The day would begin as a strange one. By that I mean it did not begin with me opening any of the parks, rather I waited for the groom to come to the Pop Century Resort as I was spending the day with him leading up to his wedding the following day. While I was waiting I enjoyed a hot cup Joffrey's Coffee (my favorite!), and played some Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. I brought my Nintendo Switch along for the ride cause I figured I'd have some downtime around the wedding/flights/etc. It was a good call for sure. Once the groom arrived we went over to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a brief walk around the park. From there we walked to Disney's Boardwalk Resort where the wedding would take place. If you have never been to the Boardwalk Resort it is quite the site. It's situated between Disney's Hollywood Studios and Epcot. It is within walking distance of those two parks along with Disney's Beach and Yacht Club Resorts as well as the Swan and Dolphin resort.
For breakfast we ate along with the rest of the wedding party and some guests at Trattoria al Forno. This is a character dining experience where Ariel, Prince Eric, Rapunzel, and Flynn Rider will all hang out and chat with you for a bit during your meal. The restaurant itself serves mostly Italian food during the day, but the breakfast menu is quite diverse. When you first sit down the table is given a nice variety of pastries to share. I'm not a huge sweets person, but I did find the chocolate croissants to be quite yummy. Judging from the fact that there were no leftovers at the table I'd say the rest were good too. One notable pastry was shaped like the sun on the lanterns in Tangled.
As far as the main course went I chose King Triton's Shipwreck al Forno. This thing was a massive calzone stuffed with scrambled eggs, cheese, bell peppers, salumi, bacon, cheeses, and Sunday gravy (basically tomato sauce). I wish I took a picture of the thing, but with so much going on I totally forgot to. I got through about 3/4 of it and I was done. It was good for sure, but man was it filling.
From there we walked to Hollywood Studios. If you've never taken that walk before, it is a very nice one. You walk along the canal that the ferry boats take. It's usually not very busy at all and is overall just a very nice walk.
Sorry for the small size, but you can hopefully see on the crudely edited map I made the yellow line connecting Epcot and Hollywood Studios. The green line is the alternate route passing through the Beach and Yacht Club as opposed to the Boardwalk Resort. Here is a couple shots from that walk.
I was honestly surprised with how busy Hollywood Studios was the second time we visited it for the day. The first time I visited this park it quickly became my favorite for reasons I'll go into at another time, but right now I can only describe it as a park in transition and a small identity crisis. Many of the shops along the way were closed for refurbishment, but oh my was there plenty of Star Wars and Toy Story merchandise everywhere! When we were there earlier in the day we didn't get on any rides, but I did get my first glimpses of Toy Story Land. Now that we were back we took our time and did a few things.
The first ride that we decided to go on was Alien Swirling Saucers in Toy Story Land which had about a 30 minute wait. I had never been on the ride before and after riding it I really don't think I'd wait 30 minutes for it unless I was with someone who had never been on it. The ride itself is basically a whip ride. You get pulled back and forth as the green alien driving the ship in front of you spins around and what not. It's a fun ride, but at the end of the day it is basically a carnival whip ride with a real fun Toy Story overlay. The music in the ride honestly ruined it for me. For the most part it is very fun music. While in line I heard fun space themed versions of all kinds of music from the Toy Story Movies.... Then my ride happened. The song "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2 came on. Given what is going on in my life I spent the ride incredibly sad. Why that song is an option on the ride is beyond me. Also, a minor gripe... I feel like back when the ride was first announced that at the end of the ride the claw would chose a random car. That doesn't happen, but at the entrance of Toy Story Land, the giant Woody figurine makes mention of the claw choosing people when talking about the ride... Strange...
I'll save my thoughts on Toy Story Land as a whole for another blog, but overall I found the land to be fun, but not without it's issues. We wanted to get on Slinky Dog Dash, but we did not have the time, nor did we want to wait over 120 minutes to ride. Next, we headed over to the old Pixar Place which recently reopened as an Incredibles themed area. There wasn't really much to do there, but there was a dance party that mixed the Citizens of Hollywood street performers with some characters from the Incredibles. Looked fun for kids. Beachballs were flying through the air and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The main reason I wanted to check that area out was the storied Jack Jack's Num Num Cookie.
