My apologies for posting the same photograph of the gargoyles twice... not sure what went on there except middle-age-heimers.
Amy, the key to taking good photos in the Tiki Room and other dark attractions without the flash is to set the ISO on your camera really high (I used 1600) and use a wide aperture (I used about f/5.5). Otherwise, you're going to get blurry photos because you can't hold still enough. Even so, I still had a lot of blurry shots, which I won't be posting.
The blurry shots are part of the reason why we were laughing so hard on Thursday night.
So onward:
Good Trip Report, Day Two, part two: Holy $#%&! Pass the Xanax!
Jeff and I only had about 45 minutes to relax at the condo, and we could have used two hours. However, the time to check some things out at our leisure was well worth it. See, my parents and sister are all about RIDES. Today at lunch, Jeff, the girls, and I were discussing how we would have had more fun if we felt like we could just enjoy the park. However, it was all about seeing which lines were shortest and riding the most rides with my family, and the first couple days, when we all stayed together, I started to feel really frustrated because we were rushing. Day Two was one of those days, and the evening was just about my breaking point.
So anyway, after our 45 minutes of R&R, we all boarded the bus to Hollywood Studios for our 5:15 reservation at Mama Melrose.
When we got there, we quickly got fast passes for RNR, then decided to just see if we could get to our table early, since the wait times for everything else would put us beyond our ADR. So, we shopped a little and waited a lot. Let me tell you, it was WORTH THE WAIT. The only one who wasn't satisfied with the meal was Jeff. He got chicken parmesagna, which came with spaghetti, and the portion was rather small for his bigger appetite. Fortunately for him, my pasta with shrimp, spinach, dried tomatoes, and broccoli, was more than I could handle and he got to finish my food.
Oh, and I had a chocolate amaretto cheesecake for dessert and it was GOOD. Nope, no food pics. I don't think I took any food pics all trip. I felt weird about that. Sorry, maybe next time...
Next it was Star Tours and let me tell you, I just LOVE the redesign! I am prone to motion sickness, though, and did leave the ride feeling slightly queasy. It could have been owing to me having a very full tummy, but maybe not. So, if you've never done Star Tours, and you're prone to motion sickness, it's not bad, but be aware that you might be somewhat affected by it.
After ST, the kids made their own light sabers - something Meghan had been saying she wanted to do ever since we told the girls about the trip last February. Meghan goes to college next year, and she'll be well protected now. I can rest easy.
And this, my friends, was the end of my easy state of mind.
We decided to walk to the RNR/ToT end of DHS to see if we should do our fast pass or ride ToT, or what.
We interrupt this trip report for a special announcement. Who designed DHS anyway? It's full of dead ends and dead spaces. The most popular attractions are put in squished-in areas, and there's a ton of wasted space. It's NOT NEARLY as efficient as MK, with its circular arrangement. The layout makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled trip report, already in progress.
Now, we didn't know this, but there were
two shows of Fantasmic scheduled that night. As we were walking in that direction, we saw a lot of people standing in the street. I figured (correctly) that it was the line for Fantasmic. We walked just to the left of that horde, and
ended up stuck between both the exiting and the queuing crowds!!!!!It was horrible. It was nerve-wracking. Meghan, who hates crowds and gets a little anxious, began to get anxious and panicky. We made a 9-person chain, walking hand-in-hand-in-...-in-hand, through the crowd. My niece, who is a short six-year-old, was frightened. And when we tried to cross over to the sidewalk, we all were separated for a few moments, which seemed like a lot longer. At that point everyone's nerves were shot. We made it to the "Traffic Pole" between RNR and ToT, and were going to get on RNR, except my niece is too short to ride it. So, my sister took her to ToT, my parents didn't do anything, and Jeff, the big kids, and I rode RNR. Mom and Paul went back to the condo at that point, and when Steph and Kate were done, Steph and the big kids rode RNR while Kate and I went down to a shop in search of a stuffed animal she had seen earlier.
That was as good as it got that night, because when everyone was done with their rides, we were all frazzled, I had had it with crowds, and I needed a drink, or a xanax, or both. So, we went back to the condo "early" (the park was open until 11 but this was about 9:30) and passed out for the night.
Here are a few photos I snapped:
Oh, guess what's going up!!! See if you can figure it out from these shots:
Those poor gargoyles look very sad though 
