12/22
Hollywood Studios, Lunch at 50’s Primetime Café, Dinner at Hollywood & Vine
with the Minnie’s Seasonal dine (with the FDP), snacks at Starring Rolls Café.
Up early and off to Hollywood Studios for Rope Drop. We ended up taking a LYFT because there was
not a bus available when we went to the bus stop at POP. It was chilly and we put on our jackets for the first part of the morning but it did warm up. This was one of the few chilly days while we were down there. Believe me, we did enjoy the warm weather, especially after flying back into Chicago, then driving up to visit her family in Michigan, much, much colder. Then heading back to Kansas for the cold weather.
Ok, so we go thru the security and wait for
the tap stiles to open. This was the lines to get in. We get thru it
and made our way to guess where? Give
you 3 guesses and we won’t count the first two.
Well if you guessed Toy Story Mania, you are correct. We rode this ride 2 times first thing this
morning. I won the first time and Andrea beat me the 2nd time, which
I haven’t figure out as I was 7,000 points ahead of her going into the final
round and then she has a higher score.
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| 1st time, David on left, Andrea on Right. |
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| 2nd time, Andrea on Left, David on Right. |
I
think that there was a glitch as this became the normal for what would happen
when we rode this later that day and later this vacation. (I am just picking on
her, she picked up on the games quickly but don’t tell her that).
We then
headed off to Rockin’ Roller Coaster and Andrea went on the single rider line
as I couldn’t deal with the ride. While
I was waiting for Andrea, Danielle and Frank, CMs, struck up a conservation
with me. Danielle noticed the Just Engaged
pins and started to talk to me about where and when and where was the lucky
lady. I shared about the experience and
even showed the pictures of it. She
thanked me and excused herself, then just a minute later she came back and
handed me 4 anytime paper fast passes for any attraction at Hollywood Studios
saying Congratulations on your engagement and the wonderful story. WOW,
amazing. I then said I had something for her and handed her one of the
cards. She was floored and thanked me
and said she was going and putting it on her computer right away. It felt good to make her day. I was on my way into where the gift shop is
for RnR, and Frank handed me 2 fast passes for Beauty and the Beast for the
10:00am show. Incredible. Before I could do anything, Frank was
gone. I then found the supervisor of the
area and told her what had happened and gave her a card to give to Frank. When I went in, Andrea wasn’t done yet on the
ride, so I kept looking at the screens and finally saw her on the screen. I made sure to scan my band and then saw her
coming to a stop and get off the ride.
She said right away, “You are right, you wouldn’t have been able to
handle it. I barely could. My head hit the
side of the harness when going around a corner.” I told her I was sorry that she hit her head
and kissed her head. We looked around in
the shop and she had to do some pin trading, let’s just say, she did more pin
trading then I think I ever have.
She also found the Elvis Stitch.
As we
walked outside, I told her what had happened by showing her the 6 paper fast
passes. She had never seen a paper one, so I let her hold them and asked her if
she wanted to go to the 10:00am Beauty & the Beast or just come to it later
that day as we had scheduled on the TP, she said she wanted to keep our time
that we had scheduled. We then walked
over to get on The Great Movie Ride.We rode this back on teh 19th, however, we both wanted to ride it again. It was a different experience as they were running 2 sets of the cars. We enjoyed it as much, if not more this time.
Now for a break and goodies at Starring Rolls
Café. Here we ordered the M&M
Brownie, a Fruit Tart and a Sprite. Andrea found a table and chairs outside for us to sit down and relax for about 10 minutes.
The
M&M brownie had a lot of M&M’s along with a chocolate drizzle on
it. The brownie was a bit on the dry
side and very heavy.
The Fruit Tart came
with whole blueberries, red and black raspberry, also orange segments, and
sliced strawberries and kiwi. There was
a clear glaze on the fruit. The pastry
shell was flaky and held up well. The
cream in under the fruit was flavorful but more plain. The combination of the fruits, cream and
shell, made for a good fruit tart, but nowhere near as good as what we had 2
days ago, in Epcot at the Pastry shop in France.
Our cost for this break was $12.70 but we used 3 snack credits. Was it
worth it. Not bad but we could think of
better uses in France.
