We decided to do Thursday at MGM (aka Hollywood Studios- I cannot call it that for some reason! I grew up with it being MGM and I still say its that to this day!) Maybe I had too many expectations for MGM... its not a park that we always visit when we go to Disney. Actually, its one of the parks that we skip. The last time I had been there was spring break in 2008. We had gone with my parents, Maeve was 6 months old (Henry's age) and all we did was ride "Tower of Terror" and watch "Beauty & the Beast"- no joke- that is ALL WE DID!
Sooooooo this time around I really wanted to do EVERYTHING MGM had to offer... (well minus the very adult stuff- like the show about Walt Disney- don't get me wrong, I am Walts #1 fan, but there is no way in heck Maeve would last a second in that!) BUT we did have a pretty long to do list:
-The Little Mermaid Show
-Beauty in the Beast show
-Tower of Terror (we'd do the hand off)
-Rock & Rollercoaster (again- the hand off)
-Honey I shrunk the kids playground
-Toy Story Mania
-Playhouse Disney
-The block parade
-one American Idol show
-the Muppets 3-D
-Indiana Jones (of course- CLASSIC!)
-The Backlot tour
-The Great Movie Ride (AMAZING ride...GO!)
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Yes, as you can see, we had a LOT to accomplish. Wanna know how far we got??? We did the "Honey I shrunk the kids" playground, "The Great Movie Ride" and "The Backlot Tour." THAT'S IT. NOTHING ELSE- NADA! And of course, OF COURSE- we picked THURSDAY to go to MGM and THURSDAYS they weren't running "Spectromagic" - the only thing that I really, REALLY wanted to do at MGM. It is the most incredible show (at night) and I was DYING for Maeve to see it. The disappointment I had when I walked through the park gates and saw the big chalkboard listing all the wait/show times and seeing that not ONLY was "Spectromagic" NOT playing tonight, but also Muppet 3-D was closed down- was overwhelming- I think I got tears in my eyes. It also wasn't great to see that the wait time for "Toy Story Mania" was 70 minutes- SEVENTY minutes- WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!
We spent a few hours at MGM wandering around, trying to catch shows- we actually stood in line for "The Little Mermaid" 4 times, but each and every time we were cut off at the very end because the theater was full. The show times for the parade and other shows didn't fit in with the kids' nap schedule we had them on so we missed all that. And by the time we made it over for the fast pass distribution at Toy Story, the return time wasn't until 4:00 PM- the park closed at 6! SOOOOO bummed. The deal with not being able to catch any shows is that you'll walk a mile over to one show that is supposed to start at 11:20 lets say, you get there at 11:20 and its filled to capacity. SOOOOO instead of standing there and waiting for 45 minutes you go and do something else until the next show starts. Of course ANYTHING you do (besides standing right there and waiting next to the theater) takes more than 30 minutes. So then you find yourselves running back to the show only to find that once again, its full. This happened over and over again at each and every show we tried to see. It was SO frustrating! I'm sure you're wondering, "Well, why not just stand and wait there for 45 minutes?" To that, I'd say, "TWO kids, aged 2 & 6 months (particularly the 2 year old) do not like to stand anywhere for more than a second." It was just too hard to get Maeve to wait and stand in line- when all she wanted to do was run. So.... that's what happened :(
Like I said, we did "The Great Movie Adventure" ride- here's another heads up- its traumatic. It was traumatic for me, so imagine how our poor Maeve felt. An alien comes out of the ceiling, there's a couple of really intense shoot outs, the wicked witch from the west appears out of a poof of smoke, yeah- it's pretty intense! Maeve was um... NOT a fan.
After the movie ride, we headed over to the big playground... I (and the kids) LOVED that place! I could've hung out in there all day- except for the fact it was a madhouse. BUT, its definitely a place you should check out (if you have kids- if you don't have kids, that would be kind of odd and creepy to go and just sit in the playground... :)
Honestly, I was getting pretty frustrated with the whole missing the shows thing, and the heat index was rising by the second. I kind of made the executive decision to leave MGM early- like really, really early. We were back at our hotel for lunch :)
Wednesday is the day I believe I found another love to add to my lists of loves: The TUNA sandwich at the Pop Century hotel. AHHHHHHMAZING. From that day on, I had to have one- even if it wasn't lunch or dinner time- I just wanted one because I knew I would return to Michigan and my beloved Tuna wouldn't be there.
We spent Wed. afternoon at our hotel. We swam and discovered "Goofy's Pop Park"- one of those little water play zones for kids where water shoots out of the ground. This was ALL MAEVE wanted to do. Ever. First thing in the mornings, (and I suppose she still does, even up here in MI!) she asks to go to "Goofy's."
Wed. evening we checked out the arcade- I'm normally not really an arcady type person- but Disney arcades are awesome! The games are incredible- they're all family oriented- meaning, more than one player at each game. So we ALL (Ryan AND Henry included) had a blast doing "family bowling" and the "alien stomp" (this is the one Henry participated in! HAha- we held Henry up and let him kick at all the images- he was a pro)
All in all, it was another great day at Disney even though I was thoroughly disappointed with MGM. WITH THAT SAID, if you are going to MGM, don't worry- all you have to do is plan it out to a "T." Meaning- have a schedule and STICK TO IT. If you're supposed to see "Playhouse Disney" then sit there and wait and see "Playhouse Disney" because if you wander off trying to find something to do to fill your wait time, the show will fill up and then your entire schedule is off.
We had 7 days of park tickets and were planning on using 3 at the MK, 1 at AK, 1 at Epcot and 2 at MGM. We nixed going back there and decided on doing the MK AGAIN- 4 days at the MK and we still didn't do/see evvvvvvvverything we wanted to do (Monsters Inc., "Splash Mountain", "Country Bear Jamboree").
Alright... that sums up day 3 at Disney. I am pretty proud for continuing with such thorough posts of each day- because I don't want to forget anything :) But its time for laundry... I had to wear a pair of underwear last night that I hadn't worn since 7th grade, I swear. No joke- I have indentations on my thighs from them. Nice.
Stay tuned for "On the 4th day of disney!"
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