DisneyJedi
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2001
- Messages
- 39
Today is Friday May 11th... the aftermath of what ensued last night at Magic Kingdom with the Spectromagic parade and massive crowds. My wife and I are tired starting off this day. It seemed like we'd never get home the night before.
We decided to take a break and use our single day pass at Universal Studios. We didn't have anything special or anything to jump to the new Islands of Adventure (which we thought we'd pass on anyway since it appears to mainly be a thrill ride park.. we can do those in Kentucky and Ohio). After finding the place and a parking spot we were whisked away to the park on some handy moving sidewalks. It seems like the park is very far from the parking lot, but at least there are no trams to bother with. The conveyer belts we fun to walk on.
Once we passed the ticket gates it began to feel very un-Disney (which was expected), but the place just didn't seem as fun. I'd been here before in '94 and it all seemed the same to me.
The first thing we did was head for E.T. My wife liked this a whole lot. I enjoyed it also. The wait wasn't long at all. Why do they take your name down on a pass to ride this one? It seems silly. I bet the guy at the keyboard was not even typing in people's names. Anyway, this is a favorite ride at Universal for us both now.
After E.T., I believe we went on Back to the Future; which is one of my favorite movies in a series of all time. Just as we were running up the queue line (which was non-existant), it hit me like a ton of bricks that I forgot to take my Dramamene! I heard myself say "Ut Oh" inside. I remembered I had bought some wrist straps for motion sickness and with any luck I had them in my backpack. Score! I put them on and felt confident I would be spared from quezziness. I had never used these before. They are suppossed to eliminate motion sickness by stimulating pressure points below the wrist. Bad news! They didn't do their job. During the attraction I felt like I was going to loose last night's dinner.
I quickly broke out in a cold sweat and held myself together til the end, but when I got out my head was pounding. More than anything, I don't think I would have such a bad time with it if the screen was higher resolution. I inadvertingly start to focus on the fuzzy screen while being whipped around. I think my sickness has alot to do with that. If the screen resolution and clarity could be improved, I feel it would be easier on those of us prone to motion sickness.
In a stable, slightly disoriented condition, we exited the ride and immediately noticed it getting hotter outside. I think we visited the T2 gift shop for me to recover.
My wife and I were totally tired today and walking around like zombies. We grabbed a speed pass (or whatever they call it) for Jaws. I wanted to go on this last time I was here, but we ran out of time. It was close enough to stop and get a bite to eat. We noticed the food prices at Universal are higher than Disney, but we wound-up grabbing a couple enormous-sized burgers from the restaurant on the water. After finishing our huge lunch, we moved towards the Alfred Hitchcock attraction. We waited a good 30 minutes before the next show started. We both enjoyed it. I thought there used to be some acting with the shower scene, but I guess I was hallucinating. Oh well, we liked it anyway.
We watched a parade pass while waiting for Alfred Hitchcock. It was just some Universal cars from different movies with a characters waving. We saw Scooby Doo and Shaggy and their Mystery Machine, the Ghostbusters and some others. It was nothing to write home about. Hardly any guest there paid much attention to it. It was a very unexciting parade. I don't see why Universal even bothered.
We did try the Men in Black ride after lunch and it was a bunch of fun. I scored much better than with Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom. I can't decide which ride I like better. I thougt they were both fun and would do either one again. My wife liked it too, including getting shot. The spinning was really fun. I think she encouraged us getting shot by the aliens.
For the rest of the day my wife and I didn't really do anything. I wanted to go on Earthquake, but my wife wasn't feeling well. Honestly the heat and exhaustion were getting to me also. It was hard to drag my legs around anymore. We were both bummed by the lack of excitement in the air and the mediocre attractions. We even passed on our Jaws express passes. We sat down on the dock and shared a lemon icy that was as unsweet as you can imagine. It seriously needed sugar. Itw as like drinking very tart lemon juice. I somehow managed to finish it, but then felt worse.
