[a throwback to a Disney trip to remember]
Chapter 19: What? It’s not called MGM anymore?
It may be called Hollywood Studios, but in my head it will always be MGM, and I still refer to it at MGM because when I went there for the first time with my brother, it was MGM, the ToT had just opened, and him and I rode it like 5 times in a row while my mom waited on a bench.
Justin and I got up and headed to the bus early today because HS had EMH in the morning, and we wanted to try to beat the crowd for the one ride we didn’t have a FP for.
I should preface this by saying I really don’t like HS. I think it’ll be AMAZING in 2021, when Star Wars land and Pixar Land are open [and the Tron coaster will be open at MK, which is why I said 2021] because they’ll be more to do. But right now, there are only 4 rides open, at a park that gets just as many visitors as the other parks, and all the people fight for those four rides, and the lines are awful and the streets are crowded, and there’s just not much to do, IMO, to have a full-day at the park. But the rides are amazing, the rides that are open [and I am sad I missed The Great Movie Ride by a few months] are probably some of the best themed and most thrilling rides at Disney World, but right now, the park itself, is in a needs improvement stage, which it is getting, it’s just going to take some time.
The first thing we did when we got to HS was go to Starbucks, which had no line, and get my HS mug to add to my collection, and then we ran over to Midway Mania because it was the only ride we didn’t have a fast pass for, and the wait was already at like 30 minutes, and that was probably the lowest it’d be all day.
As you can see, it was still a gray and cold day like every other day had been except for the first day, where we did get some sun at AK, but other than that, temps were 40ish degrees at the highest, and in the 30s, at night, and it was very cloudy and gray.
I will say this about Midway Mania. The area for the ride is so beautifully themed and detailed. It’s probably one of the most detailed queues out of all the rides we had ridden. I loved all the details and life-size toys and things.
[I used to love Tinker Toys!]
I don’t have much to say about the ride. We rode the one at Disneyland, and waited probably about 90 minutes for it. The HS version was pretty much the same. I don’t know if we got the new track or anything since I have nothing to compare it to, but Justin and I both really enjoy this ride, a lot. We enjoyed it in Disneyland, and we liked the HS version, as well.
As usual Justin kicked my butt [and I was jealous he got the cat prize], but I had better accuracy than him, so there! And he did google how to get a perfect score on this ride, and would’ve ridden it again, if the wait wasn’t over 60 minutes when we left the ride.
We decided to head to Star Tours next, passing the sad and empty Chinese Theater and took a selfie:
Then we headed to Star Tours, which had a 10 minute aka no minute wait
Justin really likes this ride. I don’t remember much about the movie we saw except I was not the rebel spy… We did get Kylo Ren, Finn, and Maz though. I think they we were really pushing “new” Star Wars because The Last Jedi had just come our a few weeks ago.
After Star Tours, we wound up in the gift shop, and met Jedi Stitch:
Apparently Jedi Stitch even has his own Instagram page. That light saber in front of Jedi Stitch the light saber that Justin built. He was the biggest little kid in the line for the “make your own light saber” in the gift shop. He also made one in Disneyland. Justin is a huge Star Wars nerd.
After that it was time to get our Fast Pass for Rock and Roll Roller Coaster, so we headed to Sunset Boulevard.
Hello ToT, I can’t wait to ride you later.
The RnRC opened way after I had been to MGM er HS, so other than the fact it’s a roller coaster, I didn’t really know much about it, so I couldn’t really warn Justin about it in any sort of way.
[Personally, I like all the interaction from the rides with the magic bands…. I know it’s sort of like 1984 and Big Brother is watching and things like that, but I think it makes the trip more fun]
I think it’s time to go to a concert.
We both loved the ride! It was amazing and awesome. Such a fun roller coaster!!! Justin even said it was one of his favorite rides on the trip [and he also said that this trip really made him overcome his roller coaster phobia].
{sorry for the quality]
I think we were both smiling in the picture.
After RnRC, we had plenty of time to kill before our lunch reservations and our next FP, so it was the perfect time…. to force Justin to see Frozen Live 
Chapter 20: Do you want to build a snowman?
It just so happened that as we were walking around, I noticed that The Frozen Sing Along was about to start, and we really had nothing better to do,so I dragged Justin to it.
Here’s some Frozen sing along spam:
The show was cute, and even Justin enjoyed it. I totally caught him singing along to “Let It Go!” Our historians [I forget their names] were hysterical, and we spent a lot of the show laughing.
We still had a bit more time to kill, so we saw Muppets 3d:
The fountain is no longer Ms. Piggy’s Garden of Sin, it is back to being a fountain.
The show was exactly as I remembered it being when I was 11 and last went to MGM. I wish they’d update it. I guess I didn’t really find it as amusing or funny because even so many years later, I knew what jokes were coming up, and it was all the same.
Random tidbit: When MGM first opened, there were supposed to be two Muppet themed attractions. One was Muppet Vision 3d, the other was supposed to be a dark ride, sort of like The Great Movie Ride, but muppet themed, however, the deal fell through after Henson died, so there was no Great Muppet Ride.
After we watched Muppets 3d, it was finally time for our lunch reservation at the Sci-Fi Drive in.
The lighting wasn’t the best for photos, but here is my meal:
A gingerbread milkshake, which was delicious.
A caprese sandwich and fries.
The sandwich was decent and the fries were yummy, but it wasn’t out of this world amazing or anything. Justin had a bacon burger, he said it was a burger, and it tasted good, but he missed his Beaches & Cream patty melt.
I enjoyed the theme of the restaurant and the atmosphere of the restaurant. I don’t think we’d go back though. I think next time, we’ll probably try another restaurant because there’s nothing really that stood out about the cuisine for us, whereas Beaches & Cream, Justin still talks about his patty melt and his ice cream.
