Saturday, June 18, 2011

WDW Trip Report - Day 2 - Don't Upset Cousin Cooper!

Disney's Hollywood Studios was Kyle's & my destination for our second day of our Walt Disney World vacation. It was the last weekend of Star Wars Weekends, and we wanted to see all the characters (I'm going to sprinkle photos throughout) and enjoy some rides on Star Tours.

Our morning started at 6:10 with the alarm by the bed going off unexpectedly. I couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from or why Kyle would have set his phone alarm for so early. Thankfully he kept his wits about him and turned it off. Then I slept through my alarm a bit (like 15 minutes), and since it was our first morning together, Kyle let me sleep. No problem, but we did end up arriving at the park a little late.

As soon as we got there, we noticed the Stormtroopers guarding the entrance:
Right after I stopped filming they pointed out Kyle and put a bounty on his head! You could hear them talking from where we were standing, and they were a hoot!

We started our day by going to Toy Story Midway Mania which only had a 15 minute wait! It gets up to 2 hours long on a regular basis, so we felt super lucky to practically walk on. Kyle totally kicked my rear, but it was fun, so I was totally ok with that. Besides, he's classically trained in video gaming, so I didn't really have a chance.
When we got off the ride, the wait was already about an hour, so we grabbed FastPasses (basically a way to virtually stand in line) and hurried over to Star Tours.

Even without being a huge Star Wars fans, I recognized that the new and improved Star Tours was AWESOME! C3P0 pilots you through various places in the Star Wars universe. There's something like 52 possible variations of the ride, so you can ride it over and over without getting bored... well unless you're Kyle, and then you have the Death Star ending 5 out of the 6 times you ride. We also grabbed a FastPass on the way out of there, and we moved on to Tower of Terror.

Kyle made a deal with me before we arrived that if I'd ride Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom, he'd ride Tower of Terror with me. Once we got close to the ride, I realized his fear was a phobia, and he was seriously kinda panicky about the ride, and I felt really bad. At one point the child behind us said to his dad, "ya know the first time I rode Tower of Terror, I called it Tower of Terrible Death!" I couldn't stop giggling, but poor Kyle lost ALL color at that moment. I did offer to let him bail on me, but he stuck it out. Thankfully we got a more mild ride sequence than I've had before, so he came out alive. I jokingly asked him to ride again but didn't push it the rest of the trip.

The order of the day gets a little blurry for me here. At some point we headed over to lunch at 50's Prime Time Cafe. If you recall from my Pre-Trip Report, I was hesitant about this meal and unsure I'd be game to the waiter's razing, but it ended up being one of my absolute favorite meals! Our waiter was Cousin Cooper, and he immediately laid down the rules for us that included no "walkie talkies" (cell phones). Honestly, from that point on, unless we were taking pics of our food, we tried to leave our cell phones put away for meals, and it made things so much more enjoyable. Really got to chat more and enjoy our meal that way.

I seemed to be Cousin Cooper's target for lunch. When I ordered water and a Coca-Cola, I forgot to say "please". He kept sarcastically calling me "princess" until I finished my water, and then he switched to "Nemo." The whole meal we were laughing hysterically at his antics! When he asked if we were ready to order, I said I was and looked at Kyle, and Cousin Cooper's response was "well it's not all about you, princess!" When I finished my water, he called over from another table, "wait for the ice to melt, princess, and then you'll have more water!" He had other great lines all day that maybe Kyle will share in the comments (*poke poke*). We really did enjoy him though.

After lunch is when the day started going not so well for me. The richness of the food (amazing Pot Roast for me & a sampler for Kyle - I'll let him tell you about eating his veggies) did not sit well in my stomach. We decided to do some calm stuff and headed over to the Animation Courtyard for some character photos. Sadly, I was unable to stick it out (I was really really sick), so I headed back to the resort for some calm & cool relaxation.

Maybe Kyle can fill y'all in on what he did while I was away. I think he rode Star Tours again and he watched some neat show that he was looking forward to.

When I got back, we met up for dinner (well, he ate, I watched - this was to become an all too common event for us after Day 2 of our trip). Then we rode Star Tours again and used our Toy Story Mania FastPasses. I'll leave out the pic, but he beat me again. He offered to go easy on me, but my competitive nature wouldn't allow it. :) We also shopped in the special Star Wars Weekends shopping tent: Jabba's Hut.

