On Saturday, we had the opportunity to have lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby. This American restaurant is famous for their Cobb salad, but I’m not a salad person. I had a shrimp appetizer, a shrimp main course and pistachio cheesecake for dessert (yum!). While there, we met and spoke with a couple of the Disney Imagineers, Mark R. and Diego P. Diego (whose enthusiasm I have mentioned before) sat at our table and shared various behind the scenes design facts with us. He seemed to be especially proud of the lengths that Disney went in order to make the various areas of the Parks “culturally correct” (i.e. getting plants/etc. that are authentic to the African and Asian regions).
After lunch, I had time to go on three rides – Toy Story Mania!, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™ and the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster® Starring Aerosmith. Toy Story Mania! is a ride that I know my boys would love. Riders wear 3-D glasses before shooting virtual darts in midway-style games hosted by Toy Story characters Woody, Buzz, Rex and Hamm. For the record, the Tower of Terror lived up to its name. The thing about this ride was that I couldn’t brace myself for the next stomach dropping fall. Basically, you’re zooming up and falling down again and again. Sometimes, you have a couple of moments to settle yourself at the top, but sometimes you don’t – (by design) there’s no rhyme or reason to the drops. I don’t think that I’ll go on this ride again! The Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was much more my speed. It was fast (0-60 mph in a flash) and loud with upside down loops and turns. It didn’t have any steep (stomach churning!) drops though, so I loved it!
After the rides, we went to the Block Party Bash. (I missed a lot of it, because I was on the Aerosmith ride, but the part I saw was fun.) Basically, it was a lot of the Pixar Film characters dancing and parading in the street. Here are a few of the pictures that I was able to take:
