Day 3: Feb 5th 2006 Hollywood?! I Thought We Left California.

Hoooooray for Hollywood! Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh HOLLYWOOD!

Ok so I don’t know the words but I was excited to go to MGM Studios none the less. Mark was pretty sure this was going to be his favorite park. The phone rang at 7am and Mickey politely asked us to get our tushes out of bed. We were eager to start the day so we happily complied.

As we headed over the Everything Pop we noticed something was missing… The rain and clouds! It was a beautiful day with lots of blue sky. It was still very chilly but with the sun shinning on us we were filled with energy to explore a new park. For breakfast at the Everything Pop Mark and I both had the Pop Waffle with strawberries and Matt had a Breakfast Wrap (although it looked just like a breakfast burrito… do they not have burritos in Florida?!).

We rode the bus to MGM, of course. We had no problems at the gate getting in and soon we were lined up on the street waiting to get in. And MAN was it ever cold. Now to be fair, I’m always cold. The whole trip I was always the last person to take off their sweatshirt in the afternoon but the guys agreed with me… it was certainly nippy! In fact it was so cold I convinced the guys to pop into one of the shops to stay warm until we were able to go the rest of the way into the park. And like the nice (and frozen) guys they were, they agreed.


Disney’s MGM Studios!


Hooooray for Hollywood… Ok I won’t start singing again.


“Come on Mark… Would I look great in this while I’m cooking dinner for us?”

Our first stop was Rockin’ Rollercoaster! We walked right into the preshow “movie” without a wait. Now I love Aerosmith as much as the next person but we all agreed that they are just about the worst actors ever. However I did get a big laugh when Steven Tyler slipped “The Shocker” into the movie. If you don’t know what that is… Google it. But I’m not too sure what you’ll come up with so be cautious. LOL! We boarded very soon after. It was a great ride but unfortunately our speakers weren’t working to well and “Love in an Elevator” cut out about half way through the ride. Still, it was really fun.

Next we headed to Tower of Terror. I love love love their queue. I loved walking through the dilapidated and over grown gardens. Its much better than Anaheim’s outside queue although if they play music on the outside queue its not nearly as loud as at DCA and I missed hearing the creepy old music. I like our boiler room better. It seems to have a lot more detail although there were some cool things the Florida one had that we didn’t. Soon we boarded the elevator and took our ride. I’m not a fan of the 5th dimension room. I remembered that much from the first time I went to the park. Its cheesy and the elevator moves too jerky through the scene. The idea of a random drop sequence seemed really cool though but we were unimpressed by the drops themselves. Anaheim’s feel… more forceful. But the shaft effects were really cool!


Ok, sure its cute and red but nothing beats my Kia RIO!


We stopped to look at the wait time board and I laughed when I saw the picture for Star Tours. Doesn’t it look like your Star Speeder is a Winnebago with wings? LOL!

After TOT we decided to go to the Great Movie Ride. I was very excited to go on this. The building its self looks just like the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It’s very detailed and has lots of stars handprints. We didn’t take much time to look at them today but we’d be back. The ride it’s self was fun. The driver of our tour car was great. She was very energetic and seemed to be really enjoying herself. In one scene we drove through the seedy underbelly of a town and our “bus” was boarded by “Mugsy” the gangster. He was later thwarted by our brave driver. I think this was my favorite ride in MGM.


Mark swears this lion at the Great Movie Ride looks like Richard Simmons. LOL!


Beautiful!


Matt loves his Desperate Housewives.

Next we headed over to Star Tours. What a cool area outside the building! The ride itself was nothing new. Its just like the one we’ve ridden on a million times at home. I made sure to close my eyes when we jump to light speed as it makes me dizzy. We headed over to the Backlot Tour. Um… what the heck was that all about? What a disappointment. It was cold so the beginning where they would normally have guests help out to show how some effects are done (basically they dump TONS of water on them) they just told us that they normally have guests help and then just did the effects. The fire was cool though. Then we drove past some old cars (Although I admit seeing the spaceship “Max” from Flight of the Navigator was pretty cool). After the old cars we saw Catastrophe Canyon which was very cool to see. More fire and water! Then… more old junkers! Yeah! And then… the end. That was it. We made a small loop. They need to find away to utilize Catastrophe Canyon without calling it a backlot tour and without using the trams. It was a big let down. Not that we were upset enough to stop having fun. On with the show!