I also felt like they tried to hurry us through our lunch. I understand it’s a very popular restaurant and a lot of people want to eat there, but we both felt extremely rushed through our meal.
After lunch, we walked around for a little while to look at HS’ Christmas decorations:
[they should’ve decorated the theater for Christmas]
Then it was finally time for the Tower of Terror…
Random Tidbit 2: From a certain angle in Morocco at Epcot, you can actually see the back of the Tower of Terror, so Disney made it so the back of the ToT blends in with Moroccan architecture, so unless you’re looking, you don’t actually know what it is.
I love ToT and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is one of my favorite rides in all of the Disney Parks and may even be number 1 on my list. Justin does not enjoy it as much, but will ride it with bribes. I bribed him with a mickey pretzel and/or mickey ice cream pop to ride it with me.
From the top of the tower, when the doors open, I got a really good view of the construction for Toy Story land. The slinky dog coaster looks like it’s going to be a good ride.
After ToT, we decided to leave HS, I was extremely exhausted, and just wanted to take a nap. The park was super crowded, all the attractions had waits so long that it would take hours to reride any of them, and neither of us saw a point in staying any longer.
So we took the bus back to Pop Century, picked up a few packages that had been delivered to Everything Pop, went back to our hotel, and even I fell asleep. I rarely nap and I am an awful sleeper and I suffer from bad insomnia, but I napped for several hours, so that shows just how tired I was.
A few hours later, we woke up, and got ready to go to Ohanas.
Chapter 21: Next time can we stay at a different resort?
Justin and I woke up from our naps, showered, and got ready to head over to the Polynesian, so we could have our dinner at Ohana. We took the bus to the Magic Kingdom and then rode the monorail to the Polynesian… There was some sort of technological difficulties with the monorail, and we ended up stopped at the TTC for awhile, and while we were stopped, fireworks started:
So at least there was something to watch while we were stopped.
We had given ourselves a lot of time to get to the Polynesian, so we weren’t really that concerned.
Justin loved the Polynesian. He wants to stay at a place like the Polynesian next time we go to Disney. He liked how it just seemed like one big building [little does he know that there are lots of little buildings that house hotel rooms within the Polynesian just like PC] whereas Pop was all over the place. He also liked that there was a real lobby with chairs and bars and people were just hanging out in the lobby.
He told me that next time [yay, at least he said next time] he wants to stay at a place like the Polynesian…. Only I’d hate to break it to him, but I doubt we can afford a place like the Polynesian on our teacher salaries!
We went to check in for our dinner, and the cast member gave us a pager, but warned us that they were running really behind.
Well… what else to do.. then go to the bar and kill some time…. right?
I had the Bahama Mama, and Justin had a Long Island Iced Tea.
It was SO good and I didn’t even taste the booze, which is a good and bad thing I had 2.5 of those [though I chugged the rest as our pager went off] and I was feeling good.
Justin enjoyed his Long Island Iced Teas.
I’m not even going to lie to you guys, I was not mentally there during most of our Ohana dinner, I was in a happy place, that was probably more similar to Journey Into Imagination than anything else.
I don’t remember our server’s name or anything… But he was a good server and attentive when it came to refilling drinks and things.
Justin loved the bread. He ended up ordering another bread after we finished the first bread. I chose not to inform him that the bread had coconut in it, since he despises coconut, or at least thinks he despises coconut.
I really liked the peanut butter dressing on the salad…. I liked it so much that I’ve been trying to google a copycat recipe of the aforementioned salad dressed because it was that good!!!
I found a few contenders, but have yet to try them.
The wontons were delicious. I liked the vegetables, and the noodles were so sweet and delicious. I didn’t eat chicken wings though because I don’t like things with bones and refuse to eat them, but Justin said they were good.
I think it was around then, when the entertainer called up couples, who were celebrating things, and in my drunken happy place, I mentioned we were celebrating our anniversary, so we got called up and we were given leis. We were celebrating our 7th anniversary and another couple was celebrating their first. As Justin was supposed to kiss me to put my lei on, HE REALLY KISSED ME, and I wanted to kill him, but he loved the attention…. He did the same thing at our wedding when he was supposed to feed me cake… The entertainer was like to the other couple “THAT’S what happens after 7 years of being together,” and everyone laughed.
I demolished most of my food before I remembered I was supposed to be taking pictures of it. The chicken was delicious. I wasn’t a big fan of the steak. I like my meat so rare that’s practically still mooing, and the meat was more medium than rare, but I know they probably cook it like that for safety purposes. The shrimp was delicious, and that’s what I was looking the most forward to, but I was too stuffed full of chicken and steak by the time they finally gave us shrimp, so that made me sad.
We got a little cupcake to celebrate our anniversary, it was actually the first time the entire trip our anniversary had been acknowledged by anyone even with our pins on, so that was nice.
The bread pudding was amazing, and I’m sad I was too stuffed full of other things to devour it all,but it was so freaking good!
In conclusion, we both really liked Ohana, but we felt it wasn’t the best place for just two people. There’s so much food and such, way more than two people can eat, that we felt it was more of a family or group restaurant. The food was delicious though, and eventually we’ll be back, but probably not till we have a larger group to enjoy it with, but we did enjoy it and we were glad we tried it
We got out of Ohana late since our meal had been pushed back. Our reservation had been at 9:45, and I don’t think we got seated till close to 10:15 or so because of how crowded it was, so after the meal, we hopped back on the monorail, walked to our bus, and went back to the hotel, and prepared for the next day, which was a full day at the Magic Kingdom.
