Chapter 38
Toy Story-Induced Carpal Tunnel
(Originally posted September 1, 2012)
Considering the rest of the Backlot Tour is a little less exciting than I’m sure it was when the Studios was a real, working studio, Catastrophe Canyon is still always very cool.
I’m always certain that we’re going to get at least a little wet when this dam bursts, but the water always manages to stay the perfect distance away. Disney magic…
The AFI exhibit at the end of the tour currently had costumes on display from history’s great movie villains. Darth Vader certainly was imposing.
And we liked these from Enchanted.
When we exited the Backlot area, it was time for our Toy Story Mania Fastpasses, so we started making our way back toward Pixar Place.
I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine EVER waiting 70 minutes for a ride that has Fastpass available…
It seemed like they had rearranged the queues a little bit since our last trip, because we remembered some of these storybook pages being at the exit rather than the Fastpass entrance.
We made it through the Fastpass queue very quickly stopping to take some fun pictures in the queue along the way. This is easily one of my absolute favorite queues of all time.
We handed in our Fastpasses and were put into the special line for 2-person groups.
This line is usually very short but moves very slowly as they only put in groups of two when there is, for example, a group of six people who take up a car and a half. Still it’s probably shorter than waiting in the standard line.
When it was our turn we got a Slinky car!! He’s our favorite.
Tracy and I did pretty equally well this time. I still beat her, but not by all that much and we both were in the Beaver category. I love Toy Story Mania, but I go all-out a little too much. My neck usually ends up hurting by the end of the first ride because I tense up so much trying to pull the little ball back as many times as possible, and my hands start tingling from all the wrist tension. This time it might have been for the best that we only could ride it once…
As we exited back out into Pixar Place, we were starting to get a little hungry.
We knew there was a snack we couldn’t go another Hollywood Studios trip without trying, so we headed to The Writer’s Stop.
Arguments have ensued for years amongst the WDW Radio team as to the best snack in Hollywood Studios, and the top contenders seem to have been the Butterfinger Cupcake and the Carrot Cake Cookie. We were hoping to try both so we could compare, and the cookie was our first contender.
I’ll start off by admitting that neither Tracy nor I are big fans of cream cheese frosting, so we were both a little wary about this Whoopie-pie-style cookie with a big hunk of cream cheese frosting in the middle. We both like the carrot portion of carrot cake, however, so we hoped the frosting wouldn’t be too overpowering.
We were both impressed by the Carrot Cake Cookie in the end. It was EXTREMELY rich, so we were glad we only split one, but it was very tasty. Simply because we don’t love the cream cheese element of the frosting, I don’t think it will be going on OUR top snacks list, but it was very good and I would certainly have one again.
While eating our cookie, we sat on one of the couches in The Writer’s Stop where they were playing a behind-the-scenes segment from one of our favorite TV shows, Once Upon a Time. It was nice to get to sit for a few minutes in the air conditioning and just enjoy our snack, but it was admittedly a little hard to force ourselves to get up from the comfortable couch when we were done eating. Being on day five of our trip, our feet were certainly starting to take a bit of a beating from all the walking… We finally made ourselves get up and go back outside. This time, unfortunately, our next stop was one that doesn’t hold the best memories for us.
The ABC Commissary became our enemy in the Studios on our last trip. We went there for dinner on our Studios day because we were trying to find a quick service restaurant with okay food where we could grab a bite before Fantasmic! Tracy had read that the Commissary was supposed to have decent food, and with so few solid quick service options in this park, we figured we’d give it a try. The thing we learned the hard way is that the Commissary has a good reputation because of the unique menu items it features, such as the Chicken Curry and Asian Salad. We weren’t in the mood for either of those options at the time, so we just got a plain old cheeseburger.
To say it was bad would be insulting the name of bad food. It was simply inedible. And we’re talking about a plain cheeseburger here. But rather than cheeseburger, I’m pretty sure it was just cardboard. We could only finish a little bit of it before throwing it out. So that was our impression of the Commissary.
Luckily, this time we were just getting some nice, free water. The upside to this story, however, is that when we were looking at the menu while we waited for our water cups, we noticed that the regular cheeseburger was gone from the menu and replaced with an Angus burger with a side of Fried Shrimp. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who hadn’t been too happy. So now, Studios-goers rejoice, for we can no longer give you any concrete reason to stay away from the Commissary. We were actually quite intrigued by the R2-D2 dessert cup they were selling for Star Wars Weekends.
We ended up passing, however. With water in hand, we couldn’t really decide where to go next, so we just started wandering.
Another remnant of Star Wars Weekends was this Speeder Bike that I rode while pretending to be Wicket the Ewok.
We grabbed some Star Tours Fastpasses and kept walking. It was just about the perfect time to visit an attraction that we had always passed by before, but were determined to spend some time in during this trip. After all, everyone who visits WDW should take some time out to remember that while everything we love about Disney was “all started by a mouse,” it took a genius of a man to make it all possible.
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