Esmerelda
DVC'r 10/04/Dis Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 19, 1999
- Messages
- 1,530
All I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW...! Where do I begin...at the beginning of course...lol
This trip was just myself and my sweetheart (we are long distance sweethearts, me in Ohio, him in Georgia and we met on a Disney website...if you can believe that). We are known to most of our friends as Brer and Y (me pushin 40 and he just a little over the top). We had plan this trip back in the spring. Our dates were 11/2-11/6. We only get to see each other about every 6 weeks due to the distance between us so we had planned to make the most of our time while there.
Day 1- arrival at MCO at around 3ish. We walked straight out to Nationals Emerald Aisle. I had reserved a full size for about 100 bucks....we drove off in a beautiful lipstick red 4 door Grand Prix with about 5,000 miles on it. It was a very nice car.....(we later had a problem with it...but it was not a huge problem). We were out of the airport with luggage and all in less than 20 minutes from walking off the plane...what a way to start the trip
(for the record, I have NEVER had any trouble with National with anything. I know I have read posts from folks that have but I cant say a gosh darn thing bad about them as I have never had a problem)
Arrived at Hard Rock Hotel at around 3:30p. There were just a few people in line then it was our turn. We had reserved a pool view room under a special rate and were told there were no upgrades (after we nicely asked). We were assigned our room and off we took with luggage in tow. We were on the 2nd floor and the room was absolutely beautiful!! We could clearly see the pool and it looked VERY nice but it was too chilly when were there to enjoy it for me at least. The beds were wonderful..down comforters, the bathroom spacious with all the shampoo/conditioner/lotion...etc one could ever need. The towels were big and absorbent just like I like them...and having the CD player there was wonderful. We rested up for a bit, jumped in the shower and then took off on our quest to find this Disney Store at the Orlando Mall to get our passes and our $50 gift cards. It turned out to be a rainy Friday evening and we managed to get lost but finally found what we were looking for. We both purchased park hopper passes and got a nice free T shirt and our $50 gift card each. We were told however that you could not use the giftcard for other passes and they could not be used at the DD store. Personally, I thought both of those rules stunk but thats Disney for you (always looking for that almighty dollar I guess).
After returning to the HRH, we decided it was time for CityWalk. We walked over from the hotel (maybe about a 5 minute walk) in the rain. We ended up at Margueritaville. We had the most enourmous plate of nachos that were out of this world (one order filled the two of us up!) and the margueritas were great! (I made the mistake of ordering the perfect marguerita the 2nd round, so it was more like 3 in one glass...hey Im a cheap date..what can I say..lol) We topped it off with this chocolate banana pudding w/icecream for dessert that was heavenly. By then we were ready to waddle out the door (or more like stumble in my case..). We walked around CityWalk for a while, it was about 9:30p by now...there were really nothing else to do except maybe look around other restaurants. There didnt appear to be any dancing anywhere. We poked our heads in the Latin Club and there was not a soul in there?? We ended up back to the room by 10p. Somehow, I really thought CityWalk would be MUCH more exciting than what it was...was very disappointed in it as a whole (but JB was great!)
Saturday morning..off to the parks! We got up...went downstairs and ate a very quick breakfast of coffee, a croissant, an OJ and a muffin for a mere $14.60!! Holy smokes...guess I needed more shifts at the ER to cover this food..lol?? We stopped at the ticket desk to get our passes as advertised on the Universal commercial. **WARNING! SPOILER AHEAD!!** We were told since no package deal was marked with our reservation that we could not get the great deal for GA residents. I was VERY upset with this whole matter. I had called back twice to confirm how to go about getting those great tickets and was told just to ask for them as the desk and prove our residencey. It didnt work...we didnt get any break at all on our tickets. It was a real bummer. Luckfully, I have the two different names of the people at reservations that gave me this FALSE information and I will let HRH know that I was most dissatisfied....
Off to IOA...walked right onto HULK in about 2 minutes...it was so cool!! Having that room key saved us alot of time!! We got in Hulk, Spidey, Doomsday Falls (hope thats right), Dueling Dragons....all in a very short time thanks to the room ticket. I would recommend this to anyone going to Universal Parks. We had lunch at Mels at around noon, probably one of the best burgers Ive had in a long time! Then we were off to Universal Studios...we covered Twister, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Jaws, and a few more and were leaving the parks by 4ish. We had a great day, a little rain in the middle, but the temp was warm..overall a great day.
