Fantasmic! is a long running evening show at Hollywood Studios that (for economic reasons) is no longer shown nightly. We happened to be coming on a day where their nighttime spectacular was not slated to be running, therefore, the park was having an early 7 p.m. closing time. That was alright by me. I know my multiple Disney posts have made it sound like I'm a kill-joy with all my whoops-and-hollerings over the early closing times. Vacation, yes. Relaxing, no. I was running on empty by now and needing some quiet down time. Our trip to Studios ended abruptly 11 years earlier when Tony got the hiccups. Bad hiccups that would not subside and finally caused Tony to seek retreat in our hotel room after suffering for 3 hours. Thankfully, we found a nurse who suggested he take peanut butter to get rid of them. It worked, but caused us to miss the show. We used our Hopper Pass the next night to come back to Hollywood Studios for the show. While I guess we didn't regret the extra effort to see it, it's not something we would go out of way to see again. Even years later, Tony goes running for the peanut butter any time has the hiccups. Poor guy. Scarred him for life.Yet I digress.
This was our last big Disney park, which meant that Adam had one last ride to conquer--Tower of Terror. There was enough buzz around school regarding this ride that he knew this was a 'must ride' attraction. Arriving at the Studio, we got our fast pass for the Tower of Terror, and made our way to Toy Story Midway Mania! That is where we went wrong. We should have reversed that decision. As it turned out, our longest wait of any ride in any park was for this one. At 75 minutes, we waited impatiently patiently for this very fun, interactive 4-D midways-style game/ride. It was totally worth it. I wish we would have had more time to ride it again. Up next was the Tower of Terror. For all of us--even Elise. I've recounted several times in my account of our Disney blog history of her willingness to ride all the rides. All of them. This one was no exception. Ignorance was bliss yet again for my sweet, diminutive 34 pound 5 year old blondie. Looks small but very mighty. Poor thing was lifted off her seat every time the elevator shaft dropped a few hundred feet. She looked terrified but never made a peep. She was probably too scared to scream. But, as is so characteristic of her personality, if you were to ask her which was her favorite ride, she'd name this one. Rock Star she is.
This was an especially fun day for Adam. We enjoyed two stunt shows, a Star Wars flight simulator ride and the Tower of Terror. There aren't as many rides but everything there is to do is really fun. Tony agreed that it was better than he remembered. We were a little bummed that the Studio Back lot Tour and Drew Carey's Sounds Dangerous Show were both closed for the day.
During the week we were noticing clouds inching their way into Orlando, with temperatures slowly dropping that week. By this day, it was a high of 62 so I think the downside to this day was the chill and overcast skies. Thankfully, it never actually rained. Also, thankfully, there were no water rides.
The part of the day that I was most looking forward to was dinner at '50's Prime Time Cafe. We had gone there with the boys previously and this was one restaurant I insisted we repeat with our kiddos. It's a restaurant set up to look like a house out of the 50's. The waiting area was decorated like an 50's living room, while the dining room looked like a kitchen. The magic of this restaurant is that the server is supposed to be a 'mom' or 'dad'. Mandy, our server, was perfectly cast as the 'mother hen' as she introduced herself, throwing the forks and napkins on the table, said "Set the table, kids, Behave. I'll be back". She referred to me as 'mommy', Tony 'daddy', Elise 'princess', and Adam 'Scooter'. She razzed us like a mom would and enjoyed watching her hen-peck the table across from us, too. She found it particularly fun to razz 'Scooter'. The more animated she got with him, the more he enjoyed it. Truly fun. I ordered the home-style fried chicken, with four generous pieces of chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. Apparently I was really, really hungry that night because I ate everything on my plate. When Mandy came by to see if we were done and how everything was, she reached to clear my plate away. I sheepishly offered up "I was hungry" when I saw the disbelief on her face. Glancing at my small size 2 frame said "Well, clearly you always eat that much. Clearly." and rolled her eyes. We all laughed. We actually sauntered out of the park around 7:30, well after closing time. We knew our Disney experience was coming to a close and I think we were prolonging the inevitable. Up next was our day at the beach and Downtown Disney.
