Hollywood Studios

We weren't planning on going to Hollywood Studios until Wednesday, but when we looked at the forecast they were predicting 50+ mm of rain that day!  Since the kids really wanted to do the Jedi training, and they don't do it when there's too much rain, we changed our plans so that we could make sure they got the opportunity.

The kids were up super early and quickly discovered that the "Disney Fairy" had left them each a gift for being so good yesterday!  Emma got a Belle figurine and Ben got Woody from Toy Story.  We had a good breakfast and then got ready to go.  We got to try out our Magic Bands today too!  I was impressed with how easy they were to use... no searching for each individual card for access to the parks, fast passes or getting pictures!  Just scan your band and everything was linked.  They were great.

 We got to the park quite early and had to wait for the gates to open.

Since we had time, we decided to get our picture taken by one of the Disney photographers.  Unfortunately, Ben didn't want anything to do with it!  He grabbed hold of the fence and wouldn't let go!  I had to pry his fingers off and physically pull him in for the picture.  When that didn't work, I ended up holding him.  Too bad I couldn't get his face in the picture!  Silly boy.

I snapped this picture with my iPhone afterwards.  He was pretty determined that he "doesn't like getting pictures!".  After a bit of a talk with Lennard and calming down, he was golden the rest of the day!  At least we got it out of the way first thing in the morning!

The amazing thing with the Memory Maker that we bought was that as soon as the Disney photographers scanned one of our Magic Bands, we could access the pictures in the Disney app on our phones.  As we were looking at the pictures, I discovered this one!  I showed it to Emma and she exclaimed, "I didn't even see her there!"  It was so cute!

 As soon as the gates opened, we headed to sign up the kids for 'Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple'.  There had been an hour of extra magic hours for resort guests, so we were a little worried that we wouldn't get them in, but we managed to get them in for the 1:10pm show.  We had the rest of the morning free until 12:40 when they were supposed to report in, so we headed over and discovered that there was only a five minute wait to get in to Start Tours!

We basically walked right on to the ride.  The only bad thing with that is there is so much to look at in the line up that we kept having to get the kids to move!  They wanted to see everything and were very excited for the ride.  I wish we'd been able to get a video of Emma's reaction to the ride.  It was so hilarious!  She talked through the entire thing (sorry to those who sat next to us!).  She loved the 3D effects and kept trying to reach out and grab things.  Ben, on the other hand, didn't make a peep.  When the ride ended, he just looked at us and said, "It was too scary!".

As soon as we got out, Emma wanted to go again.  We managed to get through the gift shop and took a few pictures of the kids and then, when seeing that the line up was still short, got in line to go again!  Ben wasn't super happy about it, but he didn't throw too much of an objection.

Lennard and the kids would have gone on Star Tours for a third time, but I needed a bit of fresh air!  We managed to get into the Muppet Vision 3D show with very little wait which was a lot of fun.  

We got pictures taken whenever we happened to see a photographer!

As we walked by the next ride we wanted to go on, our waiting time luck was over - it was over an hour wait and we didn't have that much time before the kids had to be at their training thing.  We noticed Buzz Lightyear and Woody in the window and decided that we'd let the kids meet them.  Little did we know how long the line up was!  It took us about 45 minutes to finally get to see them, but the kids absolutely loved it. 

 We had enough time afterwards that we went to the Little Mermaid show and then get some lunch.  We had foot long chili cheese hot dogs that were so good!  The only thing the kids were interested in though were the ducks that were wandering around the picnic tables!  Ben took my phone and took a picture of them.  LOL

As soon as we were done lunch, we headed over to check the kids in for their Jedi training.  There are about 30 kids in each show.   

 They each got a Jedi robe to use!  The kids thought this was pretty cool!

Once they were all ready, they walked down towards the stage where the show would happen.  The gal that was leading them kept yelling out, "Make way for the young Jedi's!"

The show is quite cute and the kids were excited when they found out they were going to be fighting Darth Vadar!

I was off to the side, so I was really glad that the Disney photographers were taking pictures for me!

I'm so glad the kids got to have this chance.  They both loved every minute of it and for the rest of the day, Ben was trying to use the force to make me do things!  

We managed to find Donald Duck... and a very short line... so we let Emma get a picture with him.  We tried to convince Ben, but he didn't want anything to do with it.  It wasn't worth the fight this time, so we just let him watch.

Emma really wanted to go on the Tower of Terror next.  She'd heard us talking about it with my parents earlier in the month and she was determined to ride it.  Ben didn't know what he was getting himself in for... so he went along willingly!  We stood in line for about 45 minutes and then it was our turn.  I was nervous because I knew what was coming and I don't like the feeling of dropping!

Emma loved it - Ben hated it.  Really hated it.  In fact, if we even say anything about the Tower of Terror, he complains and says that it was way too scary!  Poor kid.  We've scarred him for life!

 To help him recover from the ride, we bought everyone ice cream!  Ice cream makes everything better... right?!  It also helped pass the time until the Beauty and the Beast show started.  We had a fast pass, so we got pretty good seats.

 It is such a fun show and we all loved it.  It's amazing seeing all the vibrant costumes.

 It was getting to be later in the afternoon by now and the kids were starting to fade.  We happened to walk by and see that Minnie Mouse was out and almost no line up, so we quickly got Emma in line.  Once again, we could not convince Ben that he wanted any pictures taken.  At least we tried...

Emma LOVED getting to meet Minnie Mouse.  Minnie gave her a big kiss and twirled her around.  It was so cute.

We finally decided that the kids were done for the day and started to head out of the park, but we happened to pass the Indiana Jones Stunt Show that had just barely started.  We couldn't pass it up, so we found seats quickly.  Ben was completely enthralled with the show.  Emma was just concerned about why there was fire, etc.  It was a fun way to end the day.  We finally headed out to the car just before 7:00!  Yikes!  Guess we should have stopped a little earlier and actually fed the kids!  Oops!  We decided to just go to Golden Corral again so that we could eat immediately and get them home to bed.  When we got home at 8:00pm, everyone was ready for bed!  It was such an amazingly fun day though that it was worth every minute there.  Wish we could have spent longer!