Off to the Holiday Inn Family Suites for the continuation of day 2.......
Checked in at about 4ish....keep in mind..this was a comp stay for a bad stay in September of this year. They offered me and my sweetheart a Sweetheart Suite for 2 nights but we only accepted the one for Saturday. We were greeted very nicely at the desk and given the status of VIP for the evening. We got to our suite to find a basket of goodies on the table with a greeting card. Overall, our stay was very pleasant. We rested up...showered and headed out to Pleasure Island for the evening. We began our journey at the Portobello Yacht Club....all I can say is WOW WOW WOW..!!! The food, the wait staff (Kim was the best) and the atmosphere were terrific!! Steve ordered some sort of fish and I ordered the chicken from the chefs specials, we had a half carafe of the PB own signature Sangria and overall the meal was fantastic!! We sat outside on the patio and it was a great night. This is definitely a must do again for me. After we finished up, we headed over the Pleasure Island. We started out in the 70s place (cant recall exact name). Now we had some serious fun in here. We danced for quite a bit. What struck me as the funniest thing, here we are out here dancing, and probably 80% of the dance floor were in their early 20s so Im sure they werent all too familiar with this music...lol. There were some older folks in the crowd too. We danced until we just couldnt breath anymore and decided to move on. What fun! Next, we make a stop in the Adventurers Club (a not to be missed ever on my list). We ordered fresh drinks (I got the jungle juice and it was great) and sat and rested and laughed our fool heads off. That place is such a hoot, as the entire staff stays with the happenings. After about an hour in the AC, we move outside to watch the fireworks and get in line for the Comedy Warehouse. The temp was mild outside and the fireworks were fun. I dont think I ever recall seeing them at PI. We caught the last show at the CW at just after midnight. I laughed till I nearly wet my plants....what a fun place here also. We ended up leaving around 1ish (late for these folks..lol) took a cab and headed back to HIFS. (for the record...our fare for a cab either direction was right at $10 to HIFS....not too bad and the hotel even paid for it) : )
Day 3...Sunday...Disney and the BW Villas...to be continued
This trip was just myself and my sweetheart (we are long distance sweethearts, me in Ohio, him in Georgia and we met on a Disney website...if you can believe that). We are known to most of our friends as Brer and Y (me pushin 40 and he just a little over the top). We had plan this trip back in the spring. Our dates were 11/2-11/6. We only get to see each other about every 6 weeks due to the distance between us so we had planned to make the most of our time while there.
Day 1- arrival at MCO at around 3ish. We walked straight out to Nationals Emerald Aisle. I had reserved a full size for about 100 bucks....we drove off in a beautiful lipstick red 4 door Grand Prix with about 5,000 miles on it. It was a very nice car.....(we later had a problem with it...but it was not a huge problem). We were out of the airport with luggage and all in less than 20 minutes from walking off the plane...what a way to start the trip
(for the record, I have NEVER had any trouble with National with anything. I know I have read posts from folks that have but I cant say a gosh darn thing bad about them as I have never had a problem)Arrived at Hard Rock Hotel at around 3:30p. There were just a few people in line then it was our turn. We had reserved a pool view room under a special rate and were told there were no upgrades (after we nicely asked). We were assigned our room and off we took with luggage in tow. We were on the 2nd floor and the room was absolutely beautiful!! We could clearly see the pool and it looked VERY nice but it was too chilly when were there to enjoy it for me at least. The beds were wonderful..down comforters, the bathroom spacious with all the shampoo/conditioner/lotion...etc one could ever need. The towels were big and absorbent just like I like them...and having the CD player there was wonderful. We rested up for a bit, jumped in the shower and then took off on our quest to find this Disney Store at the Orlando Mall to get our passes and our $50 gift cards. It turned out to be a rainy Friday evening and we managed to get lost but finally found what we were looking for. We both purchased park hopper passes and got a nice free T shirt and our $50 gift card each. We were told however that you could not use the giftcard for other passes and they could not be used at the DD store. Personally, I thought both of those rules stunk but thats Disney for you (always looking for that almighty dollar I guess).
