Mary's Pop-ins: The Skinny on Minnie...and Mickey, too!: Celebrate The Magic - June 12, 2010

At the end of my last post, you probably thought, "How is this girl going to get through this day?"

When you last left me, I was headed into the park to find the family. I had to abandon my plan of leaving everyone at MGM to head to Magic Kingdom for the WDW Radio Show Meet of the Month. We just didn't arrive early enough and get going enough for me to do that. Which bummed me out completely because I wanted to participate, meet Lou Mongello (because he's got an awesome show and some great books) and have him meet me. I'm on a mission to work with the guy as I think he's sorely in need of a skilled virtual assistant so he's not constantly working! But I digress here...

I suppose I should introduce the family AKA Cast of Characters:

Bryan: My husband. The total Star Wars geek of the family. The one who doesn't want to vacation anywhere else but Disney World. The one who doesn't care where we eat as long as there are characters. In his real life, he's a systems architect.

Stefan: Teenage boy. Eagle Scout. Walking eating machine. Loves Star Wars. Loves to swim. Loves to make trouble. Loves Disney World.

Caitlin: Teenage girl. Bookworm. Unintentional, sometimes deadpan, comic. Recently discovered she loves Space Mountain. Loves hidden Mickeys.

and then me.

Anyhow...I called Bryan and found out they were in Star Wars shopping area ~ I think it was called Boba's Warehouse ~ waiting to get the passholder stuff. Since I had all the Fastpass cards, I headed over to Toy Story Midway Mania to get fastpasses.

By the way, with these Fastpass cards, Toy Story was in the same group with Rock N Roller Coaster. So I know I needed to leave at least one on that group for RNR. But my plan was to get multiples for Toy Story.

I walked over to the Fastpass line for Toy Story and it was already getting a bit long. I have to say the CMs rocked in getting people organized and keeping them moving through the 6 Fastpass stations that were there.

If you haven't been to Toy Story yet, it's hugely popular and Fastpasses run out before the end of the day. At the time I got into the Fastpass line (9:50am-ish), the return time for regular Fastpasses was 3:10pm. By the time I got up the Fastpass machine (which really wasn't long ~ maybe 5-8 minutes), the return time was 4:05pm. Crazy.

Once I got up there at 10:00am, I fed the Fastpass cards in twice and got those instant Fastpasses that were good right away at 10:00am.

I walked toward the Backlot to find the family. Just as I got there, they were coming out and so was Boba Fett!

But we were on a mission to get to Toy Story!

I have to say, it was awesome to just walk into the Fastpass line. We had a small wait where the lines came together, but all in all, we maybe stood in line for 10 minutes, if that.

We got right back in the Fastpass line and did it again. It was really funny...we were all wearing our tie-dye Mickey shirts that day...

The ham and his sister in line for Toy Story...

Anyway, the CM did a double take when we got back there and was like, "How'd you get up here so fast?"

It was great fun to do that ride twice in a row.

But they were hot to trot to get to Star Tours. So we mosey in that direction and people are starting to line up for the Star Wars Parade at 11am. We turn the corner and Star Tours has a 10 minute wait time in the Stand-By Line. I hesitated, thinking, "This is Star Wars Weekends. There's no way it's really 10 minutes." One of the CMs seemed to read my mind. He said, "There's no wait right now."

He was right. We walked right in and waited 2 minutes to get in the ride vehicle. Now we've been on Star Tours dozens of times and we are super pumped for Star Tours 2.0 that comes out next year. But it's still fun to ride, especially when everyone else in your vehicle has obviously never been on the ride before. Lots of laughter and stuff from our fellow space travelers.

At that point, people are hungry. We headed over Backlot Express, our usual standby for MGM.

I will say that of all the parks, MGM has the fewest number of eateries that jazz me. But Backlot Express is safe in that it has burgers, chicken strips and hot dogs - the safe food for any family of picky eaters. I, however, absolutely LOVE the Southwestern Chicken Salad. It's huge! It comes with lots of chicken, mixed greens, a tortilla wedge and a cilantro-lime dressing that is just yummy. It really was enough to fill me up without weighing me down on a hot and humid day.

At that point, I had the full-tummy sleepies. Plus, I was ready for a break from the heat and humidity. I'm from Minnesota. We rarely ever have 95 degrees AND 70+ degree dew point. The kids were ready for some pool time, too. Bryan wanted to do a little more shopping and decided to take the bus back to CSR.

We had to make one more stop, however, at this really cool set that looks like it came out of Star Wars.