It's all about Hollywood

Our second day at Disney World had us visiting Hollywood Studios. This is the home of Toy Story Mania. I had been keeping up with the wait times for this ride and knew in this heat, a wait time of 2 hrs was not going to work for us.

So we started our visit with a ride on the Hollywood Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Oh yeah, that elevator ride that drops you then brings you back up only to drop you again. Several times.

Diane and the boys went on this first to gauge the terror rate of the ride. Granny Gran, Sydni and I went in search of a cool treat to bring down our heat level. I did finally get up the nerve to try the ride and it was so awesome. I screamed my head off and laughed the entire time.


It was so hot we had to retreat to a show of Beauty and the Beast to cool off once they got off the ride.

This was my first time watching this story (seriously!) and it was such a sweet story. The characters were all good and it did deliver on the cooling down. The little rain shower after the show probably helped too.


Then it was off to try and ride Toy Story Midway Mania. We got sidetracked by the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Which was another way to cool off. (are you getting the idea of how HOT it was here?) The show featured Ariel singing through the show with a little interaction in the way of mist coming through the vents for effect.

Afterwards it was off to Pixar Place to see some of the Toy Story characters. It was still too long of a line so we didn't event attempt midway mania.


The rest of the park would have to be conquered during the magical after hours. We still had to wait in line about 40 minutes for the Toy Story Midway Mania but it was unbelievably worth it. I enjoyed it immensely.



Diane and Jacob got to ride the Aerosmith - or as Jacob says "You know that guy who was on American Idol!" - roller coaster.

Another magical day at Walt Disney World.

Disney's Hollywood Studios, a set on Flickr.

The most magical place on earth.....

On our second day in Florida, we started on our Disney Adventure with a visit to Animal Kingdom. This was one of the parks I was so looking forward to because I had heard so many great things about it. And who doesn't want to take a safari ride?! With the kids about to turn 11, I wasn't sure how they were going to respond to Disney World. Were they too old to appreciate the magic?

It was another stifling hot day but we weren't going to let that stop us. The minute we started to drive to the park you could feel the excitement building. That may have also to do with our eating breakfast at Caleb's favorite place - Denny's.


The entire day was perfect beginning with a tram being there to pick us up at the end of our lane. From there we went to get our tickets and the "Birthday" buttons for the kids. Then it was off to see the Tree of Life...


then off to Africa to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari. I love going to the zoo and this safari ride was like being in an open zoo (that's all I can compare it to since I've never been to Africa). So many beautiful animals.





We then took the train to the reptile area (unbeknownst to us that it was leading to a dead end) where we ran into a couple of characters.








We had to hurry back to Africa to catch the afternoon parade. It was such a treat to see these elaborate animals that were driven by Disney staffers. And more characters! I'm not sure who was more excited to see Mickey and Minnie - me or the kids!








Now it was time to hit the serious rides so off to Asia we went. Diane, Jacob and Caleb braved Mt. Everest to ride the roller coaster as well as the water ride. I wasn't brave enough for either. But the boys were and rode the coaster three times.




The park had so many trees so it wasn't that hot during the day. It rained as we were leaving which was the perfect end. Well the perfect end would have been us seeing the Finding Nemo live show but enough about that. Before we left the park, we went to have dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which is always fun. And it was the first of many birthday celebrations.




A magical time was had by all!

Disney's Animal Kingdom, a set on Flickr.