Daysleeper40
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2007
Sunday 30th September: Re-rides and some very strange eating habits.
Oh no it was our last full day - and we had to decide what to do with it
After much umm-ing and arr-ing we opted to head for CityWalk as this at least gave us the choice of US or IOA with the obvious option being both. The plan was to concentrate on US though as we had some serious re-riding to do, and I was determined to get better seats this time damn it!!
We were up and moving at the usual time and walked to CityWalk with the sun shining on us. Cinabon and Juice were again the order of the day - call me boring but this combination really did hit the spot. It is one of those things now that if I ever sit down to a brekky of Cinabon and OJ again (and it is unthinkable to consider this not occurring at some point in the future!) it will automatically remind me of our first trip to Orlando. You cant get much better than that - a mind full of some of my best ever memories combined with one of the biggest sugar hits available as legitimate breakfast fare. AWESOME!!!
I had to stop typing for a minute then as I got a bit day-dreamy about our first visit to IOA that started with Cinabon and OJ too - then we went on HULK for the first time - before the park had officially opened no less - rode the front which was a fantastic way to experience that first drop.. and youve all read this before so maybe I should snap out of it and get back to day number 13 (oooh, unlucky for some!). See what I mean though - and thats just the thought of Cinabon & OJ. Imagine what Id be like if I was actually presented with one!?
I digress - back to the matter in hand. Universal Studios Take Two:
We were greeted at the gates by Marge Simpson - and after the photo-op wasted no time in getting on with the rides
Jimmy Neutrons Nicktoon Blast was up first. We had forgone this attraction on our first visit on account of not being particularly big Nickelodeon fans and knowing very few of the characters. Turns out this hardly mattered at all and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this ride. Way better than expected and was one of those that makes me laugh uncontrollably for most of the ride - it goes without saying that the Birdy Dance truly is a fate worse than death!
We were heading roughly in the direction of Earthquake as we wanted to re-ride with better seats, but couldnt pass up a spin on The Mummy en route. The wait time was negligible again and the ride was made even more entertaining by the crazy crazy southern sounding loons in the car behind us (If I was feeling derisory I would have called them rednecks.. Or maybe even white trash. But that would be wrong of me) who I think only paused for breath twice during the ride, and vocalised their enjoyment loudly the rest of the time. I had to applaud their commitment to the on ride scream - and it is also quite an achievement to manage to liven up what is already a pretty exhilarating ride! Did you know that Revenge of the Mummy catapults guests at speeds up to 45 mph in virtual darkness? I didnt realise I was going quite that fast at the time!
Back to the original plan and we again headed for Earthquake, but for reasons unknown it didnt open until 10am. Having arrived in good time and there being no queues to speak of we still had a while to wait. Definitely long enough to re-ride JAWS. It would have been rude not to really with such an obvious JAWS sized gap in the itinerary - so we did. Much better seats this time (at the back on the left) and M was more than happy as we seemed to have Christina Ricci as our tour guide. I loved this ride the first time around and the new seats only served to improve things with a fantastic view of poor old Bruce.
We arrived back at the entrance to Earthquake right on time at 9.55am and walked onto the first quake of the day. Again we chose much better seats and ended up right in the middle with a row to ourselves.
After Earthquake we walked over to Men in Black but once we had arrived M decided he didnt want to ride - obviously scared that I would beat him - and I wasnt really up for a solo spin either. Instead we walked back to JAWS to look for a T-Shirt for me. I really wanted an Amity Swim Team T but they didnt have a girls version. (I still want one btw - if anyone knows where I can get a fitted ladies T-Shirt with an Amity Swim Team logo on I will be eternally grateful). We saw LOADS of characters while walking around - we definitely saw Scooby Doo, Monroe, Curious George and Woody, the Blues Brothers, Shrek and Donkey, and Bart n Lisa. PHEW!
This meant it took us an age to get anywhere as we kept stopping for photos - and I got surprisingly excited when the Mystery Machine hove into view!
After all the excitement we had a sit down and scoffed some cheesecake and downed a vat of diet coke each.
Moving into full shopping mode we headed out of US and had a mooch around CityWalk before popping in on IOA so I could buy a Jurassic Park T-Shirt to make up for my earlier JAWS apparel disappointment. We were again very lucky with the characters and met all manner of super heroes in IOA.
Having met Marge, Lisa, and Bart already M was keen to try to meet Homer too. We had snaffled a character supervisor person earlier who said that Marge and Homer might be out at 12.45 but it depended on the weather (too windy is a bad thing when youre in a character suit - I can sympathise with this having previously masqueraded as Rory the Tiger for Haven holidays myself. It is not comfortable. Not at all.). We had a bit of a mad dash back to US to see if Homer would put in an appearance but sadly it was not to be.
