It's not MGM any longer!

They renamed it Hollywood Studios since the last time we came. We know it as MGM studios and regardless of what it's called, we thoroughly enjoyed 2 full days at the park! While I'd like to break it down to 2 posts, Eric's birthday and Christmas are quickly approaching......I think I need to get on with it! SO sit back and keep up with the frantic pace.... Eric brought this Eeyore form home and as opposed as I was to letting him bring it into the parks with him, he did a great job keeping track of it. And he made for cute picture buddy!

While we were there, we thought we'd take a trip to NYC......super neat visual trickery, isn't it?

This particular area of the park was filled with Toy Story characters.

Seeing green army guys directing the 'traffic', also known as people, was just so cool. The boys wanted to get an autograph- and ended with a salute!
Can you tell what it is we're supposed to be standing on? That's right, Andy's bed!

The best ride for families in the whole park, at least in my opinion (and judging from how long the lines were for it at ALL hours, the opinion of many others) was the Toy Story 3-D ride. Long, long lines with waits of 30 minutes, even after running to it as soon as we got through the gates! We fast-passed this ride several times...so much fun! The inside of the building was completely decorated with bigger than life size toys......tinker toys, monkey in a barrel, the ceiling looked like the Chutes N' Ladders game, and one of the walls had a huge version of Candy Land painted up! Those Disney designers know how to help you forget you've been in line for 45 minutes...or longer.

Thankfully, Disney employees are very thorough in checking rides as people leave them. Gregory had taken his travel journal with him in line (so he could write....child, we are in a ride line, how can you possibly focus on writing a coherent sentence?!) and then set it down next to him on the ride. We went back later to check and sure enough they had it! Thank goodness, it had 6 days of journaling homework in it!

We promised the kids that we'd visit some characters that we could find only at Hollywood Studios.....the characters from UP. I don't really know their names and as soon as we were done getting their autographs, Doug the Dog came out to stand with them. Shucks!

and these two were pretty cool and you just can't help but smile when you see them! Luke was very happy to meet them.

One of the most amazing sights and one of our favorite things at this park was the Christmas light display. The Osbourne family....no, not the OZZY Osbourne family, although that's what I thought for a while, donated all the lights to Hollywood Studios that they had used to decorate their own personal property. All 5 million of them. Just amazing. Wow! The whole street was covered-every building, top to bottom. Christmas music was playing and every few songs the lights would be coordinated. It also 'snowed'. Machines on the tops of several buildings spit out bubble stuff and it looked like it was spitting snow! (video at end of post...grrrrr....blogger)

We took so many pictures-there's no way to post them all!
We were really surprised, happily, that Disney put up a nativity scene along with all the other Christmas decor. That sure makes a statement. Unfortunately the couple we took were blurry.

In order to have everyone try a ride, if they were tall enough we kind of just put them on and if they didn't like it they didn't have to go again if we all went for a second time. So, we all attempted The Tower of Terror...a ride based on the 'Twilight Zone'.

We walked right on up to the ride so there was no time for anyone to chicken out. Except for Luke and Laurel, we had all ridden it before. It's basically a frefall type of ride where you think you are in an elevator, sitting thtank goodness, and hten the ride drops....several times. Laurel? Well she hung on to my arm for dear life and proclaimed that she DID NOT WANT TO RIDE IT AGAIN! Luke? He said he didn't like it either, but during our second day at the park he said he wanted to ride again!! Crazy boy! He got to ride it a second time with Jacob and Daddy. And he came back with this on his face-
What a trooper! I think Jacob and I will have some roller coaster rider company in the years to come. He's got some daredevil genes!

The grand finale for Hollywood Studios is the Fantasmic show......where people line up over an hour early to get seats in this enormous amphitheater...that fills up faster than you could imagine. And the path to get to said amphitheater? Hidden. Very well hidden. If I didn't know better I would think they were secretly leading us back to the parking lot via a well decorated path! We scooted on down the stands all the way to the front. No one could see the empty 3 rows or paid no attention, so we got great seats! We had to wait a while though.......can you tell?
Cheer up bud......a good night's sleep and we'll be back at again in the morning! next up, Animal Kingdom and my birthday! A much shorter day at the parks too....