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| One big happy family at Hollywood Studios |
Wednesday started rather abruptly. We had scheduled a fishing excursion at the
Yacht Club Resort starting at 7:00am.
The plan was to meet on the Boardwalk at 6:30am to get coffee. That’s what was supposed to happen. My alarm did not wake me up, so the room
phone rang at 6:50am and my brother was wondering if I was going with them. Darn it.
Not only did I sleep through my alarm and didn’t have time to get ready,
but the room phone woke up Ellie. Darn
it. I got ready really fast and we made
it to the boat about 10 minutes late.
Not a huge deal.
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| On our way out fishing |
Fishing at Disney is a great experience. My dad and I have done it 2-3 times before
and we have caught some good fish when we have gone. We had also gone into the World Showcase lake
at EPCOT before it was open in the past.
We were looking forward to all of these things. We had a guide that was very friendly who
took us out on a pontoon boat. Our first
stop was next to the bridge going from the Boardwalk to the Swan on the way to
Hollywood Studios. In the past we had
used artificial bait. This is what we
use at the Lake of the Ozarks and what we are used to. Instead, we used live bait: minnows.
Not just any minnows, the biggest minnows I have seen. They looked like shad, but super-sized. The guide used just a single hook, no weight
or bobber, just the minnow on a hook. We
all cast out and within a few minutes, by dad had a fish. He reeled it in and it was a good size
bass. Shortly after that, my brother had
a bite. It took a little while to get in
the boat, and it was a big fish. I would
guess 4 pounds plus. Shortly after that,
my dad caught another one. This one was
bigger than Spence’s. It had to have
been 5 pounds and the belly on this fish was huge. Then I got one. It was similar to the size of Spence’s. They were all good size fish. Then Spence got a bite. It pulled and pulled. This was a good size fish. He got it up to the boat, and it was a
turtle! He caught a big soft-shelled
turtle. We didn’t get it in the boat,
the guide cut the line instead. It was
crazy though. We caught a couple of more
bass and I caught a huge perch. It was
probably close to a pound. After about
an hour or so in this spot, we moved to another. We went further down the waterway and stopped
across from the dock at Hollywood Studios.
We didn’t catch much in this spot, but what was really interesting was
there were a lot of smaller minnows/fish in the water. As we cast our lines out, we realized our
minnows were dying. And not only dying,
they were being eaten by the smaller minnows.
They were eating their eyes first and then eating their bodies. It was very strange, and it made it difficult
to catch fish as our bait was dying shortly after being in the water. After being in this spot for about half an
hour we headed back to the Yacht Club.
Spence and I thought we would go to the World Showcase, but we stopped
close to the dock of the Yacht Club instead because the guide told us the
fishing was not very good in the World Showcase and it was where we
stopped. He couldn’t have been more
right. All three of us had bites within
a couple minutes of our line being in the water. My dad and brother both hand good size
fish. I didn’t get mine in. I didn’t see it, but from the way it pulled,
it may have been the biggest bass I’ve ever hooked. I use heavier tackle (rod, reel and line) at
the Lake of the Ozarks, and I tried to reel this fish in like I would there. The problem was, I was using a lighter action
spinning rod with 10 lbs test mono. I
fought the fish for a couple of minutes and then I tried to pull him to the
surface and grabbed the line to do it and the line broke. It was a good size fish, I wish I had seen
it. That ended our excursion. It was a great experience and I really glad
we got to do it.
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| Our first stop |
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| Of course, Spence caught the first fish |
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| What a gorgeous day! |
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| Nice fish dad! |
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| I caught one too. All really nice fish. |
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Fishing across from Hollywood Studios.
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After fishing, we walked back to the Boardwalk and met the
rest of our family at the bakery for breakfast.
Our destination this morning was Hollywood Studios. We had an early Fast Pass at Toy Story Midway
Mania, so we were in a little bit of a hurry to get to the park. We finished up at breakfast and got on a boat
and headed to the Studios. We got there
and headed to Toy Story Midway Mania. A
point of contention on our walk to the ride was “where is the hat”. In front of the Chinese Theater at the
Studios, there used to be a giant Sorcerer Mickey’s Hat. Well, they removed it earlier this year. My family apparently really like the hat
because they kept asking “what happened to it?”
Well, it’s gone. So we continued
on to the ride, and it is a lot of fun.
Since we had some issues with park tickets before we left, not all of
our Fast Passes matched up. For the Toy
Story ride, my mom, dad, wife and I got to ride. My brother and his family took our daughter
and went on to meet characters. We met
up with them at the Monster’s Inc meet and they were getting their pictures
taken when we got there. I jumped in front
of the line to take pictures and got in trouble by a cast member. She told me to just tell them our group was
there and they would have let us there, instead of jumping the line and
cutting. Oops.
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| Happy Ellie at the Studios |
Next we went to ride Star Tours. They have updated this ride since the last
time we were there. They updated the
videos and the ride seemed smoother.
