Tuesday, December 14th
Hollywood Studios was opening at 8:30AM for resort guests this morning and I had to wake up to get an ILL for Rise of the Resistance,
the most important thing for us to do in HS bc that's all R really wanted to experience. I signed in on my phone and all ready to go. I was lucky enough to get a return time for 9:35AM right at 7AM. However. The app STILL wasn't allowing me to pay for it, just like what happened with Ratatouille. By the time I got my husband's iPhone and logged into the account just 10 minutes later, the earliest return window I could get was 6:25-7:25PM. To say I was mad was an understatement. Why does Disney IT always have so many danged issues?! I was still happy that I got an ILL. The plans were originally to rope drop Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway (my must do in this park) and then finish Toy Story Land. But seeing how fast ILL was selling within just 10 minutes, I decided to change plans and rope drop Rise instead. We got to the park around 7:30AM and they let us thru the gates at 7:45. We followed the masses to Galaxy's Edge.
We got into the line at 8AM. And this is where my morning went to H - E - double hockey sticks
The ride kept breaking down and the line would stop. At somepoint in the queue my bladder decided to wake up. I was torn. Do I leave the line to go to the bathroom and possibly miss getting on? Or do I hold it and possibly have a pee-mergency in the queue bc we did not know when the line was going to be back up. This little block became our friend. But also it's a reminder of my bladder's downfall as we were located behind the waterfall LOL.
Finally, I was like I have to go now. I told R to stay behind so that he wouldn't miss it and I would try to meet up with him later. Getting out of that line was an obstacle and a half. Climbing over ECVs, weaving around people, stepping over sleeping kids - I felt like I had completed an Olympic event by the time I found an opening. I asked the nearest CM where the closest bathroom was and if it would be possible to rejoin my husband. She said yes and pointed to the next CM and told me to talk to him. I went to that one, introduced myself so he would know I wasn't a line jumper, and then ran to the bathroom. And I know everyone has experienced that feeling of relief only for something to happen that interrupts the urine and causes anxiety LOL. For me, that morning, it was my husband when he told me the line was moving. OMG why???!!!!!! So I make my bladder hurry and then run back to the CM. He asked if R could videotape where he was in the line so they knew where to take me. But R didn't hear me video calling. But he answered the regular call and sent me this picture of where he was located. Then he called over another CM to escort me to the correct area.
I asked him to stop moving. The CM told me to wait next to some gates and she had to go around the long way to unlock them. She opened the door and motioned me inside. I was getting to see the backstage areas yall!!!! She told me that R was currently between 2 doors and to start walking. She opened a door that opened into a tucked away exit and we stood there waiting for R to walk past us. Less than 20 seconds later, he was walking by me. Glad I got there when I did bc we weren't too far from the loading area! And at this point I have to make a confession. I'm not a fan of Star Wars. In fact, I don't even like any of the movies. The whole franchise bores me. I do, however, like Grogu, BB8, and the other droids and creatures. But R had gotten into them and was super excited. It was now 9:15AM and we were getting ready to ride. I wasn't happy about wasting the entire extra park time waiting for a broken ride but I was happy R got a chance to ride in twice, with the ILL I had purchased for later in the day.
And I had a great view of Rey. I couldn't help but wonder to myself - how could the same company that has such crappy IT issues be the same company that can produce this?
I had watched Disney vloggers riding Rise and talking about it but I was still completely blown away by this ride! I knew my good friend back home, who is a total SW fanatic, would instantly fall in love with it. I think this part of the ride was one of my favorites. I was just expecting to be herded into a room. I didn't realize how immersive this section would be. I got some video of this part of the ride and I thought it was so neat.
R was speechless and enjoying every minute of it. Soon the door would open and we were brought here.
We had to get our pictures taken with the Stormtroopers, of course. I think R managed to get out a "wow" before we were moved to the loading area. No pictures from the rest of it but we were lucky to get seats in the front row. We loved this ride so much and were so happy we got to ride it early in the morning. However, my bladder was reminding me we had some unfinished business so we had to find a bathroom in Galaxy's Edge. I wanted to get a picture of the bathrooms but it was too busy and I didn't want to be that person lol. We were getting hungry but wanted to ride Smuggler's Run before the line got worse. If you look closely in the right corner of the picture, you will see the camera crew that was recording some TV show. I never did get to see what was filming but we did see people holding signs letting everyone know we were being recorded.
I think it turned into 40 mins right when we entered the queue. This was a slow moving queue but we finally got there. And we were lucky enough to be the pilots for our first ever ride. I knew I was going to be horrible bc of my vertigo so I was going to ask one of the people with us if they wanted to take my position as pilot but then I heard them talking about how many times they've ridden it and scores, etc and figured they could just deal with my bad piloting. R had the up/down controls and I had the left/right. We were not good yall but we had a ton of fun
We ran into Rey.
We didn't have a park map so we had no clue where we were LOL. But we ran into the filming crew again.
We did stumble across the Milk Cart and we got the blue and green milks. I preferred the green milk while R liked the blue. We accidentally found the exit to Toy Story but it was getting closer to our 11:45 ADR for the Brown Derby and didn't have time to ride anything. So we found a seat close by to finish our milks and people watch. It was getting really hot too, the park was incredibly crowded. We discussed leaving early since all we had remaining was MMRR and Rise ILL at 6:25 and come back in the evening. I was looking at the app and saw that Rise was down again. We would soon learn that it would be a repeated pattern that day. We were able to check in early for lunch and were soon seated.
Up next - Lunch at the Brown Derby, resort visits, Disney Springs, and back to HS
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