After returning to the HRH, we decided it was time for CityWalk. We walked over from the hotel (maybe about a 5 minute walk) in the rain. We ended up at Margueritaville. We had the most enourmous plate of nachos that were out of this world (one order filled the two of us up!) and the margueritas were great! (I made the mistake of ordering the perfect marguerita the 2nd round, so it was more like 3 in one glass...hey Im a cheap date..what can I say..lol) We topped it off with this chocolate banana pudding w/icecream for dessert that was heavenly. By then we were ready to waddle out the door (or more like stumble in my case..). We walked around CityWalk for a while, it was about 9:30p by now...there were really nothing else to do except maybe look around other restaurants. There didnt appear to be any dancing anywhere. We poked our heads in the Latin Club and there was not a soul in there?? We ended up back to the room by 10p. Somehow, I really thought CityWalk would be MUCH more exciting than what it was...was very disappointed in it as a whole (but JB was great!)
Saturday morning..off to the parks! We got up...went downstairs and ate a very quick breakfast of coffee, a croissant, an OJ and a muffin for a mere $14.60!! Holy smokes...guess I needed more shifts at the ER to cover this food..lol?? We stopped at the ticket desk to get our passes as advertised on the Universal commercial. **WARNING! SPOILER AHEAD!!** We were told since no package deal was marked with our reservation that we could not get the great deal for GA residents. I was VERY upset with this whole matter. I had called back twice to confirm how to go about getting those great tickets and was told just to ask for them as the desk and prove our residencey. It didnt work...we didnt get any break at all on our tickets. It was a real bummer. Luckfully, I have the two different names of the people at reservations that gave me this FALSE information and I will let HRH know that I was most dissatisfied....
Off to IOA...walked right onto HULK in about 2 minutes...it was so cool!! Having that room key saved us alot of time!! We got in Hulk, Spidey, Doomsday Falls (hope thats right), Dueling Dragons....all in a very short time thanks to the room ticket. I would recommend this to anyone going to Universal Parks. We had lunch at Mels at around noon, probably one of the best burgers Ive had in a long time! Then we were off to Universal Studios...we covered Twister, The Terminator, Back to the Future, Jaws, and a few more and were leaving the parks by 4ish. We had a great day, a little rain in the middle, but the temp was warm..overall a great day.
Off to the Holiday Inn Family Suites for the continuation of day 2.......
Checked in at about 4ish....keep in mind..this was a comp stay for a bad stay in September of this year. They offered me and my sweetheart a Sweetheart Suite for 2 nights but we only accepted the one for Saturday. We were greeted very nicely at the desk and given the status of VIP for the evening. We got to our suite to find a basket of goodies on the table with a greeting card. Overall, our stay was very pleasant. We rested up...showered and headed out to Pleasure Island for the evening. We began our journey at the Portobello Yacht Club....all I can say is WOW WOW WOW..!!! The food, the wait staff (Kim was the best) and the atmosphere were terrific!! Steve ordered some sort of fish and I ordered the chicken from the chefs specials, we had a half carafe of the PB own signature Sangria and overall the meal was fantastic!! We sat outside on the patio and it was a great night. This is definitely a must do again for me. After we finished up, we headed over the Pleasure Island. We started out in the 70s place (cant recall exact name). Now we had some serious fun in here. We danced for quite a bit. What struck me as the funniest thing, here we are out here dancing, and probably 80% of the dance floor were in their early 20s so Im sure they werent all too familiar with this music...lol. There were some older folks in the crowd too. We danced until we just couldnt breath anymore and decided to move on. What fun! Next, we make a stop in the Adventurers Club (a not to be missed ever on my list). We ordered fresh drinks (I got the jungle juice and it was great) and sat and rested and laughed our fool heads off. That place is such a hoot, as the entire staff stays with the happenings. After about an hour in the AC, we move outside to watch the fireworks and get in line for the Comedy Warehouse. The temp was mild outside and the fireworks were fun. I dont think I ever recall seeing them at PI. We caught the last show at the CW at just after midnight. I laughed till I nearly wet my plants....what a fun place here also. We ended up leaving around 1ish (late for these folks..lol) took a cab and headed back to HIFS. (for the record...our fare for a cab either direction was right at $10 to HIFS....not too bad and the hotel even paid for it) : )
Day 3...Sunday...Disney and the BW Villas...to be continued
