This Trip Broke The Bank. Update 11/26 Day 11: Why can't I get in the MK?

[Joyciemc]

Having just returned from 10 fun-filled, sweat-drenched, jam-packed days of theme park fun it is now time to write The Trip Report.

For the all of the planning, rambling, wedding, and first honeymoon details, check out the Pre Trip Report!

You probably didn't follow that link, did you? That's ok... I understand.
I'll sum it up for you, here.

That'd be us: Ben (30) and Joyce (29)
We got married in April. It looked a little bit like this:

We wanted a Disneymoon, but we also wanted a tropical honeymoon. And we couldn't do a two week trip. So off we flew to relax in Jamaica for a week after the wedding:

But we hadn't given up on WDW. In fact, we planned a fancy-pants 10 day trip for September.

Details!
We started at Portofino Bay at Universal from 9/2-9/5 and then ended up at the Polynesian for 9/5-9/12
6 theme parks, a disgusting amount of food, lots of fun, and at least one big disappointment lie ahead if you care to join along!

To get us started, here is our countdown right before leaving. Ben gets all the artistic credit, here.

Up next: Day 1: Travel, a DISmeet, the many fires of Universal, and we meet someone 'we'll call Roseanne'.
The rest of Day 1
Day 2: You're a wizard, Harry!
More Day 2: Stuff that isn't Harry Potter
Day 2: Bonus material.
Day 3: Making money, drinking drinks.
Day 4: What if we've hyped it up too much?
Day 4, cont: Behind the door.
Day 4, again: Still not the end of this day!
Day 4, some more: Holy cow, is it over yet?
Day 5: Stuff we did till it was time for Hoop Dee Doo
Day 5, cont: More stuff we did before Hoop Dee Doo and then the actual Hoop Dee Doo
Day 5, finished!: A surprise mostly ruined
Day 6: New Epcot
Day 6, cont: Exploring the World, one drink at a time.
Day 7: You can change the name, but it's the same place.
Day 8: I get mad, we have fun, Ben gets mad
Day 8, cont: I get really mad. But then I get over it.
Day 8, more: Keeping cool
Day 9: Hot theme park action
Day 9, cont: You wanna talk about bank breaking?
Day 10: What a Disney park on the sun would feel like
Day 10, cont: Ridding the World of villains
Day 10, finished: Napping, scaring strangers, etc
Day 11: Why can't I get in the MK?
Our next adventure: a new PTR!

 

[tankgirl427]

NO! You aren't allowed to have anything bad happen on your Dismoon!

 

[mandas08]

I'm subbing!! Cant wait I'm going to go back and try to get all caught up reading your PTR. I think I'm on page 9 so far..I have a bit to go haha! I love all the wedding details so far!!

 

[Joyciemc]

NO! You aren't allowed to have anything bad happen on your Dismoon!

I know, but I guess Disney didn't get that memo. Nothing trip-ruining, but there were some snafus!

I'm subbing!! Cant wait

Hope you enjoy the report! You're leaving for your own trip soon, so exciting!!

 

[Stefy]

I'm here and ready to go popcorn:

Not liking the sound of the this bad happening

Love the title, as Disney trips really do break the bank don't they

 

[EeyoreEma]

I'm looking forward to hearing all about it! Hopefully there were enough good things to offset the snafu's!

 

[ccgirl]

Since you are from my neck of the woods I am subbing.

 

[Joyciemc]

Day 1 comes with a special bonus chapter....

We'll call it... The Night Before

It was hot, hot, hot in Mass on 9/1. And super hot in our house. We had removed the window AC units because Hurricane Earl was due to head this way while we were gone. So we sweated and packed and sweated some more. I distinctly remember standing in the kitchen cutting out LGMH (wich looked like this

with sweat dripping off of me. Glamorous, I know. This would turn out to be a very fitting prelude to the coming trip.

We had been planning on spending the night at Ben's parents, as they are close to the airport we flew out of (TF Green near Providence). At the last minute, plans changed and we stayed at our house.

That's the end of the bonus chapter. Now we continue with our previously scheduled Day 1:

Leaving from our home meant we had to be up and out super early to have time to drop our super cute and wonderful dog, Penny:

off at Ben's parents' before FIL drove us to the airport for our 7 AM flight. We got to their house a little ahead of schedule, and MIL insisted on making us egg sandwiches.
MIL: Want some coffee and breakfast?
ME: No thank you, we'll get something at the airport.
MIL Walks to kitchen.
MIL to BEN: Let me make you some eggs.
BEN: That's ok, Mom.
MIL to FIL: They said they needed to leave at 5:30. It's only 5. I'm making eggs.
Fast forward 5 minutes and we have eggs and coffee in our grubby little hands.
I was antsy to get going, but we had the time and it was nice not to be starving at the airport. Sometime on the way, I received a text from tankgirl427 (Betsy) who was waiting to board her own flight in Boston. We were scheduled to land in MCO pretty close together and hoped to meet up in the terminal.

