F is for Florida

Walt Disney World 

Hollywood Studios

Monday, March 4, 2013

Happy Birthday, Cindy!

I got up at 4:00 a.m. to go to Linda's and pick her up.  I couldn't remember the numbers of her address in the proper order, so I passed her house before calling her and turning around to get to the correct driveway.  We parked at The Parking Spot on the roof, which requires you to use your entrance card again for the cheaper rate. We talked to the guy in the elevator about "accidentally" closing the door on people for whom we actually didn't want to wait.  We didn't ride the same shuttle as him, though, because it was red and gold and mentioned the Trojans on the back, and I refused to get on, since there was another perfectly good shuttle bus right behind it.

LAX wasn't very crowded, even though it was a Monday morning.  I wanted to get there early in case the federal sequester would affect the staffing, but it was OK.  I somehow got myself in line behind a family with full-size containers of shampoo, and they were pretty much unpacking a bunch of their carry-on luggage to get it all onto the x-ray belt.  It's good we got there early, or I might have been even more annoyed than I was already.  Oh, and yes, they got through with the full-size items, and also re-packed on the other side of the x-ray machine.  I bought a kid's lunch at the La Brea Bakery kiosk for later.  As the Virgin America attendant called the different boarding groups ("A for Awesome"), I eagerly awaited what they would call us, being in boarding group F.  He disappointed me and called All Boarding Groups instead.  So, of course, I had to mention to the guy that I wanted to hear them call us something, and they said that they were supposed to say "famous" or "fabulous" or "fantastic" but forgot.  Hmmm...perhaps "F is for Forgetful".  Actually, I wanted them to say some other "F" word/phrase, but that was just between me and Linda.  The interior of the plane was pretty. I like the pink lighting and the leather seats with the pillow-ish headrests.  I had an issue with the touch screen, but that's because I'm hella lame.  I ended up adding way more music than I needed to my playlist on the Virgin screen, but that's OK.  At least I didn't have to worry about missing the last part of any movie, as Linda was afraid the guy in front of us would do as he watched one of the Spider-man movies.

Welcome to Orlando, Sherry!

When we arrived in Orlando, what should greet me in the airport lobby, but a picture of my girl Ariel!  We followed our directions to get to the Magical Express line, where we met Zeenat  (her name rhymes with "peanut") and Jan.  I don't know why I didn't get a picture of Zeenat.  She was really cute and friendly!  We got on our bus and I ate my kid's meal (PB&J sandwich with carrots, a little brownie and apple juice), and I saw a guy get on with his luggage.  This sent me into an immediate worry mode because I thought that ME was supposed to get our luggage for us.  I knew that they would deliver to our room, but I was worried that we had misunderstood and we were supposed to pick up our luggage first.  But no, everything was fine.  You know I had visions of us being without luggage a la Liz in Boston.  Then I got jealous of all of the people on the Disney Cruise Line bus because I wish we could do that, too.  But that will be for another day, I hope.

Rock Inn

We arrived at the All-Star Music resort, and met Ryane, whom was on her third day of training at the hotels.  Her trainer was Edward, and they were both very nice.  Ryane really likes Earl of Sandwich, but since we now have one in Anaheim (yay!), we didn't plan on going there.  She circled it for us on the map anyway.  :)  Linda and I had made our reservations for our dinners ahead of time, and Ryane told us how to work the rest of the dining plan that we had purchased.    We then put in a good word for Ryane and Edward, and headed for the dining area to get our refillable mugs before walking to our room at the Rock Inn.  The room felt even farther than it actually was because we had walked around the wrong side of the building, and my left foot/ankle/knee was really hurting by this point.  We considered getting a wheelchair for me, but I decided that I'd be OK for the evening.  I love all of the musical themes in the room, so much so that I hopped into the shower to show off the curtain.

Cue music from "Psycho"

This looks really familiar

We walked to the bus stop and got in line with a woman whom was standing by herself.  We had decided to make Hollywood Studios our first park since the Magic Hours for resort guests were in the evening for this day, and we didn't really need to spend the whole day there.  After all, we come from the land of the real Hollywood, so it's not much of a big deal to us, except for the rides that we don't have in Anaheim.  

Sorcerer Mickey Topiary

At DHS, the Sorcerer Mickey topiary looked like Elphaba from Wicked. After figuring out the map (honestly, why was this so hard for us?), we made our way to the Tower of Terror.  Yes, I know that we have one in Anaheim.  But I love Florida's version.  I rode it in 2003, and it was the first Tower I ever rode, so I was a bit disappointed when the one in DCA wasn't the same.  While in line at the Tower, we talked to a guy and his son about the ride.  They had never experienced it, so I coyly said, "It's an elevator."  Tower of Terror is not as creepy here in the line as it is in Anaheim, because there is only one floor, and the ghost girl or whatever isn't running around behind the walls.  The ride itself is way better than ours.  I know that an elevator isn't supposed to move horizontally, but that is what makes it so awesome for me.  Linda conceded that WDW's is better than DCA's.  This would be the last time that she would concede as such.  Yes, it was only the first day, and the first ride.

Riding the Elevator

We didn't have reservations for the evening because we were saving one of the dining plan credits for the next night's restaurant, which required 2 points instead of just one.  So we ordered gourmet hot dogs at Fairfax Fare, which looks like LA's Farmer's Market, but a lot smaller.  Linda's hot dog had mac and cheese with bacon and truffle oil on top.  Mine had pulled pork and cole slaw on top.  They were yummy.  Linda ended up getting free hot chocolate because their machine broke down and she had to make it out of a package by herself.  So they gave her 2 of them.  I don't know what it is with Linda getting hot chocolate for free <giggle>.

I wasn't sure that we should do a coaster ride right after dinner, but we both felt OK and we were too hungry to wait until after the coaster to eat.  So then we went to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, which was pretty much a walk-on because of the Magic Hours (we had to show our Key to the World cards to get in line).  KICK ASS!!!  The cast member dude at the end of the ride yelled at us, "YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!" just like a rock n roll fan should say.  This became the line of the day (LOTD was done in tweets for the trip, and will not have its own separate blog entries).  I so totally love that ride!  We got a picture of us on the ride, and I also bought a cool shirt for myself with snaps down the back.  It's black and white and totally me.

Aerosmith in the studio

Linda is a huge movie fan, so she wanted to go on The Great Movie Ride.  I only cared about going on it so that I could see Joseph Fiennes for a second.  While we were walking to the attraction, music from the score of "Shakespeare In Love" was playing around us, and I was very happy.  I got even happier when they showed the snippet of the movie at the end of the ride.  Our tour guide was Rebecca, and we got held up by the gangsters.

That was really all that we wanted to do, as I didn't really feel the need to see The Little Mermaid show (they didn't have any during Magic Hours anyway).  But we saw people in a line at one of the studio set entrances, so we asked what it was about.  The CM told us that it was The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow, and there were some really cool special effects, and Johnny Depp shows up and it looks as if he's really there.  Well, OK, then!  It was pretty cool, but the singing mermaid was a bit creepy because it just showed her head instead of her whole body.  I didn't feel like Johnny was actually there, but that's OK.  I was amused by his Captain Jack-ness, and my favorite line was when he talked to the Jolly Roger head: "Thank you, Inexplicably Floating Skull in the Sky."

Linda needed to take a picture of a dinosaur before we left.  The dinosaur was pink and big and I have no idea why he was in that lake, but it made her happy.  

We took bus #2 back to the hotel.  The most crowded one.  But our luggage was there and we were happy.  I iced my foot in preparation for the next day of much walking, while writing in my brand spanking new pretty journal.  

WDW Line of the Day:  "YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!" -- CM at Rock 'n' Roller Coaster