The last post had our first day at Hollywood Studios. This post will start with that same night and then finish with a character breakfast at The Polynesian the next morning. Enjoy!
There you have it. We met Mickey Mouse in person. He actually hung out with us because he’s sort of our best friend forever now.
The next post will be Magic Kingdom pics during the day, and some flake time around the hotel.
I was going to make this post everything from our first day at Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately there are about 10 million pictures from that day so I am just going with Hollywood Studios before sunset. I don’t know what that means for the next post, but frankly I don’t care right now.
I started with the film camera and switched to digital when we got to Galaxy’s Edge. I swapped back and forth a couple of times, but it was mostly digital from that point on. Here we go… there are going to be a lot of pictures here.
And that’s where we’ll leave it for now. The next post will be after the sun went down, and our breakfast with Mickey the next morning. Also, maybe some more Magic Kingdom as well. We’ll see.
This one is going to WAY over do it. You’ve been warned.
Our first visit to Magic Kingdom was first thing in the morning and we were shocked at how packed it was. We stayed for a couple of hours and then went back to the hotel for a while. My picture taking plan was to start with film and switch to digital when I burned through one roll. As it turns out, we weren’t in the park long enough for me to take 36 pictures on film so I don’t have any digital pics from that morning.
When we went back after dark though… I really went nuts. My YouTube schooling has taught me to keep the ISO setting as low as I can when using manual mode. I was struggling a little at night so I said screw it and set the ISO to auto, and then eventually just switched to auto mode and WOW can this new camera handle lights at night. It was crazy, so I went crazy with it. I took soooo many pictures. Here are mountains of them.
There was another night visit to Magic Kingdom and there will be a ton from that visit. Next up though will be Hollywood Studios. We got there early and stayed until they closed so there will be a ton of pics, including a bunch at night. I think. I might do something else instead, but that’s what I’m thinking right now.
So the photo a day challenge thing was super easy to do during the Disney World vacation. Now that we’re home I’m finding it tough. I’m still up to date, but we’ve gone from wonderful Disney views to shit like this:
Oh well.
I saw both of my parents today. It was rough. My father has been sick with a cold since leaving the hospital so we haven’t been able to bring him to see my mother. During that time my mother also tested positive for Covid, so it’s been a consistent kick in the scrotum. Today I was able to bring my father to the nursing home to see my mother. It was heartbreaking. My father was desperate to see her, but when we got there she was completely unresponsive. I was able to feed her some of her lunch, and my father held her hand, but she wasn’t really there, if you know what I mean. Over all I think the trip did help my father’s state of mind, a little at least. It was worth it even if it was hard to bare.
To pile on, the kids are gone. Harry drove back to school today. Bellana goes back to school tomorrow, but she is staying at her Dad’s tonight. Sad faces all around. Sure we had them for two full weeks during vacation, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want more time. Greed is good, as Gordon Gecko once said. Did I get that name right? Michael Douglas in Wall Street, right? Whatever.
Further bad news, my vacation is over tomorrow and I have to go back to work. Also, I have an ass load if work that has to be done with a deadline on Tuesday. Yippee! Way to plan that one out, fat boy.
On an unrelated positive note, The Last of Us series will premier on HBO tonight. A new zombie(adjacent?) show, just in time for the end of The Walking Dead. I’m looking forward to having the shit scared out of me.
We made it home last night. Barely. It was after 11:00pm. We drove for over 17 hours yesterday alone. There were two major traffic jams in Virginia that messed up our scheduling in a huge way, but we pushed through and made it home.
I feel like a total mess today. I slept through the night without issue, but today my eyes are so tired I can’t focus without effort. I have body aches and a headache and a rash on my right elbow and another rash on my left hand. I woke up with those yesterday. Maybe I was allergic to the sheets on the bed in Thursday night’s hotel room? That would be lovely.
It’s cold here, which sucks after a week plus in Florida, and we got a little sprinkle of snow over night. Hooray.
