August Trip Report – Day 4 – The Redemption of Hollywood Studios (and travel home)

Nothing is sadder than waking up on the last day of a Disney trip (ok, plenty of things are sadder… especially this year… but you know what I mean). I was pretty anxious about this check out day given how much Copper was relying on his long afternoon naps in the room every day. I opted for a later flight than I’ve previously ever taken with him also, because the only options on United were 11am or 6:45pm (flights are so limited right now… so cheap, but so limited). I called the front desk to ask about a late checkout, knowing it would be in vain. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a late checkout ever at a DVC resort, plus I heard they aren’t even honoring late checkouts at the regular resorts now, to allow for extra cleaning time. I figured I’d try explaining that we felt safest in the room in order to avoid Covid exposure and yada yada, but still no luck. I gave it a solid effort, lol. Worth a shot.

We woke up early, as usual, and played in the room/packed up for a bit before getting ready for another Topolinos reservation (I wasn’t lying when I said we love it). This time we had a 9:10 reservation, figuring we’d go before checking out of our hotel and heading to the park for the day. I do always like to do character dining on our last day, just like the first day, to end on a very Disney-esque note. I would have picked an earlier reservation, but I was worried about how to get to Riviera in the morning before the Skyliner would be running. The Skyliner signs said that the hours were : Epcot line 10:30am – 10pm, Hollywood Studios line 9am – 9pm. Based on this, I figured the earliest we could get to Riviera without taking an Uber would be after 9am, hence our reservation time.

So we got over to HS around 8:50, and saw all of the Skyliner lines running on our way, which puzzled me, but seemed promising. However, when we got to the end of our walkway from the Boardwalk, security guards weren’t allowing anyone any farther. We couldn’t get anywhere near the Skyliner. They said they don’t let people get closer to the entrance until 9am on days when the park opens at 10. There were a handful of people already waiting for the park to open, by the way (crazy people!). So at 9 we were allowed over to the Skyliner, and they let us on around 9:05. I had figured we would have to walk to Riviera from Caribbean Beach, which is about a ten minute walk, but if you saw my post about the Skyliner hours for breakfast reservations, you’ll know this wasn’t the case. The Epcot line actually starts running much, much earlier for people with breakfast reservations! So we were allowed on the Epcot line at Caribbean Beach after showing our Topolinos reservation information. Of course this meant we could have just walked to the back of Epcot and saved a huge amount of trouble in the morning, but … live and learn.

I won’t repeat myself about another great Topolinos experience, since I’m a broken record at this point, but no changes there. They are 3 for 3 now.

When we left Riviera, we saw a family getting family photos on the lawn, and I was like wow I guess that really is a normal thing… and then I realized it was my would-be wedding photographer taking the photos (at some point I’ll provide a good recommendation for her on here, because she did end up doing amazing family photos for us since we had a non refundable wedding deposit lol). Small world. Just can’t escape that damn wedding, eh? If anyone needs a photographer, feel free to ask me for her info. She was so awesome with my kiddo and with handling our awkward vibes on our cancelled wedding day.

Not to be totally redundant with what I posted in my Skyliner breakfast reservation post… but when we left breakfast it was 10:15 and the Epcot line was still not officially open yet to take us back to the Boardwalk. We were in a bit of a rush since we needed to finish packing and leave the room by 11, so I didn’t want to go to HS and walk from there, so we stood in the line for the Epcot Skyliner. They opened it up shortly prior to 10:30. This was stupid of me though because I later found out we could have skipped the line and rode the Skyliner back to Epcot prior to the line officially opening by showing we had a Topolinos reservation and were staying at the Boardwalk. That is what the cast member at the Skyliner station told me. Hopefully someone can give that a try and report back to let me know how it goes.

We were back in our room around 10:45 and hustled to throw our remaining belongings into our various carry ons (we travelled with one carry on full of our clothes/belongings, a back pack as a personal item full of odds and ends that come in handy on the plane, a carry on suitcase for Copper that is literally just full of his toys, and then usually one toy as a personal item for him, and lastly the stroller).

Prior to dropping our bags at Bell Services, we stopped at the front desk to get a new Magical Express ticket printed, because I had called in the morning and moved back our pick up time by 30 minutes. For those who didn’t see my departure day post from our July trip… this is apparently an option that I never knew about! You can call the Magical Express when you get your departure notice and ask if you can get a later pick up time. Both times they told me they could move it back by 30 minutes. I’m not sure if this is a new development during covid times (when I called I specifically said we wanted to minimize time at the airport due to covid exposure concerns) or if this always was an option. If this always was an option, I feel pretty stupid because I historically have given fake flight information to get later Magical Express pick up times (they don’t verify that you are actually on the flight you provide information for, they just verify that it is a real flight). I typically give a flight time leaving 45 minutes to an hour after ours so that we get picked up later since I hate sitting around in the airport with a toddler when we could use that extra hour in Disney. I always get responses about how the airport or the bus could have delays … but I’ve been on some ridiculously long ME rides (90+ minutes… which is very atypical), and I’ve stood in some very long security lines, still just to sit at the gate waiting for our flight. We have TSA per check now, so that takes away one variable. If you aren’t inclined to get to the airport super early, I highly recommend the option of calling to push back your pick up by 30 minutes.

Then we dropped our bags at Bell Services and were on our way to Hollywood Studios with just a stroller full of Toy Story toys, some snacks, our popcorn bucket, and some spare shorts in case Copper’s excellent potty training skills were put to the test by all the sleep deprivation (spoiler alert: they were).

We got to HS somewhere between 11:30 and 12 and stuck around until 3:30ish. That was our longest uninterrupted stretch in a park all trip. We rode TSM right off the bat, since that was the main reason we chose HS as our park for the day. Well… actually I tried to stop and go to the Disney Junior Dance Party first, but Copper lost his mind because he thought I understood the primary objective of the day was TSM…. my bad. If you’re curious, the Dance Party has dots on the floor where families stay so as to maintain distancing…. but back to TSM: we walked right on yet again. At this point Copper was too cool to let me help him aim his shooter thingy, so he is lucky he can’t read the scores.

We then walked over and got some popcorn in the middle of the park near MMRR. While we were there, I asked some cast members about the character cavalcades, knowing they can’t give much information about a schedule since the whole point is to keep it somewhat unpredictable to avoid crowds. One very enthusiastic popcorn server told me that the pattern of cavalcades is always : Mickey and friends, Disney Junior, Mickey and friends, Disney Junior, Pixar Characters. She said the Pixar one is the biggest one, so it is the least frequent. Another cast member confirmed that Disney Junior had passed through ten minutes prior, so Pixar would probably be next. Based on this, we hung around the cavalcade route, which is from the front of the park to Star Tours (super limited, which is why we missed the characters the first day, since you won’t see any if you are in Toy Story Land, Star Wars Land, or down by the Tower of Terror). To our dismay, Mickey and his damn friends came out a couple minutes later !! Grrrr. Fine fine, we like Mickey, but he was not who we were there for!! So figuring that it appeared the cavalcades came every 10-15 minutes, and we would have to wait for 2 more, we went on a walk into Star Wars land, hung out by the muppets a little bit, and then came back after 20 minutes or so and, much to our delight, Toy Story music started playing!!! We got to see Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, Edna Mode, Sulley (no Mike, contrary to what someone had told me), Woody, Jessie, and Buzz!! They all were very interactive too. They either ran over or pointed at my son since he had the toys. Totally worth coming back for a second day and hovering around like idiots (to be fair, there isn’t a ton to do in HS with a 3 year old…. this was totally the peak). This was around 1:15ish by the way. The Mickey and friends cavalcade was just prior to 1, so if Disney Junior really came in between those two, they were running every ten minutes, which is in line with how frequently they run in Magic Kingdom. The key is just to be around that short little cavalcade route, which isn’t necessarily a place people hang out, since it isn’t near the popular rides. I’d suggest setting aside some time to eat some popcorn or a pretzel and hang out in that area in front of MMRR.

So now that the pressure to find the characters was off, we were free to do whatever silly little rides caught Copper’s eye. Therefore, we went on the Muppets (his first time). It hasn’t changed in the slightest for as long as I can remember. I know it periodically gets refurbished, but it seems identical to when I was a kid. He liked it, although he wouldn’t keep his glasses on. I warned him that there were fireworks at the end. The effects are so mediocre that he wasn’t scared at all though lol.

