April 2017 TR - Disneyland and Universal with teens - THE END

[sharona]

fixed all the photo links- took forever! That's what I get for doing it the lazy way instead of the tried and true.

 

[Canadian Girl 77]

The pictures are great!

 

[sharona]

The pictures are great!

Thanks! Will try to get the next installment up today.

 

[ADLFAN]

Haha, I love the photobomb from Sully! Hilarious!

 

[AusAnnie]

fixed all the photo links- took forever! That's what I get for doing it the lazy way instead of the tried and true.

Yay - happy to see your photos now!!

 

[sharona]

Day Three DCA (continued):

CA2017_9211_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

We continued our circuit of the park by exploring the rest of the Pier area. Princess and I got in line for Screamin while C and J decided to chill out on a bench and see if they could Facetime with my brother from the park. The Screamin wait was posted as 20 minutes and it was pretty accurate. I wasn't quite ready for this ride but I put my big girl pants on and tried not to Scream! I don't like any big drops but I love the fast take off and I don't mind a loop thrown in for fun. It was a fun ride but a bit on the long side for me for this type of thing. Just like on the Hulk at Universal Orlando, I was ready for it to be over at the halfway point! I was glad we had done it before lunch instead of after as my stomach was a bit sloshy after riding.

CA2017_9217_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

After Face-timing with my DB, C had walked over to Starbucks for a coffee and while she was doing that, she had grabbed a return time from Guest Services for Soarin and a FP for RSSR for later that night.

We met up with C and J back in front of the Wheel and started walking along the "pier" shopping and exploring. We all decided we wanted no part of Mickey's Wheel of Terror. We did want lunch so we kept on toward Boardwalk Pizza/Pasta and the Paradise Grill. We spread out and got some lunch meeting back at a table by the grill. It was not crowded at all back there for lunch time. I had the pizza which was ok. For amusement park food I'd give it a B-. If we were at home it would have been a C or a C-. Soggy crust but decent flavor. Too much cheese (yes there really is such a thing as too much cheese)! I know C got some type of grilled kabob thing and J found a corn dog stand over by Sky School. Princess wanted her theme park staple of chicken fingers and fries but there were none in the area. Mothers of toddlers and picky teens beware! She settled for a side salad and a slice of cheese pizza.

After lunch we had a few minutes before our Soarin return time so the kids hopped on the Swings. There was a 5 minute standby. They enjoy this type of ride but I can't go on anything even remotely spinny or my day is over.

It was getting hot and we were starting to get a bit draggy so we decided to leave for a break right after Soarin all over the wold one last time! I really love this one and it is still my favorite Disney ride. It's the first modern ride of this type that I ever went on (Princess' first trip to WDW in 2008) I love the creativity of it and the gentle motion and I love that you don't have to be a daredevil to enjoy it. That's one of my favorite things about Disney parks. Even the "big thrill rides" like RCRC are still a bit on the tame side.

Princess and J and Animal Kingdom March 2008:
Untitled by SharonCat..., on Flickr


We left the park about 1:30pm, grabbing a return time for GRR on the way out. I wanted to stay and ride it right then in case we got soaked but it was a 40 minute wait and I was outvoted. J wanted a nap, Princess wanted the snacks we had in our room, C wanted some time on her poolside lounger... We taxi'd back to the ES and went about relaxing for a few hours. I tried to nap but it wasn't happening so I watched a movie on my tablet. The Accountant. I really liked the movie! It was surprisingly good. I'm not a big Ben Afleck fan but he wasn't bad in this one and it had a few surprise twists at the very end so it wasn't boring. The autism aspect of it made it particularly compelling for me. Full confession - I did drift off a few times and ended up re-watching the ending after a quick shower.

C and I were showered and dressed and hungry by 4:30. Princess and J were napping. We woke them to see if they wanted to come to Bucca Di Beppo with us but they were more interested in getting some more zzz's. C and I decided to go without them. It was a very convenient and very quick walk through the parking lot. I had never been to a Bucca before. C had but not for a few years. I know some people don't like to go to chain restaurants but I am the opposite when I'm on vacation. I like the consistency and value that they usually provide. It was a good meal, nice and filling chicken parm for me (I was having a sauce and cheese day) and some type of pasta Alfredo for C. Service was fast and friendly and with the teens tucked away sleeping, C and I decided to go wild and have a couple of frozen drinks for a dessert! I had a Chambord pina colada and C had a mudslide. Yummmmmy on both. No food porn sorry - we were too relaxed to do much more than chew our food and laugh at some of the photos on the walls in there! Some of the framed celebrity pics were a little more than PG-13 for a family place.