We were flagging slightly at this point and decided that we would stop for lunch at Jimmy Buffets. First order was for some speciality drinks - raspberry dak for me and a Landshark for M.
Foodwise, M opted for the teryaki steak and I had the jambalya. Both were scrummy - be warned that the jambalaya is HOT though! We enjoyed the atmosphere at Jimmy Buffets and the guy who was singing was very cool. Drinks went down a treat and we had quite a leisurely time to try to recharge the batteries a bit.
We had one more thing to do before heading back to the hotel - change Ms Blue Man Group T-Shirt for a different size. He did try it on when he bought it but then later decided it wasnt baggy enough. Waiting for the kiosk to open took an absolute AGE so I will never again allow M to complain about my shopping technique. Clearly just picking the first thing you see doesnt always work out great DOES IT?!!
We finally changed the damn T-Shirt and caught a cab back to the hotel for about 4.30pm. Showered, changed, and did the majority of the packing which is too depressing to even think about and decided on a simple Sweet Tomatoes dinner after our big lunch. STs was busier than ever on this evening - we still got a seat straight away though and as one of my favourite pastimes is people watching I was more than happy with the lively atmosphere.
Spot of the evening was the man sitting behind M - he was one of those people that has to pile as much food as possible on their plate despite being allowed to visit the buffet more than once. He had then added a bit more to his plate and had to concentrate ever so hard to get to his table without overbalancing and causing some kind of mac n cheese avalanche!
Things were about to get stranger though - not content with Mount Mac n Cheese he headed back up to the buffet for soup and bread. This is not weird in itself - clearly the man was a glutton - what was weird was when he proceeded to fish the ice cubes out of his diet coke and put them in his soup. A classic people watching moment!!
I cant comment too heavily though as I put away a fair amount of the Sts goodness myself that evening, and I do recall going up for pudding too. At least I had the excuse of it being the last time I would visit Sweet Tomatoes for some considerable time. BOOOO!
We went back to the hotel directly after dinner and had the excitement of the Desperate Housewives season premier. Fell asleep with the ominous we have to go home tomorrow feeling on our minds
Oh no it was our last full day - and we had to decide what to do with it
After much umm-ing and arr-ing we opted to head for CityWalk as this at least gave us the choice of US or IOA with the obvious option being both. The plan was to concentrate on US though as we had some serious re-riding to do, and I was determined to get better seats this time damn it!!
We were up and moving at the usual time and walked to CityWalk with the sun shining on us. Cinabon and Juice were again the order of the day - call me boring but this combination really did hit the spot. It is one of those things now that if I ever sit down to a brekky of Cinabon and OJ again (and it is unthinkable to consider this not occurring at some point in the future!) it will automatically remind me of our first trip to Orlando. You cant get much better than that - a mind full of some of my best ever memories combined with one of the biggest sugar hits available as legitimate breakfast fare. AWESOME!!!
I had to stop typing for a minute then as I got a bit day-dreamy about our first visit to IOA that started with Cinabon and OJ too - then we went on HULK for the first time - before the park had officially opened no less - rode the front which was a fantastic way to experience that first drop.. and youve all read this before so maybe I should snap out of it and get back to day number 13 (oooh, unlucky for some!). See what I mean though - and thats just the thought of Cinabon & OJ. Imagine what Id be like if I was actually presented with one!?
I digress - back to the matter in hand. Universal Studios Take Two:
We were greeted at the gates by Marge Simpson - and after the photo-op wasted no time in getting on with the rides
Jimmy Neutrons Nicktoon Blast was up first. We had forgone this attraction on our first visit on account of not being particularly big Nickelodeon fans and knowing very few of the characters. Turns out this hardly mattered at all and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this ride. Way better than expected and was one of those that makes me laugh uncontrollably for most of the ride - it goes without saying that the Birdy Dance truly is a fate worse than death!
We were heading roughly in the direction of Earthquake as we wanted to re-ride with better seats, but couldnt pass up a spin on The Mummy en route. The wait time was negligible again and the ride was made even more entertaining by the crazy crazy southern sounding loons in the car behind us (If I was feeling derisory I would have called them rednecks.. Or maybe even white trash. But that would be wrong of me) who I think only paused for breath twice during the ride, and vocalised their enjoyment loudly the rest of the time. I had to applaud their commitment to the on ride scream - and it is also quite an achievement to manage to liven up what is already a pretty exhilarating ride! Did you know that Revenge of the Mummy catapults guests at speeds up to 45 mph in virtual darkness? I didnt realise I was going quite that fast at the time!
Back to the original plan and we again headed for Earthquake, but for reasons unknown it didnt open until 10am. Having arrived in good time and there being no queues to speak of we still had a while to wait. Definitely long enough to re-ride JAWS. It would have been rude not to really with such an obvious JAWS sized gap in the itinerary - so we did. Much better seats this time (at the back on the left) and M was more than happy as we seemed to have Christina Ricci as our tour guide. I loved this ride the first time around and the new seats only served to improve things with a fantastic view of poor old Bruce.
We arrived back at the entrance to Earthquake right on time at 9.55am and walked onto the first quake of the day. Again we chose much better seats and ended up right in the middle with a row to ourselves.
After Earthquake we walked over to Men in Black but once we had arrived M decided he didnt want to ride - obviously scared that I would beat him - and I wasnt really up for a solo spin either. Instead we walked back to JAWS to look for a T-Shirt for me. I really wanted an Amity Swim Team T but they didnt have a girls version. (I still want one btw - if anyone knows where I can get a fitted ladies T-Shirt with an Amity Swim Team logo on I will be eternally grateful). We saw LOADS of characters while walking around - we definitely saw Scooby Doo, Monroe, Curious George and Woody, the Blues Brothers, Shrek and Donkey, and Bart n Lisa. PHEW!
This meant it took us an age to get anywhere as we kept stopping for photos - and I got surprisingly excited when the Mystery Machine hove into view!
After all the excitement we had a sit down and scoffed some cheesecake and downed a vat of diet coke each.
Moving into full shopping mode we headed out of US and had a mooch around CityWalk before popping in on IOA so I could buy a Jurassic Park T-Shirt to make up for my earlier JAWS apparel disappointment. We were again very lucky with the characters and met all manner of super heroes in IOA.
Having met Marge, Lisa, and Bart already M was keen to try to meet Homer too. We had snaffled a character supervisor person earlier who said that Marge and Homer might be out at 12.45 but it depended on the weather (too windy is a bad thing when youre in a character suit - I can sympathise with this having previously masqueraded as Rory the Tiger for Haven holidays myself. It is not comfortable. Not at all.). We had a bit of a mad dash back to US to see if Homer would put in an appearance but sadly it was not to be.
We were flagging slightly at this point and decided that we would stop for lunch at Jimmy Buffets. First order was for some speciality drinks - raspberry dak for me and a Landshark for M.
Foodwise, M opted for the teryaki steak and I had the jambalya. Both were scrummy - be warned that the jambalaya is HOT though! We enjoyed the atmosphere at Jimmy Buffets and the guy who was singing was very cool. Drinks went down a treat and we had quite a leisurely time to try to recharge the batteries a bit.
We had one more thing to do before heading back to the hotel - change Ms Blue Man Group T-Shirt for a different size. He did try it on when he bought it but then later decided it wasnt baggy enough. Waiting for the kiosk to open took an absolute AGE so I will never again allow M to complain about my shopping technique. Clearly just picking the first thing you see doesnt always work out great DOES IT?!!
We finally changed the damn T-Shirt and caught a cab back to the hotel for about 4.30pm. Showered, changed, and did the majority of the packing which is too depressing to even think about and decided on a simple Sweet Tomatoes dinner after our big lunch. STs was busier than ever on this evening - we still got a seat straight away though and as one of my favourite pastimes is people watching I was more than happy with the lively atmosphere.
Spot of the evening was the man sitting behind M - he was one of those people that has to pile as much food as possible on their plate despite being allowed to visit the buffet more than once. He had then added a bit more to his plate and had to concentrate ever so hard to get to his table without overbalancing and causing some kind of mac n cheese avalanche!
Things were about to get stranger though - not content with Mount Mac n Cheese he headed back up to the buffet for soup and bread. This is not weird in itself - clearly the man was a glutton - what was weird was when he proceeded to fish the ice cubes out of his diet coke and put them in his soup. A classic people watching moment!!
I cant comment too heavily though as I put away a fair amount of the Sts goodness myself that evening, and I do recall going up for pudding too. At least I had the excuse of it being the last time I would visit Sweet Tomatoes for some considerable time. BOOOO!
We went back to the hotel directly after dinner and had the excitement of the Desperate Housewives season premier. Fell asleep with the ominous we have to go home tomorrow feeling on our minds
