Disney 2014–Hollywood Studios and Frozen Summer

As I talked about, we surprised the girls with this Disney trip which was so exciting. Disney surprised us with the opening of Frozen Summer at Hollywood Studios – it was a great surprise for Gianna (and Aleesia, of course!).

After we changed from spending our morning at the pool, we grabbed a snack and headed over to Hollywood Studios for the rest of our first day. It was a Tuesday, we had planned to be there between 12 and 1 and Mike had a fast pass scheduled for Star Tours.

We are not so much Star anything people, but she and Mike both enjoyed the ride and Aleesia enjoyed an opportunity to nap for a bit.

We did a little exploring, which of course included visiting Oakin’s Trading Post (Gianna was so excited to get the Anna/Elsa flip doll!) and the Frozen Summer activities and reserving our spot for the Frozen Sing a Long. We got stuck in the rain, naturally, because we ALWAYS get stuck in the rain at Hollywood Studios!

one of them was totally excited to build a snowman. one, was not!

We then headed to Toy Story Mania (love this ride!) and both girls enjoyed it.

Our late lunch reservations were for Hollywood and Vine so we could dine with the Disney Jr. characters. We were the last lunch time available. The main benefit here: we got a lot of time with the characters. But honestly, the food was less than great. The lobster mac & cheese was good, the girls liked the tater tots, and the dessert station was (as always) a hit but overall the food was just blah. It honestly made me thankful we were using the dining plan and not paying out of pocket because I would have been quite disappointed. This was also the longest wait we had from reservation time to the time we sat down at the table. There was a big patio so the girls could run around and they had free ice water, which was nice as well.

After we got our fill of Sophia and Doc we actually headed over to Disney Jr. Live – we were early, so we snuck in to see Wreck it Ralph and Vanillope Von Sweet first in the animation courtyard. We didn’t have a ton of time to spend here this time but it is a great place for kids to explore with lots of character meet & greets (Mickey, the Incredibles, Jake, Sofia) and different art stations to explore and play with.

Aleesia LOVE LOVE LOVED Disney Jr. Live!! She and G danced and sang together and were just generally adorable! This is a big favorite of ours.

And after that we went to a Frozen dance party which both girls LOVED.

And finally, Frozen sing a long time – I was sure Gianna was going to jump out of her skin when it started, she participated fully in the songs and cracked me up the whole time. It was way too dark to get any pictures of her, but it was great. Funny, great songs, not too long, and a place to sit down for a  little while!

The girls were pretty much beat by that point, we walked around a bit more but ultimately headed back to our hotel early and skipped the fireworks and Fantasmic. (Gianna and Aleesia are both scared of fireworks, so this wasn’t a big deal to us) And as I mentioned previously, we actually were able to watch the Frozen fireworks from our resort as we walked to our room so we still got to see them without the loud booms.

Overall for a  5 and 1 year old, this was not an all day park for us this time. We would have liked to been able to also fit in Beauty and the Beast and the parade, but we just didn’t get there early enough nor did we have time with the way our fast pass and meal reservations were timed. For the parents, they serve beer and there are some roller coasters (Tower of Terror! Rockin’ roller coaster) that are great. It was a more laid back day for us, which worked well since we got there later. There are plenty of character greetings (we did not do them all, obviously) and both kids were equally entertained for the entire day. The Disney Jr. and Frozen attractions made this a can’t miss park for us!