TechEd 2012 Orlando Day 2

I had a classic first night, time zone sleep, so after going to sleep at 10, I woke up at 12, 2, 3, 4, and finally gave up at 5am and headed to the shower. After pottering around the hotel room and trying to call home, but failing as my wife was out and about, I got in the car and headed for breakfast and the park as this would be the only full park day and it was the last Saturday of Star Wars weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. After some thinking I decided to head to Perkins at Crossroads just outside of Downtown Disney for breakfast. As I parked up it finally dawned on me that I still had no cash, as that last dollar bills had been spent on the tolls getting through from the Airport to the hotel. So I asked the woman at Perkin’s as to where the nearest ATM was as it was not 7am and I had some time to get to the studios for 8am. There is actually a drive through Bank of America ATM in crossroads, by the Pizza Uno if you need it. Breakfast was a farmers Omelette with breakfast potatoes. After food, I finally managed to get a call through to my wife and we had a quick chat, and I was off to the studios. The route was back onto I4 and then via the 192 into the main entrance to the Studios.

I parked up at 5 minutes to 8, having realised that I was not going to quite make it into the studio at rope drop as I still needed to get my tickets exchanged from a A4 email to an actual ticket. Parking was in Television 18 and I walked to the entrance rather than the tram. Guest Services did not have a queue so it only took a few minutes to get the ticket, I had purchased a 5 day park hopper through the conventionEARS site which offers discounts (and afternoon only tickets) for people who are at a convention, including those at off-site venues (like the Orange County Convention Centre).

While I was waiting for those minutes I was entertained by the Stormtroopers on the roof of the entrance way discussing the guest entering the studios.

I finally made it into the studios at 8:10 and joined the route march through the park to Toy Story Mania, this is a great ride and I decided to get the FastPass first, the queues for the fast passes had died down but that was also shown by the fact that my pass was for 10:30. The main queue was already showing 60 minutes so I retraced my steps and head to the Tower of Terror.

There was no wait for the Tower and I could walk straight on, followed by Rock and Roller coaster, which I used the single rider line and with a sneek move in the pre-show (stand at the back left of the single rider zone to be right by the door when it opens) this only had a short wait before I was shooting around the Hollywood landmarks. And that staying with the story set up in the studio pre-show is why I prefer this version to the one in Paris, but Aerosmith are getting really old and I do wonder why they can’t change the film bit and change the band.

Leaving the coaster and with still 1.5 hours till Toy Story, I headed to Darth’s mall for some star wars souvenirs. The entrance was at the right most side of the Rock and rollercoaster entrance area.

Inside the large Marquee were rows and rows of T-Shirts, picture, paintings and other merchanise. As this was the last week the dated logo’d items were 30% off, I managed to find some T-shirts for my niece and nephew, and some major pins for me.

There were also areas for guests to get photo’s with characters and whilst I was there we had a visit from C-3P0 and R2-D2.

After the money was handed over I did ask them to ship the items to the front of the park. Why carry a bag of stuff around all day, when Disney will take your money early and then move the bag to the front of the park to collect later.

On leaving as it still was not time for Toy Story Mania, a ride on the great movie ride was slotted in, especially as I had not ridden in ages. The queue took a full loop of the trailers and it looked like I was going to have to wait even longer, until at the last minute a cast member came back calling for couples, and even though he got a couple to slot into the ride vehicles my indicating that I was a solo traveller, allowed him to find me a slot in the front vehicle. Our guide was Jenny and this was also my first ride when we were taken hostage in the gangster scene, rather than the Western which is where we normally seemed to have ridden.

The ride is fun, but some of the movie references are getting a bit on the old side now and hearing these 20 year old Cast members mentioning that James Cagney is their personal favourite does just feel wrong.

Finally it was time for Toy Story, and for the first time that I had ridden it there was a queue almost immediately after you get in the door even for the fast pass line, it took a good 10-15 mins to get to the glasses point, where it became obvious that Disney were now trying to ensure that people do not queue on the stairs to the ride vehicles as that part of the queue was empty and I was soon standing on Number 6 and boarding the vehicle.

My score was 170,900 which is not too bad, and was good enough to be the best in the whole vehicle, but well short of the best of the month.

I was using Touring Plans’ lines application to see how that would fit in the various rides and attractions I wanted to do, so with very little spare time I was sent to Light’s Motor’s Action, and arrived with just a few minutes to spare, having grabbed some water and Doritos to deal with the increasing hunger as it was now 11am.

The show is a fun way to spend some time, but it is a bit slow and the setups seemed to take longer than any of the actual stunts, also we had a slight issue with the fire so that the filmed bit did not match up with the live action, showing that the filmed segments are not what you have just seen, but were re-used each day.

After the show and some park wandering, and with the heat getting hotter and hotter, I pop into the Writers stop for some air conditioning and a Carrot Cake Cookie, which is a must try if you have never had one. 2 very soft Carrot cake Cookies, with a icing sandwiched between them, they fall apart and was gone before I walked the end of the ABC Commisionary.

It was starting to get toward the Star Wars Parade, so I headed over to Hollywood Boulevard/Echo Lake to try and find a spot, but as I got close I found that Peevy’s Polar Pipeline was one of the places doing specials for Star Wars Weekends, where I could get a frozen slushy drink (I got a mix of Cherry and Coke) but in an R2-D2 Stein.

And Oh in that heat did the drink go down well. But the crowds lining Hollywood Boulevard were solid from the curb to the buildings. One of the changes since the last time I had been to star wars weekends was that the celebrities only do a very short parade route, from near the park entrance to the hat at the end of Hollywood boulevard, whereas last time it then turned left and headed all the way to Star Tours which allowed the crowds to spread out more. In the end I had to take a place just opposite American Idol, so could only just see the Celebrities and the Disney Characters dressed in Star Wars outfits, but I did have the 501^st do a full walk past.

