Disney Day 3: Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom



Saturday morning we were up and on the bus bright and early to be at Hollywood Studios when it opened for morning magic hours.  We had Fastpasses for Toy Story, Star Tours and Tower of Terror. Since Jedi Training Academy is on hiatus, we had a lot of flexibility in our schedule.  Our plan was to rope drop Toy Story so we could ride it twice that day.  Unfortunately the ride was down from 8-10 a.m., so we only got to ride it the one time with our pass, and we had to rework our touring plan.  

 

 

This trip was definitely a "growing up" trip for us.  Not only did we ditch the stroller, but William was finally tall enough for the last set of thrill rides:  44 inches to ride Space Mountain and Expedition Everest.   He loved them both!  He also agreed to ride Tower of Terror again (he had done it at 4 1/2 at WDW and at 5 at Disneyland and regretted it!) - twice!

 

 

The weather was hot and steamy, so we were happy to have a lunch reservation at Hollywood Brown Derby to rest our feet and have some delicious food and drink.  I love the super glam look that William is sporting wearing my sunglasses at the table.   On our way out after lunch, John doubled back to get a souvenir Boba Fett mug.  I love this picture almost as much as the R2D2 popcorn bucket picture I got at Disneyland in 2014!

We park hopped to Animal Kingdom just in time for a downpour.  We waited it out in the Photopass shop where we browsed through our pictures from the Halloween party and earlier in the day at Hollywood Studios and shopped for Magic Bandits - little buttons to put on your Magic Band.   No surprise, we walked out with the Star Wars set.

 

 

We did a quick walk around the park to assess lines (too long), ran into a friend from home at one of the Wilderness Explorer activities, and then waited in the standby queue to ride Expedition Everest to much success before heading back to Bay Lake.  The photo below is a little tough to see but the red/orange lights are emergency vehicles evacuating the monorail that broke down.  We ordered pizza to the room and I went to bed early that night so I missed seeing Illuminations at Epcot out our living room window.  That's ok; I enjoyed the sleep!