I was allowed to sleep in this morning while the others got up a bit earlier. I know I’ve forgotten some food pictures, but here’s what I ate from the lounge this morning:
Yep, that’s a banana on a car seat. We drove over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which we still refer to as MGM, even though it changed names back in 2008. We entered the park and headed over to see Sofia the First, who is obviously one of Leah’s favorites, if you’ve been following along on the birthday presents so far. Aly, of course, didn’t want to wait in line to see Sofia and started whining right away, but we somehow survived the first thing we tried to do and Leah we delighted to show off her Minimus horse to Sofia.
Right next door to Sofia was Jake of Neverland Pirates fame, so we stopped by to see him too, since he had a much shorter line. When it was our turn, Jake went backstage for a short break, which turned out to be a break long enough that the fastpass photographer got annoyed and went backstage to find Jake and brought him out.
Leah kept asking him where Izzy and Cubby were, to the point that she was being annoying to Jake, lol. After that, we used our FP+ to zip through the Toy Story Midway Mania line, and Leah announced right before we boarded that in no way did she want to ride, even though she’d ridden it many times before and always thought it was a blast. So Leah and I walked straight through the ride car and got a 1-person re-ride pass (yay! a useless ticket!) while Aly and Rachel enjoyed a healthily competitive match shooting darts, baseballs, rings and other flying objects. Leah and I headed over towards the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, and the girls caught up to us there were we used our second FP+ of the day, though we were not super early in the seating like we were in September.
We did get down to the front row, though, but way over in the left section this time, instead of next to the control booth like last time. Since this was Leah’s first time at the show, we weren’t sure how she’d handle it if I got picked to be in the show, let alone handle the loud stunts and explosions of the show period.
We didn’t have long to wait, though, as the theater filled up, and I mean filled up. There were people standing at the top of the theater above the seats this time around, so we were lucky to get seated down at the front. When the cast came in, I recognized that the lady who plays the casting director was the same as last time and I said to Rachel I bet that plays in my favor because there’s probably some chance of slight recognition of Aly. She came over to our two sections for the first three volunteers and I stood up right away and yelled.
I handed off the camera and off I went. I’m sure it disappoints any of you who read the September trip, but I was not a strutter this time, only a screamer. As before, we did our pre show and then headed up to sign the waiver and get our wardrobe, then were seated with the rest of the audience extras. I kept peeking over to Leah to see how she was holding up and if I could see her looking my way, I’d give her a wave. At this point, she was aware that I was going to be in the show, but didn’t quite grasp exactly what that meant. During the very beginning, when Indy first appears, he drops from the ceiling on a rope, and I think Leah thought he was me, and that he had died, because she turned to Rachel and said “I liked Daddy.” Classic.
If you’re curious how Aly likes the explosions and gunfire of the show in general, I took these pictures of her during the final scene when I made it back to my seat.
One of the cool things about being an extra is that you get to meet the people playing Indy and Marion. The guy playing Indy had a huge purple bruise on his nose, which I though was interesting. After the show ended, Leah was enjoying watching them put the set back together for the next show, and one of the CM’s asked if we were waiting to meet Indy, and I said no, but I didn’t even know we could do that. She said yes, but you usually need to go to the other side of the theater, so we were talking about other things, and I mentioned the nose. She said that he actually was just coming back from medical leave for several things, including a broken knee, lol, so I guess the nose probably isn’t that big a deal. So the stunts are sorta dangerous, just FYI.
As we exited the show, we had the girls pull the rope outside the theater entrance, which everyone should try.
Next up was lunch at Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano, which was dynamite! Leah had plain penne and ate the inside of countless rolls. Aly had kids spaghetti with meatballs:
Rachel had the Chicken Campanelle:
We started off with the Mozzarella and Tomato appetizer but forgot to take the picture right away:
I had the Carne di’Italia flatbread:
And for dessert, all four of us partook in the truly amazing Spaghetti & Meatballs Cupcake:
Then it was off to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground to burn off some calories.
We were then headed out of the park when we ran into this serious guy:
We got back to the hotel for a short break before turning around for a very important mission.
Duffy. Duffy Bear.
We walked over to the TTC and boarded the EPCOT monorail. We stopped off in the MouseGear store to buy Aly a sweatshirt and Leah a winter hat since the RealFeel when we head out tomorrow morning here is going to be 33 degrees and well, we didn’t come prepared for that, since the lowest low when we left home was predicted to be 55. Brrrrrrrrr! From there, we headed straight to the Duffy meet area, spooked by the double screwiness of trying to meet Duffy that had happened on Sunday. No such worries today though.
As darkness fell, we made our way around to Italy, where we had dinner reservations at Via Napoli.
We’d had excellent meals here the last few trips, and nearly bailed on dinner here tonight, but Aly insisted, and it was a good thing she did – because it was excellent again. We started off with the Arancini appetizer:
And then Rachel and Aly split a margherita pizza:
I had the Candele dish, which was excellent, but I forgot to take a picture. I swear that I did take a picture, but there’s not one on the camera now. They brought it out several minutes before the pizza, so it sat and I’m 99% sure I did take a picture while it waited, lonely and uneaten, but oh well.
After dinner, I took a few pictures of the golf ball while we made our way to Japan (the crazy things we say while walking around World Showcase at EPCOT).
At Japan, we hit the Mitsukoshi department store for Aly’s favorite active, the pick-a-pearl. It was a zoo! She was actually picking a pearl to bring back to her teacher and we’re going to make her write about the experience and I’ll provide some pictures. She got the biggest one she’s ever gotten (thus the slight disappointment in her face).
We walked towards the exit and let the girls play on some of the new and old fiber optic sidewalk squares, which they loved. I also got some cool shots of the golf ball with shadows of the nearby palm trees along with the reflected colors from spot lights, and then we headed back to call it a night.
All week my ritual has been to sit by the fire after dinner, and read the fascinating commentary from the previous day. I have not been disappointed with each better than the prior. WDW should have you on the payroll, or at least feed you extra pasta cupcakes. They look delicious.