Hollywood Studios was our third park day in a row, and anyone who's been to Disney World knows how much energy it takes to get thru each park, so by day three, we were moving a bit slow! Mr. Polo left the campground early to check into his hotel for the night and drop off his stuff; he wanted to get to the park early (since he only had one day there, where RDB and I will repeat this park again later this week). So RDB and I had a leisurely lunch at the camper, then took a boat to the Magic Kingdom, so we could take the Resort line monorail to the Polynesian, for an early afternoon treat of pineapple DoleWhip.
Yes, we went out of our way to get this dessert, but if you know - you know. Cute little side story: as we were standing in line waiting for our turn, a little boy walked past us with a spoon in his fist and his grandma carrying his DoleWhip, "Don't let it fall!" he pleaded with excitement in his voice. Like I said, if you know, you know. ;-)
From the Polynesian we hopped the next bus going to Hollywood Studios and arrived a little after 2pm. The timing was perfect for us to be able to get a few pictures with the PhotoPass photographers (there was an abundance of them at HS's main street) and then head over to the Indian Jones Stunt Spectacular. Mr. Polo plopped down beside us before the show started and we were ready!
It was a neat combination of live stunts and 'behind the scenes' action that had us laughing and clapping the entire time. As we sat there, we were really impressed with the venue itself - plenty of seating, all fully covered from the hot Florida sun, and GIANT fans twirling above to create a very comfortable place to watch a 30 minute show.
I had only purchased a single Lightening Lane for our Hollywood Studios day - the extremely popular Star Wars ride Rise of The Resistance. In fact, I was only able to buy the pass for RDB and I since we had 'on property' reservations, which meant that I needed to visit the Blue Umbrella guest experience cast members when we got to the park to see if we could assign Mr. Polo to the time slot we had (by the time you could purchase the LL for off-property guests, they were sold out). When I say that the cast members want to make the magic happen for you, I really mean it: not only did they get Mr Polo added to our LL, they did it "on Mickey" (meaning, they didn't charge me the $15 dollars!)
Welcome to another planet! The Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge section of the park truly feels immersive - like you've left earth and gone to a completely different universe!
I can understand why fans of the story flock to this park, and after riding the Rise of the Resistance, I can see why it's such a crowd pleaser and sells out each day (keep in mind, you can always use the traditional stand-by line; but at 3pm when we used our LL, it was over a two hour wait via standby!)
We stepped off that ride exhilarated - and if it wasn't such a long wait to get back in, I'm pretty sure we would have jumped right back on to that one over and over!
It was here that we said our goodbyes to Mr. Polo - we were heading over for our dinner reservation and he would be heading back to NYC in the morning. It was great fun to hang out with him for these first three days in the park!
RDB and I took the Skyliner over to the Caribbean Beach Resort and a short walk later made it to Sebastian's Bistro (yes, the one from The Little Mermaid!) for a family-style dinner.
We loved that our vacation planner, Heather, had made all these different dinner reservations for us because we really had no experience with dining at Disney; as she's said: Disney food is a whole thing. And after this past week, I believe it! The pineapple bread pudding with caramel sauce and vanilla bean ice cream is not to be missed!
We rode the Skyliner back over to Hollywood Studios with the thought of doing another ride or two. It was a very different feeling to be in the park at night - everything lit up with neon and bright lights.
It's also nice because the crowds seemed to have thinned out a bit - so much so, that we walked right on to Star Tours: The Adventure Continues ride.
If you ever find yourself on a spacecraft with C3PO as the pilot, abandon ship!
It was a great finish to the Star Wars experience that Hollywood Studios has created and for us, it was a nice way to end the night before a bus ride back over to the Fort. I couldn't help but giggle - as we were heading back the fireworks at Magic Kingdom were rocketing off and we could catch glimpses of them as we rode along. Three nights in a row and we've seen the fireworks on three different modes of transportation: our golf cart, the monorail, and now on a bus!
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Be sure to check out our other posts from Tent On Wheels at DISNEY!
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