Hollywood Studios

Today, I had my good camera with me, so we stopped for a picture of the big Disney World sign. The first day that we drove through, the Mickey Mouse had peeling paint and looked quite worn. I worried that Disney wan't all that I remembered it to be, and it was going to be run down and old. I also worried that we were really waisting a lot of money doing this. The next day, Mickey was all freshly painted. He had just had the old paint scraped off, sanded and prepped for a new paint job the day we first drove in. And I was relieved to see it was the same Disney that I remembered.....nothing ages at Disney!

The last of the 4 Disney World parks that we made it to was Hollywood Studios. It was so different than the other parks. We sat and watched a lot of shows, and rode a few rides.

We caught a street show starting up, and it was fun to see the guys continue in character, but pose funny every time someone snapped a picture.

Another "tourist " photo, just like everyone has!
I loved that the photographers didn't force us to buy their photos. They were willing to use our camera for pictures. You don't see that much anymore. You can't even get a picture with Santa these days without paying for their photographer to do it. I guess that is why people love Disney.

The kids really loved seeing the tricks of movie making when we went to the Indiana Jones stunt show, and the Lights, Action Motors stunt car show. They were both really fun to watch, and it was nice to start the morning off of our feet.

Amber and Brian really loved the Hollywood Tower of Terror, and Rockin'Roller Coaster.

The boys didn't want to ride either of those, and my head didn't feel good, so we took a minute to slow down.
I loved the Animation part of the park. I love the old classic Disney, as well as so many of the new animations, that it was fun to learn about how they are made, and how the characters are developed.

This is one of the gardens themed after a scene in Fantasia. Each of the mops is dumping a bucket of greenery and below each bucket is the same greenery growing. I would love to be able to have my garden look like that!

Just another favorite of the statues in the Animation Courtyard.

Recently, Zak has been in love with Handy Manny. We don't have the Disney channel, so I don't know where he has seen it, but he had to have this picture!

Another Animation favorite!

Again, we didn't wait in line to see Darth Goofy, and Storm Trooper Donald, but we had to snap a picture anyway.

One of the kids favorites (no line...just go play) was the Honey I shrunk the Kids playground.

As you walk in, you suddenly shrink down into the grass, and see all of the things that the little ants see.....
Or, the now, not so little ants!

On the Back lot tour, they show you how some special effects and scale models are used to make films. Then as you continue through, you see props from some of the films.
And to finish the tour, we then became part of the special effects!
A huge tanker truck exploded, and started to slip off the rocks
as a huge flash flood came down the hill at us

Les had heard about Jedi training camp from a friend, and was so excited to see it.
He was sure that he would get chosen. When he didn't, he was still very excited to watch.
We were right in the front row, and got to see Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Darth Mal, and the storm troopers up close!

And we had dinner in Pizza Planet from the Toy Story movie.

The boys loved the Muppet's 3-D Movie

I liked the Miss Piggy Statue of Liberty fountain

And this was another favorite garden statue.
Who doesn't love Snow white and the 7 Dwarfs?

We happened to be there on Star Wars weekend, which meant a lot more sightings of Star Wars characters, and when they weren't there for pictures, we took some anyway!

There were definitely things we liked and didn't like so much about each park, but they were all so different, that we never got bored.