Mark holds on to me for dear life. What? I’m a good driver!


Good lord! What are you doing to me Matt?


Arg! We’re about to be come pancakes on the bottom of this AT-AT’s foot.


I told you it was cold!


I snapped this picture and Mark and Matt never noticed. While looking through the pictures later they were very sorry they missed the naked mermaid fountain. LOL!


Interesting part #1 on the Backlot Tour


Interesting Part #2.

After all the excitement of the Fire, water and old car show we decided to take another spin on Rockin’ Rollercoaster. And the music stayed on the whole time! This time it was “Dude Looks Like a Lady”. By this time we were all pretty hungry. Lucky for us we had Priority Seating arrangements at the 50’s Prime Time Café. YEAH!


I love this place!

In case you don’t know what this place is… it’s a restaurant themed to a 50’s household. You sit at a table that looks like a 50’s kitchen and you’re served by an “aunt” or an “uncle” or a “big brother”. You get the picture. It is such a blast because they give you a hard time about things… just like my family! Our Waiter was Cousin Manny. He warned us about putting our elbows on the table. Matt got in trouble for that a lot. I think Matt really enjoyed being the Naughty Kid. LOL! I helped out by setting the table. Mark and I ate Pot Roast (Oh it was SO good. And Mark ate his the fastest I’ve ever seen anybody eat. It was gone in 7 minutes flat!). Matt had the Stack Sandwich. He gave me his pickle because he doesn’t like them. But his pickle had this hair stuff where it came off the vine I assume. I called it Pickle Fur and I picked it off and put it on Matt’s plate. And do you know what he did? He threw it at me! But I didn’t tattle on him to Cousin Manny. Oh no! I heard someone else get in trouble for tattling earlier. I just threw it back at him and it landed in his shoe and he couldn’t find it. HA!


Mark and Matt wait in the den for “mom” to call us for dinner.


The black and white TV in the background plays old TV shows like Donna Reed and Disneyland.


Mark is cooler than the Fonz.


For some reason, Matt loved this toaster. He’s push the button down and wait patiently for it to pop back up and then he’d shout “TOAST!” and then push it down again. Cousin Manny caught him and said “This is why we can’t have nice things!”

Manny caught Matt with his elbows on the table one too many times and made him write “I will not put my elbows on the table” five times. But do you know what he did? He wrote “I like Epcot better” four times and on the last like wrote “But Many is cool.” Trying to score points. Too bad he spelled Manny’s name wrong. LOL! Matt also asked for one too many refills on his soda. Manny brought him a huge pitcher of soda. Matt was a happy camper.


Matt writes his sentences to appease Cousin Manny.


I kid you not. After already drinking 3 sodas he ended up drinking ¾ of that whole pitcher as well.


Mark and I shared a Dad’s Super Sunday. It had ice cream, caramel, fudge, M&M’s, brownies, caramel corn, whipped cream and cherries! We did not finish the whole thing.

We had extra Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom that night so after our late lunch we went took a bus to the Transportation Center and took a Monorail to MK. Wow! Those things are so huge. And so nice compared to ours. I didn’t even see duct tape holding something together once! When we got to MK we took a ton of pictures.


Look at all the beautiful space! Its so picturesque.


I do love Sleeping Beauty castle but I have to say, Cinderella Castle is pretty amazing! Its so big and very whimsical.

Brer Mark poses next to Brer Rabbit in honor of Splash.


We road the TTA again and I found out how comfy those seats are!


We went to Mickey’s Toontown Fair. BLECK!!! Ewww! Ugliest land EVER! Anaheims beats it by a loooong shot. It has the ugliest colors I’ve ever seen. Look! Matt thinks they’re Fruity Pebbles. No Matt! No!

