Thursday, Oct. 23rd
Hi Everyone,
We've just returned from our day at both parks. We picked some of our favorite attractions at both parks and decided to spend our day that way. Since both parks are so close to each other and they are walking distance using this strategy was no problem. We started our day at the Confisco Grill at Islands of Adventure where they have a character breakfast. We then started our park touring in Islands of Adventure and would eventually move on to Universal Studios.
Our day started with a nice walk along the path between the Hard Rock Hotel and City Walk. We entered Islands of Adventure at 9:00AM for our 9:15AM reservation at Confisco Grill's character breakfast. Confisco Grill is located in the Port of Entry at the front of the park. Here's a photo of the Port of Entry. As you can see the skies were a bit overcast this morning.
Here's a sign in front of the Confisco Grill advertising the character breakfast with pricing
Characters who appeared today where Spiderman, Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2. Since this breakfast is not heavily attended you get a lot of character interaction time. I believe Spiderman spent 5 or more minutes with us at our table. All the characters do a great job. They each perform some sort of skit or comic routine to help you associate with them.
Here's a photo of Anna with thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Cat and the Hat series
And Spiderman
The breakfast is a buffet where you go up and get what you would like. The food is basic breakfast fare with scrambled eggs, hash browns, etc with one exception. Today, they had green eggs and ham sandwiches. I tried one and now, I can honestly say, "I do not like green eggs and ham Sam I am, I do not like them at a character breakfast, or in a theme park Sam I am!" Yuck!
Here's a photo of the buffet line
Our service was a bit spotty considering the restaurant was not very busy. We didn't see our server very much. I waited for a refill of coffee for about 5 minutes, but other than that it was ok.
The total cost of our bill with tip and 10% annual pass discount was $52. Not expensive, but certainly not cheap either. I do believe with the amount of character interaction we received and the quality of the food it was worth it. This is the only character meal you will find in either of the two theme parks. I would suggest giving it a try; especially if you have Spiderman fans in your household.
Here's a photo of the inside of the Confisco Grill
After we finished breakfast we took a walk through Suess Landing. We hit a couple of attractions we wanted to try again.
Here's a photo of the entrance to Suess Landing
We worked our way to the Lost Continent where I snapped this photo. I've always found this structure interesting. I always wonder what people are thinking when they imagine something like this. I call this structure "the vometing water god"!
Attractions we experienced in both parks today were Suess Landing Trolly Ride, Cat and the Hat, Jurassic Park River Adventure, Ripsaw Falls (yes, we got wet), Spiderman, The Simpsons Ride, Men in Black, The Mummy and Jimmy Neutron's Blast.
We finished our park touring today at 4:30 and headed back to the Hard Rock Hotel. On the way back to our room I stopped in the club lounge and snapped this photo.
As I've previously mentioned the club lounge at the Hard Rock is rather small. It was crowded tonight for evening appatizers. In fact, there were no seats available when we came back later. We just took the food back to our room. Comparing this club level experience with the few others we've experienced I'd say this was probably the least appealing to us. Not to say it was bad, we just have experienced better. I still believe the Polynesian resort provided the best club experience for us overall.
As for the rest of this evening we plan on relaxing down by the pool. The pool here is great so we plan on taking advantage of it as much as possible. Tomorrow is our departure day. We have an evening flight out of Orlando so we still have the day ahead of us tomorrow; however, we will need to check-out before 10:00AM and store our luggage with the concierge before heading to the parks.
Here's a photo I took the other day looking across the lake at the Worlds largest Hard Rock Cafe. There is also a concert venue attached where Miss Elanis Morasette played this past Tuesday night.
I'll provide another update tomorrow. Thanks for following along!
Up Next:
Checking-Out of the Hard Rock Hotel
Enjoying the Parks
Departure
We havn't been to Universal in years, do you think it would appeal to DS 14 and DD 20 who love the wild rides at Disney? BTW, we had to ship a giant shark home a few years ago ~ good luck with the tiger!
Can't wait to hear what you end up doing with it.
!
) Also if you don't want the tiger I think Sarah will adopt it (she'll share custody with Hannah). 
I can't believe it, your trip is over. I'm sad - I've been having fun reading about yours since we're not going this fall break (I want to but Dave Ramsey says no.