We ended the night watching the Hyperspace Hoopla (search it on YouTube if you're interested) where all the Star Wars characters did a kind of dance off. It would have been better if people hadn't put their children on their shoulders. I'm going to do a quick PSA and say that keeping your children on your shoulders for any sort of show is rude and selfish. Think of the people around you! Holding your child at your height in your arms or on your back is one thing, but on your shoulders in the middle of a crowd is ridiculous. We watched most of the show on a woman's camera phone as she filmed it.

Moving past that annoyance (we chose not to let things out of our control get us down), we headed back to the resort to watch Yehaa Bob's piano comedy show. I can only speak for me, but this was one of the most fun evenings I had! From the second he started playing, he had the crowd totally involved! I did the hand jive in the front of the room; Kyle did 20 jumping jacks; other people ran around the room. It was a blast! Partaking in a couple adult beverages helped I'm sure. ;-) By the end of his show, we were wiped. After chatting for a bit before bed, we passed out! Nothing like a good night's sleep after a full day at Disney!

This post is getting insanely long, and no matter what I add, I can't fully explain how amazing and fun this day was for me. Experiencing Disney World with just one other adult who loved Disney as much as I was already proving to be totally different than all my other trips (in a good way).

Next Post: If you can hold out and stick with it for one more post, I'll share another video with you, and this time Kyle and I will be in it! In fact, every post after this will have fun videos of us. I promise to explain how that came about too. Day 3 will take us to Epcot and Downtown Disney! Come back in a day or two. :)

4 comments:

  1. Hey! You totally forgot about your breakfast cupcake after Tower of Terrible Death!

    Cousin Cooper didn't really give me any nicknames, he just called me slow because I wasn't done with my meal when he came to take our dessert order. Speaking of that...the only reason I was slow was because I had to eat nastiness in the form of Collard Greens. Those things are so incredibly disgusting! But, as a Northerner who's never had them before, I'm pretty proud of being able to finish it all!

    Let's see...before we went to the Animation Courtyard, we tried to do the Great Movie Ride. The line was waaay too long and you decided to hold off. That's when we went to the Animation Courtyard. The last thing we did before you left was MuppetVision 3D.

    After you left, I ended up riding Star Tours 3 more times. The first time I rode this round, I ended up getting the same exact combination as the previous time! I was so disappointed. Due to that, I told myself that I'd ride it as much as possible before it got too late.

    After the 3rd time, the line got too long, so I went to wait for James Arnold Taylor's "Obi-Wan & Beyond" show. It was pretty freakin awesome! It showcased what a Voice Actor does in the course of auditioning and doing the job. He even ended the show by going through almost the voices that he's doing since he was a kid, by showing how slight changes to his voice can completely change who he sounds like.

    After that, you had made your way back to the park, so I sought you out where you were watching that Jedi trivia thing.

    That's all I can remember for this day. Hope that helps flesh some stuff out!

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  2. Aw I'm so glad you added to it! Excellent job adding to the post. Totally helped flesh it out. :)

    The breakfast cupcake was the Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake, and it was absolutely delicious. And yes, Kyle did eat his collard greens. As a Southerner who hates them, I was super impressed.

    He's being sweet and blaming us not riding GMR on the line, but we were partway through it, and the crowd was making the nausea worse, so he kindly stepped out with me. The 2nd time we tried I gave up halfway through again and left the park. :( I was glad he stayed to ride though. Heading back to the resort with me would have been boring.

    Didn't realize you rode Star Tours 3 more times, but that makes sense with how you got 6 rides in. Kyle came back raving about that show. Glad he described it bc I couldn't have done it justice if I tried to explain. While he was at the show, I rode Star Tours again and got the best sequence of the trip!

    Almost forgot about the Jedi Padawan Mind Challenge - Star Wars trivia questions answered by kids! They knew WAY more than me about Star Wars! The hosts were hilarious too.

    Thanks again for adding stuff. I'll try to leave more openings for you on future posts (like describing Beverly & what went through your mind every time you saw me pull out the Bloggie camera). ;-)

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  3. Hi, Joanna - I found your blog through the DFB and have enjoyed reading about your trip! Weird coincidence - I think you might be the sister of my college friend LaRae. Seeing your picture made me realize I'd seen you in her FB photos - small world!

    Anyway, my husband and I went to Disney for the first time in ages (literally 20+ years) in April and loved it. Now we've had fun reading trip reports and the blogs that were helpful to us in our trip planning.

    I look forward to reading more about your adventures!

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  4. Hey Kathryn! Welcome to the chaos that is my blog! I know LaRae has spoken of a Kathryn from college who shares her love of Disney. I'll tell her about your message next time we chat (she's in GA right now). Small world!

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