We ambled back to the hotel and roused the kids from their cocoons. They showered and got dressed while C and I hung out waiting. We Uber'd back to DCA arriving about 6pm. Closing time was 10. That gave us 4 hours to ride GRR, RSSR at night, maybe one more on TSMM and the kids wanted Sky School again. We decided to go right to GRR. I had not thought to bring a change of clothes with me but when I looked around I found C getting ponchos from the gift shop. She had bought ponchos for all of us but Princess didn't want hers so we returned it right away. J, of course, ripped his while putting it on lol. He is all arms and legs sometimes. I asked the CM in the store about the lockers for the ride and she tried to direct us to the front of the park and said there were no lockers by the ride which is the exact opposite of what one of the other CM's had told us earlier. I had to ask someone else outside of the gift shop near the GRR entrance to point the way to the GRR lockers! Weird for a CM to be so uninformed?

Our return time had long ago come up so we got right in the FP line after donning our ponchos. This ride was fun but the drop freaked out J a bit and the spinning was a bit much for me. Lots more spinning on this one than my favorite water ride Bluto's Barges at Universal Orlando. The poncho kept me relatively dry which would never happen on Bluto's. We once went on Bluto's twice in a row and there was not a dry spot on our entire bodies. We looked as if we had just jumped into a pool fully clothed. This was a piece of cake compared to that. I took of the poncho, wiped my face with a napkin and I was ready to move on! Princess had gotten a little wet but nothing a change from her tank to her hoodie didn't cure. It had gotten a bit cooler once the sun started to set...



I wanted some dusk pics at RSSR so we headed that way with a promise to the kids that we would backtrack over to Sky School later. Radiator Springs is gorgeous at dusk!

CA2017_9235_edited-2 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

CA2017_9244_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

CA2017_9266_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

CA2017_9249_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

 

[pepperandchips]

Your photos are just lovely! Thanks for the info about grr... good to know you can go on without getting soaked! Buco di Beppa sounds awesome. Nothing wrong with a little comfort food on vacay!

 

[sharona]

Haha, I love the photobomb from Sully! Hilarious!

He was funny. I did pose with him but that shot is on C's phone. Still waiting on her to send me her phone pics.

Yay - happy to see your photos now!!

Thank so to all who let me know the pics were not showing up. I could see them, so I had no idea.

Your photos are just lovely! Thanks for the info about grr... good to know you can go on without getting soaked! Buco di Beppa sounds awesome. Nothing wrong with a little comfort food on vacay!

I'm glad you like them! No one on our raft got soaked and the ponchos were 95% effective. I've been on dozens of rides like GRR and never had one that had so much spinning! If you are easy queasy - beware!

 

[pepperandchips]

I am like the motion sickness queen - I will more than likely have a scopolamine patch on for most of my visit so hopefully I can handle the spinning! I heard on GRR they can tone down the soak factor so maybe we'll try at night also to see if it's less wet. Afterward we could always go to the hotel to change. How long before/after sunset did you snap your carsland pics? Love the blue sky.

 

[sharona]

Day Four DL at rope drop:

We had left DCA a bit early on Thursday (day 3) because we had seen and done everything that we were interested in (some things 2 or 3 times) so we were back at the hotel before 10pm. With that early night in mind and with me still being mostly on East coast time, I told the rest of the family that I was getting up early and going to DL at opening. Alone with just me and my dslr. No rides, no FP, no harsh directly overhead sunlight! I was a bit disappointed in most of my pics. While I truly enjoyed DL, it just does not compare to WDW visually. I spent about 2 hours along Main St and by the castle, taking photos and just enjoying having no where I had to be. Here are a few favorites. Not sure if I mentioned earlier that I had brought a new lens with me on this trip and I was pretty unimpressed with the results. The Sigma 17-50 2.8. Recommended by so many of my photography friends. I returned it as soon as we got home and I saw the pics on my big monitor. Must have been a bad copy. So, that being said, not a whole lot of top notch results! But still a great way to spend the morning so I'll share them.

Main St. as I entered:


This cutie:


Spring was in full bloom:







Around the circle:










DL is a lot tougher to get a good shot of the castle than WDW!


