caroley
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2000
<b>Carole : (40) Organiser and chief adventurer. Compulsive shopper.
Stephen : (43) Head beer drinker, and food taster. Trainee shopper.</b>
<I>As this was our third year running at Orlando, the plan was to take it all at a slower pace, and enjoy the atmosphere. No queuing and no commando tactics. We have annual passes for Disney and length of stay passes for Universal. Were giving Seaworld a Miss this year rather than try to cram too much in.</I>
Day 4 Tuesday 16/10/01
Todays planned itinerary IOA and shopping
Weather In the 80s, humid.
Up at 8.00 this morning. Stephen popped down to the Sunset grill to get breakfast to go. He brought apple fritters, forgetting that I would rather starve than eat anything with cinnamon on it. Still, he enjoyed his
. We took the water taxi over to City walk and then walked the short distance to Islands of Adventure. First stop was Spiderman which I had heard so much about. We waved our magic room keys to get in the express line and was straight on. Wow! Amazing effects, and that last bit is so real. We had to go again but this time we went standby to see the queue area. Took 15 minutes to get on and in hindsight we should have done standby first when it was only 10 minutes and then expressed it.
Im peckish by this time so we got danish and coffee from Croissant moon and sat outside and watched two artists touching up the paintwork on the wall. It takes a lot longer to make something look old, than to make it look new!
Feeling refreshed we set off through Seuss landing. I never read any of the books, not my era, but I love the way theyve themed the area, even if a lot of it goes over my head. After a look around we headed up to Poseidons fury for our first look at this. We waved our magic room keys again to get into the express line and went in for the first show of the day. It was quite good. I wouldnt get over excited about it as Ive never been keen on being herded about in a large crowd, but the effects were good. My glasses got all steamed up in the water vortex and I was a bit nervous as Id read on the Universal forum that sometimes the vortex collapses, soaking anyone caught underneath it.
We carried on walking round the park, stopping to look at the water rides. We didnt want to do those today, but planned on popping over one morning wearing clothes that would dry out quickly, sandals and not carrying cameras etc. (that didnt go entirely to plan, but more on that later) Dudley Do-Right wasnt working but we had a look at the angle of drop and got slightly nervous about it. At one point we found a store selling cuddly dragons so we bought one for my mom. Stephen calls her the dragon so we often buy her one. She doesnt seem to mind. We walked on and finally came back to Seuss landing where we decided to go on The Cat in the Hat. What fun! From there we went on One fish Two fish which was also fun. See, were just big kids at heart 
. The first show of Sinbad was due to start so we went and, youve guessed it, waved our magic room keys to get in the express line. I absolutely loved that room key. I only had to flash it, and as if by magic, the express lines opened up for us. As often as we wanted! Now, thats what I call a perk .
Sinbad was quite good. Very tongue in cheek and some amusing one liners. Back to Seuss landing for one more go on The cat in the hat. In front of us was a British family but no green ribbons in sight. I wore my ribbon religiously but never saw any others, and no one approached me about mine. Still, better luck next year. As we exited into the obligatory gift shop, I spotted a nice red top with the cat in the hat on it so I bought that and its turned out to be one of my favourite tops.
We walked over to the Hard Rock Café to look at the merchandise. Oh look! They have beanie bears like the one I got for joining the Hard Rock All Access. Well, I had to indulge, didnt I? I added Charlie and Monty beara to my collection and picked up a HRC logo top while I was at it. Stephen had a HRC t-shirt. We had a nice chat with the guy in the merchandise dept. He had lived in London for a couple of years but said he had to come home as Tony Blair had burned all the cows so that he couldnt get a decent steak. We discussed the differences in our common language for a while. I informed him that I knew to drive on the pavement instead of walking on it, and he countered with the knowledge that a fortnight was, in fact, two weeks. This went on for a few minutes until he pulled out a bum bag and I chickened out.
We decided to walk back to the hotel. Its a beautiful walk with winding paths through gardens. The plantings are gorgeous and theyve very kindly labelled the plants. We took the advice given by someone on the Universal forum about the shortest route back to the hotel from the City Walk area. Theres a path that leads up to the pool area, accessed by your room key. Very handy.
We dropped our shopping off, and headed to the Altamonte mall. Wed not tried this before so we wanted to see what it was like. Nothing much took our fancy, but we did find a store with some good offers on dvds. Bought 3 of them and also the newly released Garbage album. Im listening to it as I type this, its very very good.
By now, Stephen was getting hungry and was complaining that I was trying to starve him. I knew one of the places I wanted to try was Jungle Jims, so I suggested we headed there. Food was quite good. I had a Mexican wrap which was delicious and Stephen had chicken parmesan.
We were pretty tired so we went back and watched TV while Stephen had a few beers. A new series about Superman was starting, called Smallville. We watched that and thought it was good. Hopefully Sky will pick it up.
