Day 5

We didn't arrive at Hollywood Studios until about 9:30am this morning. We immediately headed to the Toy Story Midway Mania. The waiting time was already 60 minutes. The park had just opened at 9am and the fast passes were already not available until after 6pm! We would have gotten fast passes, but at the time we wanted to go to the Fantasmic show at 6:30pm and the fast passes were going to be good for that period of time. By the time we finished the ride, the fast passes were gone. That was definitely the most popular ride in that park.

The Toy Story Mania ride is definitely everyone's favorite. Melissa and Emily really only wanted to go on that one ride. Everyone in my family also named that ride specifically as the one they didn't want to miss. We also get a little competitive. After we finished the ride, we met outside and compared scores. Anthony "won" with his score of 185,900. Alex and I both got around 131,000 while Patrick got around 128,000. Natalie got 68,000, I think. I have to give Patrick a few points because he rode with Eric and every so often he had to help him direct his shooter. Eric got 20,000. Alex was pretty happy to beat his Papa's score. I was surprised because he is much better at these shooting games than I am. Anthony and Patrick usually both do pretty well.

Our next stop was the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular at 11:30am. We thought that Eric especially would enjoy all the explosions. There's even an exploding airplane in that one. Next we had lunch and then we separated. We thought Eric (and the boys) would enjoy the Lights, Motors, and Action Extreme Stunt Show (at 1:20pm) because of all of the cars AND the explosions. We also got fast passes for Star Tours for later (at 3:50pm). Melissa and the girls decided to head to The American Idol Experience instead. That's a relatively new attraction where the audience watches some auditions, just like on the TV show, and vote for their favorite. Apparently the favorite for the day gets to be at the front of the line for the actual American Idol auditions.

They incorporated a few minutes to Lightning McQueen during the Lights, Motors, and Action Extreme Stunt Show. They had a car that looked like Lightning McQueen drive around as if he was looking for a spy car. Tow Mater was only shown on a big TV screen. That was enough to really get Eric excited about the show. Apparently he was telling his Aunt Melissa all about the show and the "explosions" later at dinner.

We had to kill some time after the show and before our Star Tours fast passes. We saw a line where you could get your photo taken with Lightning McQueen, so of course we got in that line. Anthony was with us and really helped entertain his brother to make the wait shorter. Patrick and Alex ran off to explore and to have a snack. Several times during this trip Eric has refused to have his picture taken. That wasn't the case this time.

We killed some more time having ice cream snacks, watching some live music, and watching the Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun parade. Anthony said that he was tall but that he wasn't tall enough to see over the "parent-child combos" that were watching the parade. In other words, there were several parents who had their children up on their shoulders so the kids could see the parade. Anthony couldn't see over them so the next best thing was to put his brother on his shoulders so Eric could also watch the parade. It was nice to see that interaction. Eric kept pointing to the Pixar characters that he knew and so he seemed to really enjoy the parade.

I took this second picture while we were waiting for our Star Tours show to start. Eric was being a little goofy. It was a 4-D experience complete with 3-D glasses and the feeling like you were in an actual space shuttle. Patrick and the boys enjoyed the show because it was a different story from the last time we were here.

We were getting tired at this point. Even Melissa and the girls had left the park to go back to the hotel to chill. Even though we had planned on seeing Fantasmic, we all decided that we didn't want to wait around at the Hollywood Studios park until 6:30pm just to see that show. Instead, we all headed to Downtown Disney. Melissa and the girls met us there and we ended up eating dinner at Cap'n Jack's Restaurant.

After dinner we went to the Lego Imagination Center. Eric and Natalie were there building their Lego creations for quite a while. I loved watching the concentration on Eric's face. I could tell he was enjoying himself because he didn't want to leave. The only thing that convinced him to leave was the rest of us going off to Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop for dessert. There we had the most decadent desserts. Alex had the "Domingo" or basically a sundae. Anthony had the Warm Brownie Sundae. No dieting during vacation, that's for sure! We all headed home after dessert and again we watching fireworks from our room. I'll never get tired of that.

Tomorrow we're heading to Animal Kingdom and we'll also be saying goodbye to Melissa and Emily.