but faithful following.
After we got the kids their fix of their new favorite EPCOT attraction we explored Innoventions some more. There was an attraction sponsored by IBM where you created avatars of yourselves that became introduced into a video game as the characters. Seeing ourselves running and jumping around in a video game was good for a few laughs but the actual game play of the video game was so simplistic that it did not hold our interest too long.
We then decided to make our way over to Innoventions East. There was a storm Struck attraction that seems like it would be interesting. It is a 3D attraction where you experience an intense storm and the damage it can do to a house and you are quizzed on ways to limit the damage. Seeing a killer storm in 3D seemed like it would be pretty cool. Well, let me tell you that this could quite possibly be the biggest waste of a 3D attraction that I have seen yet. The 3D effects were truly unspectacular and I am not entirely sure why they bothered with it. The actual information part of the attraction was ok but I was hoping for more on the presentation on this one.
After exploring Innoventions East a bit more we decided to head on over to Fort Wilderness for the Hoop. I gave the family a choice of Monorail to MK and then boat across or take the bus directly over. I thought for sure the Monorail/boat route would be the preferred mode of transportation but I was wrong. The bus was definitely the quicker route but certainly not as interesting as the other choice. Since the clouds were getting iffy though I could not argue with the choice.
Once we got to Fort Wilderness we did have time to spare and unfortunately the clouds opened up on us as soon as we reached the resort. so perhaps it was a good thing we went by bus instead of boat. We killed some time pin shopping and buying a few things in the gift store before the show to keep out of the rain until the dinner call at Pioneer Hall. I was curious how good the view would be since we had cat 2 seats. It turned out we had an awesome table!! Our table was in the third row of tables from the stage and the first table on the left. I was thrilled the table was this good for cat 2 seating. Even though it was on the left side we could see everything. This will give you an idea of our view.
The show started with the Hoop Dee Do title song and I thought, hey thats the Wiggles song. Of course the Wiggles took it from this show but I never made the connection before. Since we had the Wiggles Hoop Dee Do DVD and my kids had once loved the Wiggles I think I have heard this song a couple hundred times before.
Before talking about the show let me give a few words on the food. The fried chicken was incredibly good. I think this may have been the best fried chicken I have ever tasted eating out. OK, I cant say I actually eat a lot of fried chicken when dining out so I don't have too much to compare it to. When I am eating out for Fried chicken it is usually at a place that has a drive through and serves it the food with plastic spork utensils so I am not likely to eat fried chicken at a "real" restaurant. Be that as it may, the chicken at the Hoop was outstanding. I prefer white meat and it was not at all dry. The ribs were also very good and the chef made me a special order without sauce. Overall the food was not fancy but I give it high marks for being very tasty.
Now for the show, it was indeed quite entertaining but once again I was bitten a little by high expectations. The show was indeed a lot of fun but I was thinking I would be rolling on the floor from start to finish based on reviews I had read and that was not the case. I have got to stop setting such high expectations on things based on reviews. My Wife was in the same mindset as me. We still enjoyed it though and my kids especially had a fabulous time with the show. If you like simple but good tasting food and you get a kick out of corny but fun entertainment then it is a winner. I have a lot of pictures from the show.
continued in next post.....
If I use the 17-70, it would be f4 at the long end. I do have a 50mm 1.4, but like you I like the option of zoom.
Well done!
Pictures or not, I look forward to it.
