Walt Disney World ICP - Day 22 - Hollywood Studios - 24th June 2013
Today was my day off. You may remember that I gave away my shift today as I needed a day to reenergise or it would have been 10 days of work in a row. I’ve just been looking at my schedule and I have 4 days off coming up very close together so I’m worried about how many more days I’ll be doing in a row.
Despite that, the point of today was to chill and relax a bit. I went over to the gym in Patterson Court (another residence) as I’d heard it had better weights equipment than the one at Chatham and it did which I was happy to see as the Chatham gym is shocking. After that, I went back to the apartment and got changed and went to the pool to get a tan and for a swim. After about an hour relaxing, I decided that I’d go to Hollywood Studios as this was a park that I’d not really fully experienced yet, and the plan was to get lunch there and watch some of the shows to complete my goal of experiencing every attraction at all the parks.
One of the buses didn’t turn up at all and in total I waited about 45 minutes for a bus to Hollywood Studios. Add in the fact that it took 45 minutes to get there and I arrived a very hungry Gio. After having had lunch it was already 4PM. The nighttime show Fantasmic was only 5 hours away but I decided that I wasn’t going to do that as I’d already seen it and wanted to avoid the crowds as much as possible today. I watched Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage which despite what my housemates had said, I thought was actually pretty good.
Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream was an exhibit and a 15-minute film about Walt’s life and how Disney World came to be. Although I didn’t really learn anything new, it was a fantastic journey through the work that Walt put in to succeed. It also made me angry at how the company has changed into such a money-focused enterprise.
I rode Star Tours as it was a walk-on and had a really cool ending where (SPOILER) we went underwater and the spike of another spaceship smashed through the screen. The ride has 54 different possible combinations so it should be different every time. It’s great fun. I was going to ride it 3 times as one my bucket list is to do an attraction three times but it was a 20-minute wait when I came back round to the entrance and the queue was actually out the door.
I got into line to do Toy Story Midway Mania but soon realised that the 105 minute wait time posted was accurate and so I left after about 2 minutes in line. I’ll have to get up early if I ever want to do that ride with a reasonable wait. From a bit of research I have learned that Fastpass rides can be anywhere between 80% Fastpass and 20% standby guests to 91% Fastpass and 9% standby guests. This really angers me as it shows why rides like Soarin’, Peter Pan and Toy Story Mania have such long standby waits, when more than 9 in 10 people are Fastpass users. The parks would be so much better without a Fastpass system in my opinion as all the lines would be much more manageable.
The thing I noticed most about this park was how good the theming was, even if it was all random bits put next to each other, especially compared to Walt Disney Studios Paris. I was very impressed.
I rode Rock n Rollercoaster again which was a lot of fun. Single rider still took 40 minutes to get onto the ride which was disappointing considering it was a 60 minute wait in the standby line, so I hoped to have got on quicker.
Overall, it was a decent day. I left at 7:30PM and got the bus back home. Ordered in a pizza and relaxed for the rest of the night.
Next post: Walt Disney World ICP - Day 23 to 25 - Work can be fun too! - 25th-27th June 2013
Despite that, the point of today was to chill and relax a bit. I went over to the gym in Patterson Court (another residence) as I’d heard it had better weights equipment than the one at Chatham and it did which I was happy to see as the Chatham gym is shocking. After that, I went back to the apartment and got changed and went to the pool to get a tan and for a swim. After about an hour relaxing, I decided that I’d go to Hollywood Studios as this was a park that I’d not really fully experienced yet, and the plan was to get lunch there and watch some of the shows to complete my goal of experiencing every attraction at all the parks.
One of the buses didn’t turn up at all and in total I waited about 45 minutes for a bus to Hollywood Studios. Add in the fact that it took 45 minutes to get there and I arrived a very hungry Gio. After having had lunch it was already 4PM. The nighttime show Fantasmic was only 5 hours away but I decided that I wasn’t going to do that as I’d already seen it and wanted to avoid the crowds as much as possible today. I watched Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage which despite what my housemates had said, I thought was actually pretty good.
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| The Beauty and the Beast stage show |
Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream was an exhibit and a 15-minute film about Walt’s life and how Disney World came to be. Although I didn’t really learn anything new, it was a fantastic journey through the work that Walt put in to succeed. It also made me angry at how the company has changed into such a money-focused enterprise.
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| Part of the New Fantasyland model. |
I rode Star Tours as it was a walk-on and had a really cool ending where (SPOILER) we went underwater and the spike of another spaceship smashed through the screen. The ride has 54 different possible combinations so it should be different every time. It’s great fun. I was going to ride it 3 times as one my bucket list is to do an attraction three times but it was a 20-minute wait when I came back round to the entrance and the queue was actually out the door.
I got into line to do Toy Story Midway Mania but soon realised that the 105 minute wait time posted was accurate and so I left after about 2 minutes in line. I’ll have to get up early if I ever want to do that ride with a reasonable wait. From a bit of research I have learned that Fastpass rides can be anywhere between 80% Fastpass and 20% standby guests to 91% Fastpass and 9% standby guests. This really angers me as it shows why rides like Soarin’, Peter Pan and Toy Story Mania have such long standby waits, when more than 9 in 10 people are Fastpass users. The parks would be so much better without a Fastpass system in my opinion as all the lines would be much more manageable.
The thing I noticed most about this park was how good the theming was, even if it was all random bits put next to each other, especially compared to Walt Disney Studios Paris. I was very impressed.
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| Great theming in the Streets of America area of the park |
Overall, it was a decent day. I left at 7:30PM and got the bus back home. Ordered in a pizza and relaxed for the rest of the night.
Next post: Walt Disney World ICP - Day 23 to 25 - Work can be fun too! - 25th-27th June 2013
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