Day 5--Disney Hollywood Studios

By Monday evening, Caroline was showing signs of not getting enough sleep. That, combined with not getting to bed until 11:30 was a sure sign that we were not going to make it to the opening of DHS.

We decided a pleasant child was more important than being at the park at opening today, so we let Caroline sleep in--of course the boys were up at 6:30, but Caroline slept until 8:45. We were all up and ready by this time, so we got her dressed and we caught the bus at 9:15.

We take the kids to line up for Mater. We found it without too much trouble.


Since we were right there, and there were no lines, we stopped to meet Kim Possible/Ron Stoppable and then saw Toy Story characters too.



We decided to ride Star Tours next. It was 10:40 and the line wasn't long so Matt and Caroline and Carter rode and Alex and I wandered around a bit waiting for them (mostly Alex was interested in the light sabers at the gift shop).

When they came out, Caroline was not happy. We walked outside the gift shop and she was crying she had been too scared by the ride (my kids have more of a problem with the anticipation of the ride than the rides themselves). We were standing there talking to her and a member of the dream team (they are the ones that grant special prizes during the year of a million dreams) came over and asked what the problem was. When he found she was scared by the ride he apologized and said he hated to think that Disney had something that would cause her to cry. He loaded the three kids up with a ton of stickers (more to follow with those) and said he hoped she had a better day. We thanked him and started walking away. I told Matt that our fast pass time was up, but the only thing we wanted one for was Rock-n-rollercoaster. It didn't however make much sense to go to the complete opposite end of the park just for that. At this point the dream team member asked if he could give us a fast pass (Matt and I both started--we didn't realize he was still there!) So he gave us a fast pass for RNR and we again thanked him profusely and started walking. So we were trying to decide what to do, it was about 11:30 and We wanted to have lunch soon, and we had to be back over here by 12:40 to get in line for Lights Motors Action show --plus we wanted to have lunch here at Pizza Planet. The dream team guy (again--didn't realize he was still with us!) suggested the backlot tour or Muppet Vision. At this point Matt and I are trying to figure out how our party of 5 became 6--it was fine, but kind of strange at the same time--I was thinking--you are welcome to stay with us, but give us something good if you are going to tour with us!

We decided to do Muppet vision because I thought the backlot tour would be too much for the kids. I full expected the dream team member to sit with us, but he took his leave at the entrance to the theater.

Muppet vision was not a success--Matt, Carter and I liked it, but Caroline and Alex didn't like the loud noises--I was trying to figure out how many people we were going to have to crawl over to get out when the show finally was over.

We ate lunch at pizza planet--a toy story themed restaurant (Carter had declared it a must weeks before). It actually took a long time because we needed one pizza with no cheese for Alex (I thought they might have something besides pizza as an option, but other than a salad, it was all they had). The pizzas were all great though and we had fun playing a few games in the arcade afterwards.

Lights Motors Action (a car stunt show) started at 1:20 so we got in line at 12:55 and they had just started seating people. Caroline and Alex were both nervous about this, so we sat in the center section--on the very last row. We all liked the show, and even though Caroline complained that it was too loud, I saw that most of the time she was watching with a smile on her face

I talked to the kids about a Play House Disney show and watching the parade and they just said they wanted to go home. The sun was really hot that day and looking at the kids, we decided that we couldn't ask them to sit out in the sun for another hour for the parade--plus, I have now discovered that we really aren't big parade people. So we decided to have Caroline and I ride RNR and Matt would take the boys and we would meet up afterwards.

RNR was fun--Caroline loved it (did I mention she loved RNR but Muppet vision scared her?--this would soon emerge into a pattern). We called Matt after we got off and he was at a shop having a snack. We arrived at 3:30 and everyone went inside to pick out a treat. Caroline was not really paying attention and almost ran into one of the workers. She said something to Caroline and I told her to watch where she was going (for some reason I thought she had said something about paying attention, but the lady said she was fine when I said something--so I'm not sure what she said. Anyway, the worker told her happy birthday and said she needed to pick out a free happy birthday cupcake. So she did. The worker said something to the cashier then she left work. So we went to check out and the cashier got out a candle, put it in the cupcake, lit it and told Caroline to make a wish. She did and we paid for the other food and started to leave--but the cashier stopped Caroline and gave her a big mickey sugar cookie with the ears dipped in chocolate. They didn't have them out so I'm not sure what they are meant for, but Caroline was over the moon about how nice they were.

Matt really wanted to do the backlot tour so we did that to end the day.

We were all tired, but we did stop for a few minutes to play in the water shooting firetruck by the backstage tour entrance.

Family picture at the beginning of the day:


End of the day:


We left the park at 5pm and barely made it back before we fell into bed exhausted. We ate at roaring forks--well, food from there, brought up to the room. We were all in bed by 8:30.

Tomorrow: MK with the entire group!