Monday January 29th 2024

It was a sunny cold Florida day. The temperature barely reached sixty with a strong breeze out of the north. It was better than the rain and snow in the northeast of the country, but for Florida it was a cold day. Tomorrow is forecast to start colder then warm up to a temperature a little warmer than today.

I really didn’t have a good plan for today. All I knew was I had a reservation at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Ideally that means I should have made an early start to the day in an attempt to get ahead of the crowds. There were heavy crowds at Hollywood Studios when I arrived around noon. The Magic Kingdom closes early at 4:30 for a cast appreciation event, so people may have chosen other parks like Hollywood Studios for the their day at Disney. Most of the wait times for rides were in the triple digits.

With the crowds, I chose to walk around the park and watch some of the shows. Even that didn’t work well. I arrived at the Beauty and the Beast show twenty minutes before showtime and it was already almost full. Rather than waiting and taking a chance, I continued on by and went to the Lightening McQueen Racing Academy. This is a show based on the Cars Movie franchise that I haven’t seen before. It will not be on my priority list for a return visit. The show is probably intended for kids that like the Cars movies.

After I walking around the entire park and watching a few shows, I decided to return to my RV home. I didn’t wear a hat today and I didn’t bring sun glasses. The glare from the sunny was adding to my frustration with the crowds. With the bus transportation thrown in the calculation, I was away from my RV home for a little over four hours.

After cooking some food and getting some nourishment, I entertained the thought of returning to Hollywood Studios for the night time shows. They had two shows of Fantasmic scheduled as well as the projection show on the Chinese Theater. Checking the My Disney Experience App showed that wait times were still long. I decided to stay at the campground and watch the Electric Water Pageant at 9:45. I got to the beach a little early and was able to catch the fireworks display from the Magic Kingdom associated with the cast appreciation event. I’m not sure what fireworks show they set off, but it is impressive that an entire fireworks show was part of the event for employees. The Electric Water Pageant was great as usual. It hasn’t changed much in the more than fifty years it has been running.