We had reservations for Hollywood Studios on Monday, April 12, and this meant that we could try to sign up for the virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance at 7 a.m. with our apps. We all made sure to set our alarms so we could get in. Leading up to 7, we had a pretty funny group text happening, complete with excited emojis and gifs. Things like, "This is Red leader, standing by." "Blue Leader, standing by." "Red October, standing by." With a couple of minutes before 7, Dustin finally said, "Quit the chatter." I'm still laughing about this conversation. At 7, we all made an attempt, and thankfully mine went through and we were in the virtual queue! More gifs went flying. We even tapped the rhythm to the Imperial March on our squeaky floor boards so that Serene and Dustin (whose room was right below ours), would know that we were in! The only thing left to do was get our crew to the park.
We headed straight to Star Wars Land. We hopped in the line for Smugglers' Run.
I opted to take Hunter so our friends could all ride together for their first time. I found some storm troopers and Kylo Ren.
I got Hunter to take pictures with me. You can tell he was super impressed.
Meanwhile....
After every ride, especially the ones with a long line, the kids felt like it was snack time. Disney wouldn't let us eat in the lines.
It really is very cool how they designed this place.
After snacking, we got everyone to pose for a big group picture, our first one of the trip.
We saw droids.
And the raccoon from Incredibles 2 when we were in line for Toy Story Mania.
Soon it was time to head back to Star Wars Land
And take our place for Rise of the Resistance.
This ride is so amazing that I really wanted to give Dustin and Serene a chance to experience it with everyone, so I took Hunter to Mickey and Minnie's while they went on it. The first time riding it really is the best. Hunter got in a good nap while we stood in line.
They totally loved it.
After the ride, somebody found a lizard.
There were probably also snacks.
For the Rider Swap, Brian convinced Dustin and Serene to go with me so they could experience it again. He took all eight kids with him to Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad.
It was so fun to go with Dustin & Serene.
We got out earlier than Brian, so we took a couple of pictures and then found a bench to sit on while we waited.
Apparently Brian got some funny looks and some accolades taking eight kids on a ride all by himself. He looked like a hero coming out of there with seven kids flanking him and Hunter in his arms. We all went for our cameras and when we looked up, Brian was on the ground. Apparently, Gabe tripped him, and he went down. Don't worry though, he sacrificed himself to save Hunter. He really gets the award for this one.
And Toy Story Characters.
The boys and Elsie went on the Tower of Terror
Serene and I took the littles back to see Lightning McQueen and fellow racers
And we Rider Swapped Aerosmith's rollercoaster.
There were some cool pictures with the boys, but a couple of them weren't wearing their masks in the picture, so the park wouldn't release them to us. It was sad; they were awesome pictures.
Rachel, Gabe and Haven really wanted to go see the Frozen show, so I took them while everyone else went to ride one of two final rides. The Frozen show was actually pretty cool and fun.
There was even snow in the auditorium during the finale.
After the park closed, we went home.
Either the next morning or that night, we apparently watched something. Maybe is was church related? I don't know what we were doing here. It was probably the next morning because we didn't need to be to Epcot until 11.
At Epcot, we headed to Test Track. There was a bit of a curflufle with waiting in line, but it was fine. The ride was...a bit disappointing but still good. It's the same ride vehicle as Radiator Springs Racers, but they did a lot more simulation of an actual test for a car instead of racing us super fast around the race track. It was fine, just lacking in Disney Magic and heavier on education. They had cool things in the ride queue though.
We exited the ride into a Chevrolet showroom. The kids had fun looking at the cool cars.
We did Frozen, and it was awesome, once again. It's probably my favorite ride at Epcot.
We separated from our friends for lunch and ended up in the Pyramid in Mexico for The Three Caballeros ride. Inside the pyramid, we found a really cool glass blowing shop.
After exploring the pyramid, we tried to figure out where to meet up with our friends. The song "Remember Me" from Coco was playing as we were leaving Mexico, and I was just hit with the feelings of missing my dad so hard that I completely broke down. Right in the middle of Epcot. Brian pulled me into a mostly private area and held me while I sobbed. The kids were so sweet to give me hugs and maybe even cry a little with me. At least it was a pretty spot.
We had to mimic this Lion King scene:
And we explored the butterfly garden.
It was hard to capture pictures of the butterflies, but we saw this cool caterpillar.
Somehow, I ended up with my own rider swap pass to Soarin'. Nobody really wanted to go, so I went by myself. It was nice to have a bit to pull myself back together. Meanwhile, everyone else was exploring Disney Seas.
When I got off Soarin', I decided to go on the ride Living off the Land. I didn't love their narrative in some parts, but I thought the greenhouse ideas were pretty cool.
We rode Frozen again, and on the way, these cuties posed in front of Anna and Elsa.
We let the three big boys head out and do their own thing in the evening, and they surprised me by actually taking time to pose for pictures.
We got Fish n Chips for the kids for dinner, and then we took them all home and put them in bed. Then, since Epcot didn't close until 11 p.m. we adults headed back to the park for another date night.
We split up and they rode Mission Space and Brian and I rode Soarin'. We were going to go grab dinner in the world section, but by the time we made it there, there wasn't much dinner to grab. Most of the shops closed, and the ones that were still open didn't really have anything we wanted. We asked the shop in the U.S.A section if they still had Turkey legs. They didn't, but told us they still had hotdogs and pretzels. We said, "No thank you," and started to leave, but they called us back and said, "We're just going to throw these away. Do you want them for free." We got 4 Mickey pretzels and 4 hotdogs, and that was our dinner. It was not my favorite, but we felt like VIPs because we got them for free.
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