Saturday Feb 12th 05
Now the busy activity and late nights were really catching up with all of us; we were all tired and no one wanted to get up this morning. Asked the kids what they wanted to do and, as usual, the unanimous decision was Pool! so they shot off to get the costumes on. As soon as we got into the pool there was a problem
The pool should have been heated and up to now it had been lovely & warm, great to have a dip in at anytime of the day or night. This morning it was stone cold but not even this stopped my kids from diving in (they even strip off on Skegness beach in the middle of October!) and I had to join them. I also noticed that the water level was a bit lower than before and the outlet was making a strange gurgling sound. Then the pool heater/filter/pump system at the side of the villa started making an awful sound and water was shot out of the top! Kids Get Out Now!
I checked our documentation and found an emergency contact number for the villa company. There was a bold print notice along the lines of If your call is out of office hours and is not deemed an emergency you will be charged $25 Er I have no idea if the pool system is about to blow up that seems like an emergency to me! I spoke to a very nice lady who understood my situation and promised to get on to it ASAP. She also advised us not to use the pool until fixed which we had no intention of doing anyway!
As we couldnt use the pool we decided to have a trip into Orlando and visit Belz, then use the flex tickets to visit Universal Studios. We had a good time in Belz as Ruth & Emily were finally able to find some nice jeans in the Levis outlet. Now my youngest son, Howard, is forever complaining that he can never find anything with his name on it. At all the theme park shops he looks at the named key-rings, mugs, fridge magnets etc and while there are plenty of Andrew, Ruth, Emily and Daniel named merchandise, very rarely do we find something with Howard on. So I was very pleased to find a Howard sports bag in the Belz Footlocker store and even though it was $25 at last I had something with his name on it!
Ruth had another long browse in the Disney outlet and we managed to get some presents for friends back home before having some lunch in the food court. The boys had burgers and the rest of us had a Chinese meal from Lucy Hos. This was, without question, the nicest meal Ive ever had in a mall food court. Personally speaking, this was the best Chinese meal Ive ever had period! I would thoroughly recommend a visit to Belz not only for the shopping but to try a meal from Lucy Hos. The kids then went on the Carousel next to the food court (now a family tradition!) before visiting another couple of shops on the way back out to the searing heat of midday.
Now fed and shopped, we made our way to Universal Studios. It wasnt a good sign when we were directed to a different car park than usual even worse when we ended up on the very top floor. That meant the car parks were pretty full, ergo the parks would be full. Still, thats the beauty of the flex tickets; even if it was too busy we could always come back on another day. Now for months Ive been checking the weather in Orlando and looking at the Webcams Photos supplied by one of the cable stations, WESH. One of these looks out over Universal Studios and being the sad bloke I am, I had to find out where its located on the way in.
The first ride we went to was Shrek-4D with a queue time of 35 minutes. All the way through the queue Howard was complaining that he didnt want to go in. Just like the Dinosaur ride in Animal Kingdom, Shrek is one of his favourite films. They all love the films and theyve all been to the show before. But not this time, as soon as we got into the pre-show Howard kicked off big style. No amount of coaxing, persuasion, bribes or telling off would get him to change his mind. As I said in my prelude Report, he can be as immovable as a bulldozer mounted in concrete and this is one of those occasions. Ruth, Emily & Danny went into the attraction while one of the ride staff (who, as always, was superb) directed us through an exit door and offered me a chance to go back in on the next run. Howard was unrepentant outside and had the mother of all strops. It took me the whole time the others were in the show to talk him around and by the time they came out, thank goodness, hed apologised and promised hed behave. Fingers crossed!
Moved onto Twister which is more scary in the run up (particularly Bill Paxtons over-the-top cheesy acting!) than the actual experience itself. Still, the effects are good and its always funny to see a flying paper mache cow! When we came out it was time to look at Revenge of the Mummy. Now I really miss the King Kong ride, it was really good fun but times change and I have to admit that in this case it is for the better. The queues for Mummy were over an hour in the standby lines, Fast Passes werent available until much later in the day but the single rider queue was only 25 mins. As the others couldnt/wouldnt ride it, they left me to hit the single queue while they went to watch the Bettlejuice show.
