Hollywood Studios

Despite the time difference, we woke up at 7 am, sleepy and tired but unable to fall back asleep. So we decided to get things started, and went to the Hollywood Studios resort. The Star Wars area is huge and absolutely amazing, rich with detail and replicas of vehicles and structures, and we really enjoyed just walking through it. We rode two motion simulator rides, Smugglers Run and Star Tours, which were very cool and immersive but also a bit nausea-inducing for some of us. 

We needed something a bit less nauseating, so we wandered the grounds a bit, got some breakfast, and  went to two shows: a Cars movie show with a life-size (talking) Lightning McQueen replica, and a Frozen singalong. Both were campy and cute, and as usual, extremely well done in terms of actors and dialogue. We rode a Toy Story-themed ride that had you shooting at various targets as you spun around, but opted not to wait 90+ minutes for the Toy Story roller coaster.

The first of many photos in which Sebastian is humoring me. :)

Channeling his inner Olaf.

Our next ride was outside the theme park itself -- the Disney Skyliner gondola, which travels from various hotels to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. We all loved riding the gondolas and they were a nice quiet break from the crowds and noise and constant walking.

The gondola took us to the Art of Animation resort, which featured a wall of drawings showing how various characters were imagined and refined by Disney artists, and then life-size replicas of all the cars from the first Cars movie. Even though it's been years since Cars was an important part of our entertainment universe, we all found a lot of joy in seeing the way in which they'd brought the Cars landscape and characters to life.

More goofiness (and Seb humoring me...) and then we headed back on the gondola to Hollywood Studios.

For our grand finale, we had a 3pm reservation for the Star Wars Rise of the Resistance ride, in which we were cast as new recruits to the resistance who are trapped by the Empire and must escape/be rescued. For part of the ride, we walked from place to place, and then for part of the ride we were sitting in a moving vehicle that drove and spun around a mock battleship (with 3D effects, and videos, and live actors, and motion simulators. It was absolutely amazing and engrossing and by far the highlight of the rides.

We had been awake a long time at that point, and headed back to our hotel -- everyone took naps in the late afternoon to rest up before our evening adventure.