Gotta start this one off with a disclaimer that if you intend to read this, you better settle back with some popcorn & a drink because this one could rival War and Peace in length! 
Day 2 6/7/04 It Must Have Been the Mac & Cheese!
The Cast:
DH 45 - seriously allergic to theme park thrills, easy going all around good guy.
DD 11 middle of the road theme park thrill seeker, drama queen, stuffed animal lover, artsy & sensitive kind of girl.
DS 11 extreme thrill seeker, slightly mischievous, reason why Im on a first name basis with the principal, always has a hug for mom kind of boy.
Myself 40 all time extreme thrill seeker, roller coaster junkie, seeker of missing socks, practical joker, always ruins the punch-line kind of gal.
Bright & early Monday morning, I find that my DS isnt in bed & the light is on in the bathroom. After a few minutes, I knock on the door to be sure he is all right & he informs me that he doesnt think hell EVER be able to get off the toilet & its all because we ate at that Sweet Potatoes place last night! (And I thought my DD was the drama queen!) Holding back the snicker thats building inside me, I answered The name was Sweet Tomatoes, and I dont think the toilet is on the list for FOTL rides! He tells me hes been up a few times to the bathroom (and doesnt that make me feel like Mother of The Year seeing that I slept through it!) When he returns to bed, I slip into the shower, only to hear moans a few minutes later. Talking from the shower, I assure him hell be ok soon only to hear my daughter reply! Ruh row! The next hour was spent like a merry-go-round. He gets up, she sits down, she gets up, he sits down
.Of course I had brought my entire medicine cabinet but I never give my kids anything for this problem. Usually just lots of water & the BRAT (aptly named!) diet until it moves through their system. Im about to send DH out in search of some toast or bananas when they finally start to feel better & can jump in the shower. The kids (with their excellent sleuthing skills), decide it must have been the mac & cheese @ Sweet Tomatoes, since they both ate that & we didnt. They felt up to walking to IOA & we arrive there a little after 9:00.
Its unanimous that we start our day off with front seat on the Hulk. (Unanimous in our family is 3 out of 4 votes .DHs vote doesnt count since he likes to say that his favorite ride is the ride home!) We park him on a bench & head to express. The express line started off separate & ended up merging with the regular line near the end. This was the only time during our trip that the line would queue that way & Im guessing that it was because of the lighter crowds during the morning hours. After about a 10 minute wait, were piling into the front seat & Im hoping the kids are truly feeling better & dont come off the ride as green as our superhero.
That launch is amazing and the entire ride after that was such a rush that I can honestly say I was disoriented by the time it finished. Two thumbs up for the Hulk (esp. front seat)! Off to Dr. Doom, 5 minute wait with FOTL. Of course DH sat this one out too. We have something similar to this at our local park (Kennywood) but ours drops you rather than shooting you up. Dr. Doom is great but we all decided that dropping was better than being shot up. After a second ride for just the kids, we head over to Spiderman. Since Spiderman was down, we continued on to Dudley. This is one of the best flume rides Ive ever been on. All four of us got soaked here. Actually closed my eyes going down the last hill (it was a reflex kind of thing) and make a promise that well definitely have to ride again. I had to laugh at all the hats & caps we saw floating at the bottom of the ride. That thing is FAST! Off to Jurassic Park, love the theming here. No wait with FOTL (actually, it was still early & the regular lines hadnt much formed yet either.) Another awesome drop on JPRA, didnt get as wet as on Dudley but still refreshing as it was already smoking hot. We decide to do Camp Jurassic later and wonder into the Discovery Center. I ordered lunch for us all while the kids headed off downstairs to soak up some knowledge. Since I knew we wanted to buy a refillable mug somewhere along the line, I decided to get one here at the Burger Digs. Ordered our lunch & while standing there waiting I noticed a guy behind me getting a refill in his MIB mug. Hmm, I like HIS mug. 
