So our first day of our trip we spent at Hollywood studios, and ended up there in some capactity on more than half of the other days. Why do we do it so much?
Well its a great park for the kids. Sure it has some great adult rides like the Rockin Roller Coaster and of course the Tower of Terror. It also has things like the Voyage of the Little Mermaid (great for Catie), Playhouse Disney (still enjoyed by Eric and loved by Catie), Star Tours (one of Eric's favorites), Beauty and the Beast, and of course Toy Story Mania.
So for both the parents and the kids, Hollywood Studios is a great place to go. It doesn't quite have the densitiy of great rides for all ages that the Magic Kingdom has, but out of the four theme parks it easily comes in second in my opinion.
The park itself was much busier than we expected it to be. There were a lot of tour groups there and I think that was part of the problem. Couple that with the fact that it was one of only two nights that Fantasmic was showing that week, and it was very busy indeed.
Playhouse Disney
We saw Playhouse Disney 2 or 3 times during our stay this time. Each time both of my kids had a blast. My little one, Catie was up dancing, reaching for the bubbles, dancing having a great time. And my older child, Eric, still found it fun and not that boring. So this definitely works. One interesting thing about this show, I think every trip that we go down to Disney they have at least one new host. Makes me wonder if all the syrupy sweet singing doesn't drive them nuts.
Voyage of the Little Mermaid is a good show done with puppets. Unfortunately we missed it this trip. Its schedule was such that it was only showing on certain days and at certain times. We never quite caught it right.
Toy Story Mania
Toy Story Mania warranted its own post, I talked about it here.
Star Tours
Lets see what else. Star Tours. My son loves this ride and we go on it every time we go to the park. One of the great things about this ride nowadays is that there really isn't much of a wait for it. Maybe once in a while right after a Jedi Training Acadamy show gets out (Which by the way, this is a fun show for the kids. For the most part my kids have been a little scared by it, but this trip they wanted to watch it. My son says that he's even ready to try to be in it the next time we go down. Which is a huge leap). But even when the line gets long every so often, it catches up pretty quickly. I remember when my wife and I first started going down to WDW the line would usually be 30 minutes, now its usually 5 minutes.
Fantasmic
Fantasmic was good this trip. It was only playing twice during the week we were down there. The Monday night that we arrived, and the Thursday night. We knew tha that we wanted to be in the Magic Kindom on Thursday already so we planned to hit Fantasmic the first night we were there. We show up at the parck around 6, and there was a 7PM show. My wife and son decided to hit Star Tours (it was only a 5 minute wait), and Catie and I decided to go get seats for Fantasmic.
My daughter has been dying to see "The Mickey Show" for months now. Even before we decided we were making a January trip she has been talking about wanting to go see it again. So I wanted to make sure we got a good seat for it. Its a good thing that we went in early (we got into the theater around 6:15). The seating was nearly full! 45 minutes before the show and the seating was already filling up the Hades section.
What's that you say? It fills up early all the time? I completely disagree. My wife and I routinely get there about 1/2 hour before show whenever w e go down (even during our trip last June when the parks were packed), and usually sit 1 or 2 sections o com/hosting_ads/gd01.js"> ver from Hades (I forget the characters progression off hte top of my head). So we figured that we had plenty of time. Boy where we wrong.
My poor daughter! We were walking across the top of the theater towards the open seats when we get halfway across. She starts crying. "Daddy, Daddy! Stop! I want to sit down and see the Mickey Show". She thought I was walking right by and we weren't going to watch it. She had never gone that far over to the right and didn't realize we were still going to see it!
Anyway we finally sat down, my wife and son found us, and the show was great. Nearly all the effects were turned on (the shooting stars very early on during the Sorcer Mickey scenes weren't on, but to be honest I haven't seen those in so long they might have been removed).
Honey I Shrunk The Kids Playground
This is a playground we spent more time at than I expected. My son always takes a little bit of time to warm up to this area. I mean what kid doesn't get freaked out initially by giant bugs? They usually don't want to play on them. Eventually they got into the swing of it though, and we all really enjoyed the giant web. I think I climbed up and down that thing a half dozen times with the kids.
Sci Fi Drive In Theater
We ate here on a whim on our first day. Walked right up and sat right down. Not bad considering how busy the park was that day (remember the tour groups and Fantasmic showing made the crowds pretty high for that day). My wife and I had eaten there about 7 or 8 years ago, and thought it was alright. Not to bad, but not the best either. Usually when we're at Hollywood Studios we try to get into 50s Prime Time, but we thought we'd try something different this trip.
It was great. The food was anywhere from good to great (I got the Chicken sandwhich which was good, my wife got the burger which she thought was great. The kids ate their food which is always a nice surprise :). The kids really loved the theming though. From the "car" we were sitting in. To the hosts on roller skates. To the night time sky, and the giant move theater. Christine and I had a lot of fun describing what a drive-in is to the kids, and talking about how much fun we had going to them ourselves.
The movie clips they showed were a mixed bag. Christine and I thought they were all goofy and in good fun, and surprisingly the kids did too. My son was glued to watching them, even when there were giant monsters and insects on the screen. I was pretty surprised that he wasn't freaked out by some of them.
Indiana Jones Stunt Show
Eric has been on an Indiana Jones trip for a few months now. He was actually Indy for Halloween (and with a decent costume too!). The show was fun as usual. My wife and I had a good time, even though we've seen it a milion times. My son loved every second of it. Catie was a bit overwhelemed at times, and got scared (like when the boulder rolls down), but overall she liked it. Still it may be too much for the little ones.
What we didnt' do this trip?
- Beauty and the Beat - The shcedules just didn't match up with ours unfortunately.
- Muppets - The kids actually didn't want to go on this. They like the Muppets a lot. (Loved their most recent Christmas special), but for some reason they never wanted to go on.
- Great Movie Ride - Never really was a question, no one seemed interested oddly enough. Its a decent ride though.
- Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster - My wife and I skipped these. Its just too much of a pain with the kids, even though we love these two rides. (Well I love both of them, my wife can live without the Rockin Roller Coaster),. But we were there for the kids, and we've ridden them so many times. Its ok, we know we'll be back.