Dave Five - Hollywood is Calling!

It's morning again and today will be spent at Hollywood Studios. We have breakfast reservations at Whispering Canyon, right at our hotel, so we don't have to travel far this morning. I have to admit that after the big feed last night - seriously, we all rolled back to the hotel after that feed - none of us were all that hungry! The food here was pretty good, but again, we were all pretty full, so there was stuff left on everyone's plates!

This will be a new park for Erin as we did not visit it when we were here with Grampa in May. We are going to do the marathon day today and stay through for the Fantasmic show tonight. The goal will be to ensure everyone stays in good humour during the heat and the waits!!

I am a big fan of this park. I love the layout and I love the theming of it. I do have a hard time not calling it MGM though! We all travelled to the park together as two families. Jo, Chris and the boys wanted to go on the Star Wars ride, but we knew Erin wouldn't like it, so we opted to take a stroll around while we waited for them. We watched the Jedi training presentation which was pretty funny and amused Erin! We next went to the Indiana Jones special effects show, which was a favourite of Gord's last time we were here.

After the show, we decided at this point to split up. You can only imagine the different things that boys and girls want to see at Disney! Aidan and Cole weren't up to see all of the Princess things Erin wanted to see!!!

Our next stop was the Muppet 3D show - it was awesome! We next headed over to do the Backlot Studio Tour, which we loved last time Gord and I were here.

Erin then spotted Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc. and wanted to meet them. We hopped in line for a short wait and a photo opportunity! Of course, there were no autographs here, because we were told monsters hate paperwork - not the best appendages for signing autographs!!!

Erin then told us she was getting hungry - yeah, the chat yesterday sunk in!! - so we grabbed a quick snack and my new favourite drink, the raspberry frozen lemonade!! We decided to check out the line to Toy Story - yikes, not this trip I suspect!! We headed over to see Ariel's show and really enjoyed it. The shows they put on at Disney are just so well done and so professional.

We next went over to the animation centre. You can learn to draw from a Disney animator and when we told Erin about it, she had to go. There was a little show at the beginning about animation and a plug for their new movie coming out soon, Bolt. This show was followed by an interactive area. Erin got to meet Mickey again - and hardly a wait to boot!! Mickey was in his sorcerer's outfit.

Next up was the drawing class. This had to be the highlight of the day for Erin. She was in her element sitting up at the big drafting table. We all got to draw a couple of the characters from the Nightmare before Christmas. Erin was just so serious about this, and listened really closely to the animator. She was such a big girl! She was even telling Gord how he should put his pencil down!!! After the class, we got to keep our pictures and we went to the shop where Erin got to pick out an original sketch to take home - she picked a great one of Minnie out!! I picked up two when Gord and I were here 10 years ago, and they are hanging in Erin's room so a new one was very fitting!

We met up with Jo and Chris and the boys for our dinner reservation at Hollywood and Vine. This was a terrific buffet. We have really had some great meals here! We then split up again for a bit and would meet up again for the Fantasmic show.

We just chose to stroll around for a bit, then we decided to head in to save seats for the show. We had front row centre seats! Jo, Chris and the boys joined us shortly afterward. Jo got the kids all decked out with glow sticks and we sat back to enjoy the show. It was just incredible! I could not believe the special effects! I could not imagine watching images on spraying water! We did get wet, but it didn't bother any of us - the kids thought it was great!

Jo, Chris and the boys wanted to see if the line for Toy Story had reduced any, but we decided to part ways and head back. It was a long day and we were ready for some sleep. We had an early start to the next day at Animal Kingdom, so wanted to rest up!