Tag Archives | marra

February 5

We woke up this morning to see a lone ostrich roaming around outside.  Last night we saw a couple Roan Antelope as well.  After a quick bite to eat at Marra, we headed over to Hollywood Studios and were on the tram at 9:48.

Marie broke her sunglasses on Space Mountain, so she went to buy a pair of sunglasses while I went to get us Fastpasses for Toy Story Mania.I was surprised to see the Narnia attraction open, as I thought it had closed for good.

After this, we went to see the 10:15 showing of Beauty and the Beast.I don’t always watch this show, a few points of note:

• Gaston is a cross between J. Peterman and Milosh from Seinfeld
• The Beast is only 20?  He looks horrible
• Gaston should have a show on Fox news, his conservative approach to life is no less extreme than Glenn Beck
• Lumiere fell over midway through a song.  Two people in headsets came from backstage immediately to help him/her back up.They were fine, but they couldn’t get back up after falling over.
• When The Beast transforms into the Prince, he gives Belle the, “It’s me.”  Now his voice is different, and he obviously looks completely different.  I think this is a little presumptuous
• The show promotes ponytails on men.  I do not.

Following the show we waited in Standby for both Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, with both attractions only sporting a 20 minute wait.  At this point it was around 11:45, and we wanted to have an early lunch.  I walked onto Star Tours while Marie went over to the Backlot Express.  I don’t go on Star Tours that often, but figured I should have one last trip on it before it changes.  I’m not sure if this is a regular occurance but our pre-flight briefing was, “no eating, drinking, smoking, Jedi mind tricks, or crossing over to the dark side.”  I was amused.

After Star Tours I caught up with Marie again for lunch, and then we showed up 20-30 minutes early for the 12:45 showing of Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.  An odd choice of casting saw a Hawaiian/Samoan man playing the German mechanic.  They changed the script to make him simply, “The Mechanic”.

We had bad timing for Muppet Vision, but the result was getting to see the full pre-show.  After Muppet Vision we had to get ahead of the exiting crowd from the 1:20 Lights, Motors, Action show, so we went to the front of the park and went on the Great Movie Ride.  We had the gunfight, for what seems like the 47^th consecutive trip.

In a rare victory, I narrowly edged Marie on Toy Story Mania 182,000 to 179,200.  I had a very strong showing, but gave up the lead in the Little Green Men Ring Toss before the come back in Woody’s Rootin Tootin Round Up.  We had the ring eating monster in the Green Army Men scene, but I don’t think I was able to take full advantage of it, and that cost me my first chance at 200,000 points.  As we exited Toy Story Mania we saw that Luxo was finishing up a show, so we stopped and watched for a few minutes.  I think this is a fantastic addition, and I hope they continue to make additions like this in the future.

Because of an upcoming refurbishment, we wanted to go on the Backlot Tour again.  As I posted the WDW Fan Boys Twitter account, I’m hoping that this is more than a refurbishment, and that they’re prepping the area for expansion.  Having said that, if our last trip on the Backlot Tour, was far and away the most disappointing of any that I had experienced.  Marie asked me why this had a 20 minute wait when we went up to it, to which I responded, that could just be the interval which they run tours.  It turns out they were sending tours through in smaller groups every 10 minutes.  After waiting for 20+ minutes, and two groups, our first stop was the Harbor attack scene.  This is where we found that they wouldn’t be showing us the full version of the scene.  They only showed us the air cannons, bullet hits, and fire effects.  They did this a few times in an awkward sort of way, before having us move on our way.  At this point, it had started raining and we were consistently getting warnings that we would get wet on the tour.  While waiting to board the tram (Which took another 20 minutes, solely because they didn’t pull another tram forward), it was revealed to us that we would not be visiting Catastrophe Canyon.  So all in, all, the tour took the full hour that it should have, only without the two parts that it make it worthwhile.  As we left, everyone in our tour group bought ponchos, and the lady behind the counter didn’t realize that pulling all of the ponchos out from their compartment underneath her register would make a lot more sense than digging underneath her register with each and every guest.  Thankfully we were 3^rd or 4^th in line, so we didn’t have to wait in line as long as others who were also getting frustrated/impatient.

