Hollywood Studios aka Jedi Day!

Because of our late night (um, we hit the hay at midnight). We slept in a bit (which means I was up and dancing around at 6:45 instead of 6:30. I let everyone else sleep though until 7:30 and we had a slow morning. We made it to Disney's Hollywood Studios around 9:45. This made a big difference in how our day went. The newest ride is Toy Story Mania. We went directly to it and waited in a 40 minute line. Booo. Again, it was a cute line. You walk through giant vintage games as if you are the size of a toy. The actual ride was okay. Too

video-gamey for my taste. Amazing technology though that lets you "shoot" 3D objects out at different carnival games you pass through. The kids wanted to do it again but I didn't want to wait. Plus, my favorite ride, The Twilight Tower of Terror awaited.

Eleanor had heard me talking about this one and wanted to go on it with me. We took our tickets (to get fastpasses) to the Tower while Dad went to visit the Star Wars area with the littler ones. Here's where our story splits a little. Eleanor and I wait in a 30 minute line. Very boring. Once on the ride though, the boredom vanished like a guest in the Hollywood Hotel! I've never seen Elle so terrified in my life! I really felt bad for her on this ride. I couldn't enjoy it because she was screaming like she was gonna die. Poor little Elle. On our picture they took of our group, her face was bright red and her jaw was having some kind of spasm. Bad mommy. Well, I got 4 fastpasses anyway (I can always go again later by myself) and headed over to Indiana Jones.

Meanwhile, Dad was sad he couldn't go on Star Tours (his fave) because it's closed for refurbishing. But he noticed some kind of something called Jedi Training Academy. On looking into it he found he could sign up any children present with him to become Jedis. They signed up Sterling III for one of the last few slots left: 6:30 PM. They killed some time in the Star Wars store before getting us some sweet seats for the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. They waited in the shaded theater for the big girls to get off our ride and come back over. Looking back, we should have had Eleanor go with Sterling and sign up for Jedi training. This is an incredible show with really great stunts. The kids were all captivated. We were so close that when the big explosions happened we could feel the heat. Some minor celebrity from ESPN was one of the audience volunteers.

By now it's past noon, it's really hot, the lines are long and we have really only done two things as a family. Kind of depressing, but we learned a lot. Get there early!!!! We knew the kids would be going nuclear by Sterling's Jedi show if we tried to stay all day so we headed home for naps. It was even too hot for the pool. Do people really come here in August!? Oh yeah, remember those fast passes? Well, silly me, I thought they were only valid for the one hour window of time printed on the ticket. (truth is they are valid for the rest of the day) So since they weren't available until 1:30, we gave them to a family just walking in as we were walking out. So I didn't feel like it was a complete waste. Not until Wednesday afternoon did we learn the true order of milking the fast passes and the rider switch passes. We could have kept them and I could have ridden 4 times in the evening.

After our rest we headed back to Hollywood with an excited little Padowan in tow. They gave the kids a briefing and a little brown jedi robe and training lightsaber. There is a video, but I can't get it to upload. I'll try emailing it. It was pretty funny and really cute. Sterling is the youngest age they allow to join the Jedi Training Academy.

So of course we went to the build your own lightsaber shop. He made a big blue one with great lights and sound! Here is where we got a big bag of salt water taffy which was a lifesaver for the rest of the week. Afterwards, we wandered down to the big Muppet 3D movie. By this time the kids were ready to sit down. We waited forever in some kind of pre show room where we got this lovely picture with Miss Piggy's luggage.

I've never been a big Mupppets fan and the kids are totally clueless about them, but this movie still entertained. They had 3D bubbles and real bubbles floating down from the ceiling, that gave the kids a kick. It was getting late and we had been debating all day about whether to go to Fantasmic or not. It's a really amazing light and film spectacle shown on sprays of water. Our guidebook said it was worth the price of admission. It also said it was murder trying to get in. Like, wait for an hour and hope to get standing room spots. Ew. And the show starts at 9 or 9:30. So, although most Disney parks purists will scream when they hear this, we went home early because Fantasmic was not right for our family on this particular trip. We went home early but not before I sneaked in one more Tower of Terror ride :) Selfish to the end...