It didn't take long for us to end up at our gate and not-so-patiently wait to board. I have developed a fear of flying after a near death experience on our flight to Jamaica in April. I distracted myself by taking some pictures.

Ben distracted himself by playing with neck pillows. As a side note, these turned out to be pretty useless. I couldn't use them the way they are supposed to be...

Here I am at my sleep deprived travel day best. You may notice my puffy right eye. I had a reaction to some drops prescribed for conjunctivitis the week before our trip. It sort of became a tired indicator throughout the trip- getting more noticeable the more I needed sleep. Not very attractive, but useful!

That is some part of Florida. We had a very smooth and uneventful flight. I even relaxed enough to play a few hands of gin with Ben. I kicked his butt.

I am 90% sure Ben is not remotely as excited as he looks in this picture. But it is pretty convincing, don't you think?

We got off the plane and headed in search of a cab to take us to Portofino Bay. We didn't get too far before we ran into Betsy and her BF. She recognized Ben first (if you read the PTR, you'll know why!) and we spent a few minutes chatting. It was great to meet a fellow DISer and I am still bummed that I didn't think to get a picture with Betsy.

Our search for a cab ended where you might expect it to... the cab stand.

We hopped aboard and headed off. Never having been to Universal, it was strange to be driving around different parts of Orlando. I kept looking for the Disney landmarks...
Before long, we saw this:

And then quickly ended up at Portofino Bay

The cab fare ended up being about $50, which was a bit more than the $35 the Mears website had 'estimated'. Such would begin one of the ongoing themes of our trip: the sound of a credit card being swiped.

Having got us safely to Portofino Bay, but having it take a lot longer to write this than I ever imagined it would, I must end here for now.
Day 1 will continue soon and we will finally get to the many fires of Universal, and we will finally meet someone 'we'll call Roseanne'.

 

[Stefy]

Wow that is a hefty cab fare, but sounds about right as it cost around that one way to get to US from Disney.

Looking forward to more

 

[tankgirl427]

I feel all special being in your TR! I so have to post a picture of this lady on our flight. I could not believe what she was wearing!

 

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

Subbing in and look forward to reading more!

So glad your flight went well, I also HATE flying, what happened on your Jamaica flight?

 

[NOLAdisneymom]

Looking forward to reading your trip report!

 

[Joyciemc]

I'm here and ready to go popcorn:

Not liking the sound of the this bad happening

Love the title, as Disney trips really do break the bank don't they

Considering we had the dining plan, I was floored by how much we ended up charging to the room! And we didn't buy souvenirs, either (well, maybe we bought some)

I'm looking forward to hearing all about it! Hopefully there were enough good things to offset the snafu's!

Glad to have you along!
Nothing happened that couldn't be fixed, and we did have a great trip!

Since you are from my neck of the woods I am subbing.

Thanks for joining!

Wow that is a hefty cab fare, but sounds about right as it cost around that one way to get to US from Disney.

Looking forward to more

It was more than the website led us to expect, but not more than we would have paid for a towncar service. And it was quick and easy!

I feel all special being in your TR! I so have to post a picture of this lady on our flight. I could not believe what she was wearing!

oooh, people watching is one good thing about flying!

Subbing in and look forward to reading more!

So glad your flight went well, I also HATE flying, what happened on your Jamaica flight?

Welcome to the story!

The flight to Jamaica was the scariest thing I can remember. We took off from Miami into a thunderstorm after waiting on the tarmac for about an hour. The plane dropped so many times, and all of the passengers were screaming and praying. It was bad. Once we landed, the pilot apologized for taking off in that, and even he was shaken.
This trip helped, though- I really needed to get some good flights under my belt before my fear got worse.

 

[Joyciemc]

Ta-Da... the rest of
Day 1:
I waited while Ben paid the cab fare. The bell hops were really nice and I chatted with them a bit. I also took some pictures, of course. Though looking at them, I think I could've done a better job of documenting the front of the resort...

We headed in to the gorgeous lobby (I took pictures on our way out at the end of our stay...) and walked up to the desk. A very nice girl helped us and even though it was not quite 10am, our room was ready. Second floor in the West Wing. Whatever that meant- we were totally lost and clueless at first. But the map we had helped and we quickly found our room. It was huge and absolutely beautiful.

I couldn't get an angle without me in it!

We didn't bother to unpack, and instead headed right over to Universal Studios.
When we walked out of the building, we were just steps from the water taxi dock. The boat was waiting for us, and off we went! But not before I got the first of many many comments on my shirt. Of course the boat driver was a Yankees fan. And of course I was wearing a Red Sox shirt. But he was very nice and I told him to go easy on me- the Sox are not being much of a threat to the Yankees at the moment.

