Disney Diary - Day 5

Sundae and Cirque

August 27, 2008

This was our rope drop day for Disney Studios. Since we missed out on Toy Story Mania when we were here earlier in the week, we headed right for the FastPass machines for Toy Story Mania. Even with getting in line as soon as we could, our Fastpass return time was still 12:40p! And I waited in line for something like 25 minutes just to get the Fastpass! Ugh! Considering that was the longest wait we had for anything for the whole vacation though, I can hardly complain. While waiting in line though, I had to snicker smugly a bit at the two women in front of me. They were complaining to each other about how they were unable to get reservations for any good meals this week. “And they tried getting reservations a whole two weeks out – how could they be booked up?” Since I researched our trip ad nasauem, I knew that your best bet is to make reservations up to 6 months out. I even scored a most sought after ressie for Cinderella’s Royal Table for breakfast on our last day, but I’ll leave that description for when I come to it.

After securing our fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, Alex and I had decided we had enough courage to try out Rock n’ Roller coaster. Unfortunately though, the wait was already 60 min. and since we had just gotten fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, we couldn’t get another one for 2 hours. *sigh* No RnR coaster for us this trip. Nice to leave something for next time though, right? So instead we did some of the lesser known attractions, having done all the other major headliners the last time we were there. I wanted to see the Beauty and the Beast show, but it didn’t start showing until after 11am and we had reservations for 11:30am at Sci Fi for lunch, so we couldn’t see it. We did ride Star Tours again and we did the Narnia attraction and “One Man’s Dream”. I think we must have done a few other things too – but they are slipping my mind right now.

As I mentioned we had lunch at Sci-Fi. We had eaten here last time, and Sean really liked the atmosphere. You sit in “cars” and watch old-time drive in movies while you eat. The food was only so-so last time, so we weren’t expecting much, but boy were we pleasantly surprised! Last time we ate at dinner time, so when we ordered the hamburgers (which are normally only on the lunch menu) we got basically the kids burgers. What a difference to have the adult burgers at lunch time! They were big and juicy and came with all the fixin’s. Great burgers. Also I had a hot-fudge sundae for dessert. Just your simple hot fudge sundae – nothing different, but with real ice cream, very rich hot fudge and real whip cream and a cherry. Very tasty. Also, instead of fries, Sean and I ordered a cucumber-melon salad that was surprisingly good too. I had just ordered it because I was sick of fries and figured if I didn’t like it the burger was big enough to fill me up anyway. Don’t know how I did it, but I’m embarrassed to admit I ate the whole burger, all the salad, and the large sundae too. I was very full, but it was so worth it.

After lunch we headed back to Toy Story Mania to use our fastpasses. What a fun ride! Sort of arcade like, if you’ve done the Pirates of the Caribbean simulation at DisneyQuest where you use your cannon to shoot at ships, this is very similar, only instead of shooting at ships you shoot at lots of different targets to try to rack up a high score. If the wait was not so long, we’d have done it multiple times – it was a lot of fun. Both Sean and Alex got higher scores than I did, but then I had to keep trying to help Katie figure out how to shoot. I probably shouldn’t have bothered, she was having fun just watching all the Toy Story characters go buy. I have to mention though, there was this family about two families in front of us with a newborn. That baby was literally DAYS old, and they took him/her on the ride. I was really surprised. Now the ride is far from being a roller coaster, but you do get jerked around a lot and I can just not imagine taking a baby that young. Even an older infant (say 6 months) would have been fine, but a newborn?? Even one of the cast members was shaking his head saying the baby was too young, but since the ride does not have any rules about height, he had to let them take the baby. One would think common sense would prevail with the mother, but not so. She looked to be in her mid-40s too, so it isn’t as though you could say she was young and foolish or anything, she ought to have known better. Anyway, after Toy Story Mania, we just went back to our hotel for our usual afternoon rest/pool time.

After our rest we went to Downtown Disney, this dragon is outside the Lego store and is made out of Legos! Our plan was to eat at Earl of Sandwich, which I’d heard lots of good things about. Katie was acting up a bit and cranky and didn’t want to eat anything – at all. I remember being pretty annoyed with her, she was just generally misbehaving/not listening to directions, but no real meltdown. I have to say that this was the one unpleasant meal we had at Disney World. The sandwiches were good, but the service wasn’t the best. The staff seemed to be annoyed with me when I tried to ask questions about what they had, and what I could get using my dining plan. I asked politely, and got snappiness back. Then I was told to “go stand over there” with a general gesture to wait for my order. I wasn’t sure what “over there” meant, so I asked “right here?” and got an eyeroll and a “YES!” It wasn’t as if they did anything really awful, but I think we got sort of spoiled from all the good service everywhere else at Disney, so it stuck out more. Katie ate exactly two potato chips from Sean’s bag and nothing else. Alex and I were full from lunch at Sci-Fi still, so we split a ham and cheese sandwich, which was very good. I didn’t enjoy it much though because of Katie’s general crankiness and unwillingness to just sit while the rest of us ate. She wanted to run around the restaurant, which I was absolutely not going to allow, so she was whining and just generally unpleasant to be around.

After dinner was Cirque de Soleil! I had heard lots of good things about this show and I was really excited for it. I was also nervous that Katie would not behave during the performance based on how fussy she was at dinner. Turned out I needn’t have worried at all. She loved it and except for the time while we were waiting for the show to start, she behaved perfectly. I kept her busy during that time by walking her around a bit and taking her to get popcorn, so that she didn’t have to sit still for very long. Also, even though popcorn is not the best of dinners, I did want her to have something in her stomach because I didn’t want to interrupt the show with cries about “I’m hungry.” At home I would have just made her go without since she had the opportunity to eat a perfectly good dinner, but I didn’t want her to ruin the experience for everyone else.

We had the perfect seats too – section 207 AA seats 1-4 if you ever want “the best cheap seats”. This section is category 3 I think, but abuts Category 2 and is pretty close to the front, but it is on the side, rather than the center of the stage. What was best about it though is that at the beginning of the show all the performers come out from the sides of the theater and pass right in front of these seats. Katie was thrilled and thought they were smiling and performing just for her since they were after all – right in front of her. I had been worried that Sean and Alex would not care for a cirque type acrobatic show, but they really enjoyed it. We all really enjoyed it.
After the show, we discovered a “short-cut” back to the bus stop and were back to our hotel within about 30 min. We just took it easy the rest of the night and Katie and I even managed to catch the Water pageant out on the lake at about 9:30pm