So if memory serves me right this cookie was around $6, but weighed probably about a pound if not more. It was really big and really delicious. I am not a huge sweets fan as I said earlier, so the groom to be and I split the thing. If you are a fan of cookies check this thin out. It's really good and the chocolate chips melting in the Florida sun does nothing be benefit the cookie.
We had one final stop to make before heading to dinner and that was a big challenge for me. I admittedly have issues when it comes to roller coasters. I think it's related to heights as I never can muster the will to get on the coasters at Six Flags Great Adventure... At least the tall ones... That said I've always been able to handle Expedition Everest as long as I didn't look going up the lift chain. I had also never been on an upside down or a launch coaster before. If you couldn't guess what the challenge is... It was the only ride I had never been on at Walt Disney World (with the exception of the new Slinky Dog Dash Roller Coaster), Rock 'N' Roller Coaster Featuring Aerosmith.
We had a Fast Pass for the ride so we were able to get on nice and quick. The queue for this ride is pretty neat as you enter into a recording studio. The pre-ride video sees you meeting Aerosmith as a recording session is wrapping up and they are off to their next show. They convince their manager to hook up the people at the studio with some backstage passes and order an extra large stretch limo to transport you to the show. The coaster train itself is the limo and looks pretty awesome. As you loop around the queue it takes on the look of a street and you can watch as the trains blast off into the dark. Oh yeah, I didn't mention this ride takes place in the dark too. Add that to the list.
The ride itself was insane to say the least, but in a good way. The launch was incredibly intense as you blast from zero to near sixty miles per hour in less than three seconds. Once up to speed you immediately go through a loop. Talk about two first time experiences back to back. Going upside down was such an odd, but cool feeling. Being completely in the dark may have amplified that too. The rest of the ride is a high speed thrill with a nice corkscrew inversion thrown in as well. All the while Aerosmith music is blasting from the coaster train. It's a really awesome experience. The best part about it was how incredibly smooth it was. I was bracing myself for a rough and wild ride, but it was so smooth.
After the ride we walked back towards Disney's Boardwalk resort, but made a pit stop at the Swan Resort for dinner at Il Mulino. By the time we were seated we started getting into a bit of a time crunch. We needed to get back to the Boardwalk for rehearsal so we just ordered some pizza off the menu. Honestly as far as pizza goes I'd rank the pizza there second only to the pizza at Via Napoli in Epcot. The server at the restaurant was very helpful with the various food options and really seemed to know his stuff. The hostesses were actually surprisingly rude and did not seem to care about our little time crunch issues. We were the first reservation of the night and I don't think more than three additional tables filled up while we were there, so I'm not sure what was up with that. From there we finished walking back to the Boardwalk.
The gazebo on the right hand side of the picture is where the wedding would take place and where the rehearsal took place as well. No much else to note about that. After the rehearsal we walked the groom's mother back to the bus at Hollywood Studios. Our original plan was to re-enter the park and try to catch Slinky Dog Dash, Fantasmic, or Star Wars A Galactic Spectacular, but we arrived too late and the park had just closed. So we hoped on the bus to Epcot and wrapped up the evening by watching Illuminations: Reflections of Earth.
Illuminations: Reflections of Earth has been running at Epcot for a long time and remains a must see fireworks spectacular. Sadly the show will be ending this summer with a replacement show on the way. Personally I'm excited for a new show, but Illuminations will be sorely missed. With the show ending, so will one of the greatest, if not the greatest soundtrack in all of the Disney Parks. I'll talk more about the show and post pictures from it in a later blog on this trip.
The second day of my trip I can best describe as the day of walking and rehearsal. On top of walking around in the parks and resorts we walked from Hollywood Studios to the Boardwalk resort three times. My legs were feeling the burn, but in a good way. I finally got a look into Toy Story Land and finally conquered Rock 'N' Roller Coaster Featuring Aerosmith.
Thanks for reading! Next up is the day of the wedding. This will be a substantially smaller blog as my time in the parks was very limited. I may throw my full Toy Story Land review in as at that point I had a good feel for the new area. Stay tuned!
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