DAY 6: HOLLYWOOD JOY + MORE EATING & DRINKING AROUND THE WORLD 🌎- DISNEY WORLD TRIP SEPTEMBER 2022

*ALL VIEWS ARE MY OWN AND NOT OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY OR YUMMY JOBS*

Hey there, pals!

Before we departed for Florida, we had initially planned to do Blizzard Beach for Day 6. But, I quickly realised after we landed that Blizzard Beach was closed for its annual maintenance. Originally, we were going to go back to Magic Kingdom for more daytime fun. Then, we quickly did a U-turn on that idea because it was a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party night and the park was closing early. Therefore, we settled on switching our Magic Kingdom reservations for Hollywood Studios and then park hop to Epcot afterwards.

My sister and I got to Hollywood Studios and we knew we weren't going to hang around long because there wouldn't be many rides that we could do together. Plus, I wasn't going to have my sister hold both of our bags while I rode some rides that she wouldn't do because it would just be unfair on my sister otherwise...

We were excited about meeting up with one of my long distance best friends, Courtney, who I've known since my time in fairy school! And, a key memory I share with Courtney was messing around with Olaf plushes. Funnily enough, my sister and I decided to have our first character meet and greet of the trip with Olaf.

Upon arrival, we set our hearts out on riding Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway before meeting Olaf, however the ride was temporarily closed due to technical difficulties. Instead, we started our day off with a character meet and greet because we arrived during the hottest part of the day and we needed to cool off straight away. Olaf most definitely melted our hearts and gave the best warm hugs! I forgot just how magical character meet and greets are 😊 Unfortunately, there wasn't a Photopass to capture all of my magical moments with Olaf. Instead, we had to give them one our phones, so my sister gave hers. And so, I do not have any of the pictures from our meet 'n' greet!

We then retreated back to the Chinese Theatre to find that Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway was back up and running with a very short wait time, so we took our chances and joined the queue. The wait really wasn't that long at all as we were straight into the preshow, which is my absolute favourite in the entire of Walt Disney World, and then onto the ride.

My sister had never done this ride before, so again I kept it a complete surprise! She enjoyed the ride, but definitely prefers Remy's Ratatouille Adventure. Our favourite scene was the dance class with Daisy Duck - that made both of us laugh so much! I had completely forgotten what the ride experience was like, so it was as much of a wonder for myself as well as my sister.

Next on our list of things to do in Hollywood Studios was going into Toy Story Land and we began our trip in Andy's backyard with a ride on Toy Story Mania. Things definitely get competitive on that ride and I'm always determined to beat my high score! Unfortunately, I didn't score enough to beat my high score. But, I did beat my sister and scored the best in the vehicle. However, I was even more impressed with a walk on queue and us finally realising that one of the ride stations was themed to Andy's bedroom! I had never realised that until today!!!

Courtney had officially arrived in Hollywood Studios and we all decided to ride Slinky Dog Dash together. The queue time was posted at one hour, but we didn't even wait half of that time, which we were all astonished by! Courtney was so sweet and volunteered to go in the front row of Slinky so my sister and I could ride together in row 2. We were all having an absolute blast in the Florida sunshine with Slinky Dog. It turns out we timed it absolutely right with Slinky Dog, as it looked like there were thick rain clouds coming in. Although, this had my sister and I slightly panicked because this was now our last opportunity to ride Test Track this trip!

Like last week's post, we ventured into another galaxy and this time it was Star Wars Galaxy's Edge! My sister had been in Star Wars Galaxy's Edge before, but she had never done either ride before. On the flip side, I hadn't done Rise of the Resistance due to being blocked out while I was a cast member on my Disney Academic Exchange Program. So, there was much to explore!

My sister, Courtney and I started off with a trip on the Millennium Falcon riding Smugglers Run. Now, we were incredibly lucky that we got the pilot position and a gunner, so Courtney let my sister and I drive the Millennium Falcon. Every ride of Smugglers Run is different and the best position is always the pilot, in my opinion! The ride can be very rough and sadly my sister and I were not very good at all at driving the Falcon LOL 😂 my sincere apologies to everyone on our ride!

Whilst we were exiting the ride, we did see some HUGE drama unfold... they're guests who were complaining and arguing with cast members and other guests, demanding that they wanted to be the pilots of their ride! My sister, Courtney and I were quickly walking past trying to make it not obvious that we were eavesdropping in what was going on! As soon as we got outside again, we all thought what absolute jerks these people were! It's just a ride at the end of the day, like chill out! But anyway, we swiftly moved on to our next destination, of course with a pit stop to buy a bomb-shaped Coke bottle for my sister...

We had a look at what the Rise of the Resistance wait time was and it was only posted at 45mins - I have never seen that ride have such a low wait time, considering it was posted at almost three hours this morning! What made our visit to the First Order more exciting was that all of our reactions were so pure because Courtney, my sister and I had either never been on the ride before or couldn't remember what was involved. And second, we only waited 15mins! The whole thing was EPIC from start to finish, so if you want no spoilers then keep on scrolling past...