Peter Pan about 1 hour after gates opened. Chaos.


Found this hidden castle. Apparently there's a whole part of the park that we haven't seen yet! DL is huge.


Headed over to the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!!!






Found a sneak preview of the upcoming Star Wars Land. Has it opened already?


Started talking to a couple who were also looking at the poster. Turns out she worked on the Orlando Harry Potter Hogsmeade design! They mentioned that you could see the Star Wars Land construction from the top of BTMRR so we all went on and took a peek. Tried to get a quick cell phone snap but it's just a big blur. It was getting to be time to go meet C and the kids so I said goodbye and headed toward Main. We were supposed to meet at the bakery and they had texted me earlier that they were in the Uber and on their way. I grabbed a table in that little alley where the lockers are and settled down to wait. Apparently they were in a huge line at security! It took them over 30 minutes to get into the park from the end of the security line. We had a quick breakfast from the bakery and then picked out a few rides to go on. We were doing Fantasyland then Frontierland and Adventureland. I was feeling mellow but they were all raring to go so I got swept along!

Next our fabulous last night at DL with my all time favorite way to see the fireworks!

 

[sharona]

Day Four (cont.)

We started with Fantasyland. It was pretty busy over there. It was a Friday + gorgeous weather + lots of schools still on Easter break = crowded! Not necessarily in this order we did... Pan, Snow White, Small World, Dumbo... then we walked over to Frontierland and rode BTMRR and Splash and HM. No ghostly ghouls interrupted us this trip. Honestly, although we were having fun, it was Day 4 (really Day 3.5 in the parks) and we were a bit...not bored - more like "all set" is the best way I can describe it. 4 days in a row at the parks including our travel day. I'm sure that had a lot to do with how we were all just kind of zoning out. We decided that we were going to take a break even though we had planned to stay right through on our last day because of the late start (for everyone but me!). Instead, we left about 2 and went back to our hotel. We grabbed some take out from the hotel restaurant (decent not great) and we just vegged out in the room for a few hours.

Refreshed and ready to roll we headed back to DL about 6:30pm. The park was open until midnight and we had a few re-dos that we wanted to get done and also a couple of snacks and souvenirs we wanted to pick up. It was very busy on re-entry. Main St. was packed. The next day, Saturday, was Dapper Day and we saw a couple of people really dressed to the hilt. Some of the women's "costumes" were a bit over the top in the cleavage department. C'mon ladies it's a family park - put those away!

At the request of Princess and J, we headed straight to Tomorrow Land. We grabbed a FP for Space and a return time for Buzz. While we waited we grabbed some dinner from one of the CS places in that area - it was not bad but nothing to brag about. Our Space FP time wasn't until after 10pm. We rode Buzz (place your bets ladies and gents!). The winner was..... J. He gets to pick our lunch restaurant at the beach tomorrow! After Buzz the kids wanted to go on Star Tours again. C and I once again "people watched" while they rode.

It was full dark and getting to be parade time. We wanted to get to the other side of the park to ride Indy one last time. We thought we could go behind it but no! Turns out the best way to cross is to go to the hub so we did. C and Princess and I rode Indy. We could not talk J into trying it. I think he would have loved it but apparently prior to our trip C had let him watch a video of the ride and he didn't like the rolling boulder effect. We tried to tell him it wasn't scary just fun but he was not into it.

We backtracked again to BTMRR and got in line a few minutes before the fireworks started. We made some magical memories riding BTMRR during the fireworks in December at WDW so we decided to recreate that at DL. I highly recommend doing this if at all possible. It's a bit better at WDW since you are facing the fireworks for a lot of the ride where at DL I felt like I had to look behind me to see them. But still it is impossible to describe how magical it is to come in and out of the tunnels on the ride to see the rockets exploding in the sky. Definitely one of my favorite memories and one we try to do every trip to WDW.

Cell phone shot from front of the loading area just before our ride. The show had just begun. Perfect timing!!!!




Apparently in my zeal to get the above shots I bumped C while she was doing the same and she ended up with a big boulder or post or something blocking her shot. Listen Lady - Don't get in my way when I'm shooting!!!!! We were in the middle car which was nice. Front seems sooooo sloooooow on BTMRR. You're hanging there halfway down the little drops before the car actually starts moving and back is a bit too bumpy for me.