They have also made it so the ride is different each time and the video
shows you going to different places. We
got to ride through Kashyyk, the Wookie planet, and the Death Star. It was pretty cool. We enjoyed it a lot. And Lisa was safe because there were not any
Stormtroopers (she is scared of them J
). After Star Tours, we went to see
Muppets 3D. It is a 3D show starring the
Muppets. It has been there a long time
and has not really changed. Ellie
actually really liked it. It kept her
attention and she enjoyed playing with the 3D glasses. It was fun to see her enjoy the show. Next up, lunch.
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| Watching the Muppets in 3D |
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| Ellie's new green friend |
Lunch today was at one of our favorite restaurants: the Hollywood Brown Derby. The Brown Derby has their famous Cobb Salad,
which I have ordered every time that I have been here (which is a lot). Every one of us in our group ordered the
salad and it was fantastic. At home, one
of Ellie’s favorite meals is a Tuscan salad from Hen House. When she sees the salad at home, she starts
bouncing up and down and making happy noises.
She had the same reaction to the Cobb Salad. She loved it.
In hindsight, we probably should have got her a half salad of her own
because I think she ate about half of mine.
It was delicious.
After lunch, we split up:
my dad, brother, wife and I went to ride the Tower of Terror. While we were in line, the ride stopped
working. We had to wait a little bit,
but not too long. This ride is a lot of
fun. It is an elevator-type ride that
drops several times. We had a good
time. A little worried after lunch that
we might toss our cookies, but we made it.
We met up with the rest of the group and my brother’s family went to do
the Toy Story ride, and we went to do some shopping. We actually stopped and got ice cream first
(dad and I got Premium Mickey Bars) and then we went to the Muppets store and
the Christmas store. My mom and my wife
found a couple of items in the Christmas store, but it took forever because the
ladies ahead of them seemed to buy everything in the store. While we were waiting, I got a call from my
brother that they were going to the Frozen Sing-a-Long show. I told them we would try and meet them, but I
was sure we would get there in time. We
had about 10 minutes to get there when I talked to him and they just finished
paying for the Christmas items. We got
to the show and we were the last people they let in. They actually closed the door behind us. This show was packed. We ended up sitting in the front row to the
far right. This is a new show to us so
we didn’t know what to expect. Ellie
likes the songs from Frozen, but she doesn’t have the attention span to watch
the whole movie yet. But at home she
would clap and watch the songs when they came on. So come to find out, the show was just a
condensed version of the movie with sing-a-long versions of the songs. Ellie loved it. It was perfect for her. The show had 2 narrators that told the story
and setup the songs. They were very
entertaining for the adults. Overall it
was a good show, we were pleasantly surprised. It was a highlight for Ellie.
After the Frozen show, we decided to head back to the hotel
to take a nap. This seemed like a good
idea. After our boat ride from the
Studios to the Swan, we walked over to the Boardwalk. We got settled back into the room and put
Ellie down for a nap. She may have
napped for half an hour and then started crying. She wouldn’t go back to sleep either. Oh well, there goes nap time. I had received a text from my brother saying
that he and my dad were headed to the ESPN Zone on the boardwalk, so we headed
down there. They were watching the Blue
Jays v Rangers playoff game. It was a
crazy game. The Blue Jays ended up
winning to move on to the ALCS (that will be important later). We had a couple of drinks and a snack and
then got ready to go to the Magic Kingdom.
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| View from the Boardwalk |
Our goal was to try and go to the park to watch fireworks. It was our only opportunity as the Magic
Kingdom was running a Halloween party almost every night. So we went to wait for the bus and it seemed
to take a long time. I ended up having
fun with Ellie and Riley playing and running around in the grassy areas in
front of the bus stop. When we stopped
playing, the bus was still not there and the kids were getting anxious and
whiny. Then the melt down began. No nap and not much dinner and starting our evening at bedtime created a ticking
time bomb. The fireworks start at 10:00pm, and the kids typical bedtime is 7:30pm. Not a good idea. The bus finally showed up,
but the crying had begun. We got on the
bus and all 3 kids were crying, screaming and/or whining all the way to the
Magic Kingdom. My brother made a comment
about how they could have put our bus ride on a birth control commercial and it
would be very successful. It was the
worst bus ride you could imagine. When
we got off the bus, we turned around and got right back on the next one and
headed back to the hotel.
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| Our hotel lit up at night |
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| Playing in the grass while waiting on the bus |
When we got back to the hotel, I started getting Ellie ready
for bed and Lisa went to look for beers.
She found that the bar off the lobby sold beer to go. She got each of us a couple of beers and
brought them back to the room. When she
got back, we put Ellie down and she and I headed out to the balcony to enjoy
some peace and quiet. We got to see the
tops of the EPCOT fireworks and we listened to the Royals v Astros game through
the MLB app on my phone. This was Game 5
of the ALDS and Johnny Cueto was incredible.
Our Royals won the game and moved on to the ALCS to play the Blue
Jays. After the game, it was
bedtime. We were exhausted.
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| To go beers from the bar off the lobby |
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| Watching/listening to the Royals game on the balcony. Let's Go Royals! |
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