Flowers and Gardens - Part 4
May 6, 2014 Tuesday
Plan for the day:
Disney Studios
Tune in Lounge for Lunch
Fastpass + for Toy Story Mania; Great Movie Ride; and Tower of Terror
??Brown Derby for dinner??
How the day actually went
I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked. Oh well.
We are at the bus stop by 9 a.m. where we wait about 15 minutes for a bus to Hollywood Studios. After a stop at the Grand Floridian, the bus is full. We arrive at the park by 10 in the morning.
We head over to Star Tours. The standby time is listed as 10 minutes - we waited about 15. Next up - Muppets where the standby time is listed at 5 minutes which was about right. The pre-show has changed a bit to incorporate components of the new Muppets movie. By time we exit, it is almost 11 and we are ready for lunch. We head to Tune In Lounge and eat at the bar. I have the fried chicken while Gene selects the meat loaf.
After lunch, we wander around some of the shops until it is time for our Toy Story Mania fastpass. We still have a while before it's time for our Great Movie Ride fastpass but we wander by to check out the ride times. It is a walk-on - fastpass is not needed so we ride. Tower of Terror is our last fastpass of the day - that still has a 90 minute minute standby listed and it's still a while until our fastpass+ time. Surprisingly, Rock n Roller Coaster lists a 20 minute standby but the wait isn't even that long. After that ride, we wander through some of the shops but we still haven't killed enough time to ride Tower of Terror so we go and check out the relatively new Brown Derby lounge. I order a margarita flight - glasses and drinks are much larger than I was expecting and, although I taste all of them, I only finish one. Gene has the martini flight.
While we are there, a couple enters and sits down. They decide it is far too warm so go around the corner to try to be seated indoors. They are back five minutes later saying the restaurant portion is totally booked for the day. They are not happy. They say they were told inside they would have needed to book at least a day in advance. They say they also had problems locating a place to eat the day before and complain that the front desk at their resort never told them of the necessity to make dining reservations in advance. It is clear they have not done their homework!!
When we leave the Brown Derby, we head over to Tower of Terror to use our fastpass+ reservations. Now the standby time is listed at 13 minutes!! Doesn't that just figure?! As we go through the fastpass+ line, however, it is clear that 13 minutes is not at all accurate for the standby line - it is probably actually 20-25 minutes. With the drops over, we head to the bus stop.
Back home, we change and head out to the Villas pool. That water is really warm!! When we finish splashing around, we head back to our room for showers and a change of clothing. We spend a little while on our balcony.
Heading back out, we take a boat to the Contemporary and, from there head to Top of the World at Bay Lake Tower. You are no longer required to show your DVC member card to gain access. They now take the information right from your magic bands.
There's a new menu at Top of the World since I last visited. They now have beef sliders which we both order and they are quite yummy. A bit later, we order the chips which is served sort of like nachos - covered in blue cheese, bacon, chives, diced tomatoes and ranch dressing. Quite good if you are a blue cheese fan.
We stay to watch Wishes from the viewing area. When they end, we make our way to the boat dock at the Contemporary. As we go down a couple of steps leading to the docking area, there was someone next to me jumping from step to step. I thought is was a child which it was - sort of - it was actually Peter Pan who was on his way to the docking area to greet the incoming pirates' fireworks cruises. In fact, we had to wait while the two boats emptied before our boat could approach the dock. Once on board the boat, we were quickly delivered back to Wilderness Lodge and were soon off to bed!!
