Disney Day 5, Part 2 - Majestic by Night

When we came out of Star Tours, the Golden Hour was in full swing!  The lighting over Star Wars Land was lovely.  

We had accidentally missed our Millennium Falcon Lightning Lane, but the line wasn't terrible anyway, so we headed there.  However, it turns out they still accept it even if you miss it, so on we went, even quicker than we thought!  We unfortunately only ended up as gunners, as Carter really wanted to drive and prove he was better at it than Jacob!  However, that ended up being just as well because I realized as I was sitting on the ride that it was check-in time for our flight home and I needed to do it ASAP as I didn't want to get a terrible boarding group.  I ended up spending most of the ride trying to log in, only to get a text from Craig in the middle of it that he had checked us in.  Whew.  Not exactly how I wanted that to go, but at least both things were accomplished regardless.

When we came out, Golden Hour had transitioned to sunset, which was so pretty.

We passed one of the "grenade" Coke vendors on our way out of Star Wars Land and remembered that Carter wanted to get one of those to go with his Sprite from last time.  The spherical bottles in fictional language Aurebesh (who knew?) are really cool!

We wandered back through Toy Story Land, which is always very pretty at night, and confirmed the Slinky Dog line was still too long.  

While there were lots of other rides on this trip that I would have liked to ride, Slinky Dog was the only one that would have been a must-ride under any other circumstances.  But between our limited park time and the rainy day keeping it closed for so long, leading to long lines the rest of the day, we really couldn't spare the hour and a half it would have taken to ride.  Had we not had some other plans to finish off the night, or if this particular park had more non-essential rides to kill time on, I probably would have suggested we maximize our time by riding a bunch of other things and then hopping in line right before closing time, since you get to ride as long as you're in line before then.  Oh, well.  

We did wander around a bit more because I wanted to check the Indiana Jones store to see if I could find my African carving souvenir there, but unfortunately it was closed.  We did get to see Echo Lake almost completely drained.  Turns out the dinosaur doesn't have legs.  The boat looked pretty funny, too.

Hollywood Boulevard looked gorgeous on our way out.

To end our evening, we decided to hop the Skyliner to head over to EPCOT.  We figured we could maybe ride Journey into Imagination (since, as mentioned, Figment is one of our favorites).  The sunset was so pretty as we took off, but unfortunately, we had a wrap on our gondola and it was hard to get a good picture.  I took one through the little screen, and this was the best I could do.

I did get a slightly better through the side windows, though by then the color intensity had faded a bit.

Well, when we got to EPCOT, we realized the wait on the Ratatouille ride was actually pretty short, which was rare.  We made the last-second decision to hit that one up while we had the chance for a short wait.  

I was actually sort of happy we did because I had forgotten they had converted that ride to 2D, so no more glasses and probably less motion sickness for most people.  I don't really think it made the ride any less effective.  Apparently a week or two after we got back, they added some new, oversized props to the ride, like a cheeseboard and some other items to the last scene.  I guess that's reason to ride it again next time!

When we came out, the fireworks show was just coming to an end.  I guess we've never stuck around for it that deep in the park, because we'd never seen the end result--this amazing water feature:

We figured there was no sense rushing since the buses would be busy for a while, so we gradually made our way back toward the front of the park.  I loved this lighted walkway.

We also stopped for a picture with Walt the Dreamer!

As the fireworks were over, Spaceship Earth resumed its light show, which allowed me to redeem the lack of good pictures a couple days earlier.  I got some good ones!

Cameo by the streaking Monorail...I knew it probably wouldn't turn out but I sort of like it anyway.

Too many favorites!  Just so you get the full effect:

I made Carter sit there for probably a bit longer than he would have liked, but honestly, the rest for our feet probably wasn't the worst thing.  I finally consented to head out, though I did grab one more pic for the road, just because the moon above was too good to pass up!

Not for nothing, would it kill them to fix the rogue lights?  They're wrecking my perfect pictures!

It's always sad to leave that view behind, and it being the last park of the trip made it a double bummer.  Even if we had 2/3 of a day left in the bubble the next day, leaving the last park is the first step away from the magic and back to reality.  Sigh.  We headed back to the resort, and while I would have liked to check on the status of the Dole Whip machine (Key lime would have really hit the spot that point, but alas, I would have been disappointed), we would have missed it by a few minutes.  Oh, well.  Back to the room we went.  Suffice it to say, there is no tired quite like Disney tired!

Melting into my bed, a happy but tired mess!

The real magic of Disney truly is that you can spend your trip exhausted, overheated, hangry, overstimulated, and newly poor, but you still love it so much that you can't wait to go back.  

One more sleep...