As with Disney Hollywood Studios down in Orlando, Walt Disney Studios has an homage to Sorcerer Mickey out front.
Nice that they tell people in their work zones to stay to the right. Would be even nicer if more people actually abided by the request.
First up was getting into the Avengers Campus -- something I haven't managed yet even in the U.S.
OK. As much as I hate taking off my glasses on rides, I'll do it. "Secure" the phone? Well, you don't have the sort of pouches that other Disney parks do, so it was just a matter of making sure everything was a tight as possible in my pockets -- making sure my cash/credit cards stayed put in the one pocket, and my phone, charger, and passport stayed put in the other.
Fun ride. Basically Rock'n'Rollercoaster updated with an Avengers theme. So, even though things were blurry without my glasses on, I could well enough recognize what was displaying on the screens.
Patting down my pockets on the way out, though, it seemed like something was missing. Oh, $h!t! Where the hell was my phone?
Very quickly, I rushed back to the attendant who was on the platform for the exit of the ride, who thankfully spoke English, and I hurriedly explained to her that I just got off of the ride 1 or 2 cars previous to what just departed from the exit platform, and that it seems like my phone fell out. Is there anything she could do?
Apparently this is a frequent enough occurrence on this ride -- but where the objects merely fall out within the cars themselves and not onto the tracks , they always make sure to do an extra double-check of the seats and bottoms of the cars.
Yes, her partner found a phone in one of the recent cars, and would come there to verify it's mine. When he arrived with the phone in hand, he asked me if I could unlock it for him. Gladly! I entered the pattern, it unlocked, and he relinquished it to me. Phew! Major crisis averted. Heart rate (which was much higher during this ordeal than during the ride) returned back to normal.
Next up, your friendly neighborhood web-slinger.
The line was long enough that by the point that I got here (a couple of rooms of queue in) there were two CMs who came out, ostensibly part of the janitorial crew sweeping up some of the trash on the floor, but that were also talking about the spider bots that were all over the place. Alas, I didn't get video.
This turned out to be a really cute ride. Think Toy Story Mania with a Spider-man theme, and where instead of using a stylized gun, you use your own hands to aim webs that you yourself are slinging at the spider bots. Neat! And a little bit of a workout, too.
Next ride: Quatre Roues Rallye
This is a cute, relatively quick ride, very similar to Mater's Junkyard Jamboree from Cars Land.
It was very tight timing to the last showing of the one show I had heard a fair bit about that was a "don't miss." Despite ultimately being behind some very slow people in the queue leading into the show, I got to my seat about 1 minute before the show started.
Shortly afterward, though, her arch nemesis, the Queen of Hearts arrived.
Instead of competing with each other at croquet again, with the Queen of Hearts cheating, they dueled it out with their singing.
So, who won? The Mad Hatter left it up to the audience. Even though I, personally, thought the Queen of Hearts' performance was the better of the two, by an overwhelming and very loud majority the audience decided that Alice won. Congrats!
On my way out towards dinner, I passed Thor and Loki with a couple of kids from the group that had gathered around them.
Loki was trying to demonstrate that his protege (about 15 years old) was "worthy" to lift Thor's hammer. She couldn't. However, Thor imparted some of his virtue to his protege (about 7 years old), and she was able to lift the hammer. It was clearly quite heavy for her, she didn't have full control, but she was able to hold it. The interplay among them all was really quite amusing.
Despite not having a reservation for dinner, it was pretty easy for me to get into Pym's.
The food was ostensibly an American food all-you-can-eat buffet (though I did wonder about a couple of dishes), and was certainly a bit overpriced, but it was still good. Glad to have gone.
Having had a bit "more than my fill" for dinner, my next choice would not have been advisable for some people, but I was willing to give it a go. After all, it's one of my favorite rides across all the Disney parks.
One of the great things about being solo on this ride is that, invariably, the CMs will ask it there is a singleton in the line, to fill up the odd space -- allowing you to jump a large portion of the line, despite there not being a single rider line. Yet again, that happened for me -- not that it would have been all that much longer before I would have been in the normal loading queue.
I loaded up in one of the shorter rows with a dad and his daughter. She seemed really nervous, and before we got to the point of putting on the seat belts, he pointed out that they needed to leave, and effectively blamed it on his bad shoulder.
After they departed, the CM finished up his usual schtick, asking if there were any last questions, to which one obvious Tower of Terror regular chimed in with "Is it too late to take the stairs?"
Yes. Yes it was.
And off we went. And this variant of the ride is still different than the others I've been on. Truly taken by surprise. Love it! Always a fun ride.
Looking at the app about what wait times were on the few remaining rides that I wanted to get to enabled me to get onto two more rides and one more show, and unfortunately having to give up getting on one that I had on my to-do list.
First -- getting a good view of much of the park:
Next up was Mickey and the Magician. This was a fun "musical show bursting with spellbinding illusions and special effects" as Mickey kept on getting distracted by different things while he was supposed to be cleaning the Magician's office.
Finally, after departing the show, was the first time I've ever gotten onto a line for a ride before park close but that had me getting off the ride after park close. It was certainly worth it.
There was a group of about 4 or 5 people in front of me in the single rider line who were yukking it up with one of the CMs. Eventually, the CM had to get back to doing something "back stage," so departed. One of the people took advantage of his departure and the relative lack of people present on the regular line next to us to slip onto that line, ostensibly to see whether he would manage to get onto the ride before any of the rest of his group. Immensely obnoxious which had me fuming more than I should have been. (End result -- yes, he wound up getting on the ride about 10 minutes or so in advance of the earliest of his party.)
Yet another really great coaster. After boarding a turtle shell, the coaster doesn't have us just going along the track facing forward. Rather, frequently we are turned to the side or backwards while proceeding on the coaster. Loads of fun in a (for me) unique manner. I definitely understood why this had the longest line, and, as with many of the other rides throughout the day, would've liked to have repeated it.
Finally off the ride and exiting the park after 8:30pm, and it felt SO weird for it to still be as bright outside as it was. (Sunset was a little after 9pm)
Was that the end of the day? Heck, no! Gotta go back to Disneyland to wrap up the day!
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