Janice
Super Shopper
- Joined
- Aug 18, 1999
Should Old Acquaintance be forgot!
Me (46) and planner of this holiday of a lifetime.
Chris (45) my dear husband who puts up with me.
James (22) our son who has never been to Florida.
Emma (21) James' Girlfriend and known lovingly as Emmylou.
Katie (19) our daughter, also lovingly known as Starlett.
Ian (23) Katies Fiancé been before when much younger.
DAY 9 New Years Eve (Daytime) Universal Studios
Bear with me this is really long but I cant miss out anything I tried but we had such a great time, I could not choose what to miss out so here goes:
Right, this is what it has all been about. Months and months building up to this day. We had planned long ago to spend it at Universal Studios. Chris, Katie and I had spent New Years Eve, 1995 at USF and had such a wonderful time, that we had planned the holiday around being there again, to see in the new Millennium. The rumours had been flying around for such a long while that it was going to be extremely busy in WDW.
The crew really wanted to celebrate with a few drinks and a bit of a party and I had found out on the boards that there was going to be big sound stages set up around USF with top DJs performing so it seemed as though it was just a bit more up their street if you know what I mean. We could not go to Pleasure Island as Katie was under 21 and would not have got into some of the clubs, and even though Hootie and the Blowfish are one of Chris favourite bands, at $180 Plus each, worked out too expensive for us so USF seemed a better bet for our particular group and as I said, we had a great time before.
So, we were up bright and early, cereals and toast and we were on our way. We all went very casual, taking a change of clothes (nothing too fancy mind) for the partying later on, all neatly folded into our bags for the inevitable locker. We left the villa and headed down to the 192, and could not believe our eyes. The amount of traffic was amazing totally gridlocked. I kid you not! We have never seen anything like it, the traffic was just not moving. As you headed onto the I 4 again it was total chaos. The radio was announcing that MK and Epcot were closed as they had reached capacity. You would only be let in if you had a pre purchased ticket and only then until safety became an issue but they did not tell you how you were meant to get to the park! They were advising people to go to MGM and AK instead, but forecast that they would be closed by 10-30 am. And this was all at 8-15 am!
So - I begin to panic what if we cant get into USF? What will we do? Where will we go for the celebrations? Well, as we went past Sea World at the end of International Drive, we noticed that it did not look busy at all, so we said that if needs be we could come back there, or, alternatively, Chris had noticed signs up for a big celebration at Pointe Orlando and The Mercado Center, so we had a couple of options. Anyway, all the worrying was unnecessary we sailed right up to USF with NO TRAFFIC whatsoever. Straight into the parking lot without even a queue. In fact it was quite eerie, to have seen such traffic jams a short while before and yet here was as clear as a bell! Anyway, we paid our dues and parked the car.
We gathered all our belongings and took small children by the hand sorry, we just had an in joke about that each time we left the vehicle and I would grab James and Ian and we would skip along like idiots well, you do those sort of things when your away from home, dont you? Dont you!? We made the walk from the car park and this is when we get the first glimpse of Islands of Adventure and City Walk. For the last two times we have been here this has all been under development and had the big fencing around so the sights that greeted us were amazing. We were very strict with ourselves though, because we were on a mission to get a locker, and knowing that these would be of a premium today, we made that a priority. And, I did not want to be tempted to look around and then take a chance of not getting into USF. I am such a worrier!
Mission Accomplished and all our belonging stored into the locker, I bring out from my bag the head bangers that I had bought from Woolworths, here in the UK. Now, for the uninitiated, these head bangers were black headbands, like alice bands, with two springy wires about 3 long and about 4 apart on the top. At the top of the springs were 2000s in Silver Glitter. Now these cost me £1.99 ($3) and I had not told anyone that I had them. When I got them out for the girls, they thought they were brilliant and put them on right away. I put mine on and we kept them on right round until we went home the next day! We could not believe the amount of people, all day, who kept asking us where we had got them, how much had we paid, could they buy them from us. I was staggered if only I had known, I could have brought loads with us and sold them would have been a money-spinner anyway! There were other types of millennium headwear about, mostly like padded crowns or a sparkly fountain type of thing, but I must admit, these were different and definitely had the desired effect. Nice one mum!
