So, Tower of Terror was broken. No problemo. I mean who wants to go on a broken ride and actually plummet to your death. Not me!!!
But what to do?!?!?
Mom suggested I go on Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster since we were right there. She isn’t a roller coaster fan - well actually she doesn’t mind them but they don’t like her. The last roller coaster she was on was Big Thunder Mountain in 1989. It was a bright and sunny January afternoon and everything was fine until we got off the ride and her knees buckled and she got faint. Thankfully Dad caught her before she fell and we happened to be right in front of a bench. After a few minutes of breathing with her head between her legs she felt better but she was destined to never ride another roller coaster again. Rather sad, isn’t it? So, when we go to Disney World I ride the coasters by myself and Mom will shop or get coffee while my inner thrill seeker comes out to play.
But I wasn’t in the mood for riding by myself so I suggested that we go to try our hands at some animation. I had told Mom about how I had done the Animation Academy several times on my solo December trip and loved it. She didn’t seem all that enthused about drawing but went along with the idea. So we moved back down Sunset Boulevard.
But what did I hear in the distance? Yes my friends - it was the High School Musical Pep Rally!! I am all about High School Musical and High School Musical 2. (I love Grease 2 also - don’t judge me!!) What’s not to love about a good romantic comedy especially if you throw in some music and snappy dance moves? And Mom loves an interactive Disney show that you can clap along with so we picked up the pace in order to "Get’cha Head In The Game."
We joined the crowd at the rope holding back the crowd as the stage/float/set thing moved by. Typically, as soon as the float thing passes by the Cast Members walk the rope up to the viewing area so that there is no running and trampling of children.
But today there was a Cast Member drunk with power in charge of the rope brigade. He was not going to drop the rope for anything - even when the show had already started in front of the giant Mickey Sorcerer’s Hat. The power drunk Cast Member was just standing there as the singing and dancing was going on without us. Several people ignored the rope and went under it - and if I was standing next to the rope I might have done the same thing.
What happened next amazed me. The Cast Member saw the offenders giving his rope blockade the slip and quickly handed his end of the rope to a totally clueless newly minted College Program Cast Member who was working the broom brigade nearby. The Rope Nazi took off running after the rope ignoring children who disobeyed him and made them return back behind the rope to the now very disgruntled crowd. It was just silly since no on had any idea what we were waiting for.
Now remember that the show has been going on for about 2 minutes at this point and everyone is befuddled by the Cast Member with the rope complex. Why isn’t he letting us through?!?!? I am missing the show!!!! I can hear it but I can't see it!!!!
I was getting really pissed at this point and the only thing that kept my inner Princesszilla under control was watching the clueless College Program Cast Member who was even more confused than the crowd - he was holding his broom in one hand and the rope in the other watching some crazed control freak Cast Member chase after small children whose only crime was that they wanted to see the High School Musical Pep Rally before it was over. The expression on his face was classic - total confusion with the whole situation.
Just as I had decided to find an alternate route to get to the show, the controlling Cast Member gave up and dropped the rope. His power play was over and I suppose he won but at what cost. The Rope Nazi was just lucky that the crowd hadn’t turned on him yet or he would have been trampled.
I didn’t get any pictures of HSM Pep Rally on this trip but check out some video from December 2007 I took. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlpzaYPaStM
After figuring out "What Time Is It" and that "We’re All In This Together", I decided that I had better check to see if the rumor of a soft opening of Toy Story Mania was true. It wasn’t. But that is okay it was just a rumor and was worth a shot. Besides we were still having fun even if we hadn’t ridden Tower of Terror yet.
We found our way over to the Animation Courtyard and took the back way into the Animation Academy through The Magic of Disney Animation store. And darn it if we didn’t just miss the class - the doors were shutting just as we walked up. So that means that we had 25 minutes to "waste". It was a good thing we had all of the animation stuff to keep us busy or we might have to run into the Rope Nazi again.
We tried out "The Sound Stage" booth. We laughed a lot while doing this since we tried to do the character voices. Mom was reading the Scar part and I was reading the Simba part. My Simba voice was okay and mostly sounded like a childish version of my voice. But Mom’s Scar voice sounded like a drag queen with a cold trying to be sexy and mean at the same time. We tried it twice and it didn’t get better - we just ended up laughing even harder.
Next we tried the "You’re a Character" booth. It turns out I am a Belle and Mom is a Snow White. I think I turned out to be a Belle because I like to read and Mom is a Snow White because she likes to take care of people. As we stood reading about Mom’s alter ego I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was Frozone from The Incredibles looking over our shoulders. He was walking by and saw his chance to be sneaky. I even exclaimed "OH, it’s Frozone!!!" but Mom didn’t hear me so he kept looking over her shoulder until I tapped her. At this point she turned around and about had a heart attack - and who can blame her, there was a very tall masked super hero character stalking her. If I hadn’t been so sleep deprived I would have been quicker and thought to whip out my camera - but alas I wasn’t firing on all of my pistons and missed a perfect opportunity.
Although I missed a photo op, I wasn’t gonna miss our chance to be a Disney Animator for a little bit. We made our way over to the Animation Academy waiting area and waited for a few minutes for the next session to start.
The Academy doors opened and Mom and I found our drawing stations and got settled in to start our creative juices flowing. The Animator introduced himself and he decided we should draw Piglet. Not sure how they decide what to draw but I hadn’t drawn Piglet before so I was up for the challenge. Things went well but the Animator was a bit sarcastic and made a few border line inappropriate comments - nothing offensive but it could have spoiled the magic for a child. No one gasped so I think most people were busy concentrating on their drawings so no biggie.
Here are my results:
But I think Piglet needs to lay off the Huney for a little bit. :)It was time to try Tower of Terror , again. We walked down Sunset Boulevard, again. We didn’t hear any screams, again. We saw the Fastpass line backed up to the gate, again. We heard the Cast Member try to spin why the ride wasn’t working, again. We walked back up Sunset Boulevard, again. (Are you beginning to see a pattern here?)
Since it seemed Tower of Terror was not in the cards, we decided to see if Ariel still wore clam shells as a bathing suit top. I love The Little Mermaid!!! (Remember my love for romantic movies with singing and dancing - well, The Little Mermaid has more swimming than dancing but it translates to moving around to music so it works for me.)
The Voyage of The Little Mermaid is a nice show. But let me just tell you that they were shoving the pre-show area so full of people that after about 10 minutes I just about had a panic attack. It was wall to wall people and I couldn’t even move enough to get water out of my backpack without having to apologize to someone. And there was this family in front of us that was playing around and the little toddler in her parents arms was squirming around and kept almost hitting Mom in the face. The child wasn’t doing it intentionally but it was WAY to crowded for such nonsense.
I am not sure if it was where we were sitting in the theater but it was very difficult to hear Ariel. I tried to time our entrance into the theater so we would be in the middle of the row but people were pushing and shoving that we were lucky that we even got seats together on the end of our row - and we started off pretty close to the entrance doors. I think people get an almost animalistic attitude when they are herded and stuffed into an area. It just seems to bring out the worst in people. (Some Psych student should research this for a doctoral dissertation.)
It was getting about dinner time and we had to decide what to do for dinner. But before we decided, we thought we would try to do Tower of Terror , again. We walked down Sunset Boulevard, again. We didn’t hear any screams, again. We saw the Fastpass line backed up to the gate, again. We heard the Cast Member try to spin why the ride wasn’t working, again. We gave up on riding Tower of Terror - which is why I still have both of our FP that I could scan and post on my Trip Report. Very disappointing!!!
Next installment – Another Eternal Question: What should we eat for dinner?
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