Hollywood-Epcot

Hollywood Studios, formally MGM, the park that used to have the big blue Sorcerer Hat icon, now long gone. This park has changed massively over the years. Anyone who says, Yeah I went about 10 years ago, wouldn`t recognise the place now. Admittedly the Indiana Jones show has barely changed a word or stunt in all that time, but most other attractions have changed one way or another. Tower of Terror is now the Hollywood Tower, and is now the Icon for the park. The park has become one of our favourites, even more so when you can be in bed at 8.30 and at the park entrance by 8.50 such is the advantage of living on the sky liner route. Not saying that i`ve ever still been in bed at 8.30am at Disney, but you catch my drift. Again, efficiency is the new word for entry, and with the huge huge crowds attending the parks nowadays, the days of the Rope Drop are actually a thing of the past. H.S opens at say 8am for all guests with early entry allowance, you enter and walk to your chosen first ride of the day. At that point you then start to queue. Each ride has its own specific ride time, and a start of line is usually a short distance from the ride entry. This is a nice and more orderly system than the mad and silly people running like crazy through the parks to get to their ride of choice. Hollywood is maddeningly tempting, which ride first? Thrill seekers tend to veer right for the Hollywood Tower, whilst families with squawkers (pet name for small kids) tend to make a beeline for Slinky Dog, Star Wars fans invariably target the extraordinarily temperamental Ride of the Resistance. Decisions, decisions.........