It has a handle on it & doesnt look as bulky as the dinosaur one I just bought. Feeling a little sheepish, 
I ask the clerk if she could possibly void that mug purchase (really felt bad when I saw they already had it filled & waiting on the counter for the burgers to finish). She was a trainee & had her trainer there & they were both wonderful & directed my DH to a supervisor who gave him our money back. We had great experiences with so many employees at US/IOA & I hate when people compare US to WDW. People are people no matter where you go. Treat them with respect & thats usually what you get back. Run into a surly one & how it affects you is your decision. It all comes back to how YOU deal with the situation, IMHO. After lunch, the kids are begging to go back downstairs to the Discovery Center & I think Go
be sponges & soak up knowledge! Hey
who says theme parks cant be educational! DH & I take this opportunity to rest our feet & get cooled off, then were off to Dueling Dragons. After having an employee direct us to the Express entrance, we queue up for Fire. We have about a 10 minute wait & get the back seat. DS screams his trademark Booyah! the whole ride & we all agree that if its this great in the back, well try again this trip for front seat. Again, DH insists he got the best seat (the bench outside the ride!) This is the point of the vacation where the kids start teasing DH about being a stick-in-the-mud. Its inevitable
.any trip to a themepark will eventually result in this. Thinking I should step up & be DHs support in this discussion, I tell the kids that it wouldnt be much fun if Dad rode something he shouldnt & got sick & slowed us down would it? 
DH looks at me with that sarcastic Um, thanks for the support, honey! look. And the kicker ended up being DSs comment Geez Dad, Mom says you used to be fun! At this point were near the Mystic Fountain & I have a great distraction away from this conversation!! DH & I hang back (out of range!) of the fountain as he does his/her magic with the kids. I love this attraction! The kids were shy at first (they saw the water blow as we walked up), but soon were answering his questions. He was asking another boy where he was from & he was also from Pennsylvania. Wanted the other boy to answer questions about PA (state bird, state capitol, state flower). The poor boy didnt have a clue, so I kept racing up & whispering answers to DD & DS who would pass on the info. to him. The fountain saw me & yelled Hey! No help from the peanut gallery! Stayed there until the next Sindbad show was about to start. While waiting for Sindbad, we chatted with a very nice employee named Kae. I ran to the bathroom after we were seated & when I returned, Kae told me to sit one row down in the front row. Not really knowing anything about the show I said Uh, uh
no way. Im not sitting there unless THEY (pointing to the rest of family) sit there! I had visions of being soaked or worse yet, being pulled into the show somehow. Turns out, it was because some of the action/fighting parts of the show took place right on the floor in front of me. What a great seat! The show was entertaining & a great break during the day. We headed off to Seuss Landing & let the kids ride the Caro-Seuss-el. I would have ridden it too, but the regular line was packed with kids & Id have felt like a heel going to the FOTL in front of all those eager children! The kids wanted to do the Hulk again & DH had a hankering for a turkey leg so we headed off to Marvel Superhero Island. They rode by themselves, while I waited at the exit. DH had trouble finishing the turkey leg & I wasnt about to help him
took a token bite, but Im strictly a white meat gal. Off to Spiderman & WHOOHOO it was working. Absolutely zero wait for express while the regular line was 60 minutes. I walked right by the 3-D glasses until a man behind me said, Um, maam, I think youll be wanting those! We had a front seat for our very first ride on Spidey & WOW! I didnt want the ride to end! Unbelievable is all I can say. I dont think theres any ride out there that can compare with Spiderman. The scene where youre climbing the buildings is amazing & the fall is out of this world! I ventured a look over at DH halfway through & he was laughing
whew, thats a good sign! Dare I look over at him after the fall at the end? Being a big brave dog (like Chuckie from RugRats) I glanced over & he said Im ok, Im alright. That wasnt so bad! He liked it so much he insisted we do it again. I think part of him wanted to do it again because he enjoyed walking right on past a 60 minute wait. As we walked straight through the queue, the kids started kissing their room keys on their lanyards! I was the bomb in their eyes & even DH had to admit that Id done good for getting such a great rate for the RP. Hey, I didnt invent FOTL, but I was willing to take kudos from my family! Deciding it was time to get wet again, we thought Popeye would be a great choice & we could head over to the hotel to swim after that. Popeye was down, so we headed back to the RP.
