DISNEY: Four Parks (Disney Hollywood Studios)

After Disney's Animal Kingdom, it was over to Disney Hollywood Studios, which was hosting ESPN The Weekend, so I was ready for higher-than-typical crowds. Luckily, the two things that I wanted to check out were not rides.

the turnstilesyou can see the espn stage in front of the sorcerer's hatcute asian babyno DHS sign on the arch quite yet
The first stop was The Magid of Disney Animation. It's been a while and I figured that the exhibit changes frequently... and maybe give some inside information about upcoming projects.

nice sketches by the waiting queueson and me
There was another Disney fan who took a picture of this, from Pixar's upcoming film "Up"; his pic got used (without permission) by a lot of other Disney fan sites, and though some people could get bothered by this, I saw it as an opportunity to give back.

feel free to use my pic! (i'll know that it was mine)
There was an actual animator working in the "fishbowl" when we were there. Her name was Theodora, and we found out that the first character she drew for Disney was for Oliver & Company and her favorite character to draw is Jimminy Cricket. Cool!

In another area, there were some scenes from Ratatoille:

They also had a life-sized set, which looked... um... delicious.

14 is my new favorite number
Okay, here's an "unobstructed view"...

*sigh*
There was also a Meet 'n' Greet area with Mr. & Mrs. Incredible. Mr. Incredible had to stamp his own autographs... and it seemed "desk job"-ish... :P

whatever it takes to get that paycheck
There was also a display with a number of the studio's Oscars.

i'll name this one dusty
On the way to item #2, I notices people lining the main drag and gathering around the ESPN stage for the 4:30pm Motorcade. I'm not into sports, but I recognized Shaun Alexander's name and decided to stay and grab some pics for a co-worker.

a pretty good motorcade pici love these shotsshaun alexander
Okay, off to One Man's Dream. It's an exhibit of Walt's journey -- I like to pay tribute from time to time.

om'sd w/toy story mania in the bkgrnda closer look at the mapaww... one is enough
One of my favorite things of all the parks is this set-up of Walt's office. It's just so functional and peaceful.

forget cinderella's castles. i want to spend a night here!
After that, I was done with DHS. I was getting hungry and had to scurry, like this squirrel:

gotcha!we'd like to thank our sponsors
It was still a beautiful day and the views were very inspirational.


The plan was to take the ferry over to the Boardwalk, then to go on foot to Epcot's World Showcase for some [Japanese] food, but the line for the ferry was very long.

the line was ferry ferry long
A group of ducks were nearby entertaining the crowd, and two of the mallards were going at each other. I took a video:

Anyways, the last ferry just left, meaning it'd be at least 40 minutes to get to the Boardwalk, so I went to the BUSSES. Off to the TTA & Magic Kingdom!