As you can see, I’m catching up on trip reports.

Sunday, May 8 – Mother’s Day.

We slept in this morning until the late hour of 7:15, and like the day before, we ate breakfast in the room (this time accompanied by some Starbucks Double Shots to give us some caffeine), dressed, and were out the door by 8:10am.  Unlike yesterday, however, we decided not to drive or take a boat, and instead walked to Hollywood Studios.  We waved to the passing Friendship boats, enjoyed watching the ducks with their babies, and raised our eyebrows at the passing joggers who looked far too tired and sweaty to truly be enjoying their hot morning runs.

Another beautiful morning in WDW.

Before 8:30 we were in line, only the 4th or 5th people deep at the turnstile.  We were let through the turnstiles by 8:40, and were at the front of the crowd awaiting the rope drop show.  Rope drop happened promptly at 9, and we joined the throngs of people headed to Toy Story Mania! Oddly, for all the horror stories I’ve heard of the TSM dash at rope drop, we both found it to be a more civilized experience than we had the day before at Epcot.

Really want to underscore the whole "beautiful day" thing.

Once arriving at Pixar Place the majority of the crowd headed for the TSM Fast Pass line, so we instead got right into the standby queue and walked right onto the ride, perhaps the 40th and 41st riders of the day.  We were both delighted to finally break 100k, and once off the ride we headed to the now clear Fast Pass machines to get a FP for 11:40am-12:40pm.  Adrenaline rush of the day over, we both leisurely stroll over to Sunset Boulevard, where CP reads on her iPhone while I ride Tower of Terror alone. The ride was a walkon and deliciously terrifying as usual.  Once off I meet up with CP, and we continue our leisurely stroll around the Studios and end up deciding to visit the Muppet dump shop (two things: 1. I hate the term “dump shop”; and 2. what happened to all the Muppets merchandise? The Muppets dump shop (AAAGH) contained mostly the same generic WDW merchandise you can find anywhere else. Sad) and browsing the backlot streets before stopping to grab a snack at Starring Rolls.

Our aimless wandering continues as a grab my zoom lens and start taking pictures of Sunset Boulevard. While sitting down to change my lens I’m approached by a survey taker, and I happily agree to take a survey, this one a fairly general one about the number of times I’ve visited, what kind of tickets I have, and whether I’m doing anything else in Orlando.

No sign of Glenn Close...

Survey completed we head over to One Man’s Dream, probably one of our favorite things to visit in all of WDW. Unlike last time, however, we decide to stay for the film, and I’m going to admit I felt some tears in my eyes – there’s something about Walt’s story and his quest for creativity and passion for storytelling that seems so imperiled today.  After the film ended we walked over to browse the store attached to the Art of Animation, and then – noticing that our Fast Pass window was open again – we returned to TSM to grab a 2nd Fast Pass, this one with a return time of 5:50pm-6:50pm.

My favorite part of One Man's Dream: Robot Abe Lincoln!

With time to kill before our 11:40am FP return, we head over to the Great Movie Ride, which was disappointing for two reasons: 1. There was actually a line we had to wait in; and 2. Our gangster was TERRIBLE. Imagine Drew Barrymore trying to be terrifying and you’ll understand how lackluster this woman’s performance was.  Oh well.

With GMR behind us, we head back to TSM to use our 1st FP, and are once again treated to a walk-on, as we hand over our FPs to the gate attendant and are immediately whisked through the right-side of the queue (the empty part next to the full left-side queue), as we are a party of two and that is apparently a hot commodity in the TSM line. (Tip: If you’re a party of two and they don’t immediately pull you out of line once you reach the Cast Member asking how many are in your party – and this is true whether you’re in the standby or FP return lines – ask if you can take the right side. Sometimes they’ll let you, and it can easily shave another 15-2o minutes of waiting!)  Another fantastic ride over, we decide it’s about time for an afternoon break and make our way out of the Studios.

