October’s “Not So Scary” Food and Fun Trip – Day 1
I Got up this morning at 4 AM to wait for Riley and Jess to pick me up from my hotel, and head to the airport for our 6:10 AM flight. I could have stayed with them last night, but they only have an uncomfortable futon for me to sleep on, so I opted for a hotel with a nice bed instead. I’ve been excited for this trip because other than the one day Riley met me down here to ride Splash Mountain on its final day in January, he has not been since 2019, and Jess has never been. We are also going to get to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party on Friday night…something we have never got to do in the past. After uneventful flights, we arrived at Saratoga Springs Resort around 12:30 p.m. Shortly after arrival, our room was ready so we dropped our stuff off and jumped on a boat to Disney Springs to grab some lunch. Jess and I had Earl of Sandwich and Riley got a huge slice of pepperoni pizza at Pizza Ponte. After lunch, we were going to walk back to the resort, but a boat had just pulled up, so we hopped on it and headed back to relax for a while. Jess and Riley stayed in the room for a nap and I picked up our Instacart order and headed to the pool to enjoy the sun and a beer. Around 5 pm we finally got around and headed to Hollywood Studios for the evening. Once we arrived at the Studios, we rode Toy Story Midway Mania, before heading over to check out Galaxy’s Edge and get a Blue Milk for Riley. Then Jess got a churro, and we quickly stopped at Baseline Taphouse for a beer for me. At this point it was starting to sprinkle, so we did a little shopping, then rode Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway (which Riley had not been on since it opened…this is Jessica’s first trip here so everything is a first for her), and Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Hollywood Studios was having extended hours, this is where the park stays open an extra 2 hours for guests staying in Deluxe or DVC resorts, so our original plans were to watch the 8 pm showing of Fantasmic, then see what rides we could do after it….but after riding Tower, and grabbing dinner for Riley, we noticed that Rise of the Resistance only had a 30 min wait. It’s not open during the extended hours, and since Riley and Jess had never been on it, we decided to do that and watch the 9:30 showing of Fantasmic instead. After Rise, we grabbed Jess’s dinner from Woody’s Toybox..she had the BBQ Brisket Melt with Tomato Soup and headed to the amphitheater to watch Fantasmic. It started to rain while we were waiting, so the show was delayed a bit, but it finally got started about 10 minutes late. We were a little disappointed that due to the weather, they had cut out the last scene where the boat comes around the lagoon with all the characters, but the show was still great anyway. Afterward, we had planned on hitting Smuggler’s Run and Slinky, but since Fantasmic ran late, we only had time for one more ride so the kids voted for Slinky Dog Dash to end the night. We got back to the resort around midnight exhausted from our long day. I ended up walking about 10 miles and over 20,000 steps. Tomorrow we will sleep in and head over to Epcot for Food and Wine Fest.
