a Disney “week in the life”: day 4 Hollywood Studios

I didn’t intend to take a week off from the blog, but we’re still trying to catch up from vacation and work. While I have a little time tonight and the house is quiet, I thought I’d recap our day at Hollywood Studios. I have SO much to share about the cruise, but I need to get through the parks and stay on track. Spoiler alert: The cruise trumped the parks. I know, I would have told you no way prior to our cruise, but we all think so now.

Before we go there, let’s talk about the fourth day of our trip, Hollywood Studios. I need to go ahead and throw something out there, I’ve never seen a Star Wars movie. I’m not against Star Wars, we’ve just never actually sat down and watched the movies, so we didn’t even venture over to that side of the parks.

No worries though, there was plenty for these two to do! We started our day a little later because BK did a class at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. They had fun enrichment classes and she picked a flamingo class this particular morning. Then, we headed over to Hollywood Studios in time for our Fast Passes.

We started out at Disney Junior Live On Stage. If you have little ones who love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and all of the Disney Junior favorites, this is a great thing to do. Judson was enamored and sweet BK still loved it, too!

Allen’s parents bought Braylen a bubble wand, so we were showered with bubbles for the rest of the trip, and she was thrilled with all of the bubbles at the push of a button.

We grabbed a snack and headed over to Toy Story Mania for our second Fast Pass of the day. It never disappoints and my mom and I rode together while the other adults rode with the kids.

We had dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby, this was a first for us and now a favorite! Get the Cobb Salad and eat the grapefruit cake. So delicious. Our dinner came with tickets to preferred seating at Fantasmic, we love that Fantasmic dinner packages, because you don’t have to go early and wait for seats.

One super cool thing that we happened upon at Hollywood Studios was Character Palooza. We had no idea what we were doing, but I noticed people coming out of a random spot by the Rockin’ Rollercoaster while we were waiting on our Fast Pass, I walked over and saw tons of characters and very few people. Apparently, Disney World has this cool secret that many people refer to as Character Palooza. Rarely seen characters (along with a few favorites) pop-up at Hollywood Studios in different locations, cast members act like they don’t know about the even when you ask, there are no photo pass photographers, and you won’t find it on a schedule or a map. It’s pretty much the coolest thing ever, and because it’s such a secret, there aren’t lines. It doesn’t last long, but definitely be on the lookout next time you’re at Hollywood Studios. My kids met so many characters that we had never met and wouldn’t have met otherwise. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

After the characters and the Rockin’ Roller Coaster we had to see the Frozen Sing-a-long. It’s really funny and I would recommend it for all ages! Plus, if you have a Frozen lover, they can sing to their hearts content.

And what about this for a family photo? We did manage to do a few other things like The Journey of The Little Mermaid and the muppets.

Our last stop at Hollywood Studios was Fantasmic. It’s one of my favorites out of the nighttime shows.

Since Epcot had extra magic hours and no one was ready to go home, we grabbed a Fast Pass for Soarin’ and walked from Hollywood Studios to Epcot. The Boardwalk is such a cool place! Jud fell asleep on the way over, so I walked around with him while everyone else rode the ride. Our dinner was actually early in the day, so we grabbed a late night order of tacos and queso in Mexico.

We finished eating and headed back to our room for the night to get ready for our last day at the parks on Wednesday.