Hollywood Studios, Jonathan Style (Feb 6, 2022)

I began my day at Hollywood Studios because Jill said that Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge was not to be missed. I gotta say, after two days of wrangling children and going where other people wanted to go, it was pretty awesome to be rolling like Han. 

As in Solo. 

Han Solo. 

Heh.

Anyhow, I headed immediately to Galaxy’s Edge and to my dismay, I learned that the Rise of the Resistance Ride was closed and there was no word if or when it would open up again!

Two days prior, while waiting with the Twins at the Winnie The Pooh ride, I learned three important facts from a helpful worker about ride closures:

1. Each ride has a dedicated maintenance team
2. As soon as there is an issue with a ride (anything from a door not closing to a weird sound coming from a vehicle), the maintenance teams is dispatched immediately to the scene
3. If the maintenance folks determine the ride is not going to open for the rest of the day, then workers will clear the line (e.g. “Hey, everyone, please leave the line area.”). However, if the maintenance team intends to open the ride again that day, then they will simply let people know the ride is closed, but will allow them to remain in line if they want (e.g. “Hey, the ride is closed and we don’t know when it will open, but feel free to hang out if you want.”)

The workers hadn’t cleared the line from the ride, so I guessed that it would open at some point. And to be honest, since I had a good audio book to listen to, I decided that waiting in line for 3 hours really wasn’t a huge sacrifice. I mean, come on! I didn’t have kids hanging off me! Standing in line with an audio book sounded great!

So, I settled in and made friends with the people behind me. We swapped pictures with each other as the line moved past some of the scenery and listened to the ambiance of the place. It really is incredible. 

After about an hour, the ride re-opened! So, I waited another few minutes in line and then got to ride Rise of the Resistance! 

Oh my word. What an amazing ride. 

I had done no research on the ride before going on it and it caught me by surprise in so many places. SO. GOOD. 

After getting off Rise of the Resistance, I headed over to the smugglers run ride and took an obligatory picture next to the Millennium Falcon. 

My 10-year old self was absolutely freaking out. And my 35-year old self, if I’m being honest. 

I got in the single rider line for Smugglers Run and got through the line in about 3 minutes. My opinion of the ride is that it’s not as good as Rise of the Resistance. It felt cramped and a bit boring, to be honest. Then again, I was an engineer and the pilots on my crew were … older, shall we say. The ride spent most of the time saying “Left Pilot: move up. Move up. Move up. Okay, you’ll get it next time. Right Pilot: move left. Move left. Darn, next time.”

I then wandered over to the milk bar and got some Blue Milk. Man, even their credit card readers were on brand. The person at the register quoted me the price in credits and asked if I wanted a transaction slip instead of receipt. 

The blue milk itself was very sweet. I was glad it came in a small glass. 

I wandered through the rest of Galaxy’s Edge and saw the lightsaber manufacturing spot and the droid making store and the market and all that stuff. The conclusion I drew is that it was all incredible and very VERY expensive. But still cool. I haven’t quite reached a mid-life crisis point where I feel the need to purchase a $219 lightsaber, but I reserve the right to get there someday. 

I then got back in line for Rise of the Resistance and while I was in line, I booked a reservation for Oga’s Cantina for 9:35 that night. I figured that if I was alone in a Disney Park I should eat somewhere fancy 🙂 

However, after I made the reservation, I checked the menu and realized … it was a bar. And an expensive bar at that with over priced pork rinds and peanuts as the only food choices. So, I attempted to cancel my reservation, but since it was a same-day thing, I had to call their support number… Anyway, let’s just say that’s what I did while I waited in line for Rise of the Resistance. 

This time through the ride, we skipped the interstitial step of riding on the transport that gets captured (and hearing from BB-8 and Rey). And I gotta say, the experience was not as good!

Anyhow, my research into Places to Eat at Disney had revealed that Ronto Roasters was a good option. So I went there and got a Ronto Wrap. And it was delicious. I immediately found a copycat recipe online and I’ve decided I will recreate it at the earliest opportunity. 

In fact, I devoured it so fast that I forgot to photograph my food (I know, I will lose a corner on my Millenial Membership Card for that), so this picture is from a food blog. 

After that, I walked over to Toy Story land and rode the Slinky Dog ride.

I then went over and rode the Hollywood Tower of Terror (thanks Lighting Lane!) and was thoroughly terrified. Twilight Zone theming is freaky. 

At this point, it was 4:30 in the afternoon and I had some choices to make. I had a park-hopper ticket, so I wanted to go check out at least one other park. I had heard that the Avatar ride at Animal Kingdom was pretty nifty, so I decided to head that direction. 

Before I left, I made a LIghtning Lane reservation for the Rock-n-Roller coaster at 8:00 PM that night. I figured I’d jet over to Animal Kingdom, ride the Avatar ride and maybe the water ride and the come back. 

So, I arrived at Animal Kingdom and it was lovely! I really would like to explore it in the future with the whole family. It even had flamingos!

I ended up waiting in line for the Avatar water ride on accident, so I went on that and then got in line for the big, main-event, this-is-an-amazing-roller-coaster Avatar ride. The line was SO LONG. I ended up waiting in line for over two and a half hours (far beyond the estimates on the Disney Apps, I will note). In the end, it was … okay. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was definitely not two hours and forty minutes good. 

Anyway, by that point it was 7:30 and I was a long ways from Hollywood Studios. So I ran to the exit of the Animal Kingdom Park, jumped some fences, and got in line for the bus to Hollywood Studios, then ran again from the bus station at Hollywood Studios to the Rock-n-roller coaster. 

In the end, I made it back to the Rock-n-roller coaster at around 8:30 (which has got to be some sort of record). 

It was an awesome ride. Like space mountain, but upside down at times. I genuinely enjoyed it a ton. 

I then booked it over to The Rise of the Resistance ride and got in line at 8:53 PM. If you’re in line before the 9:00 PM closing time, you can still ride! Woo hoo!

And it was a great way to cap off the day! The whole ride was fixed by the time I rode this last time and it made a huge difference in how enjoyable the ride was. I was lucky I got to ride it three times!

So that’s it! After that, I made my way back to the car and drove home. 

18,000 steps for the day!

Jill here. Now what did the rest of us do while Jonathan was off gallivanting? We watched movies until our eyeballs melted. And then we swam our brains out. So, basically, a kid’s ideal day.