We’ve already started unpacking, and I’ve already started all of the laundry. I did a lot before we left, so it’s not the end of the world, but there’s still quite a bit left to do. I want to have actual food for breakfast, but I’m not sure if anything in the fridge is still good. I’ll check that next.
Pretty sure today and tomorrow are going to be sucky days, but at least the four of us are home safe and sound. That’s all that matters.
In closing…
I really wanted to get us across the state line into Virginia, but I didn’t get us that far. We’re in the middle of North Carolina somewhere. North of Fayetteville, but still maybe 100 miles from Virginia. The kids are in the air, flying home, as I type this. They got to the airport, through security, and onto the plane without issue. Here’s hoping things continue to run smoothly.
I was able to musically mourn the passing of one of my heroes on the day’s drive. Jen let me listen to a playlist I created that I titled Jeff Beck Memorial. It is meant to be shuffled, of course. I know I once said I was done with Spotify, but I guess I am a hypocrite. Enjoy this is you can.
Today is our last full day in the parks. We are going to split up for the first half of the day. The kids are going back to Epcot and Jen and I are going back to Hollywood Studios. After 2:00pm park hopping becomes an option so the kids are going to join us in Hollywood. We’ll blitz our way through the two Star Wars rides and the Toy Story Mania ride and the new Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad ride, then watch the fireworks show and call it a night. We’ll probably eat in there somewhere too.
Tomorrow is the real split up day. Tomorrow we’re going to have breakfast together, then the kids are going back to Magic Kingdom for a while before getting an Uber (or a Lyft, which seems more the thing ’round these here parts) to the airport. After breakfast Jen and I will hit the road home. Will we get there in 48 hours? Will we get close and then need to finish the last few miles on day three like we did coming down here? I’ll tell you when I find out for myself.
Before we worry about any of that though, one more epic day followed by one more epic morning.
Just noting that we still have not seen Tim Tracker or anyone from Disney Food Blog or any of the Disney travel YouTube channels we follow regularly. We’ve seen a few people shooting video or live streaming or whatever, but no one we recognize. Hopefully today we’ll see the Tim Tracker gang and get to say hello.
We were at Magic Kingdom until 1:00am this morning. We snuck in some sleep and are now heading over to Epcot again.
The kids are a smidge under the weather with a stomach thing so it could be a quiet day for us. We will see.
ADDENDUM: Jen and I are in line for Spaceship Earth. We are heading into the big giant Epcot golf ball looking thing!
Wow… yesterday kicked my ass.
Jen and I left the resort to go to Hollywood Studios at a little before 8:00am. We got there before the park opened, but in time for early entry for resort guests. Yeah… privilege. The kids met up with us an little while later. They were running the Disney World Marathon so we got to see a bunch of runners on the course on the way in. That was really cool.
We did my three favorite rides, Rise of the Resistance (Star Wars), Smugglers Run (also Star Wars), and Toy Story Mania (not Star Wars). We also rode the new Mickey and Minnie’s Run Away Rail Road which sits pretty close to my list of favorite rides too. Also, Star Tours (Star Wars). I must have ridden that ride on some previous trip, but I really couldn’t remember it. Guess I’m gettin’ old.
Speaking of old, we didn’t get back to our room until about 11:00pm and I went straight to sleep. I didn’t even wait for my watch to charge so I could track sleep stats. It was insane. I was so thoroughly tired I couldn’t function anymore.
Today we are going over to the Polynesian, our first Disney resort from 2019, for a character breakfast. My camera batter is charging because I didn’t stay awake long enough to charge it last night. It will be fine though. After that we’re going back to Magic Kingdom for the morning. We have tickets to an after close event there late tonight so we’ll probably spend the afternoon resting up in the hotel room. We’ll be out until around 1:00am tonight having Magic Kingdom virtually to ourselves.
As of right now though, it’s 6:47am and I am the only one of us awake. I’m typing this in the dark while waiting for the gigantic image files from my Z5 to upload to Flickr. It’s gonna take a while.
Inside the Red Head's Head 