We left Hollywood Studios, and made our way over to Epcot in the rain.  We were over by Test Track by 4:40, and although they were running cars they weren’t letting guests on due to the weather.  We decided to ride Ellen’s Energy Adventure in hopes that a 45 minute trip to visit some dinosaurs would be enough time to let the rain pass.  It wasn’t, so we walked from Ellen’s Energy Adventure to Teppan Edo in Japan for our dinner reservation.

We were about 20 minutes early for our 6:00 reservation, but we were seated rather quickly.  I know it’s a cultural thing, but everyone in the Japan pavilion was extremely polite, almost apologetic that they were serving us.  As to the meal itself, our Chef, Wada did several tricks with our food and he prepared everyone a delicious meal.  I would definitely eat their again, it was an interesting experience and the food was excellent.

It had stopped raining by the time we were done with dinner.  We decided to wait 20 minutes for the next American Adventure show.  We learned some trivia while we waited, including the fact that Will Rogers’ son did the voice for the animatronic.  I’ll follow up that fact with a fact of my own – the voice of Ben Franklin is also the voice for the announcements on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  We had another host for the show that was British – this confused us, and boy did he look bitter during the Revolutionary war scenes.  Take that redcoat.  On to the show itself, I think this would be a great opportunity for Brett, Paul and myself to rip off the guys on the WDW Today Podcast, and do a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style viewing of this show.

It was getting cold, so naturally the best thing for us to do was walk all the way from The American Adventure to our car to get sweatshirts, before walking all the way back to Canada to watch Illuminations.  I got my camera out of the car, and tried taking a few shots with my tripod.  The first photo is Spaceship Earth, followed by the water at The Imagination Pavilion, and some shots of Fireworks at Illuminations.

It was Extra Magic Hours, so we took advantage and experienced Soarin’, The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Turtle Talk with Crush, Test Track and Spaceship Earth.  Having mentioned it on the show, I felt obligated to wear a Breath Right Strip on Soarin’.  Marie was embarrassed, but she didn’t get the full effect of the smells.  Who’s the sucker now?  Also, while waiting for Turtle Talk, both Marie and I took Mr. Ray’s Pop Quiz.  She got 4 out of 4 in English, I got 3 out of 4 in Japanese.  I also insisted on listening to Spaceship Earth in German.  I had both the Japanese Mr Ray certificate, and the German Spaceship Earth video sent to my e-mail address, but I have yet to receive them.  I will post them as soon as they arrive.

We left the park at around 11:30, and made our way back to the hotel.  Stay tuned for another trip report from February 6^th as we plan on visiting the Animal Kingdom.

Wait times throughout the day:
10:01 Toy Story Mania 50 minute standby, Fastpass 12:55-1:55
10:08 Tower of Terror 40 minute standby, Fastpass 10:45-11:45
10:47 Tower of Terror 20 minute standby, Fastpass 11:25-12:25 – entire wait was in the boiler room
11:15 Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster 20 minute standby, Fastpass 11:50-12:50
11:45 Star Tours 10 minute standby, actual 5 minutes
12:03 Toy Story Mania 40 minute standby, Fastpass 4:50-5:50
2:06 Great Movie Ride, 10 minute standby, actual 5 minutes
2:37 Toy Story Mania 60 minute standby, Fastpass unavailable
2:58 Backlot Tour 20 minutes
4:45 Ellen’s Energy Adventure no wait
9:22 Soarin 15 minute standby, actual 28 minutes
10:02 The Seas with Nemo and Friends 5 minutes
10:44 Test Track 20 minutes, single rider 10 minutes
11:09 Spaceship Earth 00 minutes

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