Hollywood Studios and Stormalong Bay at Yacht Club

Goodbye Coronado Springs! You were a great hotel. We especially enjoyed the pool area, and how close we were to it (we were in the Ranchos 6B building). We also liked that you could see both the Epcot and Hollywood Studios fireworks from along the lakefront. We got to see Symphony in the Stars, the special Star Wars weekend-only fireworks at HS, and even heard most of the music! Sorry that I totally spaced on taking pictures!

But now, it’s time to check in to the Yacht Club before heading over to Hollywood Studios. This time I did remember to take some pictures as it was really quite stunning. It felt like we were on a ship, with all the dark hard wood, brass, and nautical elements.

We just had a few minutes to drop our stuff off, admire the room and head over to Hollywood Studios to make our 11 AM FP+ for Tower of Terror (my favorite ride in all of Disney!). We got a bit turned around coming off the elevator, and by the time we were walking up to the boat dock, the HS boat was just taking off. Oh no! We didn’t see another boat headed this way. There were plenty of boats going towards Epcot, so we decided to just walk. It took about 20 minutes from the boat dock to the entrance of HS bag check. Even on a hot day, it really was a pleasant walk, thanks to the breeze coming off the water, and the quiet stillness around us. When we got there, we noticed there hadn’t been a single boat going by us. Good call on walking since we would have still been waiting on the dock or stuck in the boat elsewhere. We made a good choice!

Once we got inside, it looked completely different walking in the entrance – no more Sorcerer’s hat! It looked really good!

We did the Tower of Terror which had way more ups and downs than I remember! It was AWESOME! On the way out I found the cutest Haunted Mansion shirt from Jasmine Becket-Griffith whose artwork we have admired in the Downtown Disney PoP Gallery store for years. Next we did Star Tours and of course Toy Story. For some reason, the wait time on Great Movie Ride had been long all day long (like 45+ mins long!), so we got a new FP for GMR and headed into Walt’s One Man’s Dream to cool off and kill some time. We’ve been in here plenty of times but it never seems to get old, and we always end up finding something new we missed before.

By now it was time to head to Great Movie Ride for our Fast Pass. The entrance looked great! The ride itself was the gangster track, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. I think I prefer the cowboy one better, but it was still fun. There was a lot more pre-recorded voiceover than I remember before, and from what I hear that part is new. The ending movie was newly updated as well, having some more recent additions like Tangled.

The wait time for the ride was so long, they had to move the entrance to the side of the building to wrap it around. Maybe people never noticed it was there before because the hat was in the way? Perhaps everyone heard it had changed so were checking it out? Could be that it was just really hot out and people wanted a place to cool off and get off their feet. Not really sure because I’ve never seen the wait time more than 10 minutes.

And now, we swim! We took the boat back to the hotel and jumped right into Stormalong Bay, the 3 acre pool complex at Beach & Yacht club. You must have a room at one of these 2 resorts (or the DVC Beach club villas) to get into the pool. They check your room card (or now your Magic Band) to make sure you are a resort guest. Each person must have one.

We swam for a little bit before heading up to change for dinner. We had a reservation for Cape May cafe, Mr. Roamer’s favorite at Disney as he LOVES crab legs. As usual, we stuffed ourselves silly! Buffets are so bad for my diet.. ugghhh. 10 different desserts to try? Well of course I have to try them all! I’ll just have a bite of each…. clean plate later.. and I’m regretting that decision. We had planned to go back to the pool after dinner but there was a bad storm and the pool was closed. Mr. Roamer took the girls to the arcade while I lounged around the room enjoying the peace and quiet.

The next morning we had breakfast at the Captain’s Grille and then more pool time. I had the lobster omelet, my oldest had the Crab Benedict, and the youngest the Lemon Ricotta hotcakes. Mr. Roamer actually ate breakfast (a miracle) and chose the Mickey waffles (how can you resist?)

We left our bags with bell services, and they even put our pizza from Via Napoli in the fridge for us. We swam until about 2 pm then changed into dry clothes and headed home! You can use the spa there to take a shower, which we have done before, but we just did a quick change this time. On the way out, a strange thing happened. A guy asked us if we were done using our wristbands. Mr .Roamer told him no, we might go back in the pool (even though he was holding dry clothes in his hands and standing right in front of the bathroom), and the guy proceeded to tell us he was trying to get his kids into the pool. They were staying at the Swan & Dolphin and they wouldn’t let him in without a wristband. Isn’t that crazy? The funny part is they probably paid around the same we did for our room, so if this pool is something you really want to do, make sure you book a room here, or you won’t be able to get in.

Sadly it was now time to head home, but what a great start to summer/ birthday celebration!