The Sad Part of our Trip
(continuing where I left off yesterday at Disney's Hollywood Studios...)
Things were still going quite well for a while, actually ... our fastpasses were now good for Toy Story Mania, so we headed over there, and again all enjoyed it a lot. I wish we could have done that one more than once, but it is just way too popular for that, since we were only at DHS one day. Afterwards we went over to "meet the stars of Cars 2" - a photo op with Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater. After that, we positioned ourselves carefully to watch the afternoon parade ... "Pixar Pals." I didn't think it was quite as fun as the version they had 3 years ago, but still pretty cool. The last float, with the Toy Story 3 characters on it, suffered a breakdown. We could see it around the corner, but it wasn't moving. For a long time. Lots of people scurried around, they maintained the blocked off street, and finally a tow truck came to pull it along the parade route to strong applause. Big-B thought they *really* needed to have Mater be the Tow truck. We all had to agree.
We'd watched the parade near the 50's Prime Time Cafe, since we had 3pm reservations for an afternoon snack. They had some excellent desserts like brownie sundaes and a 50's Boston creme cupcake, so a good time was had by all. The schtick there is that you're in "Mom's kitchen," and you'd better not get caught with your elbows on the table! Our waiter used my camera (since it was the newest and nicest) to take a picture of the group, which came out great. After enjoying our snack, we went over to check out "Walt Disney - One Man's Dream," which is one of my favorite exhibits. We walked through most of the exhibit then the movie was about to start. We watched that, then popped back out the in door to finish looking at the exhibits (and take a few more pictures). After that, we went next door to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We had to wait a few minutes, so Bram and I sat down on the floor of the lobby until they invited us in to the theater.
Once we sat down, I reached into my pocket to get my camera ... and it wasn't there! WAAAAAAH!!! After the show, we talked to everyone who worked nearby, and over the next few days we pesterd guest relations and lost and found politely but regularly, and we left a description and contact info ... but it didn't turn up. Given the fact that it disappeared within a 10 minute window moving from one attraction to another next door, and we discovered it gone immediately and tried hard to find it ... either it fell out of my pocket when I sat on the floor and someone picked it up and kept it, or someone picked my pocket. Either way, someone else now has my camera. And all of my pictures from Epcot the day before and DHS that day. Including the only pictures we had of Bram with Sully and all of us at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. :( Did I mention that it was a spiffy camera and I liked it a lot and it had a really neat zoom and it was a birthday present so I'd just had it for about 2 months and and and ... sniff.
So, to get on with things, we did watch the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which is well done. Then we went over and watched "Beauty and the Beast Live Onstage." Big-B thought that all was dangerously close to consorting with princesses, but he put up with it pretty agreeably. Then Tanner took Big-B to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Playground while I checked guest relations and my folks picked up our backpack from the locker they'd stashed it in, then we met to see the Magic of Disney Animation. We all eagerly headed in to Animation Academy at the end, and tried our hand as Disney Animators at drawing Chip (the one who hangs out with Dale, not the one with Mrs. Potts). I'm really pleased with how mine turned out (see right) - I think I captured the twinkle in his eye pretty well (so to speak), although I did get the angle of the lighter area around his eye wrong.
At this point it was time to head to the big ampitheatre for the evening show, Fantasmic. It was the only evening show we were planning to attend, and Big-B's first. It came well recommended, most of us hadn't seen it, and it was a little earlier than some of the others. I got everyone settled and eating a picnic dinner, broke out glowing bracelets in 5 colors, and then ran back to check guest relations one more time for my camera (no luck) before returning to gobble my dinner and enjoy the show. They had quite an elaborate combination of fire effects, water effects, boats full of characters, music, and a battle between good and evil. Evil won (just kidding). Afterwards, we exited to our car and realized we had just time to get over to the Magic Kingdom (well, the far side of the lagoon) in time to watch the fireworks celebrating the 40th anniverary of WDW. Very nice! Then we scooted back to our car and beat the traffic out so we could get back to our condo to hit the sack after a very long day.
