Day 4 (Hollywood Studios + Magic Kingdom) - February 16th, 2023 (continued)
As we entered my absolute favorite park, we were headed immediately for Tomorrowland to scan in for our Space Mountain LL. Oh my gosh, did I feel bad for S. Space Mountain has an outrageously long queue, all uphill & downhill and twists and turns, and all in the dark. About halfway through I looked back over my shoulder and noticed S was no where to be found- likely miles behind! Whoops. I swear I have one pace and one pace only. Eventually we made it on the ride - me warning S a long time ago that there is point blank ZERO way to gracefully get in or out of this ride. Like literally it's just not possible, I don't care who you are- you're going to look ridiculous. You cannot enter or exit one of these cars (rockets?) and maintain your dignity.
Uncomfortable but at least safely seated, we were ready to take off!
S had similar sentiments to Matt's feelings on this ride: did not enjoy. She said maybe if she were in the first row (where I was) and could slightly see where the twists/turns/drops were be before they happened she may have enjoyed it more, but overall her stomach did not agree with this ride. Bummer, cause it's one of my all time MK favorites!
Parental discretion advised for the following attraction photo. You are about to see an image you cannot un-see. But I'm going to share it anyway, cause YOLO
I feel like it's important to note that I am short. Like, 5'3 on a good day when I very first wake up, short. With short little legs. And my legs? MY LEGS DO NOT FIT ON THIS RIDE. How S (who I would estimate is like 5'8?) managed to scrunch her long legs in there is beyond me, because as you can see from that photo I am forced to splay mine out & look like I'm about to give birth.
After (ungracefully) debarking Space Mountain, we didn't know where J & S2 were but we knew we needed an iced coffee PRONTO. So we stood in an outrageously long line at the Joffreys cart outside Space Mountain until we were given the goods and re-joined the land of the living.
Properly caffeinated and after a brief glance at the
MDE app, we headed toward Pirates since it only had a 15 minute wait. As we passed the bathrooms, S decided to change outfits and switched to a Belle tank top (appropriate for our Be Our Guest ADR!) and Little Mermaid ears. We rode Pirates of the Caribbean via Standby (which was about 15 minutes, so the listed wait time was accurate) and again didn't receive our ride photo- which was probably a good thing because even though I know where the camera is, I AM NEVER READY. Like never, ever. And this ride was no exception, I guarantee that if/when Disney sends me back the missing ride photo I will look like this:
literally 99.9999999% of my Pirates ride photos look like this, so really we're not missing out on much. In fact maybe Disney is doing me a favor by keeping it from me? Who knows.
After Pirates it was time to redeem our 5:15 Big Thunder Mountain LL, and after the 10 mile trek into the depths of Space Mountain, I decided to be proactive and ask the CM if there was a special handicap-accessible entrance we could use? They said yes and directed us toward the exit of the ride, which was thoroughly off-putting but we did as we were told. As we approached the CM waiting for us, they asked S a series of questions ("are you able to transfer?" "are you able to walk a short distance?") and we parked her ECV there, as instructed, and waited for the most recent batch of riders to be let out and then walked the direction they came from, which brought us to the other (exit) side of the coaster tracks. It was so bizarre! I'd never done this before so I felt like every single person waiting to board was staring at us as the CM showed us where to wait and eventually which car we were to be going into.
Oh, one thing I forgot to mention- thinking back to when we were in line for Guardians, S had expressed concern about sharing a row with me, since the lap bar would have such a vast difference from her lap to mine. I explained to her that GotG doesn't have a shared lap bar, in fact the only one I could think of that did was BTMRR and that if it would make her more comfortable we could definitely be in different rows. I said that I felt the same way when I ride with my toddlers- I feel like my size vs theirs hinders their safety (even though logically I know that it doesn't). I also told her that Big Thunder is the #1 (well.. maybe #2, with Alien Swirling Saucers being #1) ride for squishing your seat-mate with every twist and turn, and so we agreed that we would sit separately for that ride. Now, fast forward to our MK day..... yeah we both forgot about that conversation until the exact moment when we went to pull down the lap bar. Ooops.
No going back now! I was the one who entered the car first (coming from the opposite direction of how guests normally enter the ride), so I was on the left hand side of the coaster.
Free tip for those riding with differing body types/sizes- put the smaller person on the LEFT hand side of the coaster! 95% of the turns were left-handed turns, where the person on the left was forced into the lap of the person on the right, so it worked out perfectly for us! Only once did my butt leave the seat and never did I feel unsafe or that I was at risk of flying out (again, thinking back to my physics class in high school I know I was never truly at risk of being ejected). Only twice did S lean into me and I could tell she did her best to not crush me, though even if she had I obviously would not have held it against her, since I was squishing her the rest of the ride
After getting off the ride, they had moved S' ECV to the regular ECV/stroller parking spot, closer to Splash Mountain (RIP). Uh, what? What was the point of asking if she could walk a short distance to get TO the ride, if they were going to move her
scooter so she had to walk a long way FROM the ride to get to it??! Seems silly, but in no time we were on our way to Be Our Guest to meet J & S2 for dinner. We checked in before the bridge and they told us that it would be about a 15 minute wait for our table to be ready, and warned us that this was a prix-fixe dining experience, which we knew. We used the time to walk around and explore the outer-parts of the restaurant (obviously not going past the host podium).