Next we went over to something new to both of us: Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy. As much as we love everything Pixar, the Cars franchise has been the lowest on the totem pole as far as my son’s obsessions go. He was absolutely mesmerized though and kept asking me “is that the real Lightning?” because it is one of those awesome interactive animated characters that looks super real. Now that we are back home, he is actually way more into Cars and won’t stop talking about how we saw “the real Lightning.” Totally cute little show. There was no wait when we went. Social distancing in place inside. Nice little break from the heat because it is an indoor show.

After that, we rode TSM again, said good bye to Slinky Dog, and I tried to convince him to ride MMRR again, to no avail. So then we grabbed a pretzel and headed for the Skyliner back to the Boardwalk. He still did not even doze off once in the stroller. Ridiculous. On our way out of the park, we saw the Pixar cavalcade again! This was around 3:15. Day 4 totally contradicted my perception of HS from Day 2: Frequent characters, as long as you were in the right area, and a handful of fun little attractions for a toddler.

We caught our 4:15 Magical Express out in front of the Boardwalk after taking the Skyliner back and grabbing a couple souvenirs for family members on the Boardwalk. Our original pick up time for our 6:45 flight was 3:45, but it was moved back to 4:15, as previously mentioned. They always say to be there 15 minutes early…. and our bus arrived about 5 minutes early for anyone keeping track. We stopped at one other resort before heading to the airport, meaning we were off the bus and walking through the airport by 5pm. That’s a pretty quick and painless 45 minute Magical Express ride. We weren’t assigned seats when we boarded this time, but we chose to sit a couple rows away from other groups.

Here is where this trip was definitely different from last trip. Orlando airport (MCO) actually felt pretty safe this time. It was completely empty. It seemed as though we were one of the latest domestic departures of the day, so there were no people in line at security or in the food court area at all. We have TSA pre check, but there was absolutely no line for the regular security checkpoint either. They had added markers to keep people six people apart while waiting in line. There were also hand sanitizers everywhere throughout the airport, similar to in Disney. They must have heard the feedback that everyone was saying MCO was the least safe-feeling part of their trip. It seemed like more food places were opened up as well, although they weren’t all open while we were there since it was later in the evening and things were closed for the day. We got our Wendy’s without waiting in a line this time though, and sat and ate at the gate. Everyone was wearing masks pretty well this time.

Our flight was almost completely full. There are currently only two flight options from MCO to Newark, so flights are full due to limited options, not due to more people traveling necessarily. We were able to check the seat map and grab one of the only rows with an empty middle seat at the last minute earlier in the day, so we still felt safe and comfortable. This was the only flight where a flight attendant actually reminded my son to put his mask on at one point when it fell off. They probably are cracking down on kids as more kids are traveling. When we flew in July he was the only kid on the flight, so they were very lenient. He did a great job though. He snacks so much that he had his mask off for half the flight just due to snacking though, which is allowed.

Our flight took off exactly on time (they were weirdly determined to leave on time… I’ve never felt more rushed during boarding… it was bizarre… they sped through the safety messages so quickly as we taxied out to the runway). We landed SO early…. more than 45 minutes early. So we are 4 for 4 on flights landing early while traveling since covid. We are getting a little spoiled with how quick and easy air travel is right now honestly.

Last fun anecdote: given that he had been awake for 13 hours in the Florida heat at this point, Copper’s mood was stellar when we arrived in Newark, and he had the most epic meltdown in the jetway because I wouldn’t let him pull his suitcase. He stood in front of the stroller stomping his feet refusing to move, and I was the insane mom going “DUDE IM GOING TO RUN YOU OVER…. I SWEAR !!!” …. yep so we both got a nice big tantrum out of our system upon our return to NJ 😆😆. We made up and were best friends again about two minutes later. I can’t stay mad at that hooligan. We both apologized for “too much anger in headquarters and not enough joy” …. we talk about emotions based on Inside Out 😄.

We’ve been home for 9 days now. I have had another negative covid test (after a week of being home), but we are mostly keeping to ourselves just to be safe anyway. Copper starts preschool in a week, so we will safely be out of the 14 day window.

Hopefully the next time I write a trip report things will be a little more normal, and hopefully it will be a full family trip…. fingers crossed 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻.