Its a Jolly Holiday with Janice

Ok let's take this from the beginning.

Last week on my day off there were three things that I had wanted to do: sleep in, meet Pinocchio, and watch IllumiNations: Reflections from Earth. Unfortunately, I didn't do any of those things, but yesterday was a different story.

Yesterday was Wednesday (10/6/10), aka my day off for the week and it started off kind of later in the day. Now the night before I had stayed up late watching Donnie Darko with Dakotah and Amanda, so I can justify getting up at 12:30pm the next day. Plus, I was super tired and it was my one day off. Really I don't need to explain why I slept in, I did. It was magical, and it was something I had wanted to do.

After I woke up late, I watched some HIMYM and Glee, then figured maybe I should figure out what I was going to do that day. Everyone I had talked to was either working, doing homework, or had other plans. So I decided to be a loner and go by myself to Disney's Hollywood Studios. I went there because I honestly don't remember much from my last trip there. Now then, what did I do there? I started off my seeing the Block Party Bash. That is Hollywood Studios parade. It was kind of cool, very similar to Magic Kingdom's Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it! in that for part of it, you get to dance with the characters. Then I went to see the Voyage Under the Sea, the Little Mermaid show. Frankly, I had set high expectations for this show after seeing Beauty and the Beast one of the other times I had gone to Hollywood Studios. Sadly, this show let me down. It was simply not good and scared the baby next to me who was then crying during the 17 minute long performance.

Me at Hollywood Studios

 After that show, I went to the American Idol experience. Its apparently the closest thing that you can get to the real thing, besides for being at the real thing. At the end of the day, they have the finale show where all the contestants who won throughout the day compete and whoever wins gets the coveted golden ticket which gets them to front of any real American Idol line. Pretty cool!

I wandered around for a while after that and made my way to the single rider line for the Rockin' Roller Coaster. This is is similar to Space Mountain over at Magic Kingdom in that its mostly dark the entire ride. Plus, the Rockin' Roller Coaster's background music is Aerosmith! Yeah.

Next I went to the Animation Courtyard for some character meet-and-greet. There I got to meet: Geppetto and Pinocchio,  Captain Hook and Smee (from Peter Pan), Pocahontas and Meeko, Frozo and Mr. Incredible (from the Incredibles), Sorcerer Mickey (from Fantasia), and a Green Army Man (from Toy Story).

Geppetto and Pinocchio

 After my meet-and-greet I went off to Patterson Court for Oktoberfest. Sadly this was the one day that the buses decided to run on time so I got to wait my myself on a bench for about twenty minutes waiting for Hilary to arrive. At Oktoberfest, I got to eat German food, color Duffy (the new Epcot bear), and meet German Mickey Mouse, German Daisy Duck, and Germany Goofy. From there I finally got to do the last thing on my list, I saw IllumiNations: Reflections from Earth. That's the fireworks display at Epcot, it was pretty rad! I was happy that I finally got to see it. Yippie!

Oktoberfest with Mickey, Daisy, and Goofy