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Thursday, October 10, 2024

Rachel's Bachelorette Trip | Disney [Day 3] Hollywood Studios & Epcot

Today was truly Rachel's Disney Bachelorette day! Three of Rachel's friends joined us for a fun day at Walt Disney World before our cruise.

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We started the day at Hollywood Studios. Rachel has been to a couple of Disney Bachelorettes, and they've always spent the day at Epcot, so she really wanted to show her friends another park. Rachel also really wanted to prioritize rides that morning, so I purchased Genie+ for everyone in an attempt to maximize our time.

The morning was a bit of a whirlwind, and I regrettably did not take a lot of photos (I think I was too focused on Lightning Lanes). We started the day by walking to Hollywood Studios for rope drop...... when we arrived at 8:30 AM, which was the designated rope drop time for early entry resort guests, people were already in the park.... when do they start letting people in? I honestly think rope drop efficiency is a thing of the past at Walt Disney World.

We headed straight to Slinky Dog Dash. As we turned into Toy Story Land, a Cast Member told us that Slinky Dog was down, and they didn't know for how long. That was disappointing, but we didn't waste our time waiting in line for an attraction that wasn't open. We immediately turned around and got in line for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. It was a very fast-moving queue, I think only 15 or 20 minutes. We were about to board when there was an announcement - Runaway Railway was down!

This time, they gave everyone who had to exit the queue "use anytime" Lightning Lanes so that we could return later. I checked the app and noticed that Rise of the Resistance and Tower of Terror were also down.... what a bad morning for Operations!

We got in line for Toy Story Mania which was only a 20 minute wait... hopefully this attraction wouldn't go down. That's when we realized that there was a nationwide AT&T outage, and I knew that had to be the reason for all of the attraction downs.

Rachel made me play Meredith at Toy Story Mania, and I was champion of the car! Pay no mind to my accuracy...

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After we rode Toy Story Mania, we were ready for a bite to eat, so we got totchos to share from Woody's Lunch Box. Slinky Dog Dash was still down, and we were shocked by the amount of people who were still waiting in line.

I had made a dining reservation for Oga's Cantina that was coming up soon, so we headed to Galaxy's Edge. Meredith and Kayla had never seen Galaxy's Edge before, so we figured we might as well do a little walking tour. That's when we noticed that we could fill up the popcorn bucket with the blue popcorn (errr.... "buttered blue grains").

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We had one round of drinks at Oga's, then we noticed that Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway was open again, so we went back to redeem our Lightning Lanes.

At that point, we were a little unsure of what to do because a lot of attractions were still down, so we decided to go to the Hollywood Brown Derby Lounge for drinks while we strategized.

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Rachel ordered a Martini flight, and I ordered a Margarita flight.

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One of Rachel's must-dos for the day was ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at Epcot. That morning, I was unable to purchase individual Lightning Lanes for Guardians before they sold out (possibly due to/not helped by the AT&T outage). Since Guardians is Virtual Queue only, the only way we'd be able to ride is if we were in Epcot to join the VQ at 1:00 PM.

I had been holding a 12:00 PM Lightning Lane for Tower of Terror. We knew that this would be a time crunch to both ride Tower of Terror and make it to Epcot for VQ, so we headed over to Tower of Terror to be ready to join the queue exactly at noon. That's when we realized that the Lightning Lane was severely backed up.... a Cast Member told us that it would be about a 40 minute wait for the Lightning Lane (probably because of all of the attraction downs.... and perhaps they were operating at a limited capacity). We decided to forfeit our Tower of Terror Lightning Lane. I swapped it out for a Soarin' Lightning Lane, and we decided to leave Hollywood Studios.

On our way back down Sunset Boulevard, we decided to stop for a Photopass photo, since we were no longer in an extreme hurry. The photos were.... not great. Admittedly, it was a bad time for sun angles.

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But this photo was just comically bad.... he cut out Kayla!

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We decided to walk back to the Yacht Club because we wanted to do some quick outfit changes.... the weather was a lot warmer than expected, so we ditched our jackets.

We walked to Epcot and entered through International Gateway, then Rachel pulled up the International Clock and counted down for me to join the Virtual Queue exactly at 1PM. The other girls definitely thought we were crazy.... but we got in!

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At this point in the day, Rachel's friends had started sending money for rounds of drinks (how nice!!!), so we got Grand Marnier Slushes in France, thanks to Kelsey!

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A kind lady offered to take our photo.

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We went on to the United Kingdom for Fish & Chips and beer.

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I got a text from our fifth Disney Bachelorette girly that she was enroute to the Yacht Club, so I headed back to the resort so that I could let her into the hotel room, and Meredith came with me so that she could send an email. We met back up with Rachel and Kayla in Canada, then headed to The Land Pavilion for our Soarin' Lightning Lane.

After Soarin', I suggested that we all go to the entrance of Epcot to get a cute group photo before we got too deep into drinking around the World. We were very skeptical of the photographer.... it seemed like he was way too close to us, but it turns out he was a pro with the .5mm focal length. So cute!

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Time for margaritas in Mexico!

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A few of us rode Gran Fiesta Tour, then we used our Test Track Lightning Lane before continuing around the world to Germany.

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Then our boarding group was called for Guardians of the Galaxy! When you do the Virtual Queue, you still have around a 40 minute or more wait for Guardians, so when we got out, it was almost time for fireworks! We didn't have time to seek out optimal viewing, so we just watched from behind a private party in Italy. A Cast Member saw us and offered to take our photo - it turned out so cute!

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After fireworks, we headed to the Boardwalk - first stop was Abracada Bar.... then Jelly Rolls. Since it was Rachel's Bachelorette, another guest offered to pay her cover. So many nice, generous people at Disney that day!

I had never been to Jelly Rolls before, but I love dueling pianos. It's such a fun spot!

NEXT: Rachel's Bachelorette Cruise | Allure of the Seas [Day 1] Welcome to STAR CLASS - Royal Loft Suite

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