Sadly somehow managed not to sleep well last night. How?! I've been awake most of the last 48 hours.
Mom slept in (whoa) and we barely made it to character breakfast at Cape May in time. Got my picture taken with both chipmunks, Minnie and Goofy.
Got the "Magic Hours" schedule and we are gonna do a lot of park hopping daily, I think. Like 2-3 a day to take advantage of magic hours. Weird.

I haven't been this excited in God knows how long. I'm acting like an aerobics instructor!

Today's main park: Hollywood Studios. A nicer version of California Adventure, I'd say (it's pretty similar to that main movie street there).

Loved:
* Toy Story Midway: BEST RIDE EVER. Did not remotely expect it to be so good since it's a shooter game (kinda like the one at DLand with the laser that I can't hit anything on ever). But this is so much better. I could actually hit stuff! So much fun. If I get back there again I want a repeat.
* Indiana Jones stunt show: THREE different sets in this! Of coolness! Very good work.

Liked:
* Little Mermaid show- pretty good for a short rehash version. Has awesome puppets.
* Studio Tour ride- interesting.
* Great Movie Ride- movie version of It's A Small World. Seriously. Interesting point: you have a tour guide swap go on within it.

Not too into:
* Beauty and the Beast stage show: if you've seen the 2-hour stage show (which I have), that's better. This was...just okay. Kind of amusing in what they shortcut/cut out here.

Ate at Studio Catering Company, which had TASTY pulled pork sandwiches and yummy chocolate cake with the best icing ever.

Missed: Walt Disney exhibit, which we wanted to see but ran out of time. Want to come back for this tomorrow during the night magic hours. But we had to leave early because we got dinner reservations at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue. This is located...waaaaay the fuck out from everything.

Note to anyone staying at a resort in the future: it will take you 30 minutes or more to park hop or go back home from a park, unless you're in the Epcot/Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk/Swan/Dolphin/Hollywood area and going to one of those places from another one.

We were told that getting to Hoop-Dee-Doo would take an hour via bus. Not quite, but close, since it took most of a half hour for the bus to show up, then we went to Fort Wilderness Lodge, THEN found out we had to catch another bus to "Orange" and the area of the resort HDD is at. Lordy, long trip.

I am happy to report that the trip, PITA as it was, is worth it. Great country food (fried chicken, ribs, exquisite cornbread, strawberry shortcake). The performers are good, crazy fun and even make songs like the Hokey Pokey entertaining. There's a dumb blonde doing dumb blonde schtick (well), and a rivalry between a redhead and her supposed stage partner.
Our waiter, "Bor" (i.e. Rob, he's dyslexic), was quite entertaining. I'm not a fan of puns and he is, but he certainly rolled out the patter. (I asked him how often he said these things and uh...a LOT LOT LOT.) He also gave us personalized pens. Fun guy to see a lot of.
A lot of people here are supernice. One CM gave me a pin off her lanyard when I thought it was cute. Another one chatted with us about how her boyfriend used to live in CA. We've had great servers. Most employees (at least the regulars) seem quite happy. The only exception seems to be some of the college students, who are all, "It's...okay..." Not what she expected, one said. I wonder what's different there.

The way "Magic Hours" works is that one (or maybe two) parks will open either an hour early or three hours after closing per night for resort guests. Tonight the Magic Kingdom was open till 11, so when our show got out, we headed over there to catch the last hour. (Via boat. Took about an hour when most of it except for 15 minutes was waiting. If you ever go to HDD, just leave via boat from the Magic Kingdom, ok?) So we ran over to cram something in. I insisted Mom buy a backpack because she insisted on hauling a huge shoulder bag all day (ouch). Did that. Then squeezed in one thing- Stitch's Great Escape.
For the record: this is a show, not a ride. You sit in seats and watch while effects happen. It looks like you will move because they have bars come down on you, but it's not. I say this because I was all, "STITCH! Let's GO!", and hopped on, but when we got into an circular room and there's all these bars...Mom and I thought, "Oh shit, this is a spinner ride and we're gonna puke." Not the case. If you're a Stitch fan, it's fun, but...I would have been pissed if I'd waited in line for an hour for that.
Magic Kingdom is indeed like Disneyland in theme and unalike in execution. Merry warned me I would be thrown by that, and I was. I look forward to spending more time there in the future.

A note on pin trading: this is one of those things that came up in the 10 years when I was away from Disney. Now, buying pins I get. We do a lot of it. The family fortune is now wrapped up in pin buying. They are really cute and often quite unique. Putting them on a lanyard, I also get. But trading? What? I have to give away my carefully picked pins?
Fell into an awkward moment where we approached a PhotoPass guy (I thought Mom wanted a pic) and he thought I was scoping him for pins. He had some good ones, but I was all...I want to keep mine, and OOPS.
Mom eventually got a set of pins to trade away with employees and got all excited about it. Me, I got a spare lanyard and put pins I wasn't massively
attached to on it for awkward situations.

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