Wayfaring Day 18

July 18, 2025 Friday

After keeping our grandson for the day Amy left for the home base. She stopped in to check on the cats at our younger son´s house and then drove on ¨home¨. She drove to our old house first out of habit but then drove to David´s brother´s house which is only about a half mile drive and in the same subdivision.

David and our younger son had another Disney day planned. Today they visited Disney´s Hollywood Studios.

Today we purchased Lightning Lanes so we could maximize our time and not have to wait in many lines. Disney is back to pre-choosing 3 of your LLś so you choose from tier one and tier two and then you can get more after you use those. We were able to do most of everything we wanted today by using the Lightning Lanes. Today we decided to go out to the Port Orleans Resorts and do a little walk around and then eat at Boatwright´s Dining Hall at Port Orleans Riverside. These resorts are spacious and the pools are nicely themed. In watching many of the Disney blogger videos we have heard many people say Riverside is their favorite or one of their favorites. It is easy to see why this is a favorite. The resort is served by buses and water taxi and has a southern bayou feel to it. Our reservation for Boatwright´s was for just as they opened so we were seated quickly and had our entrees quickly as well. We had a mixture of pork ribs, chicken, red beans and rice, sausage and Louisianna grilled shrimp. Our take on the food here is that it was pretty average but we are very experienced with these type of foods and have an affinity for our favorites back home.

The Riverside Mill Food Court is large and nicely themed and gives you a good idea of how a moderate resort is a step above the value resorts. We rode a water taxi over to the Port Orleans French Quarter Resort which was about a 5 minute ride and I am sure most people just walk over to the other resort. Our primary reason to visit this resort was to have beignets for our desert before heading back to Hollywood Studios. We rode the bus back to Hollywood Studios and rode a couple of more rides before we ran out of time with our Lightning Lane. The reason we purchased the Lightning Lane for Hollywood is that their are several attractions that have long lines and wait times. We were able to ride the four big ones with ease with the LL. The big four are Slinky Dog, Rise of the Resistance, Tower of Terror and Rockin´ Rollercoaster. The LL is also good for making sure you can get on Mickey and Minnie´s Runaway Railway, Smugglers Run and Toy Story Mania. We rode Star Tours 3 times without using the LL. As closing time approached we began our way out of the park and to our bus. We opted out of doing the Fantasmic show on this trip.

We tried to not stay up too late since we were going to try to get to the Magic Kingdom early tomorrow.