Vacation Day 37: Last day in the parks - Disney MGM Studios

The day has finally come. We had our last day in the parks today. We went back to Disney-MGM Studios one last time. They have actually renamed this park, it’s already changed on the website. But you wouldn’t know it from walking around the park. Nothing has the new name yet. Not the park maps, schedules, there’s no merchandise with it, nothing. Here’s a link to the website, so you can see the park’s new identity, Disney’s Hollywood Studios. http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/parks/parkLanding?id=MGMLandingPage

We actually started out the day with breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. http://www.crackerbarrel.com/
Andrew’s parents really like this restaurant for breakfast, so we wanted to try it before we left. There aren’t any Cracker Barrels back in California, so we wanted to go while we are here (ANGELA: there’s a Cracker Barrel in Boise – have you been there? You should try it). It has a store and a restaurant. The store has all of this cool old-school stuff. Like candy from the 1950’s, old toys and games from back in the day – it’s cool. Breakfast was good. And filling! Vavu and Maria tried the Holiday Breakfast Sampler. It had so much food. We were stuffed! The cinnamon biscuts were cool. And everything comes with biscuts and gravy and country grits. It was a good way to start the day.

The weather was much nicer today. Not so cold, but still nice and cool. We only had a few things to do up in the front of the park, so we hit those right away. Our first stop up front was The Magic of Disney Animation. This is the area where you learn about current or recently released productions. The focus of the presentation right now is Ratatouille. The kids really like this movie. After the show, there is an interactive area, where you can meet characters and look at exhibits and interact with presentations. Remy and Emile were there doing character greetings. The kids wanted to meet them, so we got in line. We waited. And waited. And the line wasn’t moving. So we gave up. We went up to the Incredibles character greeting instead, and what do you know? There was NO line. It’s kind of off on the side – not obvious. So the boys got to meet FroZone with no wait at all. Then Drew decided to meet FroZone, too. So he met him with practically no wait. And then Aiden decided he wanted to take a picture of FroZone with his own camera, so we met him a 3rd time with barely any wait! Sweet!

Next, we went to see the Walt: One Man’s Dream exhibit. This area shows a chronology of Walt Disney’s projects as they progress into the parks we visit today. It has models of ride attractions and Disney parks, displays of Movie posters and props, and soundtracks of the voices of Walt and Roy Disney. The attraction is completed with a movie tribute to Walt. It’s really interesting to learn about how Mickey Mouse came to be when he lost the rights to a rabbit he had drawn, and how he came up with the concept of a full-length animated picture, and Disneyland. His dream was DisneyWorld, but he didn’t live to see it come to fruition. That was really sad to think about. After Walt died, his brother Roy headed up the development and building of DisneyWorld. He renamed the project from DisneyWorld to “Walt Disney World”, he said so that every person would know that the park was Walt’s dream.

We headed over to the other side of the park to watch the Jedi Training Academy. This show chooses children from the audience to train as Jedi. The kids are given the little Jedi robes and a “training” light saber. They learn a little choreographed routine, then are called upon to fight the dark side when Darth Vader arrives. It’s really cute to see the kids, because they take the whole thing so seriously. They scowl at Darth Vader and the storm troopers. He asks them to join him and the Dark side, and the kids yell, “no!” with a vengence. It’s really super cute. Aiden wanted to join them, but he didn’t get chosen. He was probably a little young to follow the directions anyway. Darth Vader saw Maria taking pictures, and pointed at her menacingly. Yikes!

Menacing!

The "younglings" get in on the action!

We were going to go see Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey before the parade, but we didn’t have enough time. So we staked out a spot for the Hollywood Holly-Day Parade. We got great seats right next to the gates where the parade begins. We had a pretty unobstructed view, because there weren’t many spots to sit before us. We were one of the first groups of people the parade passed by. One huge advantage to this was that the characters walking with the parade saw us first, and gave us high-fives and gave us attention. One of the disadvantages was that the audio soundtrack was late for what we saw, because we saw the stuff before everyone else. But that was no big deal compared to the view and the character interaction!

After the parade, it was time for the kids to take a nap. They reclined in the stroller and went to sleep. Vavo stayed with them while Maria, Andrew and Vavu rode Star Tours. It was good, because we had fastpasses. The shop that you exit into after the ride, Tattoine Traders, was really cool. They had lots of cool Star Wars stuff.

Have you ever been on Star Tours? Do you remember this chick? We did!

Exiting Star Tours

Next, Maria stayed with the boys while they napped, and Vavo, Vavu and Andrew went on the Studios Backlot Tour. This tour takes you through to see movie sets and props, and makes a stop at “Catastrope Canyon”, where a natural disaster is simulated. This ride is over a half-hour, so by the time the group waited in line and rode the ride, the kids were awake from their naps.

The kids sleep alike - it's cute!

Maria took the kids to play in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure. The rest of the group met them there after their tour. The kids climbed around through ant holes, climbed nets and ropes, rode slides, and played with a giant ant. It was fun. It was a lot of work for the adults to keep up though, because everything was for little kids, and the adults had to crouch or crawl.

The Movie set closed at 5 o’clock, so we went to see MuppetVision 3D after it was time to stop playing. This is the same show as in Disney’s California Adventure, but it’s still funny seeing it again! The kids had fun watching, and so did the adults!

Our last ride for the day was Sounds Dangerous with Drew Carey. This is a show where you go in a theatre and wear a set of headphones and follow a “detective” (that would be Drew Carey) on an undercover mission. He’s wearing a mike and camera, so you can hear what he hears in your headphones, and see what he sees on the movie screen. It’s pretty funny. We had a good time. Jeremy didn’t go, because there times when the theatre is in complete darkness, and the headphone volume is kinda loud. So we didn’t think he would like that. He stayed with Vavo, who met us in the interactive area after the show was over.

We were an hour early for our priority seating at the Hollywood Brown Derby, but they took us anyway (thank you, Disney). We were tired and about done, so we were thankful to be seated early. We had a nice dinner there. The food is fancy! And so are the specialty drinks :-P We were all feeling done with the park for the day, so we headed home after dinner. After the kids went to sleep, Maria and Andrew went out to Downtown Disney to get some last-minute shopping done before packing tomorrow. Whew! That’s going to be a task.

Vavu posing with the Christmas Tree at the Brown Derby

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The best part of day 37 was getting to do everything we wanted to see at MGM Studios, our good seats for the parade, the improvement in the weather.
The worst part of day 37 was wearing out at the end of the day, knowing we have to pack tomorrow.
What we learned on day 37 was Walt Disney was a very ambitious man.
The weather on day 37 was really nice. Cool and mild.
Our character sightings on day 37 included Remy, Emile, FroZone, Little Einsteins, JoJo and Goliath, Power Rangers, Buzz Lightyear, Woody.
The crowd level on day 37 was getting a little too crowded for our taste.