Its now 3:00 & we see that the maids are still working on rooms in our hall so its no big surprise when we enter & the room hasnt been done yet. But hmmm, I left the maids tip along with a request for 2 regular coffee packs instead of the decaf on top of the pile of dirty towels in the entryway. Thats strange .the tip is gone but the room wasnt touched. Wanting to be sure that our maid got the tip, DH goes down the hall to talk to them & after some translating between maids & much confusion, he comes back & says that he thinks the right maid got the tip & she put the coffee by the pot, but will be cleaning the room later. Ok
strange, but its ok, we wont be in the room long. DH takes the kids to the pool for about an hour while I freshen up, they change & were back out the door headed to US. The maid didnt knock while I was in the room, presumably because she knew I was there, & she saw us leave around 4:15. (This will make sense later, I hope!) It was time to try the Mummy again
.this was our second day in the parks & I couldnt believe I hadnt ridden it yet. Were told at the entrance it is a 1 hr. wait for express! Ye Gads! Im cursed, I tell ya. But I thought the curse would work the other way around
pulling me in so as to consume my soul! Reminding the family that I was the one who saved them so much time with FOTL on the other rides, I guilted them into getting in line. After waiting in line awhile, the guilt got to me & I suggested we try it again later in our trip.
(Im such a push-over!) We head back to what we later voted as our favorite ride, MIB. The other rides were special in their own ways, but MIB was one we ALL enjoyed & truthfully, theres a little bit of competitiveness in all 4 of us, so MIB won hands down. Rode 3 times, again no wait with FOTL. Im still winning, but DH is catching on & making it close. I still havent looked over my MIB notes again, but I have them with me & am considering taunting my family with them. (I told you we were competitive!) The park will be closing in about a half an hour so we decide to head over to Nascar Café for dinner. On the way out we still see a long line for Shrek & inquire about FOTL. Directed to a special queue & get in to the pre-show within minutes. We loved Shrek. Its taken years for the kids to be ok with 3-D rides, and we all thought Shrek 4-D was adorable. Off to eat @ Nascar. A bit of a wait without room key, but we were seated in less than 5 minutes! (Again, the kids start kissing their keys!) Burgers & chicken strips for kids & me. DH had the ribs & liked them. Excellent server named Karma. We used the Clear Channel gift certificates. She applied both $25 gift certificate to our $47 bill & I only had to pay for my 2 beers plus tip. During dinner, a huge thunderstorm blew in & was still venting its fury when we were done. DH & I sat on the front deck of Nascar while the kids played some video games. This storm wasnt blowing over & unless we wanted to pour more money into the games, we decided wed better head back to the RP. The water taxis were down because of the storm & it was too long of a walk, so we headed over to catch the resort bus back. Again, not having our $ store ponchos, we got soaked. 
Walk back into our room at 10:00 PM. It still hasnt been cleaned!
Called front desk to have housekeeping come up & was surprised to receive a lukewarm response. Since we didnt want to be in the room while housekeeping was there, we dragged our wet, tired bodies down to the lobby to hang out for a while. It was still pouring outside, so we couldnt very well hang out at the pool or even walk the grounds. DSs stomach started acting up again
*sigh*, perfect timing
.so while he & DH were in the lobby restroom, DD & I literally stretched out on one of the sofas in the lobby. Although they were really comfy, the lobby was extremely cold considering we were still pretty damp. I decided to inquire at the front desk on how long it would be until we could return to our room. Explaining the situation again, the clerk apologized and said that their housekeeping staff was quick & it would only be a half hour at the most. I dont know if it was the fact that DD & I stood there looking like drowned cold rats or if it finally dawned on her how inconvenienced we had been, but she then asked if breakfast vouchers for the Islands Dining Room would help the situation. I thanked her, accepted the vouchers & explained that I understood it was an oversight & appreciated the fact that although honest mistakes do happen, they step up to the plate & try to make your remaining stay enjoyable. It was a wasted speech, since she just continued to look at me with that same Stepford Wife smile on her face.
Helloooo
.is anyone in there?! There was no interaction going on here whatsoever! DH & I had a laugh together later that evening when I repeated the whole thing to him. He says I expect too much from people because Im such an open book. After waiting outside on the walking bridge for a little while (it was warmer there than the lobby!) we head back up to our room a little after 10:30 & thankfully, its done. Too tired for showers, so the kids nod off to sleep while DH & I watch the end of the hockey game. It certainly was a full day!