Entering the Mummy ride you go into a labyrinth of tunnels that fit brilliantly with the films. There are carvings in the rock, ropes, Egyptian figures and flickering lights. Its about as atmospheric as you can get it and really helps to build the anticipation for the coming ride. Getting to the ride itself didnt take too long but getting into the car was er, awkward. Now Ive mentioned before Im not, er, small. But the seats in the Mummy cars are and I only just managed to get the safety bar that comes into your stomach/lap back far enough to ride it. Im not sure what took my breath away most during the next two minutes. Was it the physical fact that I couldnt breathe properly due to the seat/safety bar combination or was it the ride itself? To be honest, it was the ride! From the moment it starts the motion, the effects, the fire, the animatronics, the videos the whole thing is utterly superb and is something that Id go on a 6 month crash diet to ride again! If you go to Universal Studios in Orlando you MUST ride the Mummy.
I met up with Ruth and the kids after they came out of the Beetlejuice show and although the standby queue for Earthquake:The Big One was over 40 minutes, we managed to get Fast Passes for the current hour and walked straight in. Howard loves this ride; hed been asking to do this all holiday and was itching to get on the train. His face and that of Danny were a picture! As we were at the front of the train I noticed things that I hadnt seen before like the way the platform breaks apart and Im still amazed at how they can reset it all, especially the water, so quickly.
Round to Jaws for another nostalgic ride and even this had 30 minutes queues. There were an awful lot of people in the park today possibly for the Mardi Gras celebrations and that the Go-Gos were scheduled to perform later in the evening. Jaws is fun though, the kids are scared to death but still love it and all screamed at
Making our way around the park I was disappointed to find that the boat from Kevin Costners Waterworld has been taken away. OK, it lost Universal a lot of money to make but the boat was still nice to see. Real shame that. We now made a big mistake in wanting to go on the Men In Black:Alien Attack ride. It says you cant take bags in (whish is absolute twaddle dont believe the hype!) and offers free finger print activated lockers. With this in mind Ruth put her bag into the locker and we started queuing (all the FPs had gone) where it stated the wait was 35 minutes. So we queued outside in daylight, moved slowly up and down the queue outside the building, snaking through the ropes and chains.
Then, around 40 minutes after we started queuing (still in daylight), we get to the front doors and are let into a smaller chamber. A couple of park staff then give you some waffle about the ride before allowing you through the doorway. Great! Ride time! Er, No. This just leads to yet another long and painful queue around the building. It took another 40 minutes to queue through the building before getting onto the ride. OK, it did take you past a fairly good mock up of the MIB offices but you see the same video 3/4 times! Then when you actually get to the ride you can store your property on the floor or in the nets in the cars so much for having to store bags in lockers
As for the ride itself? Its utter pants compared to Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin in the Magic Kingdom. All of us came off the MiB ride (now it was night-time wed been in there that long) thinking what a huge and utter waste of time it had been. The ride is poorly executed and no fun. If the true queuing time had been shown, i.e. 1 hour 20 minutes from end of queue to ride we wouldnt have even considered it. If the ride had been 5% of Buzz Lightyear it might have been worth it but its not and we wouldnt ever consider riding it again. Oh, then Ruth couldn't get our bag out of the fingerprint activated locker (the ones it tells you to use but you dont really need), she had to get an attendant to open up all the lockers because nobody could access their gear due to a computer breakdown. I wouldnt recommend MiB to anybody. The whole experience was that bad. :mad2:
As wed spent so long in the diabolical MiB ride it ruined the rest of the park. We didnt have time to ride Back To The Future or Terminator 2, its a good job wed ridden them in the past and could come back with the flex tickets. We did manage to catch the E.T. Adventure as we all like this ride but this was also frustrating as they were only loading one car at a time instead of the normal two. This meant it took twice as long to get people onto the ride
There must have been a parade of some sort getting ready to do the rounds as the streets were lined 3-5 people deep and as we made it to the T2 ride the doors had closed (grr MiB waste of time!) so we decided to leave the Mardi Gras commotion behind us and headed out of the park. City Walk at night, in fact of the whole of Universal is a sight to behold in the evening. Very impressive with the lights over the water. As we came away and made our way through City Walk people were still streaming in, although this was mostly adults with people with children heading for the car park!