As I now had picked up some more pins, a tree decoration and off course the R2D2 Stein, I decided to pop back to the car to drop these off before my next appointment. On exiting the gate I did see a guest that had produced their own outfit to attend Star Wars Weekends

So a wander back to the car, and another chat home and I headed back towards the ABC Sound Stage (aka Sounds Dangerous) where I had an appointment at 2pm for CARBON FREEZE ME.

Inside the Stage, they had setup a mixture of a reconstruction of the Carbonite freezing chamber from Empire Strikes Back and the actual technology they needed to get a full 3D image of my head/face to place on an 8 inch replica of the Han Solo in Carbonite. At this point I have still yet to see it as it would only be delivered in a few weeks and Disney in their ultimate wisdom wanted to charge $10 to deliver in the USA but $75 to send to the UK, so a quick call to a friend and the shipping address was moved to Washington DC.

By now the heat was overwhelming and the lack of a full lunch meant that I needed Aircon and food, so decided that as the studios were solid, and the European championships were on, it was time to leave the park again, get a friendship boat and head to the Boardwalk for the ESPN zone.

Just be aware that as this was a weekend and the place had more Europeans in it than Americans, the European championship was not important enough to get on the big screen and get audio commentary, no that was a baseball match, but we did have the 2^nd largest screen and I managed to get a seat at the bar and ordered a nice salad and a never ending coke.

I get there just as the Germany v Portugal match was starting, and as I finished the salad the rain started, so it was just sensible to keep sipping coke and watching the match till the rain stopped.

Finally as the match finished the rain looked like it was easing up, so I decided it was time to wander back to the park whilst chatting to my Wife before she went to bed, but how wrong I was on the rain. Almost as soon as I walked outside the rain restarted and got heavier and heavier. By the time I got as far as the piers at the boardwalk, it was so heavy that I took refuge under the structure where they rent out the surrey bikes and had to just wait it out for about 20 mins before it started to calm down and then stop. Disney seems to delay restarting the boats after a storm, so nothing to it but to walk back. The Walk is not that far along the side of the boardwalk resort, but after the storms it was underwater in places, so I had to tread gently to not end up with soaked feet.

Back in the park, I had missed the 2 chat shows that are laid on as part of the Star Wars weekends, and I had grabbed a fast pass for Star Tours before I had left for lunch, but the window for using it had passed, I was going to have a go and try to use it over an hour after its slot, but as I got to star Tours the fast pass queue was out of the show building, and the standby was at 60 mins. So I just grabbed another Fast Pass (for 7pm less than 90mins away – so why are people in the standby line?)

A quick watch of MuppetVision 3D, was followed by a wander into the Animation Academy, where I waited a few minutes for the next drawing class, wow what a little gem of an attraction, We sit in a class room, with an instructor. We get a pencil and a light table (a table with a light built in not an un-heavy table). We were given a choice of characters to draw with a vote for the guests to decide. And Tigger was chosen, which I was glad off as you can guess from my avatar. The instructor took his time and explained the basics. “You can only draw a circle from your shoulder not the elbow or wrist as it is the only one of those joints that actually moves in a circle.”, “Draw lightly”. The end result was a quite passable image of Tigger, which did surprise me as I am not that good at drawing, but this will be on my plan for future visits to the studios.

It was now time to head back across the studios to Star Tours and as I headed passed the hat I noticed that the crowds were already gathering for the last Star Wars Show of the day the “Hyperspace Hoopla”, so I knew I had to be quick. The new Star Tours is such a better show, and this time I finally got to ride the Pod Race, which I had not done on previous rides. And after a very quick glance around Tatooine traders, it was back to the hat to get a spot for the show as I had heard it was entertaining. And Oh is it silly, the presenters are annoying but the actual show is entertaining. The Highlight this year was the “Good Guys” including Chewbacca dancing to LMFAO’s I’m Sexy and I know it.

But the whole show is worth watching but again it needs more space and I wonder if they could move it into the Beauty and Beast stage at some point.

The Show went from 8 till 8:30 so not really enough time to get to Epcot for illuminations so Fantasmic was going to be the hope for tonight, there were going to be 2 shows, but I did decide to go for the earlier one at 9pm. So along with a large number of the other people who had also just seen the Hoopla, I headed down Sunset Boulevard. One of the advantages of being a solo travelier is that I move at my speed, and don’t have to wait for anyone else, which was lucky as by the time I got to the Fantasmic arena they were already loading the last section and even that was almost full, but I did get a seat about halfway down and about 10 people spaces from the far left hand staircase.

The Show was as good as ever but by the end I was starting to feel tired and hungry, so headed out the far exit that goes right back to the entrance to the park. It is a slight shame that no one has ever thought to theme this walk but it does give the impression that it was a last minute idea to bring people via backstage to help clear the arena. I collected the bag of Star wars merchandise that I had purchases almost 12 hours ago and was now at the collection point, and headed off to the car. One of the targets for this trip was to get a “NICE” Tinkerbelle chain and a leather wallet for me. So I decided that I would head back to the hotel via Downtown Disney to try at the “World of Disney” store for these. But first I popped into Earl of Sandwich for dinner, an All American (minus the tomato) and a cherry coke.

The a little wander around Pin Traders for some trading, accessories and another mystery box, where I got the Jessica Rabbit – “I not bad, I’m just drawn to chocolate” pin, the one I most wanted. But I drew a blank in the World of Disney, no chain, and they don’t do any wallets, where have all the nice adult stuff gone?

By now it was almost 11pm and my body was shattered, so into the car and back via the I4 to the hotel and to bed.