Up Next Day 3 ~ 6/8/04 Curse or No Curse This Mommy Finally Meets The Mummy!
Day 2 6/7/04 It Must Have Been the Mac & Cheese!
The Cast:
DH 45 - seriously allergic to theme park thrills, easy going all around good guy.
DD 11 middle of the road theme park thrill seeker, drama queen, stuffed animal lover, artsy & sensitive kind of girl.
DS 11 extreme thrill seeker, slightly mischievous, reason why Im on a first name basis with the principal, always has a hug for mom kind of boy.
Myself 40 all time extreme thrill seeker, roller coaster junkie, seeker of missing socks, practical joker, always ruins the punch-line kind of gal.
Bright & early Monday morning, I find that my DS isnt in bed & the light is on in the bathroom. After a few minutes, I knock on the door to be sure he is all right & he informs me that he doesnt think hell EVER be able to get off the toilet & its all because we ate at that Sweet Potatoes place last night! (And I thought my DD was the drama queen!) Holding back the snicker thats building inside me, I answered The name was Sweet Tomatoes, and I dont think the toilet is on the list for FOTL rides! He tells me hes been up a few times to the bathroom (and doesnt that make me feel like Mother of The Year seeing that I slept through it!) When he returns to bed, I slip into the shower, only to hear moans a few minutes later. Talking from the shower, I assure him hell be ok soon only to hear my daughter reply! Ruh row!
The next hour was spent like a merry-go-round. He gets up, she sits down, she gets up, he sits down
.Of course I had brought my entire medicine cabinet but I never give my kids anything for this problem. Usually just lots of water & the BRAT (aptly named!) diet until it moves through their system. Im about to send DH out in search of some toast or bananas when they finally start to feel better & can jump in the shower. The kids (with their excellent sleuthing skills), decide it must have been the mac & cheese @ Sweet Tomatoes, since they both ate that & we didnt. They felt up to walking to IOA & we arrive there a little after 9:00. Its unanimous that we start our day off with front seat on the Hulk. (Unanimous in our family is 3 out of 4 votes .DHs vote doesnt count since he likes to say that his favorite ride is the ride home!) We park him on a bench & head to express. The express line started off separate & ended up merging with the regular line near the end. This was the only time during our trip that the line would queue that way & Im guessing that it was because of the lighter crowds during the morning hours. After about a 10 minute wait, were piling into the front seat & Im hoping the kids are truly feeling better & dont come off the ride as green as our superhero.
That launch is amazing and the entire ride after that was such a rush that I can honestly say I was disoriented by the time it finished. Two thumbs up for the Hulk (esp. front seat)! Off to Dr. Doom, 5 minute wait with FOTL. Of course DH sat this one out too. We have something similar to this at our local park (Kennywood) but ours drops you rather than shooting you up. Dr. Doom is great but we all decided that dropping was better than being shot up. After a second ride for just the kids, we head over to Spiderman. Since Spiderman was down, we continued on to Dudley. This is one of the best flume rides Ive ever been on. All four of us got soaked here. Actually closed my eyes going down the last hill (it was a reflex kind of thing) and make a promise that well definitely have to ride again. I had to laugh at all the hats & caps we saw floating at the bottom of the ride. That thing is FAST! Off to Jurassic Park, love the theming here. No wait with FOTL (actually, it was still early & the regular lines hadnt much formed yet either.) Another awesome drop on JPRA, didnt get as wet as on Dudley but still refreshing as it was already smoking hot. We decide to do Camp Jurassic later and wonder into the Discovery Center. I ordered lunch for us all while the kids headed off downstairs to soak up some knowledge. Since I knew we wanted to buy a refillable mug somewhere along the line, I decided to get one here at the Burger Digs. Ordered our lunch & while standing there waiting I noticed a guy behind me getting a refill in his MIB mug. Hmm, I like HIS mug. It has a handle on it & doesnt look as bulky as the dinosaur one I just bought. Feeling a little sheepish, I ask the clerk if she could possibly void that mug purchase (really felt bad when I saw they already had it filled & waiting on the counter for the burgers to finish). She was a trainee & had her trainer there & they were both wonderful & directed my DH to a supervisor who gave him our money back. We had great experiences with so many employees at US/IOA & I hate when people compare US to WDW. People are people no matter where you go. Treat them with respect & thats usually what you get back. Run into a surly one & how it affects you is your decision. It all comes back to how YOU deal with the situation, IMHO. After lunch, the kids are begging to go back downstairs to the Discovery Center & I think Go