We got out of the car park quickly enough but International Drive was packed, nose-to-tail traffic as we tried to head south. I knew I needed some fuel so we stopped on the corner of I-Drive and Sand Lake Road. I hate American petrol stations with a passion, no 2 pumps or ways of filling up are ever the same! UK petrol pumps are so easy to use compared to American ones with theirs being so confusing! The instructions said Put hose into car. Done that. Choose fuel type. So I press the regular button. Then it says choose to pay with card or the cashier. Er how? There was no button to press! In a panic I just used my credit card and this allowed me to fill up. Ive come home to a credit card bill of £15.70 to fill the tank of a Chrysler Town & Country people carrier! Less than £16 to fill the tank of a big car! Bargain!
We were all hungry and I-Drive wasnt moving quickly so we decided to stop for a bite to eat. We stopped at a Sizzler where I had a steak, Ruth had salmon and the kids had pizza. As Ive mentioned in another report, Sizzler has nicer surroundings and better furnishings than Ponderosa but its more expensive and the buffet isnt as nice or as comprehensive. The food was good but weve all agreed that if it was a straight choice between Sizzler & Ponderosa, the value and choice of the latter wins every time.
Took a leisurely drive back home on I4, 192W and 27 it had to be a leisurely drive as the traffic was still heavy on the roads at 10pm! Back home we found that the lady from Florida Royale had been true to her word and the pool machine had been fixed. The heating was back on and it was warming nicely ready for us to play in the following day. As usual, the kids flaked out pretty quickly if only they were this keen to sleep on a school night!
We were determined that on Sunday, finally, we would have a quieter day!
Now the busy activity and late nights were really catching up with all of us; we were all tired and no one wanted to get up this morning. Asked the kids what they wanted to do and, as usual, the unanimous decision was Pool! so they shot off to get the costumes on. As soon as we got into the pool there was a problem
The pool should have been heated and up to now it had been lovely & warm, great to have a dip in at anytime of the day or night. This morning it was stone cold but not even this stopped my kids from diving in (they even strip off on Skegness beach in the middle of October!) and I had to join them. I also noticed that the water level was a bit lower than before and the outlet was making a strange gurgling sound. Then the pool heater/filter/pump system at the side of the villa started making an awful sound and water was shot out of the top! Kids Get Out Now!I checked our documentation and found an emergency contact number for the villa company. There was a bold print notice along the lines of If your call is out of office hours and is not deemed an emergency you will be charged $25 Er I have no idea if the pool system is about to blow up that seems like an emergency to me! I spoke to a very nice lady who understood my situation and promised to get on to it ASAP. She also advised us not to use the pool until fixed which we had no intention of doing anyway!
As we couldnt use the pool we decided to have a trip into Orlando and visit Belz, then use the flex tickets to visit Universal Studios. We had a good time in Belz as Ruth & Emily were finally able to find some nice jeans in the Levis outlet. Now my youngest son, Howard, is forever complaining that he can never find anything with his name on it. At all the theme park shops he looks at the named key-rings, mugs, fridge magnets etc and while there are plenty of Andrew, Ruth, Emily and Daniel named merchandise, very rarely do we find something with Howard on. So I was very pleased to find a Howard sports bag in the Belz Footlocker store and even though it was $25 at last I had something with his name on it!
Ruth had another long browse in the Disney outlet and we managed to get some presents for friends back home before having some lunch in the food court. The boys had burgers and the rest of us had a Chinese meal from Lucy Hos. This was, without question, the nicest meal Ive ever had in a mall food court. Personally speaking, this was the best Chinese meal Ive ever had period! I would thoroughly recommend a visit to Belz not only for the shopping but to try a meal from Lucy Hos. The kids then went on the Carousel next to the food court (now a family tradition!) before visiting another couple of shops on the way back out to the searing heat of midday.