I was in that 'We Just Got Here and Need Pictures of Everything' phase. Here are some of them:

We had printed our tickets at home and that meant they were less 'tickets' and more 'pieces of cheap computer paper'. As we entered the park, they were scanned and handed back to us. We hoped they would hold up for the next 4 days!

By now we were starving. Those egg sandwiches were a long time ago. We ran into the closest place- a bakery near the entrance. I got a ham and cheese croissant and Ben got... something else. I didn't take pictures of food- even though I meant to! They weren't amazing, but they did the job.

We headed off, our noses buried in a park map. ET was first up and our first chance to use the Express Pass that was our room key. The crowds were almost non-existent, but there were enough people waiting that is was neat to go right on in.

Ben took a moment to get some ET healing.

I loved the queue for this ride- it was really well done! The ride itself was fun and we had a whole care of bikes to ourselves.

We headed to the Simpsons next and this was a hit with us!

Since there were hardly any people there, we were tearing through the park and quickly ended up at Men in Black. Another fun ride. We were totally loving Universal! Look at these happy kids:

Our circle of the park brought us to Amityville next. This was a really well themed area, but the first time we noticed the heat. Up until now, we were really comfortable outside. But this side of the park was sun-tastic and hot!

And that brings us to Jaws. Jaws, Jaws, Jaws. The guy driving our boat looked about 14, and I don't doubt he was trying to sell it. But man, that was not a good ride for us. Oh well, at least we didn't wait for it (this is also a recurring theme for the trip).
We moved on to try Disaster! After Jaws, we were skeptical of this one. But it turned out to be a lot of fun. Not something we'd need to repeat, but a well done show. And I love Christopher Walken, so that helped!

Mummy was next on the agenda and it did not disappoint. It was after this ride that Ben and I started to wonder how Universal managed to get fire into so many of its attractions. Next time you go to the parks, check it out- they've got fire all over the place!

Our next stop was unfortunate... Twister was a complete puzzle to us. We actually waited longer for this than anything else because we had just missed a show starting. There was a lot of fire, but not much else. We just didn't get it.

I can't stress enough how empty this park was. By now it was about 2pm. This is what we saw as we walked along the streets:

Continuing our circle of the park, we found ourselves at Shrek 4D. We were confused by the pre-show... it was all about how we were about to be tortured but that never happened. I mean, the show wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't torture. Again, at least we didn't wait for it.

We had one last thing to do on our way out: Ripe Ride Rockit. This is one of the rides that doesn't have an Express Pass so we were expecting to wait. We bought some drinks and headed to the line. But there wasn't one! We walked right through and had to suck down our drinks. The ride was fantastic! Ben didn't choose his song fast enough, so it picked one for him.

It was 3pm and we had done everything we wanted. We still had another day for the park, so we headed out for a pool break. We walked back to see how long it would take. At this point we were still expecting crowds to be somewhere (and they were- and we will find them, I promise!) so we weren't sure if the water tax would be a good idea the next morning. We wanted to know what the walk was like. The answer? About 15 minutes.

It was a very pretty walk.

We headed to the pool and were very pleasantly surprised. The lounge chairs were nice and comfy and there were plenty of them. There was a fun pool slide, too. We each took a couple of turns on it. And we got a couple of drinks from the pool bar, looking at this

Back to the room to get ready for dinner. Wembly had some of my drink

Then he and Figment had a laugh

We ate at Bubba Gump where Ben kicked patootie at Forrest Gump trivia. Who knew he knew so much? I ate coconut shrimp, Ben got the shrimp lovers combo thingee.

The water taxi ride back was fun. We met a nice couple who offered to take our picture.

But first he took this picture:

After he looked at it, he insisted on taking the other. He pointed at the lady in front of me and said "She was in it. Let's call her Roseanne."
Ben and I could not stop laughing.

Back to the room, we collapsed into bed before 8pm.

Up next, Day 2: Beer before 9am?

 

[Joyciemc]

Looking forward to reading your trip report!

Thanks for joining along!

 

[mefordis]

Awesome! So glad to read your trip report! I also had a trip that broke the bank, around the same time as yours, both Universal and WDW BUT my trip wasn't much fun. I had a 2 yr old who was very uncooperative, as well as my mom with us who was supposed to help but i ended up with 3 kids instead of 2 (my 6 yr old was with us who is well behaved).

Anyway, I am going to live vicariously through your trip because it sounds like you did all the things I wanted to do!

 

[mousebymarriage]

so far so good, can't wait to hear more!

 

[vikkii19]

loving your TR so far. We're planning on doing Universal and IOA on our next trip so I can't wait to read more.

 

[JMat]

Woo-Hoo!! Been waiting all week to start your trip report!! Welcome home and I cant wait to read more...

Exciting pics too, loving checking out all the sights I might steal your LGMH idea!

 

[Iluvtink1327]

I'm in!!! Can't wait to read more!