Today is the first of three days at Walt Disney World. We went to Hollywood Studios first. The Star Wars section of Hollywood Studios was under construction the last time we were here. We decided to go there first before the lines got too long. Since we did not stay on site, we had to wait for about thirty minutes before we could enter the “new” section.
After we were allowed in, we were able to get on the Rise of the Resistance ride quickly. It is an interesting place. There are many sections that help the time pass before the actual ride.
In some sections, we were entertained by holograms and animatronics. In other places, we were lead by Empire Soldiers because we had been captured. The actual ride where we escaped captivity was fun, but relatively short.
Next we went to Smuggler’s Run. We were teamed up with four other people to chase a cargo train to steal its cargo. The team had two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers. We were the engineers. We had to repair damage to our ship during our flight. We were in the back of the ship with no nearby windows. We had to focus on the buttons on the wall to repair things. It was fast paced , but the limited view was a drawback. Overall, we enjoyed it more than Rise of the Resistance.
We walked back to the older section of Hollywood Studios to go to Toy Story Mania. It is a simple ride with guns on you car to shoot at targets. We thought we had done well because we shot so many targets with a high accuracy rate. Our score was quite low compared to the high scores. Later, we learned there are just a few key targets in some remote locations that can improve your score significantly if you hit them.
We got the chance to meet some ghostly spirits in the Tower of Terror. We survived the shock of seeing ghosts and the surprise of the broken elevator.
We managed to escape without being trapped in the mansion forever!
Next we headed to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad. It was a fun ride, but not as good as the train robbery ride that it replaced.
After Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, we rode on Star Wars – The Saga Continues. It is the the Star Wars ride that was in the park before the new section was added. It is as much fun as it was before. It is even a little better because the lines are much shorter. We completed the rides we had planned for the day at the Muppets 3D show. It is similar to its predecessor, but has lost the 4D bells and whistles of blowing air and some of the sound and fury of the final battle. We finished our first round of rides by 2 pm.
We returned to Smuggler’s Run to try to improve our score. This is when we began to have difficulties. Both Rise of the Resistance and Smuggler’s Run had numerous technical difficulties in the afternoon. We were walking back and forth between the rides trying to complete a second run. We started using the single rider line to save time. On both rides, we had a least one time where the ride failed while we were on it.
We finally got a completed ride on Smuggler’s Run. We did get a better score the second time. Being the pilot was also more fun than being the engineer.
We also got a second ride on Rise of the Resistance. One time, before our completed ride, we got all the way to just before the escape ride when they had technical difficulties. It was interesting to see the cast members drop their characters and become helpful Disney staff as they led us off of the ride.
We also did a second time at the Hollywood Tower Hotel. This time the light was right for a picture of the hotel and of the hotel lobby, complete with spider webs!
During our walks across the park, we stopped for a selfie in front of the Runaway Railroad building, AKA the “Grauman’s Chinese Theatre” to the older visitors to the park. We first visited here almost 50 years ago.
With all of the walking we did during the afternoon ride attempts, it was dark before we left. We went back to see the light show at the Hollywood Tower.
Since we had done all of the rides we had planned, we decided it was time to go. We took one last ride on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad. We managed to sneak a selfie into one of our pictures of the ride.
It was a long day with a lot of walking. We got to see more of the park than we had expected to see. We thought we would need two days to see everything, but now we could schedule a day for Epcot. It would appear that early December is a good time to visit Walt Disney World. Let’s hope that holds true for the next two days.