Now fed and shopped, we made our way to Universal Studios. It wasnt a good sign when we were directed to a different car park than usual even worse when we ended up on the very top floor. That meant the car parks were pretty full, ergo the parks would be full. Still, thats the beauty of the flex tickets; even if it was too busy we could always come back on another day. Now for months Ive been checking the weather in Orlando and looking at the Webcams Photos supplied by one of the cable stations, WESH. One of these looks out over Universal Studios and being the sad bloke I am, I had to find out where its located on the way in.
The first ride we went to was Shrek-4D with a queue time of 35 minutes. All the way through the queue Howard was complaining that he didnt want to go in. Just like the Dinosaur ride in Animal Kingdom, Shrek is one of his favourite films. They all love the films and theyve all been to the show before. But not this time, as soon as we got into the pre-show Howard kicked off big style. No amount of coaxing, persuasion, bribes or telling off would get him to change his mind. As I said in my prelude Report, he can be as immovable as a bulldozer mounted in concrete and this is one of those occasions. Ruth, Emily & Danny went into the attraction while one of the ride staff (who, as always, was superb) directed us through an exit door and offered me a chance to go back in on the next run. Howard was unrepentant outside and had the mother of all strops. It took me the whole time the others were in the show to talk him around and by the time they came out, thank goodness, hed apologised and promised hed behave. Fingers crossed!
Moved onto Twister which is more scary in the run up (particularly Bill Paxtons over-the-top cheesy acting!) than the actual experience itself. Still, the effects are good and its always funny to see a flying paper mache cow! When we came out it was time to look at Revenge of the Mummy. Now I really miss the King Kong ride, it was really good fun but times change and I have to admit that in this case it is for the better. The queues for Mummy were over an hour in the standby lines, Fast Passes werent available until much later in the day but the single rider queue was only 25 mins. As the others couldnt/wouldnt ride it, they left me to hit the single queue while they went to watch the Bettlejuice show.
Entering the Mummy ride you go into a labyrinth of tunnels that fit brilliantly with the films. There are carvings in the rock, ropes, Egyptian figures and flickering lights. Its about as atmospheric as you can get it and really helps to build the anticipation for the coming ride. Getting to the ride itself didnt take too long but getting into the car was er, awkward. Now Ive mentioned before Im not, er, small. But the seats in the Mummy cars are and I only just managed to get the safety bar that comes into your stomach/lap back far enough to ride it. Im not sure what took my breath away most during the next two minutes. Was it the physical fact that I couldnt breathe properly due to the seat/safety bar combination or was it the ride itself? To be honest, it was the ride! From the moment it starts the motion, the effects, the fire, the animatronics, the videos the whole thing is utterly superb and is something that Id go on a 6 month crash diet to ride again! If you go to Universal Studios in Orlando you MUST ride the Mummy.
I met up with Ruth and the kids after they came out of the Beetlejuice show and although the standby queue for Earthquake:The Big One was over 40 minutes, we managed to get Fast Passes for the current hour and walked straight in. Howard loves this ride; hed been asking to do this all holiday and was itching to get on the train. His face and that of Danny were a picture! As we were at the front of the train I noticed things that I hadnt seen before like the way the platform breaks apart and Im still amazed at how they can reset it all, especially the water, so quickly.
Round to Jaws for another nostalgic ride and even this had 30 minutes queues. There were an awful lot of people in the park today possibly for the Mardi Gras celebrations and that the Go-Gos were scheduled to perform later in the evening. Jaws is fun though, the kids are scared to death but still love it and all screamed at
Making our way around the park I was disappointed to find that the boat from Kevin Costners Waterworld has been taken away. OK, it lost Universal a lot of money to make but the boat was still nice to see. Real shame that. We now made a big mistake in wanting to go on the Men In Black:Alien Attack ride. It says you cant take bags in (whish is absolute twaddle dont believe the hype!) and offers free finger print activated lockers. With this in mind Ruth put her bag into the locker and we started queuing (all the FPs had gone) where it stated the wait was 35 minutes. So we queued outside in daylight, moved slowly up and down the queue outside the building, snaking through the ropes and chains.
Then, around 40 minutes after we started queuing (still in daylight), we get to the front doors and are let into a smaller chamber. A couple of park staff then give you some waffle about the ride before allowing you through the doorway. Great! Ride time! Er, No. This just leads to yet another long and painful queue around the building. It took another 40 minutes to queue through the building before getting onto the ride. OK, it did take you past a fairly good mock up of the MIB offices but you see the same video 3/4 times! Then when you actually get to the ride you can store your property on the floor or in the nets in the cars so much for having to store bags in lockers
As for the ride itself? Its utter pants compared to Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin in the Magic Kingdom. All of us came off the MiB ride (now it was night-time wed been in there that long) thinking what a huge and utter waste of time it had been. The ride is poorly executed and no fun. If the true queuing time had been shown, i.e. 1 hour 20 minutes from end of queue to ride we wouldnt have even considered it. If the ride had been 5% of Buzz Lightyear it might have been worth it but its not and we wouldnt ever consider riding it again. Oh, then Ruth couldn't get our bag out of the fingerprint activated locker (the ones it tells you to use but you dont really need), she had to get an attendant to open up all the lockers because nobody could access their gear due to a computer breakdown. I wouldnt recommend MiB to anybody. The whole experience was that bad. :mad2:
As wed spent so long in the diabolical MiB ride it ruined the rest of the park. We didnt have time to ride Back To The Future or Terminator 2, its a good job wed ridden them in the past and could come back with the flex tickets. We did manage to catch the E.T. Adventure as we all like this ride but this was also frustrating as they were only loading one car at a time instead of the normal two. This meant it took twice as long to get people onto the ride
There must have been a parade of some sort getting ready to do the rounds as the streets were lined 3-5 people deep and as we made it to the T2 ride the doors had closed (grr MiB waste of time!) so we decided to leave the Mardi Gras commotion behind us and headed out of the park. City Walk at night, in fact of the whole of Universal is a sight to behold in the evening. Very impressive with the lights over the water. As we came away and made our way through City Walk people were still streaming in, although this was mostly adults with people with children heading for the car park!
We got out of the car park quickly enough but International Drive was packed, nose-to-tail traffic as we tried to head south. I knew I needed some fuel so we stopped on the corner of I-Drive and Sand Lake Road. I hate American petrol stations with a passion, no 2 pumps or ways of filling up are ever the same! UK petrol pumps are so easy to use compared to American ones with theirs being so confusing! The instructions said Put hose into car. Done that. Choose fuel type. So I press the regular button. Then it says choose to pay with card or the cashier. Er how? There was no button to press! In a panic I just used my credit card and this allowed me to fill up. Ive come home to a credit card bill of £15.70 to fill the tank of a Chrysler Town & Country people carrier! Less than £16 to fill the tank of a big car! Bargain!
We were all hungry and I-Drive wasnt moving quickly so we decided to stop for a bite to eat. We stopped at a Sizzler where I had a steak, Ruth had salmon and the kids had pizza. As Ive mentioned in another report, Sizzler has nicer surroundings and better furnishings than Ponderosa but its more expensive and the buffet isnt as nice or as comprehensive. The food was good but weve all agreed that if it was a straight choice between Sizzler & Ponderosa, the value and choice of the latter wins every time.
Took a leisurely drive back home on I4, 192W and 27 it had to be a leisurely drive as the traffic was still heavy on the roads at 10pm! Back home we found that the lady from Florida Royale had been true to her word and the pool machine had been fixed. The heating was back on and it was warming nicely ready for us to play in the following day. As usual, the kids flaked out pretty quickly if only they were this keen to sleep on a school night!
We were determined that on Sunday, finally, we would have a quieter day!
) - I found his site through these barods (look on the main boards under Universal threads - sorry I can't remember more accurately!)
