The one I am DEFINITELY planning! Day 4 - Jollywood Nights

Wed 13th

This morning started with beeping and what I can only describe as ‘plant machinery noise’ at just before 0700.

This was most unwelcome given our late night and whilst we had seen some maintenance work being done outside the lobby the day before we had not anticipated an unwanted alarm 

We all stayed in bed for as long as possible (varying times for the group) and Rob popped down to the Roaring Fork to get some muffins and some milk so that we could have tea and coffee.

Having been in the US for barely 4 days Rob and I decided to make use of our laundry facilities and put a load of washing on before we headed out for the day.

We started off by visiting Geyser Point and having a little wander around, we sat outside the Bar & Grill (it was before opening time) and waited for the geyser to ‘go off’ which it did just before 11. It took us by surprise as it wasn’t at 1055 or at 1100 based on our watches!

We then popped to a nearby Publix, taking the road that goes past Space Mountain (which I always feel wrong doing) and picked up some food for our stay. Just some more muffins, bread, water – you know the normal stuff.

We headed back and ate lunch in our room, I am sure some of us had turkey and cheese sandwiches but I don’t think I took photos.

Next, we headed over to Hollywood Studios, we arrived at the parking lot at about 1345.

Jennifer has a friend who still works there and they were hoping to meet up quickly in between her meetings. So, we sat on a bench near the boat dock and people watched while we waited.

There was this guy who had rented one of the fishing boats and he was hilarious. He kept moving the boat around, stopping and randomly dropping his hook into the water for what felt like very short periods.

All the while his boat was drifting and he appeared to hit the banks on several occasions. Eventually he appeared to find the ‘anchor’ which meant the crashing stopped and he seemed to stop randomly dipping the hook. Sadly, this ended our entertainment but it was fun for a while.

After Jennifer and Tom had caught up with her friend we took the boat across to the Beach Club, we had an early dinner (or late lunch) reservation at Beaches and Cream.

We checked in and were taken to our table, we did have to ask for them to clean up though as the floor was absolutely covered in food and some kind of liquid – we didn’t want to ask what it was.

Once that was sorted we got settled and ordered a mixture of burgers and sandwiches. The service was a bit slow and with hindsight we should have just skipped to dessert but don’t worry we powered through and got them anyway.

I had a No Way Jose without whipped cream, Jennifer and Tom shared a No Way Jose with everything and Rob had the Snickers Sundae. This was definitely the best part of the meal and I am glad to say I managed to eat all of mine 

Once we had sorted the bill we rolled ourselves outside and made our way to the skyliner station at Epcot. We took our one and only ride back to Hollywood Studios changing at Caribbean Beach so we ticked off another mode of transport for Tom…..don’t think he actually took a bus anywhere?!

We arrived at the entrance to Hollywood Studios for Jollywood Nights at about 1745 and assumed we would have to wait a few minutes before entering the park (it stated that entry was available from 1800) but we were indeed allowed to enter straight away.

In a similar fashion to MVMCP yesterday the aim in attending this event was to secure lower lines for rides and not to really focus on the festivities – although clearly having Christmas music etc added to the ambience.

We got our wristbands and were diverted into the park via an alternative route where there was again a couple of photo opportunities. We got our photo taken in front of the sign and then in an attempt to get Tom around the park in 6 hours we headed off to Galaxy’s Edge as this was a massive priority.

We entered Batuu and found Smugglers Run had a short wait – I think it was 10 mins and in fact it was really a 10 min walk as we didn’t stop apart from for the pre-show and we went straight into our ‘falcon’ not even stopping in the holding room.

We made the boys do the piloting and Jennifer and I were the gunners. I think we only got 1 cannister of coaxium (is that even what it is called) but it was a good start to our rides.

We had a wander around and also took our first ride on Rise of the Resistance, we were disappointed that they weren’t running the pre-show but the wait was short and I think Tom appreciated the ride despite missing the start – they were sending people straight into the room with the Stormtroopers.

I later discovered that they had been having issues with the pre-show for a few days.

We headed out of Galaxy’s Edge and onto Star Tours (literally a walk on) to complete the set of Star Wars rides. We were all very excited when Tom was identified as the rebel spy – it might have had something to do with his ‘first visit’ button that we had been making him wear everyday 

Next, we decided to head down Sunset Boulevard to tick off Rock n Rollercoaster which again had literally no wait. 

We stopped in the pre-show room so that Tom could understand the background. This would have only been just after the park had officially closed so we were doing well.

As we exited we saw that Tower of Terror only had a 13 min wait (or a walk on to those in the know) so we went straight across. From my photos I can see we exited the ride at 2020 

Having got some of the big ticket items completed we decided to take a ride on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. This is a really cute ride but I do miss the Great Movie Ride.

Next up, we headed into Toy Story Land and waited maybe 5 mins for Toy Story Midway Mania where in a surprise twist I managed to beat Rob again! Twice in one trip….unheard of!

We then decided to take a quick ride on Slinky Dog Dash, you will see from the ride photo that our 2 rows appeared to be on different rides 

Having achieved pretty much all of our goals in terms of rides we headed back into Galaxies Edge where we saw the Mandalorian and Grogu – only from the side though as I wasn’t willing to wait in his long line.

While we were there we got a drink – just cokes and sprites from memory but I recall that Tom took a couple of the special (empty) bottles home as souvenirs.

As we had some time we repeated a couple of rides – Rise of the Resistance (still no pre-show) and Smugglers Run, where this time I think we managed to get 2 lots of the coaxium! We kept the same pilots but I think they switched sides.

We popped into the muppets courtyard to see if we could look at the event merchandise and found there was a DVC ‘membership magic’ pop up lounge inside pizzarizo. We popped in to see what it was about and we had our magicbands scanned and were let upstairs.

We discovered that there were some rice crispy snacks and some hot chocolate. This was apparently much higher quality than the ‘cocoa’ in the Magic Kingdom. The rice crispy treats were good too. I might have taken a couple with me for the rest of the trip 

By now we were happy that we had done everything we wanted to and so we headed towards the exit. We took a few photographs along the way and watched a little bit of the show in front of the Chinese Theatre.

We headed out of the park at 2330 with an hour of the event left….but having completed everything we set out to :) The lines were short for the rides all night and so we were happy with our Jollywood Nights experience!