Now off to see Voyage of the Little Mermaid. It was a nice break and we enjoyed the show.
Then we looked around, stopped and watched some of the Street characters of
Hollywood. It was great and the interaction with the crowds was great.
We couldn’t stay for the whole show as we had
an 11:00am lunch for 50’s Primetime Café.
So, it was off to check in and we were there before 11am, and we only
had to wait a few minutes before being taken in and seated. This was the first of two times we were
eating here and we learned from this one, to not go to Starring Rolls Café before
coming here. We sat down and Kealey was
our cousin (waitress) it was a lot of fun, everything I had remembered and
Andrea loved it. To the food:
Drinks – Andrea got a Cherry Coke and David got a
Sprite.
She had remembered about a glowing cube in the drinks
and really wanted one. After the waitress brought us our drinks, she asked if
she could get one and said she would even pay for it. Kealey said that it would cost us and then
she left, she came back with a balled-up napkin and said, “Shhhh, don’t let
your cousins know you bought this or they all will want one and I don’t have
enough”
Apps – Andrea ordered the Fried Herb and Garlic Cheese
served with Raspberry Sauce, Grapes, and Apples. As you can see there is also a thin piece of
bread. Andrea loved this and finished
it. It was different. She loved to take the cheese, spread it on the
bread, add a little bit of the apple and dip this in the sauce. She finished it all. The cheese had a crust but not too thick and
the cheese on the inside was warm.
David ordered Cousin Amy’s Iceberg Lettuce Wedge Salad
served with Blue Cheese Dressing, Bacon, and Chives (I asked for no
chives). The wedge was broken up, there
was a healthy (if you can call bacon healthy) portion of bacon. The blue cheese crumbles were on the strong
side but tasted soo good with this salad.
It was a good portion.
Main Course – Andrea ordered Aunt Liz’s Golden Fried
Chicken served with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Chicken Gravy, and Seasonal
Vegetables (Corn). She liked the garlic
mashed potatoes. At first, she thought
that wing was dry but that was only a small portion of it, the rest of it and
the chicken was moist and she loved it, however because of going to Starring
Rolls Café, she couldn’t finish her veggies and had to have 2 Airplane forks
coming in for a landing. She was having
a hard time not laughing about it.
David ordered Dad’s Stuffed Pork Chop with Gouda
Cheese and apples, had Herbs served with Roasted Potatoes, Carrots, and Demi-Glace
Drizzle. This was an interesting
combination and the Drizzle, well there was a lot of it, more like a sauce or
gravy. The pork chop was on the dry
side. I liked the veggies. I got a Clean Plate Sticker.
Our desserts, as you can see, came with candles to
celebrate our engagement. A nice touch.
Desserts, Andrea ordered the Traditional Warm Apple
Crisp. She didn’t get it A la mode. The oats weren’t cooked and it wasn’t
crisp. It also tasted plain. I agree with her. It was a so-so dessert.
David ordered the No Sugar Added Cheesecake topped
with fresh Whipped Cream and I requested the Strawberry Sauce on the side. It came with 3 fresh red raspberries. The sauce was too sweet, the cheesecake was,
uhm, had almost no real taste and no crust, which I love the crust of a
cheesecake.
The desserts for this time, struck out, but I promise
the next time we came, a total different reaction. It helped that we ordered different ones.
Our
cost for this was $87.21 (2 TS credits) and we were not charged for the glowing
ice cube. The tip was $16.30, which
brought the total to $103.51.
So was it worth it, yes. The food, service and
atmosphere were all good. This is how
much Andrea liked it, she said we are keeping the other lunch we have for on
the 26th. Trust me, you will
want to read that review.
We then headed out to go to For the First Time In
Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration.
We sang along but made sure to keep our mouths shut when it started to “Snow”.
We headed to Muppet*Vision 3D.
We
enjoyed it and she thought it was funny and wanted to see it again. Now to Star Tours: The Adventures Continue,
she summed it up this way, “IT WAS COOL! SEEMED SO REAL!”
After the Muppets, we were walking and stopped and became Jedi, to be one with the Force.
