Disney 2013, Day 9

We had a short day today after the madness of being out until midnight at Mickey's Christmas Party the night before. (These are going out a little out of order; there's not that much to talk about for today, and I'm still trying to remember everything that happened last night. Just blame it on a wily time traveler.) 

Today we went back to Disney's Hollywood Studios, because going on Star Tours four times just isn't enough.

As soon as we arrived we headed over to Hollywood & Vine. This is a buffet style restaurant with characters roaming around. I shook hands with a pirate Katie says is from some Neverland show and got a creepy shoulder massage from a lady in a purple dress with a huge head. Also, there was a bear.

Foodwise, I'm leaning a lot about myself on this trip, as I apparently really like buffets. In fact, I think I was stuffed before I'd even seen half the line of food to take. I ended up eating a bunch of Asian fried chicken (no idea from where in Asia, but it came with little baby corn), garlic mashed potatoes, buttered corn, and some of Katie's shells from the make your own pasta section. The desert section had chocolate-covered apples and little key lime pie bites that weren't bad, but the real star was the banana cream puffs, which I ate like six of. 

After six banana cream puffs, we had no choice but to go on the Indiana Jones stunt show, which I'd never seen before and was very entertaining. Like the movies it's a mix of action and comedy, in this case the comedy taking up time while the sets are moved around and prepared. 

Next up was Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which is a very short live show. The entire thing is only 15 minutes long, and it's very strangely paced. First they do "Under The Sea" with big puppets, which is neat, then an actress comes out with a mermaid tail and does "Part Of Your World," which is nice, and then it gets weird as Ursula comes out, does a super quick version of "Poor Unfortunate Souls", then we super fast forward and it's over and everyone lived happily ever after please exit to your right thank you. It feels like someone designed the first act of a great show and then got bored, and Katie described it as "lame", thus making me OFFICIALLY a bigger Little Mermaid fan. What up!

Studio Backlot Tour

This is a weird ride. You start out by seeing some effects in a water tank (water cannons, fake gunshots, propane going off, etc.), then you ride past two P-51 Mustang props from "Pearl Harbor" (this ride keeps talking about "Pearl Harbor"). The planes had been painted to look like planes from, um, Planes, the movie, with big goofy eyes and smiles, but the voiceover hadn't been updated, so the guy's like "These spectacular props look ready to fly directly into battle!!!". Then you go into a canyon where they set off a huge propane fire and like 70,000 gallons of water, then you drive through the prop department and you're done. We did see Jabba's Sail Barge just sittin' out on the grass, which I think Katie got a picture of. 

Note from Katie: Actually, it was not the sail barge, it was the ship that Luke, Han, and Chewie were put on to be thrown into the Sarlacc. MMHMM.

After this we had a fast pass for one of the most difficult rides to get on in all of Disney. It was time to see what all the fuss was about on

Toy Story Midway Mania!

This is kind of like a super version of Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin, where you sit in a vehicle and shoot targets. Instead of having a lever that lets you spin, the car spins around for you, and you just focus on shooting. What makes this so amazing is that you have 3D glasses on and are shooting at huge video screens that show every shot you take and anything you hit getting broken, popped, splattered with pies, etc. (The first section, where you learn to shoot, had the dinosaur from Toy Story hiding behind a target as I blasted it with dozens of pies). I can see why this ride is so popular; it's incredibly satisfying to shoot stuff and watch it go flying in 3D. Katie got a slightly higher score, probably because I had to keep switching arms - unlike the Ranger Spin, you can't hold down the shoot button, you have to keep pulling back on the pop gun. Katie's rough upbringing as a lumberjack in the Canadian Pacific Northwest served her well here.

Next we debated going on "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster(r) Starring Aerosmith Presented by Hanes(r)", but nothing about "Blast off in a stretch limousine through the freeways of Los Angeles to the rockin' tunes of Aerosmith" sounded appealing. So what did we go on?

STAR TOURS

Oh, don't look surprised. This time we got Naboo as the first planet, which I'd never seen before, and made 3P0 very happy as we ended up in a pod race ("I've always wanted to do this!"). For the second planet we got Naboo. That kind of sounds like a disease when you put it that way. "You've got a case of Naboo." (shocked gasps)

Well, I'm getting a little punchy, so I guess I better wrap up here. Tomorrow we're doing Epcot again, and after that (sign) coming home to (big sigh) Albany.