The Grand Bro Trip (Orlando, Florida) - Day 8

This summer holidays, my Bro and I went on the trip of a lifetime! 2 weeks of amazing was on the Grand Bro Trip in Orlando, Florida.

Day 8, 2/8 (Tuesday)

Day 2 of Disney!

We had park reservations for Hollywood Studios for this day so we were up at 7 to get our Rise of the Resistance Individual LL reservation. When I got to the app I couldn't seem to get through! It said that I couldn't make that booking because I wasn't in the US... even though I was actually in the resort. After a few seconds thought, I jumped on the hotel room phone and hit the button for guest services. By this point I was worried that it was 7.10 and we wouldn't get a spot today. But luckily the lady in guest services managed to get us the spot for 5.25-6.25pm that day, and switched the address on my account to the Poly's address - I think that might have been the problem in the end. So we got it but not for ages - so we grabbed the regular LL booking too, rolled back over and grabbed another hour or so of sleep.

To get from the Poly to Hollywood Studios we needed to take the bus and we managed to walk to the bus stop just outside right when the bus was pulling up. We wore our Disneybound outfits for this day - Bro wore all grey including some reflective sunnies to be Mando, and I wore an olive green dress and brown shorts with my hair in pigtails to be his Grogu. I don't think that anyone recognised us for what we are but we really liked being dressed up! We headed straight to Batuu when we arrived, and wandered through. Our first stop for the day was our LL reservation - Smugglers Run. It's a motion simulation spaceship ride where 6 people share a ship and have jobs in pairs (2 pilots, 2 gunners, and 2 engineers). It had interactive elements where depending on your role - Bro and I were both engineers, and as we bumped our way through the ride (our pilot must have been about 10), we had to hit buttons that lit up to fix the ship. We were smuggling something, although I can't remember what, but you didn't actually move. It just tilted and shook but stayed still, and I honestly really really struggled on the ride. The motion simulation really got to me, after the first 30 seconds or so I couldn't even look at the screen with the ride on it. I kept my eyes firmly on the buttons so I got a really good score for my engineer skills at least. I had to even take a sit down afterwards, but the Bro really liked it! After that we wandered around more of Batuu and got some of the photopass photo location. It was really cool and got the best angles in Batuu, plus added cool effects as well.

Then for some lunch, we managed to get a last minute spot at the coolest place in Batuu, Oga's Cantina! This is a really cool themed bar with so many amazing Star Wars themed cocktails! I went non-alcoholic with a Hyperdrive (Punch It!), which had berry powerade and black cherry puree. It was awesome! The Bro got a Blue Bantha - at this point we hadn't seen any of the blue or green milk yet and this was the blue milk served with a Bantha-themed sugar cookie. We also got the Happabore Sampler to share, which is the galaxies version of a meat and cheese platter. It was great!

Then we popped into the shops around Batuu (I got my Ewok ears!) and wandered out into the rest of Hollywood Studios. We had a LL reservation mid-afternoon for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway which got cancelled as the ride was down (that actually happened a bunch while we were in the park over our few days) and we got a free credit. We were melting and needed an inside thing, so headed over to the MuppetVision 3D show... except we forget to pick up our 3D glasses! We didn't realise until we were seated and the doors closed. Oops. the how was still good and I do enjoy the Muppets! After the show was finished we wandered all around to all the pin trading locations and got some good ones - better than we had at Magic Kingdom the previous day. We had a LL reservation for Runaway Railway at 4.15-5.15 but were running out of clothes, so we headed back to the Poly to take a mid-afternoon rest and get some washing done at the laundromat. Then we hung all our clothes around the room, left it on 'do not disturb' and headed back in for the end of the LL slot- although Runway Railway got cancelled AGAIN so we decided to leave it for today.

Then it was time for Rise of the Resistance. I was nervous about this ride as it had lots of warnings for fast motion, sharp turns, backwards motion and a sudden drop at the end. But it's by far the most popular ride in this park (and tied with the Guardians ride for total most popular) and it's Star Wars so there was no way we were missing it. Bro was so sweet - I got really nervous waiting in line and he took my hand and was like 'you can do it Bro!' It was the total experience!!! It is in multiple parts, involved several different ride types, does go backwards a bunch and has some iconic characters in it (HI Domhnall Gleeson). It was totally thrilling, takes about 17 minutes in total and it was INCREDIBLE. I got off it and was like WOAH - THAT WAS A LOT BUT I LIKE IT AND I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN. The rooms and atmosphere were a total vibe - the sets were incredible and totally believable. The drop was the part I was the most worried about but actually I saw it coming (it was an escape pod drop) and it was over so fast I didn't even have a chance to feel bad about it. Bro was totally hilarious as well - at one point you see Kylo Ren and when he looked at us he waved and said out loud 'Hi, I love your work!' So cringe but hilarious.

After the ride, we headed over to one of the Galaxy's Edge quick service locations, Docking Bay 7. I had heard about the Ronto Wrap before coming to the park and really wanted to try it but hadn't at lunch and you can get it for dinner here. It's a pita-style bread with a slice of roast pork, pork sausage and coleslaw. It was excellent! We also had some alcoholic drinkies - I had the Surley Sarlacc (with grapefruit and rose vodka in it), and Bro the Takodana Quencher (with dragon berry rum). We really enjoyed sharing over our trip with food and drinks and I really rated the food - even if we didn't eat as many snacks as I had anticipated. It was looking like rain, and had started bucketing down right after we got into the Docking Bay so we drank and ate slowly to wait out the rain. Then we headed back to the Poly on the bus, and given it wasn't super late we shared some of our Gideon's cookies from Disney Springs and watched the Emperors New Groove before heading to sleep.