The Grand Bro Trip (Orlando, Florida) - Day 10

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

Day 10, 4/8 (Thursday)

Day 4 of Disney!

We had another day booked for Hollywood Studios today - mostly to give us the best odds of getting on Rise of the Resistance. We woke up at 7 and managed to get our own Rise LL reservation this time for the early afternoon, as well as another regular LL reservation for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, hoping we'd actually get on it this time! We managed to get that for mid morning so got ready and headed straight to the bus. As soon as we arrived we headed straight in. I was told by CM and other reading I did that Runaway Railway was less dramatic as a ride then Rise, so I was pretty confident about my ability to ride it. It was another trackless coaster which I really enjoyed and I also liked the plotline behind it too! It was almost a shame we didn't get to ride it on Tuesday, as I would have gone again but the line got very long and you can only get one LL per attraction per day. We didn't want to stand in line for more than an hour ever! (And we never did for more than about 30 minutes in our 5 days).

After RR we wandered around and made sure to get to all the pin trading locations - as we didn't really like any of our original pins we wanted to trade them all away before we were done in our time at Disney. We finished our trading in Toy Story Land so stopped at Woody's Toy Box for lunch. They do grilled cheese sandwiches and tater tots there were was a nice change and really yummy! Also not too filling compared to some of our other lunches.

On our way back to Galaxy's Edge the Bro stopped in at Star Tours. It never had more than about a 10 minute wait and he really enjoyed it, but I waited in a shop for him to be done. He agreed it would have been awful for me as it was entirely motion simulation like Smugglers Run. But then we went back on Rise of the Resistance! Such a good ride. After that, Bro had booked in to build a lightsaber at Savi's workshop, and I was allowed to go along as his guest. It was a very cool experience. Before going in you choose what 'theme' your lightsaber is - Peace and Justice, Power and Control, Elemental Nature, or Protection and Defense - which narrows down your options to just a couple. Then when it's your turn you go into the workshop and it's a whole experience! They talk about the importance of what you're doing, you choose your Khyber crystal colour, you piece it together yourself from your options, and then you place it in a special spot. They say the words, and it crafts the blade of your saber which you then raise and light up very ceremonially. Yoda even speaks! It was very cool even to just watch and I took lots of photos and video to help the Bro remember it. 

After that we were ready for a show, so we ran over to make the LL entrance slot for the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. It was very cool with explosions and proper stunt people and it was a cool show for sure. We decided before the show that we would have some pre dinner drinks, so after it finished, we headed back over to Oga's Cantina. We had a couple of cocktails (well, I had one and Bro had 2) and we even managed to get some coasters. I asked how we could get some to keep and the bartender asked, 'What can you offer in exchange?' I had no idea what/if we had anything good, so after I paused, she said 'You can have the ones you catch!' and started frisbee-ing them at us. Of course, we only caught a couple, but she made sure we ended up with a nice large stack to take home which was super nice. We stayed longer this time so enjoyed the theming, vibe and music even more than last time!

Then it was back to the Poly to change for dinner. This was our 1 meal we booked before the trip - Space 220 at Epcot. We wanted to have one fancy meal on the trip and this looked like the coolest one which wasn't a character dinner. After changing into our fancies we took the monorail back over to Epcot and headed in. The concept is really cool - you have to go up in a lift, which takes you '220 miles up into space'. You then eat your dinner while looking out of the space station towards the Earth below, and sometimes things float past the window. Very cool.

It was an absolutely gorgeous meal. You commit to 3 courses but it wasn't too much food, really, and we also got a few drinks. I started with the Neptune Tartare, which was tuna and delicious, and a Stratosphere Strawberry Lemonade (one of the alcoholic cocktails). For mains I had the space glazed duck breast which was really beautifully cooked, but for me the stand out was definitely dessert! I had a second drink (no alcohol this time as I'm a lightweight), which was the Moon Rocks drink. It was bright blue, tasted like candy floss, and came with not only a packet of Pop Rocks to put in it, but a collectible card to go with it! Super cool and I can imagine every kid drink it - it was perfectly sweet for dessert drinking. I also had the carrot cake, which was by far the best carrot cake I've ever eaten!!! When I told our server that, he told me that it is even vegan! I couldn't fathom how they got it so moist, and the cream cheese so accurate, without any dairy, which only made it more incredible in my eyes. We stretched out the whole meal, chatting and taking our time the one time we weren't in a rush, and we were one of the last tables to vacate and head back down to Earth.

We also took our sweet time walking back to the Monorail station, as it was still running for a while and Epcot looks really sweet at night (the ball and the Guardians ride especially). We couldn't do anything else on the way back though because the park had closed at 9pm and it was well after that already, so we headed back and went to bed. I was already starting to feel sad that we only had one day left, even though it was another Magic Kingdom day!