At Hollywood Studios the next day, we again took advantage of morning Extra Magic Hours to arrive early at the park and get in line for Slinky Dog again, to experience the ride during the day. Just as fun. And you could see Star Wars land shaping up over some construction walls.
After the ride, while the boys did Toy Story Mania together, I went to Guest Relations at the entrance to the park. I had reserved Memory Maker weeks in advance. It’s a photo service that allows the purchaser to download all family photos taken on rides or by professional Disney photographers scattered throughout the parks. While I had had photos taken at Animal Kingdom the day before, and while I understood it could take a day or more for the photos to arrive on my iPhone app or my online account, I had become accustomed at Disneyland for photos to arrive within the hour, so I was concerned since Saturday that maybe Memory Maker hadn’t been activated properly for my Magic Band (the RFID/NFC bands we wear on our wrists at Disney World in lieu of park tickets, room keys, and even credit cards).
So I checked in with Justin at Guest Relations, who brought me to CK at the Photo office. After they both reassured me that it’s normal for photos to take a while, they also showed me my account online, showing the photos that had been taken before and linked to my Magic Band. Thus reassured that my photos were on their way, I went back to the rides. (I also wrote some nice feedback online to Disney, complimenting Justin and CK.)
For the rest of the day, we rode Star Tours (FastPass+, and the same experience as at Disneyland), the Alien Swirling Saucers in Toy Story Land (FastPass+; essentially the same ride mechanism as Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree in Cars Land at CA Adventure), Tower of Terror (FastPass+; the original ride; in CA Adventure, it has been rethemed to Guardians of the Galaxy), and saw the Indiana Jones and Beauty and the Beast shows. Dinner was at Mama Melrose’s Italian restaurant, which was the dinner package that included special seating at Fantasmic later that evening.
At the Star Wars Launch Bay, we saw a sickening video that concentrated on Star Wars appeal solely to girls, completely ignoring the influence Star Wars has on young boys. I made a comment out loud to that effect. But later, we got to do character meetings with Chewbacca (who chided J for having an R2-D2 and C-3PO pin but no Chewbacca pin), Kylo Ren (who asked “Will you learn the ways of the Dark Side of the Force with me?” to which W replied “Yes!”), and BB-8.
Later, we saw Fantasmic and were, in fact, the first people to arrive at our reserved seating location. We got our best seats ever.
Before leaving the park, we passed by for one last ride on Toy Story Mania as a family. W finally beat my score. My arms were sore.