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We celebrated the arrival of 2013 a little differently this year … with friends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios! It was crazy crowded but definitely a unique experience.

We arrived with our friends from Ohio at the All-Star Music Resort Saturday evening after spending the day at LEGOLAND Florida and working through a bit of a hotel fiasco. On a chilly Sunday morning we took the resort bus over to the Magic Kingdom to check out the new Fantasyland expansion. Currently only two new areas are open: the Enchanted Forest contains Belle’s castle and village (and restaurants) and Ariel’s grotto; and the Storybook Circus area is the replacement for the old ToonTown and now contains two Dumbo rides. The Snow White/mine car area is still being built, so it was a bit strange to see metal scaffolding and construction in the middle of everything (not a common sight at a Disney park). It was very crowded but we managed to get FastPasses for the Under the Sea ride and also checked out the Storybook Circus attractions.

We were planning on returning to the Magic Kingdom tomorrow for New Year’s eve (more on that later) so around lunchtime we headed over to Epcot. All of the Soarin’ FastPasses were gone by the time we arrived and it was just as crowded as the Magic Kingdom so the attaction lines were equally long. That, coupled with the cold temperatures, made for a day where we did a lot of walking, imbibing of hot beverages, and waiting in windy lines for character meet-and-greets, but not a lot of rides. We left shortly before the evening fireworks show, thinking we all wanted to turn in early and get a good night’s rest so we could stay up for New Year’s Eve.

Monday dawned with much more moderate temperatures compared to yesterday and after a slightly later start we took the resort bus over to Hollywood Studios. Our mid-morning arrival meant that the FastPasses for Toy Story Mania! were gone and the line was already at 180 minutes! Just like yesterday, the New Year’s crowd packing the park was incredible.  While waiting in a huge line for lunch, we overheard someone saying that Magic Kingdom had actually been closed due to the capacity crowd! Our original plan had been to spend the first part of the day at Hollywood Studios and then go over to Magic Kingdom for the New Year’s Eve celebrations but we hadn’t considered the fact we might not be able to do that. Asking around and doing some Googling on our phones, we confirmed that no one was getting into the other park. Rather than leave Hollywood Studios and risk not being able to get back in anywhere, we decided to just stay where we were.

We didn’t get to ride the Rockin’ Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror, but I did get on the new Star Tours ride four times (twice waiting in line, twice with FastPasses) … and it was awesome! Even with all the extra unplanned time we had at the park all of the lines were long so we mostly did the shows: American Idol, Indiana Jones Stunt show, the Pixar parade, and Fantasmic. We also got to meet Wreck-It Ralph and his freakishly large hands. 😉 The most incredible part of our visit, though, was the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights in the backlot area. The lights, the music, the fake snow (don’t catch those snowflakes on your tongue, yuck!) … spectacle is the right word for it, and I was glad we ended up staying so we got to see that.

Since it was New Year’s, shortly after dark they started passing out plastic hats and horns to everyone. Imagine every kid in a Disney park with a tooting horn … it was loud even before midnight! Our group managed to snag a little real estate near the entrance of the park where we sat in the crowd, listened to the live music from Mulch, Sweat, and Shears, and waited for the countdown. As the clock struck midnight, the skies above the hat were illuminated with an amazing fireworks display (something you don’t normally see at Hollywood Studios) and the noise level grew a few decibels. Our spot near the entrance was fortuitous since everyone started leaving pretty soon after that. We rounded up the ( really tired) kids and walked to our bus stop. We were on the second bus and back in our hotel room by 12:45am! We never could have pulled that off if we had been staying at the Holiday Villas as was our original plan, so that worked out great. It was quite the memorable start to 2013.

It’s cool that we’re once again Disney annual passholders. After taking a few years off to check out Universal Studios and Busch Gardens, and then going on the cruise in November, we were reminded how much we really missed Disney: the resorts, the parks, the Food & Wine Festival … the whole experience. The massive crowds over New Year’s weekend didn’t really bother us because we knew we have the whole year ahead of us to do the stuff they prevented us from doing this past visit. I’m already looking forward to our annual Labor Day weekend family vacation, and possibly checking out the new MyMagic+ bracelets that were recently announced (new tech!).

Happy 2013!