SuAnne
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 9, 1999
- Messages
- 415
The Cast
SuAnne: Me..Mom to Hayley and Pal of Cassie
Hayley: DD.10 going on 16 and waiting for fame to find her
Background
In January I had booked seats on Air Canada through seat sale and had
originally planned to split a stay between All Star Movies and Animal
Kingdom Lodge during the last week of August.
Well.February arrives and I within the space of a week I had sold my condo and had bought a house which we would be moving into in July. With all the moving expenses I didn't think I would be able to swing a trip at all this year. Oh course Hayley doesn't seem to understand the concept of "priorities", and kept telling me that I was "mean" for breaking my promise to take her to WDW this year. I also had Cass urging me to find a way to be able to go as she and Noel were going to be going at the same time.
May rolls around and they offer Canadian at par rates, which should have meant that I would be able to stay at one of the All Stars for about $77.00 CDN (approx. $56.00 US) which was going to fit my budget so things were looking up. I called the first day they offered the rates and CRO had somehow input the exchange rate into their system incorrectly and I was able to get All Star Movies for $46.00 US/night so the trip was on!
Our plans evolved from there with booking one night at RPR at Universal for $110.00/night at the start of our trip and then Cass being the sweetie that she is, offered to have Hayley and I join her and Noel at AKL for our last night there.
The summer comes, we get moved into our new place after 4 months of endless packing and I recover from my post traumatic move disorder just in time for our trip!!
August 23: RPR and IOA
Our flight from Toronto to Orlando arrives right on time and Thom from Yourride was waiting for us and in no time we were at the Royal Pacific.
We checked in at the Loews First check in counter with no wait. Without asking we were upgraded to a pool view room and given our Loews welcome gift. I chose the red wine since Hayley is a very picky eater and didn't want the cookies and milk..so mom gets a treat for herself! Hayley also received her Loews backpack with her goodies.
We had a beautiful room of the pool/beach area. There is a photo of our of it in the link at the end of this section. The room was right at the end of the hallway, so all we had to do is walk down there stairs and we were right at the path to the pool and to the Parks. It was a great location!
Since it was now about 2:30, our plan was only to do IOA today. We tookthe boat over from RPR . Boy was it HOT out!
We are through the gates and I'm literally chasing Hayley as she
beelines it to the Hulk. The regular line had a 45-minute wait but with FOTL we were on with about a 10-minute wait. Next was Spiderman. Same thing, wait time was 40 minutes and we walked right on with FOTL. We did Spiderman twice, and after the second time I was regretting that glass of wine I had on the flight down!
Time to stop for a slushy and then we head over to Duelling Dragons.Even with FOTL we had a wait of about 30 minutes so with the heat and the after effects of Spiderman I was feeling really queasy. I was also making a mental note about avoiding wine before IOA!
Off to the water rides..Did River Adventure, Rip Saw Falls and the
Bilge-Rat Barges and we were drenched but it felt so good in the heat.What a difference from when we were there in December and were drenched and freezing! Again with FOTL we were able to walk right on all the rides with the posted times being 40-45 minutes. The parks seemed very busy with locals with being a Saturday.
At about 6:00pm we were dragging after being up since 4:00 am so Hayley did the Hulk one more time and walked back to RPR . It was quite a pleasant walk .
Back in the room, my wine was waiting along with a bowl of mixed nuts,but I was too pooped to even think about opening it so we changed and went down to the pool for a quick swim. I didn't go in, but Hayley said she found the water to be a bit cool.
After the swim, we hopped on the boat to go back to Citywalk for dinner.It was about 8:00pm and VERY busy everywhere. Hayley was starting to have a bit of a meltdown (okay we both were.) so we went back to the hotel and ordered a pizza and Caesar salad from room service, which was just okay.
I had also brought our portable DVD so I put on Lizze McGuire for Hayley and we were both asleep before the opening credits were through.
August 24: Universal Studios and IOA one last time before heading to WDW.
We were up bright and early, checked out and left our luggage with Bell Services then walked over to Universal Studio to be there for the opening and we were able to catch the first Shrek show. It was great! It was so funny and the effects were awesome.
After Shrek we were able to walk right into Twister, Jaws, Earthquake,MIB twice, ET and Terminator all without needing FOTL. The crowds were very light today. We had done everything we wanted to see by 11:15 so we stopped for an early lunch of a hot dog (yuck!) and a drink from a cart and headed back to IOA.
IOA crowds seemed much lighter today. I decided I was going to pass on most of the IOA rides today. My stomach doesn't react well to those types of rides in the best of times, and the heat just seemed to make it even worse and I didn't feel like walking around like a drowned rat after the water rides either so I just walked Hayley up to put her on the rides and then met her at the exit. She went on the Hulk four times!! Spiderman (which I did) and Dr. Doom three times. I actually did Dr. Doom with her with no ill effects!
Next she hit the water rides. Today I brought her bathing suit for her to change into so she wouldn't have to walk around afterwards in soaking clothes. She did River Adventure three times with no wait and then the Barges and Rip Saw Falls.
By now it was 4:00 and she did Hulk another couple of times and we headed for Margaritaville for an early dinner.
I had a Mango Daiquiri (yummy. and went down way too quickly) and we split a Caesar salad and each had a Cheeseburger in Paradise. Hayley's Kids Meal was almost the same size as mine!
We took the boat back to RPR, took some pictures of the lobby and then went outside to wait for Yourride to take us to All Star Movies.
It was a jammed packed couple of days and we really enjoyed our stay at the Royal Pacific and would highly recommend it. The resort is beautiful, service was excellent, amenities are wonderful (ironing board, coffee maker, blow dryer, nice toiletries)
Here are the photos of our stay at Universal.
http://www.hpphoto.com/servlet/com.hp.HPGuestLogin?username=spicystruthers&password=52765614
My report on the Disney portion of our trip will continue on the Disney Trip Report Boards.
SuAnne: Me..Mom to Hayley and Pal of Cassie
Hayley: DD.10 going on 16 and waiting for fame to find her
Background
In January I had booked seats on Air Canada through seat sale and had
originally planned to split a stay between All Star Movies and Animal
Kingdom Lodge during the last week of August.
Well.February arrives and I within the space of a week I had sold my condo and had bought a house which we would be moving into in July. With all the moving expenses I didn't think I would be able to swing a trip at all this year. Oh course Hayley doesn't seem to understand the concept of "priorities", and kept telling me that I was "mean" for breaking my promise to take her to WDW this year. I also had Cass urging me to find a way to be able to go as she and Noel were going to be going at the same time.
May rolls around and they offer Canadian at par rates, which should have meant that I would be able to stay at one of the All Stars for about $77.00 CDN (approx. $56.00 US) which was going to fit my budget so things were looking up. I called the first day they offered the rates and CRO had somehow input the exchange rate into their system incorrectly and I was able to get All Star Movies for $46.00 US/night so the trip was on!
Our plans evolved from there with booking one night at RPR at Universal for $110.00/night at the start of our trip and then Cass being the sweetie that she is, offered to have Hayley and I join her and Noel at AKL for our last night there.
The summer comes, we get moved into our new place after 4 months of endless packing and I recover from my post traumatic move disorder just in time for our trip!!
August 23: RPR and IOA
Our flight from Toronto to Orlando arrives right on time and Thom from Yourride was waiting for us and in no time we were at the Royal Pacific.
We checked in at the Loews First check in counter with no wait. Without asking we were upgraded to a pool view room and given our Loews welcome gift. I chose the red wine since Hayley is a very picky eater and didn't want the cookies and milk..so mom gets a treat for herself! Hayley also received her Loews backpack with her goodies.
We had a beautiful room of the pool/beach area. There is a photo of our of it in the link at the end of this section. The room was right at the end of the hallway, so all we had to do is walk down there stairs and we were right at the path to the pool and to the Parks. It was a great location!
Since it was now about 2:30, our plan was only to do IOA today. We tookthe boat over from RPR . Boy was it HOT out!
We are through the gates and I'm literally chasing Hayley as she
beelines it to the Hulk. The regular line had a 45-minute wait but with FOTL we were on with about a 10-minute wait. Next was Spiderman. Same thing, wait time was 40 minutes and we walked right on with FOTL. We did Spiderman twice, and after the second time I was regretting that glass of wine I had on the flight down!
Time to stop for a slushy and then we head over to Duelling Dragons.Even with FOTL we had a wait of about 30 minutes so with the heat and the after effects of Spiderman I was feeling really queasy. I was also making a mental note about avoiding wine before IOA!
Off to the water rides..Did River Adventure, Rip Saw Falls and the
Bilge-Rat Barges and we were drenched but it felt so good in the heat.What a difference from when we were there in December and were drenched and freezing! Again with FOTL we were able to walk right on all the rides with the posted times being 40-45 minutes. The parks seemed very busy with locals with being a Saturday.
At about 6:00pm we were dragging after being up since 4:00 am so Hayley did the Hulk one more time and walked back to RPR . It was quite a pleasant walk .
Back in the room, my wine was waiting along with a bowl of mixed nuts,but I was too pooped to even think about opening it so we changed and went down to the pool for a quick swim. I didn't go in, but Hayley said she found the water to be a bit cool.
After the swim, we hopped on the boat to go back to Citywalk for dinner.It was about 8:00pm and VERY busy everywhere. Hayley was starting to have a bit of a meltdown (okay we both were.) so we went back to the hotel and ordered a pizza and Caesar salad from room service, which was just okay.
I had also brought our portable DVD so I put on Lizze McGuire for Hayley and we were both asleep before the opening credits were through.
August 24: Universal Studios and IOA one last time before heading to WDW.
We were up bright and early, checked out and left our luggage with Bell Services then walked over to Universal Studio to be there for the opening and we were able to catch the first Shrek show. It was great! It was so funny and the effects were awesome.
After Shrek we were able to walk right into Twister, Jaws, Earthquake,MIB twice, ET and Terminator all without needing FOTL. The crowds were very light today. We had done everything we wanted to see by 11:15 so we stopped for an early lunch of a hot dog (yuck!) and a drink from a cart and headed back to IOA.
IOA crowds seemed much lighter today. I decided I was going to pass on most of the IOA rides today. My stomach doesn't react well to those types of rides in the best of times, and the heat just seemed to make it even worse and I didn't feel like walking around like a drowned rat after the water rides either so I just walked Hayley up to put her on the rides and then met her at the exit. She went on the Hulk four times!! Spiderman (which I did) and Dr. Doom three times. I actually did Dr. Doom with her with no ill effects!
Next she hit the water rides. Today I brought her bathing suit for her to change into so she wouldn't have to walk around afterwards in soaking clothes. She did River Adventure three times with no wait and then the Barges and Rip Saw Falls.
By now it was 4:00 and she did Hulk another couple of times and we headed for Margaritaville for an early dinner.
I had a Mango Daiquiri (yummy. and went down way too quickly) and we split a Caesar salad and each had a Cheeseburger in Paradise. Hayley's Kids Meal was almost the same size as mine!
We took the boat back to RPR, took some pictures of the lobby and then went outside to wait for Yourride to take us to All Star Movies.
It was a jammed packed couple of days and we really enjoyed our stay at the Royal Pacific and would highly recommend it. The resort is beautiful, service was excellent, amenities are wonderful (ironing board, coffee maker, blow dryer, nice toiletries)
Here are the photos of our stay at Universal.
http://www.hpphoto.com/servlet/com.hp.HPGuestLogin?username=spicystruthers&password=52765614
My report on the Disney portion of our trip will continue on the Disney Trip Report Boards.