Tomorrow Epcot and Halloween Horror Nights
Stephen : (43) Head beer drinker, and food taster. Trainee shopper.</b>
<I>As this was our third year running at Orlando, the plan was to take it all at a slower pace, and enjoy the atmosphere. No queuing and no commando tactics. We have annual passes for Disney and length of stay passes for Universal. Were giving Seaworld a Miss this year rather than try to cram too much in.</I>
Day 4 Tuesday 16/10/01
Todays planned itinerary IOA and shopping
Weather In the 80s, humid.
Up at 8.00 this morning. Stephen popped down to the Sunset grill to get breakfast to go. He brought apple fritters, forgetting that I would rather starve than eat anything with cinnamon on it. Still, he enjoyed his
. We took the water taxi over to City walk and then walked the short distance to Islands of Adventure. First stop was Spiderman which I had heard so much about. We waved our magic room keys to get in the express line and was straight on. Wow! Amazing effects, and that last bit is so real. We had to go again but this time we went standby to see the queue area. Took 15 minutes to get on and in hindsight we should have done standby first when it was only 10 minutes and then expressed it. Im peckish by this time so we got danish and coffee from Croissant moon and sat outside and watched two artists touching up the paintwork on the wall. It takes a lot longer to make something look old, than to make it look new!
Feeling refreshed we set off through Seuss landing. I never read any of the books, not my era, but I love the way theyve themed the area, even if a lot of it goes over my head. After a look around we headed up to Poseidons fury for our first look at this. We waved our magic room keys again to get into the express line and went in for the first show of the day. It was quite good. I wouldnt get over excited about it as Ive never been keen on being herded about in a large crowd, but the effects were good. My glasses got all steamed up in the water vortex and I was a bit nervous as Id read on the Universal forum that sometimes the vortex collapses, soaking anyone caught underneath it.
We carried on walking round the park, stopping to look at the water rides. We didnt want to do those today, but planned on popping over one morning wearing clothes that would dry out quickly, sandals and not carrying cameras etc. (that didnt go entirely to plan, but more on that later) Dudley Do-Right wasnt working but we had a look at the angle of drop and got slightly nervous about it. At one point we found a store selling cuddly dragons so we bought one for my mom. Stephen calls her the dragon so we often buy her one. She doesnt seem to mind
. We walked on and finally came back to Seuss landing where we decided to go on The Cat in the Hat. What fun! From there we went on One fish Two fish which was also fun. See, were just big kids at heart . The first show of Sinbad was due to start so we went and, youve guessed it, waved our magic room keys to get in the express line. I absolutely loved that room key. I only had to flash it, and as if by magic, the express lines opened up for us. As often as we wanted! Now, thats what I call a perk . Sinbad was quite good. Very tongue in cheek and some amusing one liners. Back to Seuss landing for one more go on The cat in the hat. In front of us was a British family but no green ribbons in sight. I wore my ribbon religiously but never saw any others, and no one approached me about mine. Still, better luck next year. As we exited into the obligatory gift shop, I spotted a nice red top with the cat in the hat on it so I bought that and its turned out to be one of my favourite tops.
We walked over to the Hard Rock Café to look at the merchandise. Oh look! They have beanie bears like the one I got for joining the Hard Rock All Access. Well, I had to indulge, didnt I? I added Charlie and Monty beara to my collection and picked up a HRC logo top while I was at it. Stephen had a HRC t-shirt. We had a nice chat with the guy in the merchandise dept. He had lived in London for a couple of years but said he had to come home as Tony Blair had burned all the cows so that he couldnt get a decent steak. We discussed the differences in our common language for a while. I informed him that I knew to drive on the pavement instead of walking on it, and he countered with the knowledge that a fortnight was, in fact, two weeks. This went on for a few minutes until he pulled out a bum bag and I chickened out.
We decided to walk back to the hotel. Its a beautiful walk with winding paths through gardens. The plantings are gorgeous and theyve very kindly labelled the plants. We took the advice given by someone on the Universal forum about the shortest route back to the hotel from the City Walk area. Theres a path that leads up to the pool area, accessed by your room key. Very handy.
We dropped our shopping off, and headed to the Altamonte mall. Wed not tried this before so we wanted to see what it was like. Nothing much took our fancy, but we did find a store with some good offers on dvds. Bought 3 of them and also the newly released Garbage album. Im listening to it as I type this, its very very good.
By now, Stephen was getting hungry and was complaining that I was trying to starve him. I knew one of the places I wanted to try was Jungle Jims, so I suggested we headed there. Food was quite good. I had a Mexican wrap which was delicious and Stephen had chicken parmesan.
We were pretty tired so we went back and watched TV while Stephen had a few beers. A new series about Superman was starting, called Smallville. We watched that and thought it was good. Hopefully Sky will pick it up.
Tomorrow Epcot and Halloween Horror Nights
