Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 13 years and 7 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

We got up early on Saturday and drove Hollywood Studios for the Extra Magic hour. Following our usual pattern, we made a bee-line for Toy Story Mania to get FastPasses. By the time we got them, around 8:20am, our return time was three hours later at 11:20am (and the standby line was already 50 minutes)! That’s only 20 minutes after the park opened to resort guests! I could only imagine what the times would be like when the park opened to the general public at 9am.

With our Toy Story Mania FastPasses acquired, we walked back to the front of the park (I spotted this cool TRON billboard to the left on the back of the Great Movie Ride on our way), to the Rockin’ Roller Coaster. The standby line was listed as only 20 minutes so we took it and were on and off in less than that, so we did it again! My daughter really loves that coaster now, ever since the second time she rode it (in the front car).

Then it was time for the Tower of Terror. Before our trip, my daughter had said she was going to ride a new ride at every park. Friday evening at Epcot she rode Mission: SPACE. Would she get on the ToT with me? The last time I tried she backed out while we were in line. This time, my wife was with me and though my daughter shut her eyes and kept her fingers in her ears the entire time, she made it through the ride! She actually enjoyed the drop sequences (especially when the doors are open and you can see out into the park) but just hated the pre-show and build up of the ride. Regardless, she did it and I was proud of her for doing so.

To my surprise, Star Tours was still open! It was supposed to have closed for its makeover after the “Last Flight to Endor” event back in August but apparently they decided to extend the window. I guess that sucked for all the people who thought they’d be the last to ride it then but I got to ride it one last time myself before it really closes on Tuesday, September 7. I’ll be anxiously awaiting its re-opening in May 2011.

It was time for our FastPasses so we made our way back to Toy Story Mania where I racked up a meager 160,000 points. They no longer show the high score of the day, just the top score of the car you are in (that was me!). I guess practicing on the Wii isn’t helping my accuracy. 😉

Now we were cutting it close as we had 12:20pm lunch reservations at Tutto Italia Ristorante in Italy at Epcot. We walked back to our call in the Hollywood Studios parking lot, drove over to Epcot, and caught the tram to the front. We swung by the Will Call ticket booth to turn in one of our vouchers from the Give-a-Day-Get-a-Day promotion for FastPass Exchange cards (more on that later). A brisk walk through Future World and the World Showcase later we walked into the restaurant barely 20 minutes after our reservation time and were seated. Whew. The food was very good (I had the spinach gnocchi) and we had some time to relax and cool down after our busy morning and fast dash to lunch.

The rest of the day was spent using those cool FastPass Exchange cards. Basically it was a card you could put into the FastPass machine that would give you a FastPass for right now. And even if all of the FastPasses for a ride were gone, there was still a special machine you could use to get yours immediately anyway! You could use the card six times and there were two different categories of rides. For example, the Donald rides at Epcot were Soarin’ and Test Track and the Daisy rides were Captain EO, Living with the Land, Maelstrom, and Mission: SPACE so for each of those categories you could get three FastPasses. The beauty of these cards is they remove the stress of having to plan your day around your FastPass return times … you just ride when you want to ride. They were great! We rode Soarin’ twice in a row in a 30-minute span … try that with FastPasses or the standby line! So we got to ride all the major rides without any major wait times.

My daughter even wanted to go on Mission: SPACE again and do the Orange Team (intense) version this time where they actually spin you and you feel the gravity of the launch. I was a little worried she wasn’t going to like it, but at least she was already familiar with the basics of the ride from yesterday. She did great and loved it! My favorite quote from her was “my head feels heavy!” as we were “launching” to Mars.

Another highlight of the day was the return of Captain EO. This 4-D film starring Michael Jackson, produced by George Lucas, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola had been replaced two years earlier by Honey, I Shrunk the Audience by the first time I visited Epcot in 1996. I remember seeing ads and clips about it when I was a kid though, and had always wanted to see it. Man, it was so … 80s! 😀 They showed a short “making of” vignette in the pre-show: dancers rehearsing in leotards and leg warmers with big hair, a young George Lucas (young everyone!), and cheesy electronica synthesizer music. Classic! Apparently Lucas sticks with what he knows because there’s a scene in the opening minutes of the movie that involve Captain EO’s ship flying through a trench that is so Death Star-esque even my daughter leaned over to say “it’s just like Star Wars!” The other striking similarity in the film is to the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain EO preceeded that series by several years, but just check out the similarities between the Borg Queen from Star Trek: First Contact and the Supreme Leader in Captain EO:

And look here, MJ is dancing with Borg commandos!

Star Wars/Trek similarities aside, it was a fun movie to watch, if only for nostalgia’s sake. Let’s face it, the 3D technology that was cutting edge when Captain EO was made in the mid-80s can’t compete with Avatar. Man, though, could Michael dance! The choreography was something else.

By late dinner-time we were ready to head back to the hotel. We didn’t bother with the World Showcase this trip since we are planning on coming back in October during the Food and Wine Festival. It had been a late night yesterday and we were planning on another early morning tomorrow so we drove back to Port Orleans and had dinner in the food court before turning in for the night.

Tomorrow: Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom.