I’ve never considered myself to be a traditional person. I mean, if you asked me what my family’s traditions are, I’d stare at you for a few seconds trying to think of just one family tradition before I said, “We don’t have any…” In reality, that’s not true. I actually think every family has traditions of some sort even though they may not realize it. A couple of years ago, my youngest son brought home a school project that asked him to tell about at least one family tradition. I literally stood looking at the project instructions and said, “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..we don’t have any traditions.” My oldest son was the spark of wisdom in this moment as he pointed out several things we do that are traditional for us, ending with “and we go to Disney World every year.” That’s the day my oldest became my favorite! Just kidding!! My youngest is still my fave! 😉 (still kidding you guys!!)

Anywho, I’m going somewhere with this, I promise. I’ve realized over the past couple of Walt Disney World trips (which, as I just mentioned, have become traditional) that there are mini traditions within the trip itself. For instance, we always start out our trip by going to Epcot on arrival day. It’s become a tradition for us to have ice cream for breakfast on at least one day of our visit, have the boys picture taken with Stitch, and I also made it a tradition to buy myself a postcard for my bulletin board at home. I hope that when my boys are adults, they take their families to Disney World too and continue the Disney Tradition!

Ok, and now to change gears and tell you about Day 2 of my March 2013 WDW trip!

Day 2- Disney’s Hollywood Studios I struggled to get both boys up and out of bed early so that we could get to DHS by 8:30 a.m. for rope drop at 9. We left our room about 15 minutes later than I wanted to, but we got lucky and there was a bus at the Pop Century bus stop pretty quickly! We actually got to Hollywood Studios at about 8:45 which was only a few minutes after they started letting people through the gates! My 14 year old, Zadrin, was already designated as our FastPass runner, so as soon as we got through the entrance turnstiles he took our tickets and headed to get FastPasses for Toy Story Mania while me and my 10 year old, Zethan, headed down Sunset Boulevard towards Tower of Terror to wait for Zadrin.

Once Zadrin caught up with us, Toy Story FPs for 10:15 a.m. in hand, we went to get in line for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Even though we arrived later than I originally planned to the park, the entire process of getting in the gate, getting the Fastpasses, and getting in line for this ride only took about 6 minutes! The line for RnR looked really long because it was only about 8:51 and Disney was not opening the ride until 9:00. So we waited in the Stand By line for about 9 minutes then it was about 5 minutes from the ride entrance until we got into the pre-show area! I love Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster! They were painting and power washing the guitar so they had this drape up with a picture of the guitar on it.

Against my better judgement because I hate how I look in this picture, I’ve decided to post our ride photo! I purchased the Attractions+ Photopass card and I really think it was worth it! I bought the Attractions+ card at the RnR photopass area in the gift shop at the end of the ride and we did some quick shopping there.

After we got done on RnR, we went and got in line for Tower of Terror. Zethan is not a fan of this ride at all, so we found a place for him to sit and wait for me and Zadrin to ride it. He played a game on his phone to pass the time. The posted wait time at ToT was 20 minutes and I’d say that was pretty accurate. The line moved pretty quickly so it could have been about 10-15 minutes instead. Me and Zadrin got on the ride elevator with a group of girls who had clearly been on the ride before, and who also had no concept of being courteous to others and they yelled and laughed from the moment we sat down until the ride was over. I’m glad it wasn’t my first time on this or I would have been disappointed that I couldn’t hear the narration during the ride. Nonetheless, it was an awesome ride! I think Tower of Terror is my favorite ride at DHS! If Zethan hadn’t been waiting for us, I would have gotten back in line for a second ride! Here’s our ride photo. We’re in the back left of the picture.

Ok, so I said the Attractions+ photopass card was worth it. That’s mostly true, but the process of having to stand in line and get your picture added to your card was my least favorite part. At Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, there was no line to get my card and add the photo, but at Tower of Terror, the line wasn’t too long, but it was moving very slowly. At one point, a family of 3 walked past some of us in line and tried to nonchalantly get in front of me. I’m not big on conflict, so I just acted like I didn’t realize that they were cutting line but then I said, “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m next.” The mother was all, “Oh!! I was just looking at the prices.” Her teenaged daughter had a minor hissy fit and stomped out of line. There were only 2 people ahead of me, but it took me about 25 minutes to get helped. Zadrin had already gone outside to get Zethan, so they were both waiting for me when I left the Tower of Terror exit.

The wait for our ride photo killed time and it was about 5 minutes til our return time for our Toy Story Mania Fastpass. So we walked rather leisurely towards TSM since the Cast Members generally do not let you in the Fastpass return line until it’s exactly your return time. We took this opportunity to see if any snack kiosks were open that sold soft serve ice cream. None of the places with soft serve were open yet, so no ice cream for breakfast for us on this day!

Ok guys, this is getting long for this post, so I’ll break Day 2 up into parts! I’ll be posting Part 2 later today!

See Ya Real Soon!