be sponges & soak up knowledge! Hey
who says theme parks cant be educational! DH & I take this opportunity to rest our feet & get cooled off, then were off to Dueling Dragons. After having an employee direct us to the Express entrance, we queue up for Fire. We have about a 10 minute wait & get the back seat. DS screams his trademark Booyah! the whole ride & we all agree that if its this great in the back, well try again this trip for front seat. Again, DH insists he got the best seat (the bench outside the ride!) This is the point of the vacation where the kids start teasing DH about being a stick-in-the-mud. Its inevitable
.any trip to a themepark will eventually result in this. Thinking I should step up & be DHs support in this discussion, I tell the kids that it wouldnt be much fun if Dad rode something he shouldnt & got sick & slowed us down would it? DH looks at me with that sarcastic Um, thanks for the support, honey! look. And the kicker ended up being DSs comment Geez Dad, Mom says you used to be fun! At this point were near the Mystic Fountain & I have a great distraction away from this conversation!! DH & I hang back (out of range!) of the fountain as he does his/her magic with the kids. I love this attraction! The kids were shy at first (they saw the water blow as we walked up), but soon were answering his questions. He was asking another boy where he was from & he was also from Pennsylvania. Wanted the other boy to answer questions about PA (state bird, state capitol, state flower). The poor boy didnt have a clue, so I kept racing up & whispering answers to DD & DS who would pass on the info. to him. The fountain saw me & yelled Hey! No help from the peanut gallery! Stayed there until the next Sindbad show was about to start. While waiting for Sindbad, we chatted with a very nice employee named Kae. I ran to the bathroom after we were seated & when I returned, Kae told me to sit one row down in the front row. Not really knowing anything about the show I said Uh, uh
no way. Im not sitting there unless THEY (pointing to the rest of family) sit there! I had visions of being soaked or worse yet, being pulled into the show somehow. Turns out, it was because some of the action/fighting parts of the show took place right on the floor in front of me. What a great seat! The show was entertaining & a great break during the day. We headed off to Seuss Landing & let the kids ride the Caro-Seuss-el. I would have ridden it too, but the regular line was packed with kids & Id have felt like a heel going to the FOTL in front of all those eager children! The kids wanted to do the Hulk again & DH had a hankering for a turkey leg so we headed off to Marvel Superhero Island. They rode by themselves, while I waited at the exit. DH had trouble finishing the turkey leg & I wasnt about to help him
took a token bite, but Im strictly a white meat gal. Off to Spiderman & WHOOHOO it was working. Absolutely zero wait for express while the regular line was 60 minutes. I walked right by the 3-D glasses until a man behind me said, Um, maam, I think youll be wanting those! We had a front seat for our very first ride on Spidey & WOW! I didnt want the ride to end! Unbelievable is all I can say. I dont think theres any ride out there that can compare with Spiderman. The scene where youre climbing the buildings is amazing & the fall is out of this world! I ventured a look over at DH halfway through & he was laughing
whew, thats a good sign! Dare I look over at him after the fall at the end? Being a big brave dog (like Chuckie from RugRats) I glanced over & he said Im ok, Im alright. That wasnt so bad! He liked it so much he insisted we do it again. I think part of him wanted to do it again because he enjoyed walking right on past a 60 minute wait. As we walked straight through the queue, the kids started kissing their room keys on their lanyards! I was the bomb in their eyes & even DH had to admit that Id done good for getting such a great rate for the RP. Hey, I didnt invent FOTL, but I was willing to take kudos from my family! Deciding it was time to get wet again, we thought Popeye would be a great choice & we could head over to the hotel to swim after that. Popeye was down, so we headed back to the RP.Its now 3:00 & we see that the maids are still working on rooms in our hall so its no big surprise when we enter & the room hasnt been done yet. But hmmm, I left the maids tip along with a request for 2 regular coffee packs instead of the decaf on top of the pile of dirty towels in the entryway. Thats strange .the tip is gone but the room wasnt touched.