The 15 minute estimate was accurate, and soon enough we were seated in the main ballroom - so pretty!
The waiter came and handed us the menu, explaining again that this was prix-fixe (redundant, but I suppose they get angry guests all the time so they have to over-explain this aspect). The 4 of us immediately started looking at the beer/wine menu, since this was the only time we would be able to have an adult beverage in the park. The waiter stopped us in our tracks and said "don't worry about beer or wine yet, what do you want for right now? Coke? Diet Coke? Sprite?" He said it several times (maybe his way of letting us know that soda/pop was included in our 'prix-fixe'?) so S2, S, and I each ordered Cokes. J however was the last person the waiter took the order from and asked "I already know I want a beer, can I get it now?" so he ordered a Jai Alai. The waiter never again asked if we wanted wine with our dinner, which was super bizarre and none of the rest of us were served anything else to drink.
For my appetizer I ordered the French onion soup (yes I had just had some 2 nights prior at Steakhouse 71- can never have too much, IMO!), and unlike Steakhouse 71, Be Our Guest's version was decent at best. In fact I think 'decent' is a bit of a stretch. It tasted like canned Progresso soup. I was so disappointed! We all ordered the filet (all of us requesting it be cooked medium) as our entrée, and I had much higher hopes for this part of the meal.
Looks good enough, right? Unfortunately mine (and only mine) was rare. Not medium, not medium rare, but RARE. I'm talking barely seared. I actually started feeling slightly sick halfway through the meal and only was able to stomach the very edges which were the most cooked. I also had a huge tendon/vein thing in the middle of the filet which only made matters worse. My tablemates urged me to send it back but I've never sent anything back before and I wasn't about to start here, with these hard working underpaid CM! So I just placed my napkin over my plate after a few bites and considered it a loss.
Dessert was a slight improvement, but overall underwhelming as well.
The only part of the dessert I enjoyed was the macaroon. I've made 'the grey stuff' at home during one of our themed dinner/movie nights and it was 1,000x better than whatever this was- it tasted like canned Betty Crocker frosting
The truffle thing on the right was raspberry flavored and as a general rule I don't enjoy the whole fake fruit + chocolate combination so not my fav.
I hate hate hate sounding like a complainer but y'all this meal was so disappointing
I swear I didn't have super high expectations (I'd heard mixed reviews), but for almost $100 for ONE PERSON you'd think I would have left slightly happier. In addition to the less-than-ideal food situation, the meal as a whole took way longer than I expected it to. When we left the restaurant (around 7:45pm) it was dark out and the crowds had almost completely disappeared! Either left the park or was staking out their spots for fireworks, I'm sure. J and S2 had also chosen to leave the park at that point, so we said goodbye to them and made our way to Jungle Cruise- knowing we missed our LL window. We stopped by a Blue Umbrella and they were able to get us fixed up (they were SO nice!! seriously I could have chatted with those CM all day- super happy and sweet), explaining that our ADR took longer than we thought it would. LL all squared away, we rode Jungle Cruise around 8pm.
S LOVED Jungle Cruise! She laughed so hard at all of the skipper's jokes. It didn't hurt that he was cute, too
I think she wouldn't have minded staying on the boat for a second round!
After Jungle Cruise I had hoped to sneak on Seven Dwarves Mine Train since the crowds were so low I had guessed the wait time would be manageable, but as fate would have it the ride was down
As I type this I am second-guessing my memory- maybe S declined my suggestion to ride? Either way, we headed to Haunted Mansion instead which was when the fireworks began. We got to see a few bursts of the fireworks during our walk there and while weaving through the outside portion of the Haunted Mansion queue, but overall we missed the majority of them which was fine by both of us.
After Haunted Mansion (a classic!) we decided to hop in one last show for the day, so we saw Mickey's Philharmagic which was cute as usual but really made me miss the kids
It's such a hit with them, they still talk about it to this day ("remember when Donald crashed and his butt was sticking out of the wall?!"), so I snapped a picture and sent it to Matt asking him to guess where I was.
Being the true Disney Dad that he is, of course he knew right away but after my mishap that morning I don't think he shared the picture with the kids
After Philharmagic was over we wound our way through Fantasyland. I tried to convince S to go on It's A Small World which had a low wait time but no luck- she was ready for bed. 9am to 9pm though, I was still proud of her & her non-Disney stamina! I was impressed. Since she said no, instead we cut through the castle, snapping a few pics on the way:
So close & yet so far - only 2 pictures left for the day but of course I'm out of space! Curse you 10 photo limit!!! I swear only one more tiny installment and then I'm done for this day
Continued in next post