Day 7: Hollywood Studios
Only myself and DD’s wanted to rope drop today - but that’s ok! We wanted to hit ToT and RnRC which DS12 doesn’t like anyway, so he and DH slept in and met up with us a little later.
We got to the skyliner station at 6:52 and were the 7th group in line. I thought our chances of bypassing the CBR line were pretty good. We ate our breakfast while waiting and at 7am tried for another RoR BG. Fail!! But instead of getting the red warning “queue is full” I got a message “something went wrong” Oh well, fortunately we had ridden it on Monday and I will try again at 1pm. Others in the SL line got the same error message, I didn’t hear any excitement so I don’t think anyone in line got a BG that morning.
Got on the SL at 7:40 and when we got to the CBR station, were guided to one of the floor markings at the front of the HS line. I noticed there were 8 markings, so that must be why 8 is the magic number if you are one of the first from Pop to skip the CBR line.
.
We got off the HS SL at 7:54 but DD’s had to go to the bathroom. I noticed buses hadn’t arrived yet and only the left side temp check tent was open, so I figured we had time to go to the bathroom and get back in line when the right sided temp checks opened. This worked out perfectly. We finished up at the bathrooms as buses were arriving and the right side temp check opened, we were probably the 6th group in line and walking on Hollywood Blvd at 8:14
ToT wasn’t running yet, so we went straight to RnRC and rode it 2x in a row complete walk on. DD’s absolutely loved it and wanted to ride it a 3rd time (was still all on) but we decided at that point to check on ToT, and it was running.
The wait for ToT was already 20 minutes. We ran into DD10 's BFF and family from home as we were making our way towards the end of the line so DD10 hopped in line with them got to ride ToT with her BFF. They were a few groups ahead of us so we met up with them afterwards. I shared the tip with them about the parks opening up 45 minutes early (they had no idea) and they really made it work for them. They were staying at SoG.
After ToT, DD’s and I went to get a popcorn refill and ice cream and sat at a table outside the Hollywood Brown Derby while waiting for DH and DS12 to arrive. For DH/DS12’s trip on the SL, they got to the CBR station at around 9:30 and had to wait about 20 minutes to transfer. After they arrived, we went over to Lightening McQueen’s racing Academy, waited through 2 shows (about 20 minutes) before we were seated. This isn’t a must do, but we liked it.
After that we went to see the Vacation Fun shorts - cute!!! and then checked in for lunch at Sci Fi!! We made sure we were in the courtyard this time 
DS12 was looking forward to this all week. We got seated in the “stretch limo” in the center of the restaurant. We had shakes, burgers, fries and the fried pickles for an appetizer. Yummy!!
As we were finishing up, it was approaching 1pm. I got my phone ready to try for a BG with the pull down and hold method. I let go exactly at 1pm and got BG 169. Return time would have been late, and we were heading to Epcot that evening. Surprisingly, DS12 didn’t care if we did it again since “he already knew what happened” so I cancelled it. 
Sci Fi was definitely the strictest about wearing masks until drinks arrive and made a point to remind us as we were seated, which I didn’t mind at all. When we were leaving though, I honestly forgot to put my mask back on and one of the waiters scooted me aside as another family was entering and shielded me from the manager’s line of sight while I looked for my mask and put it back on. Oops! CM realized I had just forgotten and of course wanted to enforce the policy and not get anyone in trouble.
Headed back to Pop on the SL and decided to check out the progress of the Big Blue Pool at AoA - looks like it is finishing up and getting ready to reopen. DD7 twins and I stayed here in the LM rooms in 2019 and they remembered how much fun they had at this pool.
Back to Pop to hit the pools! One of the things I love about staying at Disney resorts are the afternoon pool games!! Even though we were at the pools just about every afternoon, I only saw it happening once. We all enjoyed Disney trivia and DD10 had a blast dancing the “cotton eyed Joe”
I was watching the Lines app to try again for an attempt to ride TT, and it looked there was quite a lull in wait times around 6pm, so we hopped over to Epcot and finally got to ride! We waited about 15 minutes, which was great. Then walked on MS (green) and traveled around the WS, visiting China (loved their film!!), Italy, and America pavilions.
Rode the SL back to Pop at 8:20. We really were loving the SL - so fun seeing everything from above. We didn’t experience any down time and except for DH’s trip to HS mid morning, always walked on even through transfers.