We left BTMRR and decided to get some ice cream which we ate while making our way over to Tomorrowland. We had 4 FP for Space. We wanted C and J to ride with us but they were not budging from their "too dark" "too scary" stances. 2 rides each for us!!!!! Princess and I had a minimal wait with our FP for the first ride. I was amazed at what a difference it made that it was nighttime. During our previous daytime rides, it was completely dark in there and I could not see a thing until we go to the effects. With a bit of night vision going on, I could see the other cars and make out some areas of the tracks. This really enhanced it for me. When we exited we got right back in line and did it again.

So much fun. We exited the 2nd ride and found C and J hanging outside after having ridden Buzz while waiting for us. We were done. Toast. Tired, exhausted, spent, finished! We exited the park and went back to the hotel. It was about 11:30 when we left. We had big plans the next day to go to Huntington Beach!!!!

 

[wahoostampingirl]

I just started (and finished) your report today. Our family (me, dh and 15 yo B/G twins, MIL on a ECV) will be going to DLR for the first time from June 21-25. My ds suffers from anxiety, but handles WDW relatively well. It's nice to read about other families who deal with this. He has said he won't do CA Screamin' because of the loop, but he will try the new Guadians ride. I don't really know if he will, since he's never done TOT before. I'm pretty sure he'll go on Space Mountain since he has done that a couple of times at WDW (although on our last trip he opted out). The nice thing is that his Oma probably won't want to do any thrill rides, so they can hang out together while the rest of us ride.

I'm not sure if we need to get a DAS for either waiting in lines or the ECV. My son can handle lines up to about 30 minutes or so and I think my MIL can stand for that long too. Guess we'll see what happens.

 

[sharona]

Day Five - Huntington Beach and Downtown Disney

The weather was predicted to be in the 90's on Saturday so we had scrapped our plans to skip a day earlier in the week and go to DL on Dapper Day. I checked with a few friends who live/lived in the area and all of them recommended Huntington Beach for teens. We had booked a minivan for the following day to go to Universal then to the airport so I added a day to that and did a 2 day one way rental from Katella to LAX.

We slept in because, ya know, teens... Arghhhh!!!! After dragging their "exhausted" and uninterested butts out of bed we picked up our minivan and all went to a great breakfast at IHOP. It was Saturday about 11am when we got on the road toward the beach. Traffic was light and we were there in about 30 minutes. Huntington Beach is gorgeous. The people at the beach are young and gorgeous. Volleyball, surfing, kites, fishing off the pier, tandem bike... even a wedding being set up down by the water.

We walked out to the end of the pier and watched the surfers for a while. Princess was wanting some photos of herself at the beach so she could make her friends back home in the rain jealous. She was particularly happy with this effort because you can see the waves reflected in her sunglasses.

I do not like to sit in the sun and we didn't have towels or blankets or chairs so our first stop was little rental place at the edge of the sand. We grabbed 2 chairs and an umbrella and 2 boogie boards for rental and then bought two beach towels that we could keep for souvenirs. The kids were determined to swim but C and I were content to just sit and enjoy being warm and dry and having our toes in the sand.

We "people watched" (used our phones to surf social media) while the kids boogie boarded and splashed around. Princess was determined to get a tan so she "layed out" while C and I huddled in the shade of the umbrella. We had stopped at the store for snacks so we broke those out and put some music on C's phone. J never wants to go to the beach but once we get him there he is always captivated by the water and the sand and spends hours in the shallows playing with the waves. He rolls around in the mud and water then plops himself next to us in the dry sand and rolls around some more. He usually ends the day looking like a breaded chicken cutlet.

It was about 3pm when we started to talk about getting some lunch and Princess wanted to check out the mall we had passed on our way in. A Sephora across from a beach full of teenage boys. She has found her dream town. She has already asked me if we can go back to CA next spring and skip DL and just go to the beach. The HS is only a few blocks from the beach and that was another tick in the pro "moving to Huntington Beach" list that she was making.

We ate right on the beach at Dukes. Princess and I have been to the Dukes on Maui and on Waikiki beach. Food was decent but not great. C and I had a couple of tall frozen concoctions - frozen mudslide for her, Chambord colada for me! I had a Korean bbq beef dish that had some weird type of seasoning in it that overpowered the whole dish. Princess had a fancy salad and so did C. J had fish and chips. All in all a disappointing meal. But the service was excellent. Both our waiter and the hostess were very chatty - immediately picking up on C's Boston accent and talking about time they had spent there. I lost my accent long ago after spending 20+ years on the phone with coworkers and customers from all over the country. I have one of those indistinguishable non accents now.







