Disney World Day 7- Rockin' and Rollin'

Friday was our last day to spend at Disney World. We had the chance to visit all 4 theme parks and both water parks earlier in the week, and we had saved Friday to catch anything we hadn't had a chance to see or to revisit some of our favorite attractions. Since the Rockin Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios had been closed on Sunday when we visited, and since Hollywood Studios was one of our favorite parks, it was an obvious choice to revisit that park on Friday. As we were standing in line waiting for the bus at our resort, we kept seeing lots of people dressed up as Star Wars characters or wearing Star Wars t-shirts. We couldn't figure out why they were all dressed that way until we made it to the park and saw a sign that it was Star Wars weekend. I think Matt did a happy dance when he realized that :). Although Matt was excited about the Star Wars weekend, that also meant a more crowded theme park. Friday was by far the most crowded day of our trip, but thankfully we still didn't have to wait more than half an hour to ride any attraction.

While we were waiting in line to get in, some storm troopers were keeping watch over the crowd

Lots of people waiting to get in

The first thing we did when we got to the park was ride the Toy Story ride again. We knew if we didn't ride it first thing that morning, we weren't going to get to ride it that day because of the crowd. I kept teasing Matt with my goal oriented personality. The last time we rode it, I earned 98,000 points. I told him that if I didn't beat 100,000 this time, we were going to have to stand in line for an hour so I could have another try. I wasn't leaving the park without breaking 100,000. Thankfully, my skills had improved and I earned over 128,000 that round :). It's a good thing we did, because we checked back later that day and the wait time was 90 minutes, the longest we had seen on any attraction the entire week.

Matt was dying for a picture with an army man before we left the Pixar studios area.

Immediately after riding Toy Story we hauled it over to the other end of the park to get in line for the Rockin' Roller Coaster before the line got too crazy. Before we got in line for the ride, we grabbed fast passes so we could ride it again later that day. We actually didn't have to wait in line as long as I thought we would, only about 25 minutes. I'm so glad that the coaster reopened when we were able to ride it, because I think it turned out to be Matt's favorite attraction of the trip. Aerosmith had invited us to his concert and even brought us a limo, but we had to get there fast, and I mean really fast, or we were going to miss the show. We shot off going 0 to 60 in just a few seconds, and before we could catch our breath from the speed, we were traveling upside down. The ride continue through more loops and twists as we traveled through the city jamming to Aerosmith songs and made it to the red carpet just in time for the concert. It was a really fun ride. As soon as we got off, Matt said, "Now that's a roller coaster."

Since the Rockin Roller Coaster was right by the Tower of Terror, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to ride it again, so we reentered the Twilight Zone. That attraction was so fun every time we rode it, because the timing and number of the drops were different each time. I think the last time we rode it was the best. I was surprised that we would drop once and then they would hold us and we would drop again, farther down which I wasn't expecting. I didn't force Matt to ride it with me another time that day, although I was willing to wait in line again.

Our fast passes for the Rockin Roller coaster weren't going to be available until later in the afternoon, so we had a few hours to catch some of the smaller attractions at Hollywood Studios that we had missed earlier that day. We watched the Muppets 3-D show, walked through the museum that was a tribute to Walt Disney, and toured the Magic of Disney Animation attraction.

After lunch we enjoyed the Studio Backlot tour. In that attraction they showed us how different special effects are done in movies and we got to see a lot of props from famous movies.

They shot a scene from a movie step by step and showed the different special effects

We rode a train behind the scenes of Hollywood Studios and got some good pictures of the water tower

Another scene they showed and then explained how the special effects worked

Matt was excited about seeing Tataouine as we were walking around

After the backlot tour, our fastpasses were available for the Rockin Roller coaster, so we rode it again before we left the park for the day.

We couldn't leave without a picture of us with the Tower Hotel in the background

We went back to the hotel and rested for a couple of hours and then caught a bus to Downtown Disney for the evening. We walked around some of our favorite shops again and picked up a few souvenirs at the World of Disney. We had dinner reservations at Fulton's Crabhouse that evening, and devoured some delicious seafood while we talked about our favorite moments of the vacation.
After dinner, we debated about going to the Magic Kingdom to catch the fireworks display one last time, but decided against it. I wanted our last night to be relaxing and calming, and we would have been rushed on the buses trying to make it in time. Instead we ventured back to our hotel, changed into our swimsuits, grabbed a couple of Mickey ice cream bars and relaxed in lawn chairs while we enjoyed them and them hopped into our bowling pin pool to cool off and enjoy our last evening in Orlando.

The next morning we packed our suitcases, ate breakfast, walked around our resort for a little while and then boarded the charter bus back to the airport for our trip back to Tulsa.