Saturday, January 5, 2013

Keiper Family Christmas Vacation: Part IV

The day after we went to the Magic Kingdom, we decided to go to Hollywood Studios. We let Tommy sleep in so we got to the park a little late.  The problem with getting there late is the parking lot gets full.  We  thought the park might be full but it was not.  Instead they gave us free parking passes to go park at Epcot.  So we drove over to Epcot and parked.  Then we got on the tram which took us from the parking lot to Epcot.  Then at the entrance to Epcot, we got on a bus to go to Hollywood Studios.  That took awhile. 

Here's Grandma and Tommy looking too cool for school in their shades waiting on the tram. 

 We get to the park after all the convoluted logistics.  We pass by some unruly teens smoking dope RIGHT OUTSIDE of the park, not far from this Christmas tree.  We were like HUH??? Is no one else seeing this??? Or smelling this??

We walk in and head toward the ONE RIDE we wanted to go on (Toy Story Mania) but alas there was no Fast Passes left and the wait was 2.5 HOURS long all day. (That's what we get for getting there late.)  So we decided to see what else we could do that would be fun.

We found a character named Mike Wazowski (which I find hilarious that is his name) aka Billy Crystal from the Monsters Inc movie and got our picture with him! "You won't believe your eye!"  I thought Tommy would be terrified (look at that thing!) but he was pumped up! Monster! Cool!

Then we walked around the corner and found the Muppet Vision 3D Show.  There was a 5 minute line so we went to see it.  I tried to wear 3D glasses during the movie.  Tommy kept turning around and pulling mine off my face though.  And since he didn't wear the 3D shades, he probably thinks every Muppet has two heads and is blurry.  Proud parent moment: Tommy made it almost all 22 minutes! He got kind of antsy around the end but that's when it got loud so no one heard him! WHOO HOO!

Outside the movie, I took this cute pic of Tommy in front of the Muppet fountain.  He wasn't happy about it but he sure was cute!

 Then we found the second best part of the park. Life-size versions of Lightning McQueen and Mater!
Sad part is right before we got up to get our picture taken, he lost his shit.  He just started throwing a terrible fit when we were "on deck".  We had stood in line for 20 minutes and he just then decided to throw down.  So I just picked him up and said, "YOU'RE GOING TO LIKE THIS!" He did end up liking it, thankfully.

 Can't you tell how happy he is? At least Mater is jazzed.

 He was totally excited about touching Mater though.

After seeing Mater, we met my parents, Adam and Steph to go see the Beauty and the Beast stage show.  We felt so cool because we got there late and all these people told us "They're not letting anyone else in!!" We walk up and Adam is standing there with a nice gentleman who opens the gate just for us three.  Talk about VIP Disney Royalty, folks! We waltzed right in must to the dismay of all the rejected.

 We had to do a lot of Tommy-wrangling during this show.  Beauty and the Beast was just not his gig.  He's not really into talking plates and candlesticks.  But I, on the other hand, was totally into it.  I remembered ALL the words to all the songs.  I wanted to sing along but realized what a dork I was.  "There goes the baker with his tray like always!" :-)

 After the show ended, it was mass chaos trying to make it through this crowd.

Mass chaos crowd + Toddler = Long Island Iced Tea in the stroller.  Probably my favorite part of Hollywood Studios is how available the alcohol is all over the park! Sweet!

 The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights is on the Streets of America part of the park.  It was awesome.  There was a show every 10 minutes I think.
You can see the whole show here (since I didn't feel like uploading my short video).

Gotta love the Trans Siberian Orchestra. 

In between shows, there would just be random things lit up all over the place.

The toy soldiers were very cool.

So was the tree.

Here's a view from the opposite end of the street.  Pretty cool.  I'm kind of interested to know how much Disney paid the Osborne Family for that light show.   Here's the Wiki entry on it if you're interested.
We figured out that while the light show was on, we could weave in and out of people like we stopped the Matrix because everyone was just standing around staring in awe at the lights. We rode the Great Movie Ride with no wait.  There are a few scary parts (Alien being one of them) where my dad was trying to keep Tommy's attention on the phone (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, of course) so he didn't freak out seeing an alien fall out of the ceiling.  He didn't cry once.  Neither did Tommy!! Hardy-har-har!

We went to see Fantasmic too.  You can see a video at the link but basically it's a real-life version of Fantasia. With splashing water, fireworks and all kinds of characters, it's loud and wild.

But Tommy fell asleep half way through.  It was getting late.  It was also the second day without a nap so he crashed. 

He missed the ferry that floated by with all the characters! It would have been the closest he would have been to Mickey all week! Oh well.

After the show, we decided to head home.  It only took an hour to catch a bus, to catch a tram, to find our car.  But we missed the tram so we walked across many parking lots to find our car.  Whoops.  

 We got home that night and we were ready to party! Brandon and Desi and fam got home from Gatorland and they were ready to party too! We played 31 and A-hole in our onesies! I like this picture because Adam is totally creeping in the corner.  What's he doing?? :)

 That's a Gator head from Gatorland... and a middle finger. I should make this my cover picture.

We posed "Lilli-style" for this pic. :-)

Then it was time for massive amounts of panoramic pictures.  Boy were these pictures ridiculous. A little scary even.

 What goobers!

This is probably my favorite.  Notice Adam is in it twice.  It's just like the panoramic pictures that they take on your school trip to DC.  (Maybe that's a Rensselaer-only reference.)  It's also cool because it looks like Adam skidded to a stop on the right side.  Too funny. 

This is only part of the remnants from that night.  There was one person that didn't feel so hot the next day.  But we won't name names.  :-)   That was ONE FUN NIGHT! 

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