~~~
Day’s Verse:
I thought in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?” I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.
Ecclesiastes 2:1-3
~~~

I liked Hollywood Studios much more than the Magic Kingdom. For one thing, it was all new: I’ve only been to Disneyland before this, and then only to their Magic Kingdom. So I’m quite familiar with that theme park and its rides. For another thing, Magic Kingdom is where all the parents with small children go. The swarms of strollers were astounding:

Hollywood Studios had a zillion parents with their kids, of course, but Magic Kingdom had three or four zillion.

We arrived fairly early, maybe 30 minutes before the 9:00 gate opening, but the crowds at Hollywood Studios were much larger already compared to those in the Magic Kingdom when it opened. Anyway, I really enjoyed the Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster, which Gary, Deborah, and I did that immediately after the first (of three) time we went on the Toy Story ride. Everybody agreed that the Toy Story ride was a lot of fun, After the Rockin’ Roller Coaster, I made a bad decision and rode the Tower of Terror. Turns out I can handle the typical back-and-forth of a roller coaster just fine, but the up-and-down of the Tower of Terror left me feeling weak and ready to vomit for the next few hours. It felt exactly the same way I feel when I get airsick, which was not a fun way to spend several hours at Disney World.

Fortunately, after we had lunch at the Sci Fi Drive-in Theater (below), I started feeling better enough to resume walking around and riding rides.

We took rides fairly easy in the afternoon. It was very hot but we sat through a really neat demonstration called Lights, Motors, Action that showed off stunt drivers doing their thing in real life.

That was cool, as was the Indiana Jones stuntman demonstration. We also went on pretty much all the other rides/attractions except a very few none of us thought would be fun. Around dinner time we went back to the hotel, ate, and then returned to Hollywood Studios to wander around in the dark and see the lights:

We also rode the Toy Story ride one last time. I think the decision to ride it a 3rd time at 8:50 pm was probably not the best. We still had fun, but the line took a long, long time (I know! But apparently 9:00 pm isn’t too late for parents to have their kids still dragging around the park) and we all felt the strain of having fun for that long.

Overall we had a very fun day at Hollywood Studios, and I agreed that it was much nicer than Magic Kingdom because although it was all pretend still, it was based on reality — the reality of the 1920s and 1930s — and that made it much more fun somehow. It felt less fake, even though we knew it really wasn’t.

Today we head off to one of the water parks. I forget which one. So far I’ve evaded sunburn, but today will be a real test: It’s supposed to be 94 degrees and it’s pretty sunny already. More on the water park this evening or tomorrow.

PS – I’ll need a vacation from our vacation after this! Excluding rides, we walked about 15 miles yesterday, albeit at an extremely slow pace. Even so, we’re tired.

PPS – Here’s a picture Ian took of us at the Magic Kingdom on Splash Mountain. I can’t imagine why Ian didn’t want to get all wet after feeling like you were falling off the side of a mountain. Click the image for a bigger version of the picture.