We went across the street to the stores and Princess shopped with C while J and I "people watched". We also snuck into a pizza place and got a small cheese pizza to sit and eat because we were still hungry after just picking at our mediocre lunch. C and Princess wandered back and C was mumbling about needing a coffee. She was totally craving a Dunkin Donuts medium iced mocha latte with an extra shot of mocha.



Surprisingly, she googled it and found one only 2 miles away! J and I finished our pizza, Princess had found some cute sandals and C was going to get her coffee. Everyone was happy. It had been a very relaxing and nice day and we were all ready to get back to our hotel and shower off the sand and sunblock.

Coming next - Downtown Disney

 

[ADLFAN]

Haha, we visited Huntington Beach, too, but I was not super impressed. There were lots of vagrant-y folks hanging around and we tried using the bathrooms to change in and they were filthy with booze bottles in the trash, metal toilets, and they all stunk like they'd been sprayed with urine. I didn't do much research and when we drove from the south going north, I think we passed all of the secluded scenic beaches and when we made it to Huntington, the ample parking and restaurants drew us in. My opinion of it probably wasn't helped by the fact that they were experiencing high and rough surf conditions at the time (saw that later on the local news...) and for the first time in my life I got blindsided by a wave and dragged in then spit out of the ocean! It was a short swim...

 

[sharona]

Haha, we visited Huntington Beach, too, but I was not super impressed. There were lots of vagrant-y folks hanging around and we tried using the bathrooms to change in and they were filthy with booze bottles in the trash, metal toilets, and they all stunk like they'd been sprayed with urine. I didn't do much research and when we drove from the south going north, I think we passed all of the secluded scenic beaches and when we made it to Huntington, the ample parking and restaurants drew us in. My opinion of it probably wasn't helped by the fact that they were experiencing high and rough surf conditions at the time (saw that later on the local news...) and for the first time in my life I got blindsided by a wave and dragged in then spit out of the ocean! It was a short swim...

I did not notice any vagrants but there were some people Bible thumping. We did not use the public restrooms.

 

[sharona]

After our day at the beach, the young and healthy teenagers were too tired to go to DTD. Poor babies! C and I were tired but determined to get to DTD as we had skipped it our last 2 trips to WDW and were curious what all the fuss was about. We made fun of them for being tired at their age then we drove over there and wandered around, sort of in a tired daze, lol. We were hungry but decided to shop first because we knew if we sat down and had food it would be over for us!

There was a prom going on somewhere nearby - we saw dozens of young people in gowns and tuxedos posing by the fountains and gathering to take phone pics. No one under 21 owns a camera anymore!
DTD is nice enough and it was not too busy and crowded but we should have followed the kids lead and just chilled out.










I picked up some souvenirs - a set of black and white Mickey placemats for my Aunt (who is our dog sitter when we travel) and some cute princess key chains for a few of my Princess's friends. They each had a different favorite Disney Princess and it was funny to me that the one they liked best was so different than their own personalities. The shyest and quietest of her friends loves Rapunzel and the friend who is a bit of a tomboy likes Belle the best and the friend who is the least likely to stand up for herself loves Merida! They're old enough that there wasn't much talk of Anna or Elsa although Princess does sometimes do her hair braided on the side and we call that her Elsa look. Just looked through our pics and not one of Princess with the side braid without a hat!
12 by
https://www.flickr.com/photos/136838873@N08/
Back to the shopping - bought myself some cute Mickey head gem earrings and a stainless steel Mickey trivet for the kitchen counter. Princess had asked me to pick up a pillow pet Stitch for herself and a Minnie one for her BFF. I was leery of buying those after having recently thrown out some barely used pillow pets (Wallie from the Red Sox, a penguin, Simba). Princess insisted on the pillow pets and she was using the money her nana had given her for the trip. I decided to let her learn a lesson about wasting money. It would come sooner than expected!

After shopping, C and I decided we were way too tired to eat (don't tell the kids!) so we went through the McD's drive through and got some fries and chicken nuggets for Princess and J then headed back to ES. We needed to pack. The kids had been given orders to pack up their stuff while we were gone and miraculously, they had done it!!! They were sprawled out finishing off the last of our snacks and were thrilled to get the McD's.

