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Published: March 25th 2010
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Day Twenty Three 7 March 2010
Location: Orlando
Hotel: Pop Century Resort, Walt Disney World
We awoke early on our last day and for the first time since arriving in the US, we were both able to dress in whatever we wanted.
This was our final day and as such, we wanted to make the most of it. We had yet to see Hollywood Studio’s, so that was our first priority and after that we were just going to see how we felt.
We dressed quickly and went downstairs for one last breakfast at the food court. Erin was sad as she realised that she would soon not be able to refill her mug with any number of beverages and would have to go back to bottled drinks.
We ate and made our way to the bus to Hollywood Studio’s. As it was just round the corner, the bus ride was short and we were soon entering the park. Unlike the previous day, the park was relatively empty and we found it to be lacking any real atmosphere.
About the only thing the park was able to offer to liven up the main area was a
parade that featured performers singing songs from High School Musical. Neither of us was entertained and did our best to avoid the parade from that moment on.
We knew that the Toy Story Mania ride would be the main attraction at the park and would quickly become busy (have previously waiting in line for an hour in California), so we went and grabbed some fast passes and found that line was already a 45 minute wait.
We had a while to wait until our fast passes would become valid, so we wander around the park and went over to Star Tours. While it was one of my favourite rides years ago, the ride hasn’t aged well and the technology available these days for simulators is much better. The ride is still enjoyable, but is more of a time filler these days.
We then wandered around and entered the replica Grauman’s Theatre where the Great Movie Ride is located. The ride is a slow moving track ride that takes you through a number of sets from movies that in my opinion, have no place in a ride touted as “Great Movies”. That aside, the ride is quite slow
moving and the performers aren’t all the entertaining.
We left the ride and like much of the park were left feeling quite underwhelmed. At this point we literally didn’t know what else to do. The other attractions were mainly shows which weren’t yet running. The only show we really wanted to watch was the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular and that was still 45 minutes away. However, we noticed that they were already seating people, so we grabbed a drink and found some good seats in the middle of the amphitheatre.
The time went pretty quickly and the show soon began. It’s about 30 minutes long and is just great fun for everyone watching. There is plenty of entertaining audience participation and the stunt scenes are very well choreographed. They even bring a plane out for the finale and fight around it.
After the show we were finally able to go and ride Toy Story Mania. Upon arriving back at the attraction we found that the wait time was now over two hours and we couldn’t believe that people would wait in line that long for a ride. Even with the fast passes it took us the better
part of 30 minutes to wander through the lines and board one of the pods.
Toy Story Mania is a state of the art ride that mixes 3D technology, arcade games and a track ride all into one experience. The name of the game is to play five different arcade-style games - plus a bonus round - against the person sitting in the seat next to you. Each game takes place on a different screen and lasts about 30 seconds before you are whisked on to the next. The 3D feature makes the games great fun as it actually looks like your tossing rings or firing arrows or whatever the game might entail.
We last rode the ride last year in California and Erin managed to beat me as it took me a few seconds to work out what we were supposed to do. This time I was on my game, but at the end of the first round Erin was up by a few thousand points. I couldn’t believe it.
The competition intensified and by the end of the fifth game I had closed the gap and it was going to come down to the bonus
round. We reached the final screen and started firing with all our might. I was focused on my screen while trying to keep an eye on Erin’s progress. It looked like she was doing well.
The final round finished and we were whisked around to the last screen to view our scores. They flashed up on screen and unbelievably I had won! A come from behind victory no less. The margin was only a few thousand points, but it was enough to give me win and bragging rights for the rest of the day.
We arrived back in the main area of the ride and handed back our 3D goggles before departing. We saw no reason to hang around the park anymore and made our way towards the exit. It was early afternoon by this point and we debated what to do next. We suspected that the other parks would be busy again given that it was still the weekend and we were also feeling that we had had enough of the parks and decided to call it a day.
As we were leaving the next day, we thought it would be a good idea to do
one last clothes wash. We were soon back at the hotel and I grabbed the clothes that needed washing. Erin came down to the laundry with me and then took advantage of the nice weather and read her book by the pool while I tended to the clothes.
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the resort before heading out to Downtown Disney for one last Disney meal. We didn’t have any plans for dinner, so we thought we would just enjoy wandering around Downtown Disney before finding a place to eat.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at Downtown Disney, we found the boardwalk to be packed with people and some of the restaurants had waiting times of over an hour. We thought it was a good idea to skip the shopping and try and get dinner sooner rather than later when the wait was sure to be longer (as the parks would be closing long before Downtown Disney would be).
We wandered along the boardwalk and found a great looking restaurant called Paradiso 37. Our main priority was finding a restaurant that had nice looking cocktails and this place certainly fit the bill. We were seated
quickly and order a couple of cocktails that turned out to be delicious. We were also thrilled to find that they served Queso (a Mexican cheese dip) that Erin and I absolutely love, so we order that for a starter to enjoy with our cocktails.
We weren’t in a rush, so we enjoyed our drinks and were soon on to round two while we waited for out mains. The atmosphere in the restaurant was great and a live acoustic guitarist was keeping everyone entertained with his music.
After dinner we wandered back along the promenade and looked in some of the shops for last minute items to purchase. There is no shortage of Disney related material and Erin even managed to find a great scrapbooking kit which she eagerly talked about as we wandered back to the bus.
We spent the rest of the night packing back at the hotel and preparing for our departure the following morning. We were looking forward to picking up the car and hitting the road to start our three day journey to Washington D.C.
The drama with our bags aside, the visit to Disney World had been fantastic. It really is a magical place and Erin and I couldn’t help but start talking about the next trip when hopefully we would be able to bring our future kids to this wonderful world.
Paul & Erin
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Maxine
non-member comment
WOW!
I have loved reading your trip to Orlando and felt that I was actually with you, it was amazing. I am now going to look at the rest of your blog. I hope that you 2 do go back to Disneyworld with your children and have a brilliant time, we did with our daughter. Thanks for the report