We were a bit later in arriving to Disney’s Hollywood Studios than we wanted to be, but it ended up not being terribly impactful. Being MLK day, this was by far the highest predicted crowd level of the week, and also our only planned visit to DHS. Already the smallest park, the construction projects for the forthcoming Toy Story and Star Wars lands has blocked off the entire rear of the park, packing even more people into even less space – with even fewer attractions.
We took a quick visit to (another) store with Duffy bears, then headed in to watch the Disney Jr Live on Stage show, which was a complete blast for Leah – almost like Philharmagic had been the day before. She even collected some of the paper “gold doubloons” that rained down during the Jake & The Neverland Pirates portion of the show. I am terrible at sitting on the floor (damn you, tight piriformis muscles, damn you!), so it was pretty uncomfortable, but tons of fun watching Leah.
After that, we headed to The Great Movie Ride, which both girls actually enjoyed quite a bit, despite being a fairly slow and boring ride. Throughout the day, Leah developed a new habit of asking what was real people and what was puppet or animatronic – which was pretty cute on this ride, since [spoiler alert] the guide in the ride vehicle becomes part of the show.
After that, we headed over to an early lunch at Hollywood & Vine, which is a buffet restaurant with characters from Disney Jr TV shows, which we’ve done many times over the years. It was already warm out, so we treated the girls to some cones of water while we waited to be seated.
There were two new characters this year that were a big hit with Leah: Doc McStuffins and Sofia The First, who both came to see us almost immediately after we were seated. She was over-excited to see them, and almost came unwound after seeing them both so quickly after entering.
A bit of mac ‘n cheese helped her recover a bit, at least enough to the point where she could return to high excitement to see Jake and Handy Mandy:
With full bellies, we started to leave the restaurant, where we ran into Sofia and forced Aly into the picture:
We walked over to the Indiana Jones stunt show, where the girls hoped I’d get into the show again, but the cast member working the entrance said it was standing room only, so we decided to skip it and used the MyDisneyExperience app to make a Fastpass+ reservation for right then at the Muppets 3D movie.
As you might be able to guess at this point, Leah went nuts with the 3D gags and the jokes in the movie. She loved loved loved the show, and couldn’t believe they blew up the theater. We then tried to get the kids to understand that The Muppets used to be like the only non-Saturday morning kids programming and that it ran in primetime on Saturday nights as must-see TV. They didn’t understand what we were talking about.
We then cut across the park towards our FP+ reservation for the fun Toy Story Midway Mania ride, with stops along the way for Chip & Dale, who only had a short wait. Dale even photobombed Chip while Leah moved in for a hug.
We still had some time left, so we hopped in a twenty-minute line to see Minnie and Mickey.
Minnie surprised several of us with kisses, and we got some good family pictures as well.
We then made our way down the hall to Mickey, who we were surprised to find was Sorcerer Mickey, and who we were also surprised to get kisses from Mickey as well. I kicked the rest of them out so I could get a picture with just me and Mickey, and Leah is still talking about that lol.
After that, we finally rode TSMM and it was a blast as usual – a great mix of fun and exhilaration, with a bit of tennis elbow thrown in.
While searching for the giant Coke bottle (sadly, lost behind construction walls, like the Singin’ In The Rain umbrella appears to be), we found a group of Army Men who were letting kids throw balls into buckets. Leah watched a few kids drop the balls into the first bucket, then decided she wanted a turn.
She of course decided to throw all three into the furthest bucket, and missed the final two throws, leading to the face of disgust you can see at the end of the video below.
After that, Aly finally got the first Mickey Bar of the trip, and we headed over to wait for the next Voyage of the Little Mermaid show, which we haven’t seen for many years.
While waiting in line, a girl in front of us was letting Leah borrow her bubble wand, which was very kind and Leah loved. These things are everywhere at WDW these days – bubbles all over the parks.
Leah loved the show, with lots of “is that a real person” questions, then we headed out of the park and on to the Polynesian Village Resort for our afternoon dinner plans.
If you’ve followed any of our trip reports over the years, you know that we love ‘Ohana, the family-style restaurant at the Poly. It’s changed a lot since we first started going, but it’s still at the top of our must-do list on every trip. This night was not a disappointment, except perhaps to our overworked waistbands.
It also featured some of the funnier pictures of the day.
Yes, Aly’s response to being serenaded with Hawaiian love songs was to inhale noodles so much that it looks like they’re spewing out of her.
Aly may have overeaten slightly and induced a food coma for herself – and this is before dessert. There are actually four pictures like this – this is not catching her in a bad millisecond.
Leah, meanwhile, invented a new use for the hot towels brought to the table: cleaning her legs and keeping them warm.
Leah also participated in the coconut races and got a lei for her birthday (which is Wednesday). She (sweetly) gave it to me because she (wrongly) said it looks better on me.
After dinner, we drove back to our resort for more swimming, before watching a few episodes of Cake Wars and heading to bed.
