Hollywood Studios - Day 3 of parks!

Here are the boys and Eric in front of the tree outside Hollywood Studios. It's the beginning of our last day at the parks! We got there early per Tour Guide Mike (TGM) and were disappointed by the dumb opening. No Mickey here like the other two parks. This was also the only park that didn't open 15 mins before it was supposed to and the packed crowd was a little terrifying. I had visions of being trampled right as the park opened but that didn't happen.

We took off and headed straight for the Tower of Terror! Like most rides, we didn't talk about them before they happened so Ben and Cal were unaware of what this ride entailed. The cast members here ARE a little creepy and I'm fairly sure we got on one of the first rides so luckily they didn't hear any screaming. They had an inkling that it was a "scary" ride but we assured them it would be fun. Ben held on to me like a baby koala but didn't scream or cry! I think he was to scared to do anything once it started dropping! They both said they loved it after it was over...
Next we headed to the Playhouse Disney show where, to our surprise, we happened to see my brother and his family. We stopped for a group photo with Rocket outside. Seth was very happy to see this show and all his favorite Playhouse Disney characters!

We missed our next show, Little Mermaid, by minutes so Eric took off to get fast passes (FP) for the roller coaster (or maybe rode it, I can't remember which) while we took the boys to a silly little animation show as a time filler. After that we all met up for the next Little Mermaid show which Seth was terrified of. He didn't like the booming voice of Ariel's father or the sea witch. Cal liked that it rained on you during the storm portion of the show. Overrall, this was NOT the best show we saw.

My mom and I headed off to ride the Aerosmith roller coaster while Eric took the boys to a Narnia show (again, a silly little time filler). We hadn't planned on doing the adult roller coasters but it worked nicely into our schedule and with the FP we didn't have to wait AT ALL. Afterwards, we all headed off to lunch and then to...


Beauty and the Beast. This was probably my favorite of all the shows! It was really something. I think the kids really liked it too!

After, Eric, my mom, and Cal went off to use their FP for Tower of Terror AGAIN. Ben decided to skip it the second time around. He said he didn't want to see the lightening on the people which happens right before you drop. So Ben, Seth, and I decided to take a walk and secure some seats for the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. This was probably the only hiccup as far as behavior goes. It was day 3 and Seth was tired and it was around 1:30pm, nearing exhaustion and a much-needed nap...we went to sit in a bleacher-type seat row and Seth freaked out. I'm pretty sure everyone person around me thought, "Please let this woman get up and leave". But Eric and Grammy came back in the nick of time and I was able to walk with Seth up and down the stairs until right before showtime which appeased him and he did fairly well throughout the rest of the show.

After Indy, it was the perfect time to get some ice cream and grab a spot for the Block Party Bash parade. My trip advisor, TGM, told us this was the worst of all the parades but I disagreed. We got a PRIME spot and lots of the characters came right up to us. The boys loved this! Plus it was interactive dance party and well, we all know Cal, Ben, and Seth like to shake their thang!

Being silly while waiting for parade

High 5's from Woody!

Come back Jesse!

Dancing with one of the dancers

Seth had a blast!

This was nearing the end so Ben was getting into posing. A true diva here.

Pics with Lightning and Mater! Lightning would rev the engine every so often. Scared the heck out of Ben right as we were leaving. Very funny.

We also did the Muppet Vision 3D show and the Great Movie ride in the afternoon. We were getting pretty sick of the one food court in the hotel so decided to stay at Hollywood Studios for dinner and wait for the lights to come on...glad we did!

The Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights was amazing! I've never seen so many lights in my entire life. A whole street worth of buildings all lit up and real snow to boot! I think they said something like 5 million lights!

We got home at 6:30pm this last night. The older boys got some promised lemonade and arcade games for being good while Seth and I went up to get ready for bed. Seth woke up at 1am from a nightmare on our last night, no wonder with all the dark rides, scary gunshots, big dinosaurs and other stuff he'd experienced throughout the trip! But overall we had a really great trip. Tour Guide Mike was awesome. He really only steered us wrong the last day at Hollywood Studios. There's a Toy Story Mania ride that he NEVER EVEN MENTIONED which I thought was strange. We went to get a FP for it and they were gone for the day and the wait was over an hour long. So we skipped that ride but it would have been nice to do it since I'm sure the boys would have loved it.

The plane ride home went smoothly. Thank goodness for the DVD player and our new movies! Seth fell asleep for the last hour which helped a lot too! Our flights were at perfect times and we got home in time for the boys to unwind and play with toys, eat dinner, get a bath and get to bed in a timely fashion. Everyone was refreshed and ready for school this morning!

Oops, didn't see this picture here. I think they said over 100,000 lights on this tree alone!