Our first stop was Toy Story Mania, a "4D" ride. You ride in the rough equivalent of a tea cup armed with a cannon you fire by pulling a string. You wear 3D glasses, because the screens you stop in front of have TREs (as my dad would call them, Target Rich Environments) that you shoot full of balloons or starts to break plates, drop rings on, whatever. The entire thing is digital and possibly the greatest idea for an amusement park ride ever. It's fun and appropriate for all ages, and you are actually part of the ride. The seat you are in keeps score and reports your score against the best scores from the day and month. It's basically a video game made into a ride. One could only imagine how ridiculously cool and terrifying Doom 4D would be (though clearly for adults only).
And even though it was cool, it is popular. Like insanely popular. We got off at 8:30 and considered the possibility of grabbing FASTPASSes so we could ride again later... but they were being dispensed for 2:30 PM already. In 30 minutes, the FASTPASSes were already backed up to 5 hours later. That's crazy, but the sad thing was that we thought we might need FASTPASSes for something else so we chose not to use them. By the time Peyton and I worked our way back over there at 10:30, the FASTPASSes were now being spit out for 6:30 PM. Ugh. We went back around 2:30 PM to see if we could just stand in the regular line, but the wait time was an estimated 2 hours. Double ugh.
The reason for this happening is two-fold. TS 4D is clearly the absolute best ride in all 4 parks for kids of any age. A 3-year-old would love it, so there is going to be high demand. But complicating matters is that there are no other rides in the entire HS park for kids this age. The other two popular rides are Tower of Terror (yeah, that sounds like something I'd take my 3-year-old on) and the Aerosmith roller coaster, which has a minimum height requirement of 48 inches (so Zach couldn't ride it). So if you have a kid 4 years or younger along and you want to do a ride in this park... well, TS 4D is it. Disney, you need to fix this. It's extremely disappointing.
So after that ride, we went and did Tower of Terror, which is based on a Twilight Zone episode. They bring you up in an elevator shaft and drop you, then fling you up, then back down again, like 3 or 4 times. Yes, I did taste my breakfast again, though I did not entirely vomit. Peyton screamed like a girl (again) and clung to Jeana, Zach thought it was cool and looked nonplussed (again). Not a bad wait time for it, but just not terribly exciting either. And not worth tasting Easy Eggs for the third time that morning.
At this point, we split up. Peyton and I went to the Aerosmith coaster (as Zach couldn't ride and Jeana didn't want to get any sicker) and Jeana and Zach headed to Star Wars to get in line for Jedi training... if there was one thing that was going to come out of today, Zach was going to be a jedi (dammit).
Here was another annoyance for today. My iPhone app said the wait time for the coaster was 20 minutes (these things get updated lke every five minutes on this app, and I have totally loved the thing all trip). Upon arrival, the LED board said the wait was 60 minutes. Peyton and I almost turned around, but Jeana then informed me they had an hour wait for Jedi Training, so we didn't have anything better to do (though I'm still kicking myself for not going and getting FASTPASSes to TS 4D instead).
Well, then, it turned out it only took us 25 minutes to get on Aerosmith. So go figure, the app was right and Disney was wrong. Nonetheless, while this coaster is, in fact, the fastest at Disney (as opposed to Everest from yesterday), the whole ride is all of 80 seconds. If that. Granted, they shoot you from a standing start into a loop followed by several corkscrews, but even Peyton yelled, "That's it?!?" at the end. And seeing as this is the second coolest ride in the park, by midday the wait is usually 90 minutes. Again, Disney, get your bloody act together. Give people something to do here.
Peyton and I then joined Jeana at the Star Wars ride, where they were in line for Zach's Jedi training. They missed the 10:50 group by about 9 kids, but were slated for the 11:45 group. It was a long wait, but like I said, Zach had been talking about this the whole trip. They only take 15 minutes for each show, so you have to be willing to wait in line to score a spot for your kid. I felt terrible for one dad right in front of Jeana, whose 6-year-old got scared when he realized his dad couldn't go on stage with him, broke down, and started bawling as he was supposed to go get in his robe costume. I can only imagine that the one thing that kept that father from beating his child for making him stand in the sun for 90 minutes only to bail on the show was the fact that 200 people were watching this unfold. I felt so bad for the guy.
Zach, however, as you saw from the still shots we posted, was committed. I told him that he should take the opportunity to jump to the dark side when the chance arose (seriously, no kid ever wants to go to the dark side... I would have been proud of my child's choice to take the easy route to power), but he insisted he would not be tempted. Alas.
So I have a series of YouTube videos on this... the whole thing is like 15 minutes long, and I figured nobody actually wanted to cache that much on their computer at once. I'll post these later... Windows Movie Maker keeps crashing on my laptop as I try to convert the files, and I want to make sure I still have Internet access to make this post. Patience, my young jedis...
The guy who hosted it really hams it up for the audience, I laughed a lot. Zach volunteered to fight Vader first but didn't go for his knees as hard as I hoped. Actually, the Jedi guy would step in and help block the rambunctious kids that we actually trying to hit Vader, it was rather amusing. And every once in a while you'd get the kid with stage fright that would just stand there.
Nonetheless, Zach came out of it as a full "padawan" and got a diploma for completing training. He was very disappointed that he didn't get to keep his robe or lightsaber, but we promised him we would buy him a full Obi-Wan costume at non-Disney markup prices when we get home.
From there we did the Star Tours ride (did it at Disneyland back at college, sadly has not changed), then had lunch at THE Pizza Planet. After lunch we watched a pair of shows, a sadly disappointing Muppet 3D where Waldorf and Statler's jokes were simply subpar (though the picture below of the Swedish Chef's crate made the short wait worthwhile).
Because you can't read it at this size, you'll have to take my word that the side of the crate says "Der Non-Stickee Skillet" and "Der Hotsy-Totsy Sauce" and "... absoolootley No Trombones."
On the other hand, the Indiana Jones Stunt Show was not only highly entertaining, both Peyton and Zach were totally in to it as much as the first time I showed them the movies. I have a clip from them re-doing the fight scene with the German mechanic in front of the plane where everything blows up... it really is fun to watch live and in person. Very well done, and the kids thought it was simply awesome. The only thing that would have made it better for them would have been if they had picked me out of the audience to be an extra.
Our last stop before heading to Downtown Disney for supper was the aforementioned pic with Dug from Up. Below you can see Zach hitting his "funny spot." The boys insisted we have a picture of Dug with me, for, ell, obvious reasons. If you don't understand, just Google "Famous Dougs" and you will see why it is such a big deal.
Generally speaking, Downtown Disney is just another way for the resort to milk money from you. Lots of cheaply Chinese-made tourist crap and shirts, and pins, and whatever else you're supposed to collect and wear because you feel so happy that you forget you don't have all the money in the world. Zach got himself a plush Pluto with a gift card he had from Christmas, and Peyton continued his pin collection (because children are oh-so-easily brainwashed). Ad we all nearly stepped in vomit from some other kid inside the giant Disney mega-store.
They did have a huge Lego store, nothing new for kits, though both boys insisted I take their picture next to the giant Lego Indiana Jones figure:
Oh, and they also had a wall with every Lego Mini Figure ever made, which was pretty impressive:
Tomorrow is our last day here... we have a breakfast with the main characters at 10:30, but plan on hitting a few big rides and/or swimming depending on the kids' preferences. I will post those videos as soon as I can get Movie Maker to not crash...
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