Right first port of call, Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time. No queuing, first show of the day, and set the boys up for what was going to be an experience of a lifetime. There had been a programme on Sky some weeks prior called The Making of T2-3D and it went behind the scenes and showed a lot of the show. We had managed to not let them see this so that no surprises were spoilt and I must say that even though we have done this it is still brilliant! Next, quick look in the shop and the girls buy a couple of bits of jewellery and then we make our way to Back to The Future. I noticed at this time that the park was still fairly empty but then it was still early. Straight on BTTF, with out queues hey are you getting fed up with the no queues and no wait bits? - Tell you what, when there was queuing, I will tell you, otherwise, presume no queues because believe me, all holiday, we had hardly any queues. Okay, I digress. On looking over the top balcony to wave to Chris, who once again had declined to ride and was doing some video taping, I noticed a young girl with the same headgear as us. Oh, so she is from the UK right! Anyway, the chaps loved this ride, although I dont think Ian will dash back on a second time, but James, Emma and Katie loved it.
A little walk back now and we decide to eat at Mels Diner. This is a fun place and we had burgers, fries, sodas and coffee and it came to about $65! The food was nice and would recommend this, as the service is quick. We now head off for Beetlejuices Revue, which I think, is brilliant. The dancing and singing is great and the characters do a fine job. I noticed that the characters had new costumes, well! I notice things like that being the Mother of a performer so hopefully, this is going to be around for some time to come. We did not hang about to see if the characters came out as they sometimes do, as we wanted to get to the next Wild West Stunt Show, which is another one I enjoy (sad, I know) even though it is predictable, and a bit cheesy, but it is fun and the crew all enjoyed this. Right, time to make our way to Jaws and within 5 minutes or so, we were in our boat and of to save the people of Amity! This is fun, and hey it is the movies! Our guide was excellent and did a good job of including all the boat in the action. Chris got wet. Of all people, he got wet! He is doing really well today as he feels so poorly, and he hasnt complained at all aches and pains in leg (which turned out to be sciatica (sp?) and the onset of a touch of the flu. Me, I am just about to loose my voice. Yes I know, a double bonus for the kids no nagging from me!
We carry on strolling and taking in the ambience, and notice that the crowds are beginning to filter in and the atmosphere is building. There is an air of excitement everywhere and the sound stages and street bars are all being prepared. There are red carpets here and there and we kept seeing stretch limos going round. We had noticed Lucy and Desi Arnaz, driving with Marylyn and some good looking guy, whom we did not recognise. Laurel and Hardy went by and we just caught a glimpse of The Blues Brothers, but unfortunately did not catch their brilliant show, which was a shame as we are all fans of the film. There were huge trailers being moved with plants and foliage on, as if they were preparing for a big Premier or something. It all added to the fun and atmosphere.
Next we take in Earthquake, which is a bit dated now, but nevertheless still good fun, and James and Ian thought it was great. Kongfrontation got our attention next as he would and this must have been the longest of queues about 20 minutes. We then sauntered along to Twister and had a blast! Chris and I were disappointed with this the first time we saw it, which was the week it opened in 98?, but after reading on the boards how everyone rated it so much, I decided to do the unthinkable and make sure we were in the front row, and I stopped right in the middle. Mind you, I dont think anyone minded, as it was not at all busy. There was not a full audience. Well, this was fantastic and most definitely up there with the best of them. The whole thing took our breath away in an exciting yet scary sort of way.
Now whilst we had been walking around we were trying to see where to have our evening meal and a well-deserved rest. This turned out to be the only disappointment of the day, as all the service restaurants had set meals, and they were very pricey. At $68 a head for 3 courses and coffee, we thought it was beyond our budget. To be honest, they did not look too busy and wondered if they had over priced. Never mind.
We make our way to the exit check that we can come back in with a hand stamp and head for City Walk, to try and re fuel for what was promising to be a fantastic night.