The three of us had completely walked past the entire queue line and our wait time only consisted of the pre-shows. The first one was welcoming us and briefing us of our mission, in which we then moved outside to board the ship embarking on our mission. But then, the ship is captured by the First Order and we had actually moved into a completely different scene - we came in and went out of the same set of doors!!! We were greeted to a load of Storm Troopers staring at us and this is quite possibly one of the best scenes I have ever seen in a Walt Disney World attraction! Everyone in our group were so busy taking pictures that the cast members of the First Order were forcefully directing us to the next room - I tell you, they held their character well!

Then, we entered a hallway where we allocated our loading groups and a couple in group decided to challenge about what colour they were standing on with the cast member! The First Order cast member instructed that it was orange and the couple were insisting that it was more brown. Ahhh it was honestly hilarious watching the tennis like argument going back and forth in the funniest way possible!

All of us were ordered into this cell room where we had to tell Darth Vader the location of the secret base. In spite of these characters trying to thwart our mission, another bit of magic happened where a recreation of a lightsaber cutting a hole in the door to release us into our ride vehicles (or escape pods as the story tells us) suddenly happened! I was in complete shock once again!

We were strapped into our escape pods and there was so much to look at as we were going around left, right, centre, up and tower of terror style down around the First Order ship in order to escape! The level of detail is on another level and you don't have to be a Star Wars fan to understand what was going on or to appreciate the ride itself! Honestly, it's a one-of-a-kind experience that you cannot miss. As a theme park fan, this level of technology excites me for what future rides we can look forward to and how things can only get better from here!!!

Our journey across Hollywood Studios was coming to end, but no park visit would be complete without a photoshoot with the Photopass photographers! These ones were even more special, as we got to take some with Courtney!!! Just check out the slideshow below of how genuinely happy we all look!

And a special shoutout to Chief who was outside the Chinese Theatre. He was an absolute laugh and we got sooo many pictures from him!

The three of us were on our way to Epcot where we had yet another photoshoot, including some with a fisheye camera lens which was certainly quirky! *we did get some celebratory buttons for long distance BFFs reuniting and my sister and I's no parent vacation*

But then, Courtney suddenly became unwell and had to depart for home to get some rest.

Thankfully, the grey clouds that we spotted in Hollywood Studios held off and my sister and I finally got our ride on Test Track! It was a longggg wait, but most definitely worth it! We may have made the most atrocious, ugly looking monster truck for our vehicle, but we won all the tests apart from efficiency! I mean, our car certainly wouldn't be the most environmentally-friendly in today's society, but we were delighted that we could go all out with our design and features.

There were a couple more food booths that I wanted to try and my sister came across these roasted brussel sprouts that were loaded with other veggies. Plus, this same booth had buffalo chicken wings and I've always wanted to try them, so we stopped by. Inside, there was a DJ blasting out some kids party tunes, which was a vibe, and our dishes were ready in next to no time! My sister absolutely LOVED her brussel sprouts and my buffalo chicken wings were spicy but scrumptious.

Next was the India booth - my favourite from the 2019 International Food and Wine Festival. I got some vegetable samosas, which were allergy-friendly. So, if my sister wanted to try one then she could. In addition, I got a mango lasai which literally tastes like a mango smoothie.

Now, Disney is absolutely spot-on when it comes to checking if something has a certain ingredient in. I asked at the counter if the mango lasai contains dairy in it and the cast member was straight away onto her phone to ask (I'm assuming) management about the ingredients. I said to the cast member that it wouldn't make a difference; it was more for if my sister could try the drink. We literally got the answer within a couple minutes, but it was reassuring knowing that allergies are treated seriously.

The mango lasai was exactly how I remembered it tasting; however, the star of the show goes to those vegetable samosas because I was in absolute heaven and my sister was too!

The final stop of the night was finally purchasing my first legal alcoholic drink in the United States. It was deja vu again heading to Shimmering Sips and this time I did have my passport ready. Without hesitation, the cast members were straight onto making my drink - if any of you are wondering, I went for the Tropical Mimosa. My drink was gone within 10mins, so I now realise how dangerous Epcot can be for alcoholic drinks and feeling the effects of it! However, I was a very happy bean that I was officially legal everywhere in the world 😄

Having packed a lot into our afternoon out at the parks, my sister and I had had enough. So, we decided to not do any other ride repeats and made our way to the park exit to soak up the Epcot vibes one last time.

And that brings us to the end of another jam-packed post, filled with lots of adventures. I really hope you enjoyed reading this post and my series so far. There's just a few more posts still to be released, so why not jump back to the beginning and read them all again? Or if you can't wait until the next post, why not check out all my adventures on the Disney Academic Exchange Program Updates page?

In the meantime, I hope you all have a marvellous week and I'll see you all real soon.

Have a magical day!

-Hannah

DISCLAIMER: this blog is my personal experience on the Disney Academic Exchange Program (DAEP) 2019-2020 and may not reflect everyone’s experience. Other programs and future participants on the DAEP may have slight adjustments to their programs that may not be featured in any of my blog posts. That being said, if you do leave any questions, I will try to answer them as best as I possibly can 😊