C and I had to pack all our stuff to go home but make sure to leave out clothes for USH and a change of clothes/shoes for the red eye flight home. Even with the souvenirs, we had plenty of space. We had each brought a checked bag and between the 4 of us we had a couple of carry-on suitcases and backpacks. I had a checked bag, my camera equipment in my camera backpack which was my main carry-on and I had a tote bag with the rest of my stuff. Princess had her checked bag and a backpack - we squeezed the pillow pets flat and fit one in her checked bag and the other in mine. C and J had 2 checked bags and one wheeled carry-on and one backpack plus J had his video game bag. We had everything lined up by the door and just about ready to go when we went to bed. We planned to get breakfast at the hotel and be on our way to USH by 9am.

Next up: Universal Hollywood - J rides the Mummy!

 

[sharona]

Day 6 - last day - Sunday 4/23 - Universal Hollywood:

C and J have never been to Universal (in Hollywood or Orlando)! Princess and I have been to Universal Orlando a half dozen times in the past 2-3 years. We love it there! I have a friend 2DT (2 Door Terri) who lives in St Pete and she will meet us there with her niece and the girls will hang out while 2DT and I keep each other company. We had AP's for a year and visited 4 times. We always stay at one of the deluxe hotels and get the included Express pass. We've been talking up USO to C and J for over a year. I've told C that J would love it and so would she and that they should plan a family trip there. My DB is a huge Harry Potter fan + J loves water rides + C loves a nice pool and good restaurants = Universal Orlando!!!! Well when we decided to go to DLR, C and J assumed we would be going to Universal Hollywood. I cautioned her that many of the things we love about USO were not at USH: Bluto's Barges, Spiderman, Men in Black, Express pass, Escape from Gringott's/Diagon Alley and being able to walk to both parks from an affordable yet still really nice hotel. They still wanted to go. Princess wanted to go. We went.



Arriving around 10am, we sprung for the deluxe parking in hopes that we would be both closer to the park and in a more secure location because all of our stuff was in the minivan.

We had gotten our tickets in advance and I had them all printed and ready to scan at the gate. I knew from my previous visit that we didn't need to wait in the big line at Guest Services. It was crowded and they had all of the gates opened with at least 10-20 people lined up at each one. We walked up toward the gate at the far right and got in line behind 3 other families - maybe 15 people total. We were all holding our full sized 8X11 printed paper tickets. As the first family ahead of us was scanned in, a woman employee asked us if what we had were one day only tickets. We said yes and she opened up a small pass through gate right next to the gate we were waiting at and waved us over very eagerly. We left our spot of next in line a bit reluctantly but we had already acknowledged her by answering and she was waving us in like a demented airline worker. We shuffled over there and she tried to use some type of portable hand held scanner to scan our printed tickets. I guess because we had only one day tickets, we didn't need a finger scan or anything else at the real gate - we just needed to be scanned in. She tried to scan the first ticket... No dice. No happy beeps of acceptance. No red light scanning over the barcode. She seemed to be having difficulty getting the scanner to operate.

The tickets were printed perfectly and had not been folded or torn near the bar code or any other things that make the scanners reject. She kept trying over and over while we looked longingly at the snappily moving lines to our left as literally hundreds of other people who had arrived after us entered the park and headed towards their first ride.

After 5 minutes of this nonsense I told her thanks but we are getting back in the other line. She insisted it would just be another minute and I said no thank you quite firmly. She mumbled a weird type of non apology and walked away, leaving us to have to get in the back of the line we had been next in to begin with but now with a solid 20-25 people ahead of us. Sigh. Not off to a great start!

We entered the park finally and C went over to Guest Services to inquire about a DAS for J. It worked the way we had been told it would. Show the pass at the entrance and we were either directed to the express pass lane immediately or told to come back in X amount of time. There was only 1 ride where we were told to come back (the Simpsons). Everything else we were told to use the Express Line right then. Since Princess and I always have Express pass at USO we were happy with the process. C and J, never having that experience and used to dealing with the DAS process of come back later at WDW and DLR were beyond thrilled. They got to experience a little bit of what makes USO our favorite place in Orlando!