(been kind of a long day here too - but our team won trivia night a the Flying Saucer Pub - yay!)
Things were still going quite well for a while, actually ... our fastpasses were now good for Toy Story Mania, so we headed over there, and again all enjoyed it a lot. I wish we could have done that one more than once, but it is just way too popular for that, since we were only at DHS one day. Afterwards we went over to "meet the stars of Cars 2" - a photo op with Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater. After that, we positioned ourselves carefully to watch the afternoon parade ... "Pixar Pals." I didn't think it was quite as fun as the version they had 3 years ago, but still pretty cool. The last float, with the Toy Story 3 characters on it, suffered a breakdown. We could see it around the corner, but it wasn't moving. For a long time. Lots of people scurried around, they maintained the blocked off street, and finally a tow truck came to pull it along the parade route to strong applause. Big-B thought they *really* needed to have Mater be the Tow truck. We all had to agree.
We'd watched the parade near the 50's Prime Time Cafe, since we had 3pm reservations for an afternoon snack. They had some excellent desserts like brownie sundaes and a 50's Boston creme cupcake, so a good time was had by all. The schtick there is that you're in "Mom's kitchen," and you'd better not get caught with your elbows on the table! Our waiter used my camera (since it was the newest and nicest) to take a picture of the group, which came out great. After enjoying our snack, we went over to check out "Walt Disney - One Man's Dream," which is one of my favorite exhibits. We walked through most of the exhibit then the movie was about to start. We watched that, then popped back out the in door to finish looking at the exhibits (and take a few more pictures). After that, we went next door to the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We had to wait a few minutes, so Bram and I sat down on the floor of the lobby until they invited us in to the theater.
Once we sat down, I reached into my pocket to get my camera ... and it wasn't there! WAAAAAAH!!! After the show, we talked to everyone who worked nearby, and over the next few days we pesterd guest relations and lost and found politely but regularly, and we left a description and contact info ... but it didn't turn up. Given the fact that it disappeared within a 10 minute window moving from one attraction to another next door, and we discovered it gone immediately and tried hard to find it ... either it fell out of my pocket when I sat on the floor and someone picked it up and kept it, or someone picked my pocket. Either way, someone else now has my camera. And all of my pictures from Epcot the day before and DHS that day. Including the only pictures we had of Bram with Sully and all of us at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. :( Did I mention that it was a spiffy camera and I liked it a lot and it had a really neat zoom and it was a birthday present so I'd just had it for about 2 months and and and ... sniff.
So, to get on with things, we did watch the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which is well done. Then we went over and watched "Beauty and the Beast Live Onstage." Big-B thought that all was dangerously close to consorting with princesses, but he put up with it pretty agreeably. Then Tanner took Big-B to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Playground while I checked guest relations and my folks picked up our backpack from the locker they'd stashed it in, then we met to see the Magic of Disney Animation. We all eagerly headed in to Animation Academy at the end, and tried our hand as Disney Animators at drawing Chip (the one who hangs out with Dale, not the one with Mrs. Potts). I'm really pleased with how mine turned out (see right) - I think I captured the twinkle in his eye pretty well (so to speak), although I did get the angle of the lighter area around his eye wrong.
At this point it was time to head to the big ampitheatre for the evening show, Fantasmic. It was the only evening show we were planning to attend, and Big-B's first. It came well recommended, most of us hadn't seen it, and it was a little earlier than some of the others. I got everyone settled and eating a picnic dinner, broke out glowing bracelets in 5 colors, and then ran back to check guest relations one more time for my camera (no luck) before returning to gobble my dinner and enjoy the show. They had quite an elaborate combination of fire effects, water effects, boats full of characters, music, and a battle between good and evil. Evil won (just kidding). Afterwards, we exited to our car and realized we had just time to get over to the Magic Kingdom (well, the far side of the lagoon) in time to watch the fireworks celebrating the 40th anniverary of WDW. Very nice! Then we scooted back to our car and beat the traffic out so we could get back to our condo to hit the sack after a very long day.
(been kind of a long day here too - but our team won trivia night a the Flying Saucer Pub - yay!)