We spent Sunday at Hollywood Studios. We decided to go there first because Drew's favorites, Phineas and Ferb, and Jack's favorites, Buzz, Woody, and Lightning McQueen, were all there. They were ready to go with their character shirts on!
If I had any advice for future Disney-goers, it would be to make reservations for the character meals! We got into the park before it even opened, and during an hour meal, we got to see and get autographs from tons of characters! It was totally killing 2 birds with 1 stone, because we could walk right by the big lines of people waiting to meet the characters in the parks!
Our breakfast that morning was at Hollywood & Vine, with Special Agent Oso, Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Handy Manny, and June from Little Einsteins. We got our breakfast from the buffet, and then each character came by our table to see the kids! It was so fun - they would come up and greet them, sign their autograph books, and then pose for a picture or two. Some characters even came by twice because it wasn't very crowded that morning.
Special Agent Oso
Jake!
I think Jack had Mickey waffles at least once a day. :)
Awww, Handy Manny!
June!
Drew got a second chance to hang out with Jake!
Meeting Chip and Dale after breakfast!
We headed right over to the Phineas and Ferb meet-and-greet because I had heard that the line gets really long. We only had to wait for a few minutes! Drew was so excited to see them - he kept saying he wished they had a character breakfast. Bummer - there just wasn't much with those 2 except for the meet-and-greet.
They were fun - they played around with the kids, turned Drew's hat sideways, and took lots of pics!
Right behind Phineas and Ferb we found Lightning McQueen and Mater! No line there at all! (I am figuring out that Sunday mornings might be the best time to go to the parks! - it being Father's Day probably helped, too.)
The look on his face was definitely priceless.
Hollywood Studios was so neat with all the movie set scenery. This was an umbrella on the street corner that you could stand under and it would rain all around you.
Our next stop was the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" giant playground! It was really cool - and again - not very crowded at all! It was just like the movie, with giant grass, flowers, ants, trees, slides - even a giant cup of Play-doh and a giant super-soaker! The boys had a blast running around in there.
Sliding down a giant leaf!
Next we headed over to "Pixar Place" because we had a FastPass to ride Toy Story Mania. Sidenote: the FastPass system at Disney has to be the best invention ever. I couldn't figure out why more people weren't doing it! It was only available for the most popular rides, and all you had to do was put your ticket in the machine and it would pop out a FastPass card with the time (a one-hour window) you should return to the ride. When you go back to ride it during your timeframe, you pretty much just walk past all the tons of people waiting in line and walk right on the ride! Many thanks to Julie Harrington of Pixie Trips Travel (www.pixietripstravel.com) for the wonderful itinerary she made for us - told us which rides to get FastPasses for and when to get them! Lifesaver! Timesaver!
Ok, back to Pixar Place! These green army men (from the Toy Story movies) would occasionally walk down the street - they were so funny!
The Toy Story Mania ride was very cool. You put on 3-D glasses and ride around to different screens that have awesome 3-D scenes with the Toy Story characters. At each one you shoot at the targets to try to earn points. We liked it so much that when we got off, we immediately got another FastPass for later so we could ride it again! The second time, Drew wanted to ride with me since he knew he had a better chance of winning after Daddy beat him. :)
Right after Toy Story Mania we went across to the meet-and-greet for Buzz Lightyear and Woody. This was probably the longest line we waited in the whole time - about 30 minutes. But it didn't seem like it because the entire wait queue had scenes from Toy Story that you could take pictures with.
Finally it was our turn - Jack was SO excited to meet the "real" Buzz and Woody! It was so cute - even I was so excited to see them! All the characters are so happy! :)
Woody was waving his hand in front of our video camera!
Jack was in heaven. :)
One last hug from Buzz!
We finally got one of the Army Men to stop for a quick picture.
Continuing with the Toy Story theme, we had lunch at Pizza Planet! They had tons of games to play -which made up for the not-so-good pizza. :)
After lunch we headed over to catch the "Lights! Motors! Action!" stunt show. Drew says this was his favorite "non-ride" thing that we did on our trip!
It was pretty awesome - there were producers who were filming stunt scenes for a movie. We saw crazy stunt driving, motorcycles, fire, and even a car that got cut in half! The cars jumped off of trucks, through windows, and over ramps!
Jack was pumped when his friend Lightning made a surprise appearance, too!
After the stunt show we raced over to catch the Indiana Jones show. Jack was getting tired and cranky, so I walked him around in the stroller a bit while Brian and Drew watched Indiana Jones. It was getting pretty hot by this time in the afternoon, so we cooled off with a Mickey ice cream bar!
Next up was the Pixar Pals parade! This was a very short parade, but so cool with lots of characters from movies like The Incredibles, Up, Monsters, Inc., and Toy Story.
Next we cooled off by watching the Muppets 3-D show and the Playhouse Disney puppet show! Both of those were really cute.
Finally we had to visit the Toy Story souvenir store, where Jack picked up some Mickey ears, ANOTHER Buzz, and a little Toy Story set with all the characters. How cute is this?!
Drew was saving his souvenir money for our next stop - Build-A-Car! We had seen this place the night before in Downtown Disney, but it was getting too late so we didn't make one. They were having a buy-one-get-one-free sale for Father's Day, so we knew if we wanted to get the deal we had to go today. And he didn't let us forget about it! It was just like Build-A-Bear but with remote control cars! Drew picked out a red race car and Jack built Francesco from Cars 2. They got to drill the body together and put the wheels on, then choose engines, etc. to go on their cars. Right up Drew's alley!
Needless to say, we were WIPED out by this time. It had been a LONG day but we had so much fun at Hollywood Studios. I wish we had built in an extra day so we could go back!