Our first stop was Minion Mayhem. We knew J and C would like it - it's a good first experience: not completely boring, not overly exciting, completely safe for J. Everyone loved it!!! It's adorable from the pre pre-show to the pre-show to the dance party - perfectly done. Look for the little minion sized door in the pre-pre-show room

After Minions, Princess spied a Cinnabon and insisted on getting one. I agreed wanting something sweet. It was still early enough that everyone was streaming past us, all the tables were empty. i got in line while Princess and J took seats at opposite ends of a nearby table. C went to find a coffee. From the line I watched Frankenstein lurch over to the table and sit down next to J who... never even looked up! He was playing a game on his phone and was completely engrossed. Frankenstein sat there in disbelief waiting to be noticed but J just kept playing. Frank then got up and had a bit of a hissy fit nearby - "throwing" chairs around and pacing angrily. J finally looked up and laughed at him and then went back to his game. Princess was just sitting there watching the whole thing. I walked over and sat downb next to Princess and Frank suddenly seemed to notice her and walked back toward the table. Princess looked at me and said "oh sh!t" and I was too busy laughing at her look of terror to scold her for the bad language. He walked up to her and was just standing there staring at the giant bun she had put her hair into. Maybe he thought she was Bride of Frankenstein? He reached out to touch her hair and I grabbed a few pics of the scene. There was a crowd milling around now watching this and Princess was absolutely dying - both creeped out and embarrassed at the attention. But she maintained her composure and was a good sport about it. He just sort of stood there holding her hair for a few minutes then made a kind of growly noise and lurched away. J insists that he had seen him all along. If that's true then he totally outplayed Frank.



Next - the rest of the day at Universal Hollywood!

 

[sharona]

The rest of the day at USH:

After our breakfast with Frankie, we decided to go over to the Harry Potter Hogsmeade area. Princess and I are very familiar with this section in USO so we wanted to show C and J all of the really cool details. J and Princess are not huge HP fans. J has read all of the books with my DB but I think it was more DB's idea than J's. Princess was afraid of Voldemort after the first movie and has always hated anything creepy so she was not willing to give the books a chance. She's seen most of the movies by now but was never really into it. C has seen all of the movies but not read any of the books - which explains her lack of enthusiasm for HP. I'm not sure I would have had a clue what was going on in the last 3 or 4 movies if I hadn't read the books. I love the HP books! I had shared them with my older nephew who was just the right age when they first came along. We read them together then saw all of the movies together. He is one of the kids who grew up along with Harry and Ron so for him and I, it's special. If you've only seen the movies, you're missing out! The books are so well written and really transport you to another world. Universal has done an excellent job of bringing that world to life right down to the smallest details - like Moaning Myrtle's voice in the pipes in the restrooms and the Hogwart's castle paintings arguing about which house has the better chance at the upcoming quidditch match. Just amazing!!! Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it even though it was old hat at this point. We went over to the Forbidden Journey ride and I walked through the castle but didn't ride. That one makes me a bit queasy even with Dramamine and I've been on it enough times at USO that I was ok with skipping it. The others really enjoyed it and went on again while I browsed the shops in Hogsmeade.





After that we went on the studio tour which is so much fun! Loved it!!! Didn't take a ton of pics because the 2 couples in line for row 1 decided to split up and take the outside seats in two of the rows instead of all sitting together in front of us. So much for me politely letting them board in front of us! Extremely rude IMO. Can't say I was all that sorry when one them dropped his phone on the floor of the ride vehicle and the screen cracked just a bit at the corner.

We enjoyed the ride. Saw a coyote in the distance and a shark up close. The Kong part is great. Advice - if it's super sunny outside (and hey, it's SoCal so it probably is), definitely wear your sunglasses and try to shut your eyes for a few minutes as you're waiting to enter this area. It really helps your night vision adjust when you get inside and you will see so much more detail! Same advice for the Fast and Furious piece which was very cool.

The kids wanted to go on Simpsons. I have not ridden that again after the 2nd time it made me totally nauseous and ruined my day. C opted out as well and we decided to sit in the shade and "people watch" while the kids went on. They came back right away because the attendant at the entrance told them their return time was 60 minutes. That was the only ride where we were not immediately directed to the Express entrance. Not sure if it was because the kids were alone when they walked up or if the ride had a super long wait? Either way, we decided that since we were in the back of the park by the escalators, we'd head to the lower lot and come back for Simpsons later.


We went to the Panda Palace or whatever it's called across from Transformers. Food was decent - nothing special just a noodle bowl for me and Princess. I can't recall what C and J got ours was good and we were happy not to be eating chicken fingers, burgers, pizza...