Me (46) and planner of this holiday of a lifetime.
Chris (45) my dear husband who puts up with me.
James (22) our son who has never been to Florida.
Emma (21) James' Girlfriend and known lovingly as Emmylou.
Katie (19) our daughter, also lovingly known as Starlett.
Ian (23) Katies Fiancé been before when much younger.
DAY 9 New Years Eve (Daytime) Universal Studios
Bear with me this is really long but I cant miss out anything I tried but we had such a great time, I could not choose what to miss out so here goes:
Right, this is what it has all been about. Months and months building up to this day. We had planned long ago to spend it at Universal Studios. Chris, Katie and I had spent New Years Eve, 1995 at USF and had such a wonderful time, that we had planned the holiday around being there again, to see in the new Millennium. The rumours had been flying around for such a long while that it was going to be extremely busy in WDW.
The crew really wanted to celebrate with a few drinks and a bit of a party and I had found out on the boards that there was going to be big sound stages set up around USF with top DJs performing so it seemed as though it was just a bit more up their street if you know what I mean. We could not go to Pleasure Island as Katie was under 21 and would not have got into some of the clubs, and even though Hootie and the Blowfish are one of Chris favourite bands, at $180 Plus each, worked out too expensive for us so USF seemed a better bet for our particular group and as I said, we had a great time before.
So, we were up bright and early, cereals and toast and we were on our way. We all went very casual, taking a change of clothes (nothing too fancy mind) for the partying later on, all neatly folded into our bags for the inevitable locker. We left the villa and headed down to the 192, and could not believe our eyes. The amount of traffic was amazing totally gridlocked. I kid you not! We have never seen anything like it, the traffic was just not moving. As you headed onto the I 4 again it was total chaos. The radio was announcing that MK and Epcot were closed as they had reached capacity. You would only be let in if you had a pre purchased ticket and only then until safety became an issue but they did not tell you how you were meant to get to the park! They were advising people to go to MGM and AK instead, but forecast that they would be closed by 10-30 am. And this was all at 8-15 am!
So - I begin to panic what if we cant get into USF? What will we do? Where will we go for the celebrations? Well, as we went past Sea World at the end of International Drive, we noticed that it did not look busy at all, so we said that if needs be we could come back there, or, alternatively, Chris had noticed signs up for a big celebration at Pointe Orlando and The Mercado Center, so we had a couple of options. Anyway, all the worrying was unnecessary we sailed right up to USF with NO TRAFFIC whatsoever. Straight into the parking lot without even a queue. In fact it was quite eerie, to have seen such traffic jams a short while before and yet here was as clear as a bell! Anyway, we paid our dues and parked the car.
We gathered all our belongings and took small children by the hand sorry, we just had an in joke about that each time we left the vehicle and I would grab James and Ian and we would skip along like idiots well, you do those sort of things when your away from home, dont you? Dont you!? We made the walk from the car park and this is when we get the first glimpse of Islands of Adventure and City Walk. For the last two times we have been here this has all been under development and had the big fencing around so the sights that greeted us were amazing. We were very strict with ourselves though, because we were on a mission to get a locker, and knowing that these would be of a premium today, we made that a priority. And, I did not want to be tempted to look around and then take a chance of not getting into USF. I am such a worrier!
Mission Accomplished and all our belonging stored into the locker, I bring out from my bag the head bangers that I had bought from Woolworths, here in the UK. Now, for the uninitiated, these head bangers were black headbands, like alice bands, with two springy wires about 3 long and about 4 apart on the top. At the top of the springs were 2000s in Silver Glitter. Now these cost me £1.99 ($3) and I had not told anyone that I had them. When I got them out for the girls, they thought they were brilliant and put them on right away. I put mine on and we kept them on right round until we went home the next day! We could not believe the amount of people, all day, who kept asking us where we had got them, how much had we paid, could they buy them from us. I was staggered if only I had known, I could have brought loads with us and sold them would have been a money-spinner anyway! There were other types of millennium headwear about, mostly like padded crowns or a sparkly fountain type of thing, but I must admit, these were different and definitely had the desired effect. Nice one mum!
