Day two of the trip is where the travel difficulties of travelling with larger groups came to light.  The goal was to meet at Hollywood Studios around 9:00.  A majority of the group had Fastpasses for Star Tours starting around 10 am.  The rest of the group had Fastpasses for Disney Junior Live on Stage.  My wife, daughter, and I got to Hollywood Studios at the agreed upon meeting time.  The rest of the group did not.  We waited and waited and waited and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.  They finally arrived at 9:45.  We quickly, instead of leisurely, picked out Mickey Ear hats for the “first-timers” in the party to get monogrammed then headed our separate ways.

The larger group  made its way over to Star Tours and we got there right as a Jedi Training Academy was getting started.  We stopped to watch a good portion of the show before getting on Star Tours.  We rode the attraction and even though there are supposedly 40 different experiences, I seem to always one of the same five.  We finished got off the attraction and looked around the Star Tours gift shop for a little bit.  Some people in the party got their picture taken on the speeder.  Then, we went to the agreed upon meeting place for lunch….Sci-Fi Drive In.

After waiting some of the rest of the group who had a longer than expected wait at Disney Junior and then to meet Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  The group of 10 split into two groups of five.  One group went and had lunch at Sci-Fi Drive In.  They also missed their reservation too because of the longer than expected wait at Disney Junior.  The other group went to the ABC Commissary for lunch.  This group included myself, my wife and daughter, and my in-laws.

Say what you want about ABC Commissary, if you are looking for just standard lunch-time fare of burgers and chicken, then the ABC Commissary can suit your needs.  Given the lack of true quality counter service options at Hollywood Studios, the ABC Commissary is quite good.  Is it up to the standards of Be Our Guest, Flame Tree BBQ and others, no.  But it fills a need.  It also filled our bellies and we were ready to hit the last two Fastpasses of the morning/early afternoon at Hollywood Studios.

The plan was to have gone on Muppetvision 3D as a large group of 10.  However, lunch at Sci-Fi was going longer than expected so instead letting our Fastpass window expire, we went into the show with out them.  They just missed our show and made it into the next show.

We met them just outside of our last Fastpass, Toy Story Midway Mania.  What we thought was going to be a simple bathroom stop turned into what seemed like a 10-15 minute ordeal with people coming and going.  Once we got everyone back together, we got over to Toy Story Midway Mania and paired off for the attraction.

While waiting at the end of the attraction, I learned that John Lassiter is apparently a children’s author as well as a studio director 😉

After the attraction was over, we compared scored and I came out on top in our group.  After that, we made our way back to the front of the park to pick up our newly monogrammed hats (and leave our camera behind).  The group split apart one more time.  My wife and I went back to our hotel room.  My in-laws,  I believe, returned to their room as well since they had a dinner reservation at Rose and Crown planned.  The rest of the group made their way over to Animal Kingdom.

The story of our dining experience that night at Yachtsman Steakhouse can be read about here.  The story of the lost camera will be saved for another day.

Thanks for reading!