Spring Trip - Day 6 - Disney's Hollywood Studios

After a rough day yesterday, I am hoping for a much better one today. We choose the Hollywood Studios (DHS) as I will be meeting my father and my sister this evening at Downtown Disney and this park lends itself to that.

We arrive at the park, and my wife wants to look through the shops as we enter, so I find myself a spot to wait for her. While there, I watch a shell game hustler (streetmosphere) amazing the crowd. It's early afternoon, and there seems to be quite a few streetmosphere performers around today. As always they are a lot of fun to watch, and fill the time well until my wife is finished and ready to meet up with me again. (Of course, as always, the photos from today can be seen online. Here are the photos of our day at Disney's Hollywood Studios)

Once she does, we check our schedule and see that our best plan of attack is to get fastpasses for the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We have not seen this show for many years, and decide that it is something that would fit in to our plans today for a very laid back and relaxed day at the park. We get our fastpasses and there is a bit of time until we are to come back, so we head into the animation building hoping that the time works out to do a class in the Animation Academy. However, a class is just going in and it is filled to capacity, and we really don't have time to wait for the next class. We decide to hang out here anyway, however, and then go to see The Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

Since today is to be a relaxing day, we decide to see The Indiana Jones Stunt Show, and the timing is perfect as they are just letting people into the arena. We find our seats and after a short wait, the show begins. We had last seen this show back in August, but before that, like the Little Mermaid show, we had not seen it in many years. Although things have not changed in the show, it was still fun to see, and of course, continue our plan of sitting and relaxing when possible. And, of course, getting some pictures.

At this point, my wife decides that she is ready for lunch, and while we had originally planned on simply doing a counter service lunch, she asks me if I would check at Sci-Fi Dine-In and see if they will take a walk up. She reminds me to let them know that we would be perfectly okay with sitting at a table in the back and not a car if that would help get us in. I approach the podium to ask, and am told that they could take us but there will be a 20 minute wait. We are fine with that so I give in our name and get ready to wait. After only 5 minutes, we get called, and are even seated in a car. We do usually try to eat a meal here each trip down, and almost always accomplish that task.

After lunch, we decide that we will slowly make our way over to Downtown Disney where we will be meeting my father and sister later this evening. As we are leaving I get a call from my sister that they are leaving St. Augustine (where they were visiting for a few days) and should meet us in about 2 hours. We decide to head there by taking the boat to The Boardwalk and the the bus from there to Downtown Disney. My wife wants to spend some time on the boardwalk while we are there, and I find a seat in the shade and wait for her to finish looking through the stores.

When she is done, we walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus going to Downtown Disney. As you can imagine, with all the stores here (we stay at The Marketplace this time and don't walk through the former Pleasure Island or The West Side) she has plenty to do. I had told my sister that we would meet her at the bandstand in front of the World of Disney, and that is where I situate myself. A high school dance group is getting ready to perform, so I sit back and watch them while I wait both for my wife and for my father and sister. (Photos of Downtown Disney can be seen here.)

They eventually show up and my wife and sister go off for a while and I visit with my father. When they return, we have dinner at Earl of Sandwich. After dinner, my father and sister head back to my Dad's house, just south of Tampa.

Though my daughter was working on-call all day, I know that she finishes at 10:00 PM, so I text her and tell her that if she is up for it, she can meet us here and we can get some ice cream at Ghirardelli's ... something I know she is usually up for. She agrees, and when she finishes for the day, meets us here for some sundaes. We end the day with me buying some souvenirs which I will be sending to someone when we return home.

Then, it is late and time to head back to the room for the night. Tomorrow we go back to the Magic Kingdom.


Don't forget - photos of our day at Disney's Hollywood Studios can be seen here, and photos of Downtown Disney can be seen here.)