Right first port of call, Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time. No queuing, first show of the day, and set the boys up for what was going to be an experience of a lifetime. There had been a programme on Sky some weeks prior called The Making of T2-3D and it went behind the scenes and showed a lot of the show. We had managed to not let them see this so that no surprises were spoilt and I must say that even though we have done this it is still brilliant! Next, quick look in the shop and the girls buy a couple of bits of jewellery and then we make our way to Back to The Future. I noticed at this time that the park was still fairly empty but then it was still early. Straight on BTTF, with out queues hey are you getting fed up with the no queues and no wait bits? - Tell you what, when there was queuing, I will tell you, otherwise, presume no queues because believe me, all holiday, we had hardly any queues. Okay, I digress. On looking over the top balcony to wave to Chris, who once again had declined to ride and was doing some video taping, I noticed a young girl with the same headgear as us. Oh, so she is from the UK right! Anyway, the chaps loved this ride, although I dont think Ian will dash back on a second time, but James, Emma and Katie loved it.
A little walk back now and we decide to eat at Mels Diner. This is a fun place and we had burgers, fries, sodas and coffee and it came to about $65! The food was nice and would recommend this, as the service is quick. We now head off for Beetlejuices Revue, which I think, is brilliant. The dancing and singing is great and the characters do a fine job. I noticed that the characters had new costumes, well! I notice things like that being the Mother of a performer so hopefully, this is going to be around for some time to come. We did not hang about to see if the characters came out as they sometimes do, as we wanted to get to the next Wild West Stunt Show, which is another one I enjoy (sad, I know) even though it is predictable, and a bit cheesy, but it is fun and the crew all enjoyed this. Right, time to make our way to Jaws and within 5 minutes or so, we were in our boat and of to save the people of Amity! This is fun, and hey it is the movies! Our guide was excellent and did a good job of including all the boat in the action. Chris got wet. Of all people, he got wet! He is doing really well today as he feels so poorly, and he hasnt complained at all aches and pains in leg (which turned out to be sciatica (sp?) and the onset of a touch of the flu. Me, I am just about to loose my voice. Yes I know, a double bonus for the kids no nagging from me!
We carry on strolling and taking in the ambience, and notice that the crowds are beginning to filter in and the atmosphere is building. There is an air of excitement everywhere and the sound stages and street bars are all being prepared. There are red carpets here and there and we kept seeing stretch limos going round. We had noticed Lucy and Desi Arnaz, driving with Marylyn and some good looking guy, whom we did not recognise. Laurel and Hardy went by and we just caught a glimpse of The Blues Brothers, but unfortunately did not catch their brilliant show, which was a shame as we are all fans of the film. There were huge trailers being moved with plants and foliage on, as if they were preparing for a big Premier or something. It all added to the fun and atmosphere.
Next we take in Earthquake, which is a bit dated now, but nevertheless still good fun, and James and Ian thought it was great. Kongfrontation got our attention next as he would and this must have been the longest of queues about 20 minutes. We then sauntered along to Twister and had a blast! Chris and I were disappointed with this the first time we saw it, which was the week it opened in 98?, but after reading on the boards how everyone rated it so much, I decided to do the unthinkable and make sure we were in the front row, and I stopped right in the middle. Mind you, I dont think anyone minded, as it was not at all busy. There was not a full audience. Well, this was fantastic and most definitely up there with the best of them. The whole thing took our breath away in an exciting yet scary sort of way.
Now whilst we had been walking around we were trying to see where to have our evening meal and a well-deserved rest. This turned out to be the only disappointment of the day, as all the service restaurants had set meals, and they were very pricey. At $68 a head for 3 courses and coffee, we thought it was beyond our budget. To be honest, they did not look too busy and wondered if they had over priced. Never mind.
We make our way to the exit check that we can come back in with a hand stamp and head for City Walk, to try and re fuel for what was promising to be a fantastic night.
