June 4, 2014- Hollywood Studios and 'Ohana

Tuesday night was a late night but Nick still wanted to be at HS for Early Extra Magic Hours on Wednesday. Since we were staying in a Disney-owned hotel, we could get in an hour earlier than anyone who wasn't. We got there right at 8 and people were already being let in the gates, so we didn't have the head start we were hoping for, but after being out until after midnight the night before, this was still pretty impressive. Pop Century to HS was the shortest bus ride to a park we had, so that helped us on getting there on time.

This was right before the gates and the kids thought it was neat. So much so that Norah didn't look at the camera. I will say that almost every single person who worked at Disney World was amazing. This photographer was not. I could tell she hated her job and she made not effort to get my kids to look or smile. She didn't say anything at all, in fact.

Once we were inside, the first thing on our list was Tower of Terror. Wes and I went first and Nick got a rider swap pass so he could go with Wes right after. We walked it and waited just as long as it took us to get through the queue. We were taken into a dark room to set the story and it was pretty spooky. I thought it was awesome, but Wes wasn't a fan. We then got to the actually ride.

You can see Wes and me in the center. 

Wesley decided once was enough. Nick was going to skip it but it was so fun that I told him he had to go. The kids and I went to Starring Roles and got a muffin, cinnamon role, and some waters to share for breakfast.

You can tell Nick loved it, too. He's in the top right.

Nick met us there afterwards. I made the kids leave some food for him; we loved Starring Roles. YUM! I am pretty sure Norah could eat that whole cinnamon roll by herself and Wes was devouring the muffin.

We then went to see a couple of shows. We saw Voyage of the Little Mermaid first. It was cute, but the kids got freaked out a few times. It was a 4-D show (I think that is what it is called?!?), so we got sprinkled on, which Norah hated. She and Wes both loved the bubbles coming down during "Under the Sea" though. The part with Ursula was pretty scary, and, in my opinion, drawn out. Of course, I refused to watch Little Mermaid when I was little. I loved Ariel (how could you not?!?), but I found (and still find) Ursula to be terrifying. So, maybe the kids were scared at this part because of me?

Anyway, the show was cute but not my kids' favorite. We walked out, and Jake was just showing up. Now, we had a character lunch planned for meeting Jake, but once Wes saw him, there was no not meeting him. We only waited behind like 2 kids, so it was fine.

Jake was great. He pointed out Wesley's Jake and the Neverland Pirates shirt and Wes was so proud!

After meeting Jake, we went inside to see Disney Junior-Live on Stage. This show was a show with puppets. Except they were too neat to just call them puppets... It featured Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins, Sofia the First, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates.... so pretty much every show my kids watch. This show was great. It was my favorite thing at Hollywood Studios. They had things come from the ceiling as well, bubbles and paper golds doubloons are the things that come to mind. Both kids loved it. Then, Nick and Wes left for Star Tours. Since Norah couldn't ride and I wasn't interested, I decided to take her to do something she would enjoy.... any ideas? Meet Minnie Mouse again, of course!

She was delighted when I asked her if she wanted to meet Minnie. I didn't grab the camera but figured there would be a photo pass photographer. There wasn't. I dug my phone out after they had interacted a bit and the pic is less than phenomenal, but here it is anyway:

Wesley seemed to enjoy Star Tours and chatted on about Darth Vader trying to shoot him. Actually, he said "that black guy kept trying to shoot us," (AWKWARD... ) so I made Nick translate later and we then taught him that it was Darth Vader. Much better for people to overhear. Yikes. The words on an innocent 4 year old!

We all met back up at Toy Story Midway Mania. I had this FastPass pre-booked, too, and that was good because the line was around an hour standby. Nick and I made a bet that the loser had to go on a soda run back at the hotel... I lost, but Nick still went for sodas while I watched the kids at the pool. 

Ready!

My score and Wesley's score. He was a little too short and uncoordinated to shoot, I think.

This ride was something I was really looking forward to, and it was fun, but I was disappointed. It was too hard for Wes to shoot and actually hit anything, so I was trying to help him constantly- which didn't help too much as you can see from his score. Instead of a trigger, you had to pull back to shoot and it was just too much for him.

After that, we made a quick trip over to Hollywood and Vine for our lunch reservations. Norah passed out on the way over. This was another character meal. Sofia came while Wes and I were getting food, so she came back and was our first visiter. Both kids adore her show and liked meeting her. You can tell Norah had just woken up in these pics.


After Sofia left, Nick got up to get food and missed the next two characters. They came super quickly here! There didn't seem to be the set order like at Crystal Palace and Chef Mickey's, but this may have been because they stopped to dance every twenty minutes or so. This meal was absolutely chaotic and stressed me out!

Jake came while Nick was gone, so I ended up being glad Wes insisted on meeting him earlier. The Jake in the park was way better than the one in the restaurant.... er... I mean, Jake much have gotten tired between times we saw him... he barely interacted with Wes and didn't seem to notice or care about his shirt or his personalized autograph page. Had we not met him earlier, I would have been super disappointed. Jake is the main reason we decided to come to HS as that is the only place to meet him in WDW and Wes loves Jake (Jake and the Neverland Pirates was his 4th birthday theme).

For whatever reason, Norah did not care for Jake at all. I thought it was because Nick was gone, but then Handy Manny came. My kids don't really know him. I had to tell Wes who he was before our trip so he would know. Still, Norah loved him.

See Wesley's Mickey sticker? He was having a huge fit after Toy Story Mania and anytime either of my kids cried, I swear there was a cast member with a Mickey sticker to try to distract them. They also both got stickers at Epcot when they were sleeping the in the stroller.

Nick came back and we decided not to ask our server to send the characters back for a couple of reasons. He already got to see Wes meet Jake, the kids aren't really into Handy Manny, our server was pretty absent throughout the meal anyway, and we felt silly asking since the kids didn't miss them.

There was a long break of time before Doc McStuffins came to us. She only meets at this restaurant and Norah seemed really excited to see her at other tables, so we waited.... and waited. It ended up taking long enough that we missed the Indiana Jones show that we were going to do.

You can see Norah looking at Doc while we waited.

 Doc ended up being worth the wait. Both kids were thrilled to see her and we got some good pics of them with her.




Hollywood and Vine was probably my least favorite sit down meal the whole time, but Wesley did enjoy seeing these characters, and it it really was one I booked for him. I thought the food was mostly bad, but the redeeming factor was the chocolate fountain. They had tons of chocolate dipped fruit, which ended up being most of my meal.

The chocolate dipped strawberries and pineapple were the best! Norah enjoyed the chocolate covered marshmallows.  I asked Nick if he just wanted to go to the hotel since the next Indiana Jones show wasn't for over an hour, and it was hot. He really wanted to see it, so we decided we would just stay at the park until it was time to head to our dinner reservation at 'Ohana.

We rode the Great Movie Ride next, and it was cool, but it wasn't overly exciting for us. It was okay but once was enough. We were going to head over to the Indiana Jones show but had some time to kill. There was a short line for Donald, so we got in line at Nick's request. A cast member said that the line would be for Chip n Dale as Donald was about to go on break. This was better since we hadn't met them yet!

We made our way to Indiana Jones, but stopped for some drinks because it was HOT. Luckily, the area was shaded and pretty cool. The show was about to start when Wes announced he needed to go to the bathroom, they had just had us scoot to the center to to make room, so we had to climb over a bunch of people. We could get back in the back door to the area, but I decided we weren't going to climb back over people so we could sit with Nick and Norah. This was good because Wes only made it about 20 more minutes before getting too antsy to stay. I would have liked to see the rest as the first part was entertaining, but better for me to miss it than Nick!

So, we left again and found a bench by the pond and this duck. Wes was much happier. We did a little shopping and got more ice water since Nick and Norah had all the drinks. 

After Indiana Jones, I only had two more things on my list. One was to get our pic with the sorcerer hat, so we did that.

Then we walked over to the Beauty and the Best show. Norah slept through most of it, but it was quite good. We had another bathroom/diaper change/shopping break and headed out for the buses.