It was hot and we wanted to cool off so we went on Jurassic Park. J opted out. I think he would have enjoyed it but the big drop and the loud noises had scared him off when he watched the ride video before out trip. C and Princess and I loved it. I think I may have even kept my eyes open on the way down - nope - I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed like a little girl. I have a love/hate relationship with drop rides. I love it before and after but during???? HATE IT! Usually, I wear my sunglasses and grimace out a smile so the ride pics don't look terrible. Since we weren't buying any pics today, I let loose with the scream of terror.



After JP we wanted to ride the Mummy! This is Princess and my all time favorite ride at USO. We sometimes ride 5 or 6 times in a row when we're there due to express pass. We love riding it with first timers because of the surprise at the "end" of the ride. We had been on Mummy at USH on our previous visit but it was 4 years ago. We were expecting much the same ride as at USO. We had even been told by several people that the Hollywood version was better. I talked J into riding it thinking he would love the speed of the ride and there were really no big drops or loops or anything like that to worry about. I made sure he was wearing his ear plugs for the noise. The kind of creepy walk through the queue didn't do much to ease his anxiety about the ride. Once it started I quickly realized it was a mistake for J to ride. Too dark, too loud and really not as good as the one in USO, IMO. He was totally po'd at me when we got off and I had to promise him that I'd take him a few of his friends to Dave and Buster's when we got home to make it up to him. I felt really terrible about recommending it to him.



We finished up the lower lot with a go on Transformers which J loved so we rode again. There's really not that much else in that lower lot. No one wanted to ride Mummy or Jurassic Park again. We did wander over to the Raptor experience:
https://flic.kr/p/VYnvdc




We went back up the 14 escalators to the upper lot! It was getting late in the day and we wanted to leave time to have a nice dinner and do some last minute souvenir shopping before heading to the airport so we decided to do one last ride and call it a day. It was a toss up between Simpsons for the kids or Shrek for all of us. We opted for Shrek which is a cute and fun experience.

Leaving the park we went to Bubba Gump's for dinner, shopping along the way. Princess wanted a LA Dodgers hat (she has no idea who's on the team but she loves that color blue). Dinner was good. Bubba's is a reliable chain - food is always good, prices are not super cheap but not break the bank, service is always pleasant and it's a cute atmosphere. Princess loves the Stop Forest Stop sign and since J had never been before, they devised several reasons to use it.

After dinner we trudged back to the minivan which we had conveniently parked near the rest rooms in the garage... we changed our clothes for the plane and started for LAX. We were early, but that was ok with us. We could veg out at the airport before out flight. We checked our bags at a very empty JetBlue terminal and were directed to the escalators to our gate where we met this scene:
https://flic.kr/p/VUUyWs


Complete chaos. Of course the kids had both gotten TSA precheck but C and I had not so we had to all wait in the long line for TSA check. They had to turn off the escalator at one point because people were crammed all along the hallway and there was no room for anyone else to come up. They were looping us around, creating additional lines and it was just unbelievably crazy. Meanwhile, the TSA pre-check person just sat there while one or two people would walk up every few minutes. There were only 3 non pre-check stations open. It was a cluster of epic proportions.

You can't really tell from this pic but the guy right in front of me was a doppleganger for Glen in TWD. We chatted a bit and he said he always gets asked if he's Glen, especially when he's wearing the baseball cap.

Thankful that we were early, we really didn't have to sweat making our flight on time like some of the other people in line. But it was still a good hour getting from the end of the line through to our gate. We still had about 20 minutes to grab snacks for the plane and charge up our devices before boarding. The flight home was uneventful. We landed at 5:30am on Monday and hopped in a taxi to get home.

All in all it was a great trip! Lots of laughs and lots of fun. We had missed a week of rain at home so the timing was good. We slept most of Monday (J and Princess got an extra day of school vacation)!

We enjoyed DL but I don't see us going back again anytime soon. I already know our next theme park trip will be USO. I've promised Princess and a few of her friends that I would take them for spring break next year! That's it. That's a wrap! Hope this helps some others to plan their trips. Any questions I can answer about the parks, feel free to PM or ask here.

 

[erinch]

Just read! I adore your writing style. Thank you for persisting through not much feedback.

I grew up in Redlands, SoCal, and DL grew up with me. I remember the opening of PoTC and hoarding E-Tickets. Fun to read about what it's become, which is unrecognizable.

Again, than you for writing.