Wanting to be sure that our maid got the tip, DH goes down the hall to talk to them & after some translating between maids & much confusion, he comes back & says that he thinks the right maid got the tip & she put the coffee by the pot, but will be cleaning the room later. Ok
strange, but its ok, we wont be in the room long. DH takes the kids to the pool for about an hour while I freshen up, they change & were back out the door headed to US. The maid didnt knock while I was in the room, presumably because she knew I was there, & she saw us leave around 4:15. (This will make sense later, I hope!) It was time to try the Mummy again
.this was our second day in the parks & I couldnt believe I hadnt ridden it yet. Were told at the entrance it is a 1 hr. wait for express! Ye Gads! Im cursed, I tell ya. But I thought the curse would work the other way around
pulling me in so as to consume my soul! Reminding the family that I was the one who saved them so much time with FOTL on the other rides, I guilted them into getting in line. After waiting in line awhile, the guilt got to me & I suggested we try it again later in our trip. (Im such a push-over!) We head back to what we later voted as our favorite ride, MIB. The other rides were special in their own ways, but MIB was one we ALL enjoyed & truthfully, theres a little bit of competitiveness in all 4 of us, so MIB won hands down. Rode 3 times, again no wait with FOTL. Im still winning, but DH is catching on & making it close. I still havent looked over my MIB notes again, but I have them with me & am considering taunting my family with them. (I told you we were competitive!) The park will be closing in about a half an hour so we decide to head over to Nascar Café for dinner. On the way out we still see a long line for Shrek & inquire about FOTL. Directed to a special queue & get in to the pre-show within minutes. We loved Shrek. Its taken years for the kids to be ok with 3-D rides, and we all thought Shrek 4-D was adorable. Off to eat @ Nascar. A bit of a wait without room key, but we were seated in less than 5 minutes! (Again, the kids start kissing their keys!) Burgers & chicken strips for kids & me. DH had the ribs & liked them. Excellent server named Karma. We used the Clear Channel gift certificates. She applied both $25 gift certificate to our $47 bill & I only had to pay for my 2 beers plus tip. During dinner, a huge thunderstorm blew in & was still venting its fury when we were done. DH & I sat on the front deck of Nascar while the kids played some video games. This storm wasnt blowing over & unless we wanted to pour more money into the games, we decided wed better head back to the RP. The water taxis were down because of the storm & it was too long of a walk, so we headed over to catch the resort bus back. Again, not having our $ store ponchos, we got soaked. Walk back into our room at 10:00 PM. It still hasnt been cleaned! Called front desk to have housekeeping come up & was surprised to receive a lukewarm response. Since we didnt want to be in the room while housekeeping was there, we dragged our wet, tired bodies down to the lobby to hang out for a while. It was still pouring outside, so we couldnt very well hang out at the pool or even walk the grounds. DSs stomach started acting up again
*sigh*, perfect timing
.so while he & DH were in the lobby restroom, DD & I literally stretched out on one of the sofas in the lobby. Although they were really comfy, the lobby was extremely cold considering we were still pretty damp. I decided to inquire at the front desk on how long it would be until we could return to our room. Explaining the situation again, the clerk apologized and said that their housekeeping staff was quick & it would only be a half hour at the most. I dont know if it was the fact that DD & I stood there looking like drowned cold rats or if it finally dawned on her how inconvenienced we had been, but she then asked if breakfast vouchers for the Islands Dining Room would help the situation. I thanked her, accepted the vouchers & explained that I understood it was an oversight & appreciated the fact that although honest mistakes do happen, they step up to the plate & try to make your remaining stay enjoyable. It was a wasted speech, since she just continued to look at me with that same Stepford Wife smile on her face. Helloooo
.is anyone in there?! There was no interaction going on here whatsoever! DH & I had a laugh together later that evening when I repeated the whole thing to him. He says I expect too much from people because Im such an open book. After waiting outside on the walking bridge for a little while (it was warmer there than the lobby!) we head back up to our room a little after 10:30 & thankfully, its done. Too tired for showers, so the kids nod off to sleep while DH & I watch the end of the hockey game. It certainly was a full day!Up Next Day 3 ~ 6/8/04 Curse or No Curse This Mommy Finally Meets The Mummy!
Thanks again!