It would be lovely, especially for anyone visiting any of the Disney Parks for the first time, to be able to enter a park and just meander leisurely from moment one, savouring every second, but alas, Disney has a sad reality. It is Busy, exceptionally busy! You really do need to prioritise your rides, and get there. Beeline. (Unless of course you really do not mind spending time in long lines) For us, Slinky Dog tends to win. It has the slowest turnaround, and the longest lines all day. Tick off Slinky, and you should still be able to briskly walk to the Ride of Resistance (ROR) prior to the mass of people arriving for the official 9am Park opening. And relax. You may even consider breakfast options now as it is more than likely you skipped breaky to make the early entry on time? Hollywood, great park, but very hit and miss on the food options. We have had some great food options here, and equally some pretty poor ones as well. Once we have ridden Slinky and ROR in Star Wars, we tend to hover around here and get the Ronto Wrap, posh words for what is technically a sausage butty. Now, careful people, cos if you drink Tea, not coffee, you are pretty stuffed. They do not serve Tea!! I mean really? Boston Tea Party and all those shenanigans and they don`t serve tea?? Say what? More annoyingly you cannot ask for hot water either if you just so happen to have your own tea bag. Starbucks serves tea, back at the park entrance, as does the outlet in the Dino near the water, but with Starbucks mowed out and appallingly slow, and Dino opening at 11, you ain`t getting no cuppa for breakfast. Leaving breakfast behind, we can now really start our day. That usually means heading back to the park entrance and effectively starting again. Hollywood Tower, its time to check in. We have stayed there so often and never fails to please. You just have to turn a blind eye to all the cobwebs and dust, accept that the library has a tv, no chairs, and that the lifts are utterly appalling, but put aside all that, its just a fabulous experience. Rock n Roller Coaster? hmmm, with one bunny having back problems, one with terrible motion induced headaches, this ride tends to be missed. New this year, a Villain Show sits next door to the Rock n Roller coaster. Brilliant. Cannot tell you why as that is the whole point of the show. Each show is different and very well executed. Head off back to Toy Story Land now. Invariably the wait time for Slinky is probably running at 90mins or more, so happy in the knowledge that we managed to tick this off early, we head next to the super cute Alien Saucers. This looks so tame, yet is so much fun. Whirled around in your little buggy being driven by a little green alien, ooooo you are the chosen one..... we giggle like a couple of bunnies on a first date. Toy Story mania next, flex your muscles, put your 3D glasses on, and prepare to shoot! 4 people in a car, two facing forward, two backwards, you are on a track armed with a fixed pull string gun, and plonked in front of a 3d shooting gallery. Grab the cord and pull pull pull pull as fast as you can to launch balls at plates. Your arm will be dropping off by the time the game ends as you continually pull pull pull pull to launch those balls faster than your opponent. Not entirely certain why Mr B beats me consistently, perhaps his arm is a little more used to the pulling action....hum te tum. With Toy Story morphing into Star Wars, you can now spend as much or a little time as you like wandering this incredible themed land. It is pure Star Wars. Every inch, every step, nothing is overlooked. The music, sound effects, aircraft landing noises, droids squeaking, droid tracks, Stormtroopers marching around, for heavens sake do not get in Kylo Ren`s way as he takes no prisoners, and you will be told to remove yourselves. Little B and I found ourselves taking Go Pro video outside Oga`s Cantina when Rey ran past, she paused, begged us not to tell the Storm Troopers in which direction she was heading, asked if we had seen BB8 and to keep secret the location of the resistance rebel base, then ran off. We felt quite bemused, but as she was quickly followed by 3 Storm Troopers diligently and fiercely chasing her , `Where is Rey` they asked of us, right in our faces...we just gulped, pointed, and indicated direction of travel. Sorry Rey, we let you down. A couple of years ago, whilst in line for ROR, we were accompanied by guests in superb Star Wars costumes. They spoke not one word to us, but conducted an entire conversation amongst themselves in the language of the films. Not just for a short period either. for the entire experience! It was a little OTT, but they were delightfully committed to their love of Star Wars. They would have looked pretty silly riding Slinky, but in Star Wars they were the DB. BTW, for any fans, the Millennium Falcon is parked here, and rides may be taken. 6 people per cabin you each chose a `job` Pilots, Gunners and Engineers. Our Pilot that day was appalling and we crashed several times, but Engineer Bunny here got us back in the air pdq and saved the day. Pure Disney Magic. Near to Star Wars was the area dedicated to the Muppets, the Italian restaurant (quick little story here. My very first visit, outside this restaurant we met the sweetest little old man, with tattoos covering every inch of his wrinkled tanned face, Disney tattoos, every character you can think of was on his face, I politely asked to take his photo but he declined, said I could look as much as I liked, but please don`t take a photo, a happy memory) Pizza Planet was also around here, and other small shops. This year this whole area was in the process of demolition, hurrah, no more Muppets! Never, ever a favourite of mine, so personally I wont miss this, and I believe a whole new ride experience devoted to Monsters Inc is on it's way. Looking forward to this in the future. Weather played a huge part in our visit to Orlando this year, and affected us often. Lightening in the Area? Woof. Stop. Closed. Every ride, some indoor, mostly outdoor, stop dead. This included the Indiana Jones show. Cant say we were overly disappointed as it really has not changed a jot in 20 years. We dined at the Prime Time Cafe. A 50s mums kitchen restaurant, with simple easy food, No phones on the table please, Elbows off! Set the table! Mind your Manners! everything said in great humour and all said to inflect the theming of the restaurant, this is `mums kitchen diner, and you will eat up and behave` that sort of thing. Great food, good for a laugh, a little expensive, but we knew that. This year we had chosen 50s Prime Time as it gave us priority seating for Fantasmic. Each visit, we queue and wait for this show, it starts early and the standing at the end of a long day is tiring. The chance to `twofer` suited us well. Food and Pre booked seats with no waiting. Box ticked. Fantasmic is always a nice end to the day at Hollywood, but another new cinematic show is located outside the Chinese Theatre which houses the new Mickeys Runaway Railway Ride. Projected onto all the buildings is a montage of all Disney films and is amazing. One a live action film, the next is Animation. Fantasmic or Cinema? Much as I love Fantasmic, the projection films were a great alterative. Mickeys Runaway Railroad. Bit of a sore point, ditto the film in the nearby theatre. Starting with MRR, why on earth have they chosen to draw Mickey and Minnie, Pluto and Goofy, in such a terrible way? Very 2d, flat, and utterly awful. The same Mickeys are used on the clothing designs, and its just terrible. I am going to assume that I am not the only person to dislike this new drawn version as I`m sure I saw less clothing with these terrible designs. The Ride itself is very good, a great idea, good effects, just such a terrible shame that the imagineers swayed away from the much loved portrayal of Mickey. I asked a cast member whilst we were there `Why the new image of Mickey?` The reply was something about being drawn to match the new Mickey in Asia. Well personally I thinks that is hogwash given that we were barely able to see any image of Mickey whilst in Asia, never mind this daft flat version. This same awful Mickey is also shown in cartoon form at the nearby theatre. Quite probably the worst cartoon we have seen that had Mickey as a main character. Frozen singalong. Never thought that we would enjoy a show like this as much, but we did. The new and reimagined Little Mermaid was equally good, and an excellent improvement on the show that closed several years ago. Quick visitor tip, don`t be too keen to be at the front of the queue. By chance, the theatre had filled with not a single seat left for us, but given that it was bouncing down we decided to wait here, undercover for the next show, staying dry. First in, means moving right to the very far end seat, and thereby not able to see the full effects of the show. Little disappointed but saw enough to not feel the need to queue again for a later showing. For all its little quirks, Hollywood is a great theme park and one where we would spend many happy days.

