Day three and our final full day at Disney began, again, with us finishing off the last of the cereal and powdered milk. From there it was on to Disney-MGM studios, an amusement park built around misty, watercolor memories of Old Hollywood. It has a beautiful, quasi-'40's feel and visually is right up my alley.
Our first stop was an old stomping ground, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
While I am a ninny on any and all rides, ten years ago I'd worked myself into such a frenzy over the Tower that the reality of the ride seemed . . . mild and good natured. My fondest memory of the ride was a Rod Sterling story collection I'd picked up in the Tower gift shop in '96.
An unusual description and nerdy memory for a ride that takes you through a haunted hotel before dropping you straight down 13 stories, but there it is.
Anyhow, I didn't ride it this time.
YaYa did.
She and Lisa went on it together.
Despite all the people who gave my wife dirty looks as my 5 year old waited in line, YaYa had been itching to go on the Tower since we landed in Orlando.
Trust me, it was her choice and she loved it.
She came off the ride raving about how exciting it was, how she'd seen a car full of ghosts who had disappeared , crashing windows and mirrors, and had ridden all the way up to 'the letters' before dropping to the earth, and hard the darnest time remembering the word 'stories'.
Did I mention she LOVED it? She and her Mom are more alike than they recognize.
Meanwhile, Lu and I waited in line for Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage.
[you know, I hate to have this whole thing sound like a 'here's how we banged up Lu throughout the vacation' but my big memory of the wait, besides her eventually taking a nap in the stroller, was her flipping head over feet out of the stroller outside the restroom, falling sharply on and scraping her left shoulder]
Once the seating opened we grabbed the row just behind the sound manager.
The show was very good. Like I said once upon a time, we're a big fan of musicals. Essentially a shortened version of the Broadway show, it followed the movie close enough for the girls to follow easily.
Following seeing Lu's favorite Princess in song, we waited in line for YaYa's. I had been warned that the part live action/part animatronic/ part cartoon show was one of Disney's weaker efforts, or at the very least not fit for grown ups, but on the contrary: I found it to be very amusing and cute. A little too short, if anything.
[neat memory: a little girl vomiting in the cattle car the line was forced to wait in before the doors opened. Nifty!]
Lisa had tried in vain, as we waited in line, to secure a last minute reservation for any restaurant with bookings for Fantasmic, an allegedly fantastic laser/light/water/special effects show that closes MGM at night. We never did get to see it, and that will have to top our 'to do' list if/when we return.
When Mermaid was over the girls were starting to bug out and Lisa and I were both feeling a little let-down.
Why?
Because almost all our 'memories' of MGM from '96 were actually of Universal Studios. Kong, Earthquake, Back to the Future, etc - all Universal.
It's like going on a date with an old flame only to remember, too late, that it was her sister that was the hot one.
So we contemplated going back to the hotel, or hitting a different park. After all, we'd already knocked out The Tower, Beauty and The Beast, and Mermaid - other than Fantasmic, there was nothing left on our list.
At the last minute tho' Lisa decided to jump us into the line for the Great Movie Ride, primarily as a last 'hurrah' and because there was almost no line.
Except oopsie, the line was long as heck, but hidden from view as it wrapped around the inside of a theater showing old movie trailers (The Searchers, my Dad's favorite western, was one of them).
It went on FOREVER, and the wait was hellish as the kids continued to wig out. The only good part - as if it was even worth it - was seeing some real props from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Mary Poppins.
The ride itself started out disgustingly lame and I remember thinking "oh man, please don't let this be it. Don't let this be what we waited through THAT for".
And then a gunfight broke out with some bootleggers and a female ganster, clad in a zoot suit, hijacked our tram at gunpoint.
I should mention we were sitting right behind the 'driver' of the tram, so when this woman booted the tour guide and took over we had a gun being waved a foot or so from my kids.
Hey I know it was fake, and I know the chick wasn't really a Brooklyn Bootleggin' Gangster.
But if I'd have known it was gonna happen, I'd have certainly kept the kids a few rows back.
After that the ride picked up, going through scenes from Alien, Singing in the Rain, and the girls' favorite The Wizard of Oz.
When the ride ended we grabbed an ice cream and pretzel from a nearby refreshment stand and decided to make one more stop, at a placed called the Writer's Stop.
I had some idea it was related to writing, but it was just the standard bookstore/coffee shop. Funny, I remember being fooled the same way a decade ago.
So we just loittered for a minute.
Then we AGAIN tempted fate by joining up another line, Muppet Vision 3D.
We were fortunate in seeing a wicked temper tantrum by a 7 or 8 year old boy during the pre-show. Our own kids stayed pretty well behaved. We somehow lost two sets of 3D glasses and started the show without them, but dispatched YaYa to grab us another two sets.
The kids liked the show, but it paled in comparison to PhilHarmagic and honestly, it seems very dated compared to how it stood up in '96.
Here's a pic of the Muppet fountain outside the venue.
On the way out of the park for a much need nap we were - guess what? - sidetracked by another event, the daily parade. We got seats on the very last stretch of pavement before the parade's end, and occupied our time by trying to catch some of the super fast lizards in the nearby bush, and collecting snail shells from the same area.
The parade was pretty cool. I allowed YaYa to take most of the pics of it. Here's some of the better shots:
From there it was back to the hotel for a very late nap, as it was now nearing 4 o'clock.
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