And here is where our little story turns sad. While walking by the Rivers of America there are tons of seagulls. These suckers are everywhere. Why? I have no idea but people were ducking left and right to avoid their little “bombs”. I stopped to take a picture and a few moments later Mark is standing right next to me. I look up at him and he has the biggest pout I’ve ever seen on his face. I asked him what was wrong and he just pointed to his pants. Turns out he didn’t duck, cover and swoop fast enough and a bird gave him a big juicy present. Then he bent his head down in sadness and I saw the hood of his sweatshirt had also been attacked. Was it wrong that I laughed? I gave him a hug and we grabbed some napkins from a nearby ODV cart (which are few and far between by the way. At least in comparison to Disneyland. I like it!) and I helped him get rid of the mess.


Mark said MK lost points in his book that day because of the birds. LOL!

We went to the Tiki Room after that. I’m surprised Mark was willing to go considering his recent experience. I’m not a fan of the “Under New Management” show. I don’t really like Iago so hearing that irritating voice for 7 minutes doesn’t do it for me. They we went to catch the train in Frontier land and road it Main Street and went to get our wrist bands for Extra Magic Hours. We road Space and the TTA again. (We really liked the TTA… can you tell?) We also road Autopia where Mark was being funny and said “Step on the gas Grandma!” to a car ahead of us going slow. But he said it louder than he intended and the lady turned around to shoot us a dirty look. Ever see a 6’4 guy try to sink as low as possible into his autopia car? Pretty funny! Then the guys pulled out their collapsible tri-pods and got some truly amazing shots of Tomorrowland at night.


On the TTA again. Jebus! Look how small my hand looks next to Mark’s!


Here is Matt not watching where he is going. Two seconds later he rear ends the car in front of him. Any wonder why we call his real car at home the Baby Killer?


Awesome shot taken by Mark

We got a good spot for Wishes and watched that. I thought it was… eh. The pyro its self was huge and very pretty! And it made a lovely backdrop for the castle. But for me, it pales next to Remember… But I still really enjoyed it.


Except for that mans head in the way this is a great shot!

We ate dinner at Pecos Bills. Mark and I had BBQ Pork sandwiches and Matt had a chicken wrap. Now… Let me just say that at this meal if I had been with anyone other than Matt and Mark they would have been shocked by my lack of manners. But really!! It was all an accident. First I took a bite of my sandwich and this HUGE huge piece of pork comes out. Well now it’s half in my mouth. Do I try to cram it all in my mouth at once? Do I stuff half eaten pork back into my sandwich? You can see my dilemma. Where is Miss Manners when you need her. I didn’t know the proper protocol. So I did the best thing I could think of and I shouted (with my mouth full, mind you) “Mayday! Mayday!” And Mark took notice and just swooped in with his open mouth and ate the half hanging out of my mouth. LMAO! Now that is team work.

I wish I could say that was the end of my bad manners… but it wasn’t. So the soda was very fizzy. And I was trying to be nice and I was going to offer Mark some of my fries because he’s a lot bigger than me and therefore eats more. So… I daintily dab my mouth with my napkin that had been resting in my lap properly. I pick up a french fry demurely with my pinkie finger up and I ask very nicely “Do you want some FROYS…” Yes, I’m sad to say I burped as I was talking and it wasn’t even like I was trying to show off and do some cool trick to impress the guys. It was purely accidental. I was told the look of shock, horror and embarrassment on my face was priceless.

After that eventful dinner we watched the Country Bear Jamboree. I love that show! Mark thought the coon skin hat on top of the bears top hat was hilarious! Then Matt made us fly through the bitter cold air on a magic carpet again. We also got our picture taken with Turk and Rafiki near the Hub. I also tripped over a bench in the hub and gave my self a huge bruise on my leg. Its dark in the Hub! It was late and cold so we headed out soon after. We had to be up early for tomorrow.


Mark and I freeze our patooties off on the Magic Carpets.


Why does Matt love this ride so much??


We made friends!!!