Day 12 –November 1, 2019 – Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom; Travel Home
Plan: Choose between doing the Yule Tide Tour which I had booked or spend the morning and early afternoon at EPCOT; ADRs at Rose and Crown at 12:30; FPP at Mission Space at 9:30, Test Track at 11:00, and Spaceship Earth at 1:25; Yule Tide Tour from 9:00 – 12:00; back to Pop by 3:00 for ME at 4:05 (I like to be early for things like this). During our trip, we changed our plans for this day many times, and eventually cancelled everything. On Thursday, we finally decided that what we really wanted to do was to ride Slinky Dog Dash again, so HS and 4:30 am it was.
Actual: On our last day, we decided to get up at 4:30 and rope drop Hollywood Studios. We wanted to ride Slinky Dog Dash one (or two) more times. We were near the front of the line, but enough people got in front of us that we weren’t in the first car, but when we got in the entry queue, they started having people get out. It was down. Womp womp!
We headed to Toy Story Mania. DS17 scored 148,700 and I scored 117,600. We then ate at Woody’s Lunchbox, hoping that Slinky Dog would reopen. No luck, so back to Toy Story Mania (165,500 for DS17; 119,200 for me). We went back to Slinky to try to wait it out. We talked to the CMs, DS17 hula hooped with them, and we waited, and waited, and waited… Eventually, DS17 said, “I don’t want this to be the last thing we do (the waiting); I want to ride something today.” So, we gave up and went to Tower of Terror and while we were in line for ToT, I was checking MDE, and noticed it came back up.
DS17 decided to ride Rock 'n Roller Coaster one last time, while I headed back to Slinky Dog Dash to check it out. When I got there, the line was 60 minutes and increased to 85. I called Disney to request a late check out so we could ride and still have time to shower and finish packing, letting them know that we got up at 4:30, so we could ride SDD one last time, and that it was down all morning and was now back up with a long wait. The person I spoke to said they would get in touch with Housekeeping and they would call me back to let me know. After I got off the phone, one of the CMs who we were hanging out with in the morning came up to me and asked if I wanted to ride. I said yes, but that I was waiting for DS17. As soon as he got there, she walked us up to the FPP line and asked the CM there to let us in. That was amazing! We asked if we could ride in the last row, because that’s what they were telling us was the best place to ride that morning. When we finished the ride, another CM who remembered us from the morning asked if we wanted to go again. Of course we said yes, and she walked us right back in through the exit, and got us in the back row for the next ride. Magic at the end of our trip. While we were riding, housekeeping called and said we had until 1:00 to check out. Yay!
We left Hollywood Studios, went back to Pop via Skyliner to shower, relax, and check out. Meanwhile, I got a FPP for Flight of Passage with a same day drop at 11:01. We left the room around 11:45, checked out, and headed to Animal Kingdom to ride FOP and then ate at Flame Tree Barbecue. DS17 wanted to ride EE one last time too, and headed there, and I shopped a little. The plan was to meet up near the exit. We took the bus to Art of Animation, and walked back to Pop Century to wait for our 4:05 Tragical Express to the Airport. DS17 used up all of his credits in the arcade, while we waited. Our 7:05 flight back to Seattle was uneventful, DH picked us up at the airport, and we got home by 11:00 pm Seattle time. It was a long day, but fun! And we were also glad to be home. We had such a great trip but we were both missing our real life people and activities.
Total Steps: 18,468
Highlights: The magic of riding Slinky Dog Dash twice (DS17 and me)