Epcot

E.p.c.o.t Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, to give it its full title, should I feel, be treated as two very separate spaces. Epcot has changed and expanded quite massively over the years, I could quite happily go and spend many happy hours treating both these wildly different areas as very separate entities. Technically there are four areas, not two, Celebration, Discovery, Nature and the World Showcase, but with Celebration, Discovery and Nature covering one large portion of the park, and World Showcase another, two sums up the park area well. Once upon a time you would wander around the Discovery area, tick off the few available rides and attractions then pace about waiting for the World Showcase to open at 11am. Not so much anymore. There are so many more attractions in C.D.N to be explored and enjoyed, Epcot just lends it self to be the park that you could choose to spend long leisurely mornings at, afternoon of relaxing (perish the thought) then the following day, relax, (shudder) and visit Epcot World Showcase starting in the late afternoon into the evening. C.D.N Afraid I have bypassed, and will continue to bypass the extremely nauseating Mission space ride, and head instead to the fabulous Test Track. Yet again this wonderful space has been reimagined, and I have to say definitely for the better. Years ago it was a noisy garage workshop, then it became a more refined car of the future wait line, with a (sorry) slightly pointless waiting exercise of screens on which you had 2? 3? minutes (either way too long) to build your own car. choose the shape, colour, wheels yadda yadda yadda, whilst all the time my mind was thinking how many grubby fingers had used these screens prior to us. Not a fan. You then boarded the car you had `built` and test tracked it. A goodly amount of fun, but a bit silly. This years update has abandoned the silly screens, changed the waiting/queueing to a quieter sleek area devoted to the future and improvement of cars energy and power usage, and ditched the holding area all together. Now its just queue and ride. The actual ride is much the same, but the focus is very much `the future`. If you are lucky or is that unlucky, I cannot decide, to get a ride with no in car audio, mention it to the cast member and you get the chance to ride again right away. We did this, and though infinitely better with audio, whizzing around the outside test track part is fun with or without words. Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest ride at Epcot and quite brilliant. Endless amount of queuing interspersed with enough screens and `lookies` to keep you occupied, and a fabulous ride at the end. This bunny can just about cope with the spins of this ride, and the ride personally lasts exactly long enough for the nausea to stay abated. 10 more seconds and it would be Hello Breakfast, but right now, its perfect. Soarin, in the Land area. `Hello Patrick` (IYKYK) these bunnies tend to be a bit smug when we say been there, done that, climbed that, seen that, (damn, shame we couldn`t fit that into our trip @Iguazu) and Wow, we gotta go there, we love Soarin, swinging feet or no swinging feet, its a great flying experience. Living with the Land, Mrs Bunnies favourite easy ride, but one that Mr Bunny rides and naps on. One of the better rides if your are a fan of spotting those hidden Mickeys. The Land is a great place for breakfast, a lot of good choices, and they offer tea :-) Water attractions next? then head to the Seas with Nemo, and from there into the aquarium area for the fish, sharks, Turtle talk with Crush, Manatees etc. Still more? then onwards into the `Ball` itself, and the slow but personally I think interesting, Spaceship Earth. I have no idea whatsoever why it is called Spaceship earth, when it starts in the stone ages, but hey ho. You end up in `Space` so maybe that`s the connection. Still wanting more? How about the Journey of Water with Moana? or maybe you want to play with Goofy? Meet Mickey, or even go on a Journey of Imagination with Figment. My dear American friends and readers, somebody needs to enlighten me as to what on earth the draw of Figment is! The ride is just terrible and pointless, even with Disney`s modern policy of political correctness and futuristic thinking, this ride is just awful! I am sure he could be a very cute dragon, so why not make him so and improve this silly ride. There is still much more to be seen and done, but it is time now to head over to the World Showcase.

World Showcase. Another huge area that has changed and improved massively over the years. I hadn`t quite realised how much until I was looking back through old photos and noted the differences. Decision number one, Do you walk clockwise or anti clockwise? Do you start in Canada or Mexico? This year in particular we walked the World Showcase with new eyes. We have visited so many of the countries over the years, but this year we could add both China and Japan to our new found knowledge and suddenly the structures meant a whole lot more to us. Himeji Castle !!!! We have seen you with our own eyes. One day we will visit the World Showcase and Canada will be the next country that hopefully we will see with fresh eyes. Little Bunny had the one up on us here, after all she did have the pleasure of visiting Canada last year. We love the food of the World Showcase. Quite gutted this year that the Food and Wine Festival hadn`t yet started, but what we missed from the extra countries, we made up with from the existing ones. The three bunnies had a difficult time finding food we particularly enjoyed around the world, and with Asia being our last long term stay, we were ready for some great food. Apologies Asia, but afraid we are not fans of your cuisine, call us odd, call us crazy, scratch your heads and shake with disbelief, but yep, these Bunnies definitely have western bellies. The World Showcase is one of our favourite walks. Go for a 1.2 mile walk? No thanks...Fancy a walk around World Showcase? Sure thing!! Fancy walking back to Mexico? Yep, why not! We walk miles at a time as we wander the showcase. Maelstrom has been replaced with Frozen, Ratatouille now resides in Paris. Whilst both are excellent, The Rat Ride is VR and again a non starter for Mrs B. Such was our craving for some `English food` all of a sudden the lure of the Yorkshire Fish and Chip shop was too great. Oh wow, did we enjoy those fish and chips! Have we eaten there before? nope. 15 months around the real world, and it was a must. We truly love Epcot, and with so much more to see and do, both in the Land and around the World Showcase, no surprise it is a park set to repeat.