Heading back to BWV from HS, I stopped to take this picture of our room. Look straight ahead, over the pool, yellow section.

We take the boat back this time as the sun is high and baking, and we get off at the Swan and Dolphin and walk back to the BoardWalk, easily beating the boat there.  I grab a beer out of our fridge and head to the balcony to call my mother and grandmother and wish them both a happy mother’s day, while CP calls her mother from inside the room and then promptly passes out for our now daily afternoon nap.  Once my phone calls are done I join her, awoken later by a call from my grandmother (had to leave a message for her earlier), so we chat until it’s time for CP and me to freshen up. Our plans for this evening involve an early dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby, a new restaurant for both of us, and chosen at CP’s request.

After a quick boat ride back to the Studios we had directly to HBD, where we check in and I am promptly wished a happy mother’s day. COME ON.  Do you see a child with me?  In any case, after taking in the caricatures in the lobby, we are quickly seated at a two-top table near the entrance near a busing station (lovely), and that is when all quickness goes away to die. Our server is Gretl, and while she is an average amount of nice, she disappears for long periods of time.  When she does appear, we order a Cobb Salad to split, and then I order the marinated half chicken and CP orders the Noodle Bowl.  The Noodle Bowl is the clear winner; my chicken is good, but the side dishes are clearly better, and I really had no interest in the half of the chicken that was dark meat.

I don't remember what drink this was, but I do know I'm so mad I didn't take the glow cube. ALWAYS TAKE THE GLOW CUBE!

For dessert, CP orders the Chocolate Three Ways, while at Gretl’s suggestion I order the Banana White Chocolate Coffee Tower. Again, CP wins this round.  In general I think CP liked this meal more than I did; while the food was certainly serviceable – dare-say even good, especially for Disney standards – the combination of poor service, high prices, and a loud dining room keeps this restaurant from being a must-do for me.  The noise was particularly disconcerting, and this was evening after I booked a pre-5pm dinner time, hoping for a quiet dining room. The restaurant’s themeing and ambiance certainly can’t be beat, however.

Dear Disney: We still need to talk about your new marketing strategy. I mean...really? Really?!

Pleasantly full, we wander back out into the blinding sun and make our way over to TSM to use our 2nd Fast Pass of the day.  This time we aren’t lucky enough to be pulled out of line and taken to the right queue, so we wait probably 15 minutes before our ride.  We easily top our previous scores, with me earning 162k.  Afterwards, we head out to Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards to browse the stores. At CP’s urging I decide to ride Tower of Terror one more time,  which was not only a walk-on, but so dead (ha!) quiet that another woman and I have an entire elevator to ourselves.  We made some awkward small talk and didn’t really scream during the drops, as it felt too weird with no one else around.

After deciding against heading to Epcot as we had planned earlier in the day, we instead, Feeling hopeful, head back to TSM to scope  out the line.  The posted wait is 40 minutes, and relying upon the Disney math that would suggest this number to be overblown, we decide to risk it. The line soon seemed like it would be at least 40 minutes, if not longer, and was made all the more annoying by the tour group who made a sandwich around us in line, singing and chanting and yelling to each other with us in the middle.  We were, however, pulled out  at the gate, so we lost the loud group and had a much shorter line overall.  We didn’t beat our scores, but left the ride content – although sporting some very sore arms.

If you squint, it's almost like the real Germany.

Changing our minds once again (insert comment about all the planning in the world here….), we head to the front of the park and see a boat approaching the Studios dock, so we break into a run to catch it and head over to Epcot.  We walk through the World Showcase picking up roughly where we left off yesterday, browsing through Italy and Germany and stopping there for some soda. We then checked out the department store in China, which has been recently renovated and is FAR nicer now than before.  Our evening ended in Norway, where we browsed, had our picture taken by the troll, and then exhausted we walked back to BWV for showers and sleeping. These rope drop days are killer!