June 19

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Summer Vacation – Walt Disney World Day 2

By Ciara Knight

June 19, 2018

Disney Hollywood Studios, Family Vacation, kid friendly, Rockin' Roller Coaster, Walt Disney World

My kiddos woke with stars in their eyes and renewed energy for their favorite ride, Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Roller Coaster. We boarded the first bus of the day from Bay Lake Towers and arrived at Disney’s Hollywood studios seconds before the morning open walk. If you’ve never experienced this, you need to understand how important these first few steps are. Imagine opening doors to an arena for thousands of pre-teen girls and they spot her sitting on stage hanging out. Yep, total stampede.

Once we hot-footed it down the main road and past Tower of Terror we knew we’d made it. They ushered us through without even stopping to hear how our stretch limo would be arriving to take us to the concert. My middle minion and I hopped in and shot out of there at breakneck speeds twisting and turning and twirling through a maze to avoid the awful traffic. A side note on this ride, apparently when you scream “Donuts” as you pass the large sign while sitting next to a stranger, might garner a strange look or two. It’s fine as a family tradition, though.

After we exited the ride, what did we do? That’s right, we ran around and headed back on it again…ah, and again. Did I mention we love roller coasters?

When we were done we headed over to Toy Story in hopes that we could manage to navigate the long que before anyone gave up. I’m happy to report my two boys begrudgingly obliged and we enjoyed our family competitive game of ‘who gets top score’. I was soooo close! Unfortunately, Mr. Knight beat me yet again by 2,000 points.

After comparing scores and arguing over why Mr. Knight won, not that I’m a sore loser, we checked out our trusty Disney app and discovered that there was only a ten-minute wait to Star Tours, so we flew over there. Unfortunately, the app updated by the time we got in line and it was now almost an hour. Since we had fast passes and dinner reservations at Epcot that evening, we decided to head back to our luxurious rooms and rest a bit.

*Note: Before we left on the trip both boys complained about our ‘napping’ during our last Disney vacation. On day two, they were begging to go back to the room to rest. Who’s old now? 🙂

We enjoyed our break and headed to Epcot. The rain followed us, but we managed to survive the rivers pouring through the sidewalk to use our Fast pass to Soarin. This is one of my favorite rides at Disney, and by far the best at Epcot, IMHO. It was pleasant and when we got off my husband said what he always says, “you don’t have to go to Egypt now, you just saw it.”

The rain was still coming down so Test Track was closed so we headed to Mission Space. I’ve never had a problem on this ride. Actually, it’s been one of my favorites for a long time, but today something was different. The ride paused while we were strapped in, and my son says, “wow, we can’t get out if anything is wrong.” After another minute, I found the closed in space and being restrained bothered me. Again, I’m not claustrophobic or ever had an issue with this ride, but all of a sudden I wanted off that thing. It was the longest few minutes on any ride, but I made it through and bolted toward dinner. When the suggestion was made later that night to return to Mission Space, I quickly offered another suggestion. One near panic attack a day is enough for me.

The rain turned to a downpour and we managed to walk to our dinner reservation at Tapo El something. To our delight, they were able to take us an hour before our reservation, so we happily enjoyed the respite from the rain in the warm, dry entertaining restaurant. My kids thought the dinner show was great and the food was amazing. My middle minion who doesn’t like steak said it was the best food he’d had in a long time. To our delight, we’d been so caught up in the ambiance and fun that we didn’t realize we’d killed almost two hours and the rain had stopped. Our one ride left was now open, and I’d promised the boys we’d try to ride it. The park was closing, but since we were hotel guests, we knew we could still ride during those precious Magic Hours. Unfortunately, the ride had been so long that all the previous Fastpasses were waiting at once. We opted for the line for single riders only, but even then, the ride took a while to get moving. It was fine with us, though. We knew it would take awhile and it was our last mission of the day.

We left Epcot that evening with smiles on our faces, and memories to last a lifetime. My objective of family bonding was accomplished, and we still had one more day. I laid my head down on my pillow and closed my eyes feeling relaxed and happy. Apparently, the Pixie Dust had been sprinkled on me and I was happy to fly away to happy dreams of what tomorrow would bring.

 

Ciara Knight

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