The First Trip Do Over Day 3-The Studios and Eating with the Fishes

Another early morning wake up for me, probably around 6am. At least this time I had my trusty mug and I could go down and get a big old cup of coffee (and then later a big cup of hot chocolate, man that stuff from those machines is pretty good. The hot chocolate, not so much the coffee.) Today's goal was again to be walking to the trusty truck by 8:30am which was no problem. We headed out to the Studios and by the time we got in about 10 til 9am they had already opened and done the rope drop (we noticed a few times this week that the park opened a little earlier than the posted time.)

We walked our way back to Rockin Roller Coaster and rode once and then decided to go ahead and ride again right away figuring it would be the shortest lines of the day. Then we headed over to Tower of Terror figuring the lines would still be super short since it was not even 9:30am...wrong. 50 min standby wait? Really? Hmm this was not going according to plan. I decided it would probably be a shorter wait later in the day (plus my head was a little funky from riding RnRC twice in a row) so we headed over to our Fast Pass for Toy Story Midway mania. Always fun! Hopefully with the addition of another track we will be able to ride this more often.

We waited in another pretty long line for Great Movie Ride (it said 40 mins but was really only about 20.) This ride bores me but LVP had never done it so we did. We finished that up and had FP for Star Tours. Man that roller coaster morning sort of did me in, halfway through Star Tours I had to just close my eyes, blech.

After that we headed to Pizza Planet for lunch, always a good choice. I love that the meal includes a small salad. We skipped the Muppets since I had seen it half a million times and I knew he wouldn't really care for it and we had a FP for the 2pm Indiana Jones Stunt show. (We had done the Lights, Cars etc show last trip so we tried this one.) It was ok, I think for him it was better since he hadn't seen it multiple times. After that we headed back to Tower or Terror and the standby line still said 50 mins. I left it up to LVP who decided we should wait and the line really only ended up being 30 mins from getting in line to boarding ride. After that we hightailed it back to the truck and back to the WL for some cocktails, resting and relaxation.

We had a 7:15 ADR for Coral Reef back at Epcot so we decided to try our hand with the buses since we had been drinking. I had allowed plenty of time but we still waited about 20 mins for a bus (even though the sign said 7 mins-it said 7 mins the whole time.) We got to Epcot and went straight to dinner. We were seated fairly close to our ADR time but the table was an odd table for two in the middle level but in the middle of what appeared to be a walkway for servers (at least that is how it felt.)

Again I asked about swapping the dessert for a soup or salad (keeping in mind their regular salad is less expensive than their dessert.) I was told the only thing I could swap for was a small garden salad with ranch. I went ahead and ordered the soup paying out of pocket and LVP ordered the small salad that they offered. It was kind of a joke of a salad, very few greens, 1 little tomato and 1 slice of cucumber with a little cup of ranch. Again I was kind of peeved. They need to remove this option from all the dining plan literature if the restaurants won't honor it. I had a fish served with a sweet pea risotto that was good. LVP had the steak, again cooked to death even though he asked for it Med Rare. It was kind of crazy and loud in there so we didn't even bother with dessert. We felt the service was pretty poor even though we ordered a total of four drinks and my soup out of pocket so they knew the tip should have been good. Oh well.

Next we walked out towards the World Showcase for Illuminations. We snuck in between two of the food and wine booths and moved a plant slightly and had a great view. That show just never gets old for me. After the show we joined the mad crush of people exiting and made our way towards the buses. After surveying the line we grabbed a cab instead. Make sure you get one that is not a big van taking people to multiple hotels. We saw cab drivers trying to do this. Cab home was $12 plus tip and worth every single penny. We were back in our room very quickly. It really takes the frustration out of the journey at the end of a long day.

Next up Day 4-Magic Kingdom and Tequila.