Now off to see the show she was looking
forward to - Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage. This was ok and not one she wants to go see
again, well not with the current Gaston, Belle was good. We left this and as we were on our way to
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! We watched part of the Star Wars: A
Galaxy Far Away. Didn’t think it was
that great, Yes we both love Star Wars but nothing really memorable. Now to Indiana Jones. She
enjoyed this and figured out the “surprise” (in case someone hasn’t seen it
yet) but she didn’t want to stay for the whole thing so we left out about 5
minutes early and beat the crowds.
It
was time to go back to Toy Story Mania where she beat me, again. I some how can't find the pics of all the scores, and no I didn't get rid of them, just can't find them as well as some other pictures.
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| Andrea asked Mikey why she hasn't proposed to Minnie yet. Love his reaction. |
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| Me with Mickey, and Mickey on my shirt not too happy |
As in other dinners, we changed our
shirts and did our best to enjoy it. This
was an interesting event. For one, it
was a bit too close to our lunch but not too bad. The character interaction was not to bad, just a bit rushed but we made the best of it. The food, well that was ok, filling but just ok,.
The highlight of the food was a dessert that Andrea would never have
tried if she knew that full name of it.
She like the little cheesecakes and it wasn’t until after I told her
that it was Eggnog Cheesecake, that she said “Really, I would never have tried
it because I don’t like eggnog.” I loved
the little cheesecakes and must have had 4, or 5 or well let’s just say, I lost
count of them.
We left in time to see Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular.
It was good, from what we could see of it but we didn’t have a good spot to
watch it from. Then we went to Walt
Disney: One Man’s Dream. We did the walk
thru and then watched “One Man’s Dream, the movie”. I was so glad that they
were showing that and not some preview of another movie. Andrea enjoyed it and it helped her see what
all Walt had done. She agrees with me in
that everyone should watch this at least once to really understand and
appreciate what he did and what we have now because of his beliefs, ideas and
philosophies.
We then headed off to Fantasmic for the 8:00pm show,
TP said we should have been there at least 60 minutes before the show. We arrived 15 minutes before the show and because
we had the FDP, we went in the FP line and walked all the way forward to the
CMs and rope that stopped us. They let
people from the standby line go in to their sections and then we were led to
the section where we could sit and we went down close to the front, just 4 rows
back. It was good, but we were way too
close to the front. She loved the show
but was cold from the mist that got us wet.
Loved the music and recommends it to everyone. She was surprised and amazed at the ending, as
she said “WOW, that was truly magical!”
After the show, we waited for the madhouse to clear some, then walked up
to the main walkway, moved to the far right, where we could get out without
much of a problem. We saw part Jingle Bell,
Jingle BAM! Didn’t like it and decided to go use the FP for TSM that I had managed to get on the MDE.
Let's just say, Andrea beat me again. We went there and the standby line was so short, we jumped in that line, then came out. Then used one of the paper FP we had. Came out and we still had about 15 minutes before our FP, and ended up striking up a conversation with another family that was waiting to ride it to, for their FP time to come up, we had the same times. Nice to get to know other people while on vacation. The time came for the FP and it was off we went. We also had brought some glow bracelets and glasses and gave them out to random people.
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| Us relaxing before heading out for the bus |
We decided to call it a night. We figured we would try to beat
the mad rush before the 2nd Famtastmic let out. We were wrong, what we saw
that there was a huge line for the Pop Century bus, our guess is we would not
have made it on a bus until the 3rd bus. Knowing that you can hop on the Art of
Animation bus and then walk over to POP, well guess what we did as there was
almost no one waiting in line for the AoA bus.
Yes, we are so glad we did, as we were on the bus and heading back and
there still was no bus for POP.
Something to remember if staying at POP and AoA, is that you can ride
the other resorts bus and just walk thru to your resort. Love it.
We made it to AoA and then headed thru the main
building, out the door, to the left of the pool, followed the path to the
bridge, then crossed over, took the first path to the right to our building,
then up to room 6222. We got ready for
bed and went to sleep. Well I tried to
download the pictures from the phones and camera but again, was drifting off to
sleep.
Tomorrow 12/23, we are in 2 parks, MK for the morning
with a stop at Gaston’s Tavern, then it is off to Epcot with lunch at Le
Cellier and dinner at Chefs de France.
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