I was relieved to get out of there. Hollywood Studios was definitely my least favorite park of the four. This is probably because it was so blazing hot that day, but I am not itching to go back like I am to the other parks. I do want to see Fantasmic, but didn't want to keep my kids up that late every day we were there. I would like to do Rockin Rollercoaster next time, too. I would have liked to have Wes do Jedi training, but I knew he would be too shy this time, so maybe when we go back in a few years. Hollywood Studios was worth a visit, but I enjoyed the other three parks more.

The bus stop for the Polynesian was so much closer to the one for Pop (not surprising considering the difference in prices to stay there!), so that was an easy walk. 

We were at the Polynesian a half hour or so before I wanted to check in at 'Ohana, so we looked around a bit. What a beautiful resort. Before, the Contemporary was my dream resort (the monorail runs right through it, how cool is that?!?), but now it is the Polynesian. It is so beautiful and reminded me of our time in Hawaii. It has it's own beach too, so that is neat!

Wes needed a little couch time!

'Ohana actually does a character meal for breakfast with Lilo and Stich, but it isn't a character meal at dinner.

I took some pics of this plant to share with my mom and sister. So pretty!

My reservations for 'Ohana were at 5:15, but we got up that at about 5:00, so we got to see them open the restaurant. This was a hard restaurant for me to get into. If you plan your trip way in advance, you can book 180 days out. We booked in March and the only openings I found for weeks and weeks were 9:30 PM or after, plus I heard as the night goes on, 'Ohana typically seats late, so this seemed like a disaster with two littles. I kept checking and scored this reservation around the 45 day mark. That is when you have to pay your balance on your Disney vacation, so I heard a lot of people cancelled around then, and it was true enough to get us in! 

Here is my yummy drink... I believe it was one of two alcoholic drinks I had the whole vacation. The other being a margarita from the pool bar. This one (I can't remember what it was called) was awesome and very Hawaiian! You can see Nick's long island ice tea in the background. So predictable!

'Ohana was awesome. It was one of my favorite meals from the trip and definitely one I would love to eventually do again. The kids didn't eat a ton until we were about to leave, but Nick and I loved it. There was pineapple coconut bread first, which was good. Wes actually ate most of it. I had read not to fill up on the bread, as tempting as it was. There were pork dumplings and chicken wings next. The dumplings were great! 

They brought the sides- salad, noodles, veggies... I think that was everything. Finally, the bring meat skewers around and you can choose what you want. There was steak, pork, and shrimp. Yeah, this was a huge meal. My meat loving husband was thrilled with this choice. Luckily, I could remind him of this when we were eating at Cinderella's Royal Table the next day! 

The kids weren't eating anything except bread until I put Norah on my lap, she then started eating Noodles of the platter and Wesley joined. At least they were eating...

Look at them shoveling in the noodles at this point!

 Last was dessert, yeah, I know. How could there be more food? PACE yourself if you eat here. Nick didn't. He's not huge into sweets and loves meat, so he had no regrets.

The adults got this to share...

 Bread Pudding. Yum. Seriously amazing!

The kids each got one of these...

Wes ate the M&Ms off his and then went back to the Noodles (so not like him!) and Norah just kept eating the noodles.

After that, we decided we didn't want to face the monorail/walking/bus to get back to our hotel, so we called for a cab with carseats. We waited on the bench about 10 minutes before he arrived. It was a quick trip back to the hotel. The cab company sent a big van, so we didn't even have to unload our bags, etc from the stroller to fold it down. It was just over $20 with tip, and it seemed well worth it. We were back to our room in no time and ready for some pool time! It was the only time we paid for transportation rather that using Disney buses, etc, so it wasn't bad to do once.

The kids had a great time at the pool and Nick and I enjoyed soaking our tired feet!

Nick's shirt.... a pic of Donald Duck and it says The Original Angry Bird

We had the kids in bed and asleep by 8:30, so that was great. I think Nick and I were both easily out before 10. The next day was Magic Kingdom, Day 2 and there were early extra magic hours, so we knew we had a long day ahead of us.