We walked over to the ET gift shop and bought a bunch of ET merchandise, including the VHS movie that is impossible to find online and hasn't been manufactured since 1997. Now that I finally found a copy, they can go ahead and release the DVD. Isn't that always how it is? The store clerk did tell me they would probably release ET on DVD next year to commemorate 25 years. I'll have no problem purchasing it again for the DVD format.
Anyway, the day was dragging and we were getting no where fast. My head was pounding and my wife was getting sunburnt through her sunscreen. She wasn't feeling well either. I hate to utilize the full potential of any pass I have, but what was the sense hanging in a park that didn't excite you when you were feeling crumby anyway? Needless to say we left about 4pm or something. We hardly got around the park. Shoulda stuck at Disney and used a plus option for a waterpark. That would have been much more exciting and relaxing.
We got back to our hotel at Buena Vista Suites and instantly fell asleep. I didn't wake until 8:30pm or something. We grabbed the phone book and located an Olive Garden. We drove around awhile looking for it. I'm not all that great at finding someplace unless I have explicit directions to it. We did finally locate an Olive Garden, but were worried they were going to close. Ours here closes at 10pm, but the one we found was open through midnight. I still had gift certificates left for this one, so we easily used them on a couple plates of lasagna. We talked about our lack of enthusiasm for Universal Studios over dinner. I guess we both learned an important lesson - when tired, take it easy! We found a gift shop across the street from Olive Garden (after a delicious meal and good service) and bought a ton of sourvenirs, Disney and Orlando-stuffs.
Back to the hotel and off to bed.. my laptop had been a pain in the butt the last few days. I had set it to download pictures off my digital camera over the serial link (ultra slow). Well I didn't realize it right away, but it was only downloading about half the pictures off my 64MB card. I deleted a bunch of good pictures from Disney not immediately realizing this. The laptop is a 486, 25Mhz with 12MB ram. It is a royal slow pain int he butt. I couldn;t even open the pictures to see what they were because the machine is so outdated. I only needed it to download pictures off the camera and it was failing at that. I got enough pictures off the camera to be satisfied, but I had to delete pictures off my camera one-by-one to clear the memory for new pictures. This was annoying. Anyway, hopefully soon I will find time to setup a webpage with all of our good pictures that we do still have.
Tomorrow we go to a variety of Disney places.. we went super-park hopping. We also stopped at River Country. More later...
We decided to take a break and use our single day pass at Universal Studios. We didn't have anything special or anything to jump to the new Islands of Adventure (which we thought we'd pass on anyway since it appears to mainly be a thrill ride park.. we can do those in Kentucky and Ohio). After finding the place and a parking spot we were whisked away to the park on some handy moving sidewalks. It seems like the park is very far from the parking lot, but at least there are no trams to bother with. The conveyer belts we fun to walk on.
Once we passed the ticket gates it began to feel very un-Disney (which was expected), but the place just didn't seem as fun. I'd been here before in '94 and it all seemed the same to me.
The first thing we did was head for E.T. My wife liked this a whole lot. I enjoyed it also. The wait wasn't long at all. Why do they take your name down on a pass to ride this one? It seems silly. I bet the guy at the keyboard was not even typing in people's names. Anyway, this is a favorite ride at Universal for us both now.
After E.T., I believe we went on Back to the Future; which is one of my favorite movies in a series of all time. Just as we were running up the queue line (which was non-existant), it hit me like a ton of bricks that I forgot to take my Dramamene! I heard myself say "Ut Oh" inside. I remembered I had bought some wrist straps for motion sickness and with any luck I had them in my backpack. Score! I put them on and felt confident I would be spared from quezziness. I had never used these before. They are suppossed to eliminate motion sickness by stimulating pressure points below the wrist. Bad news! They didn't do their job. During the attraction I felt like I was going to loose last night's dinner.
I quickly broke out in a cold sweat and held myself together til the end, but when I got out my head was pounding. More than anything, I don't think I would have such a bad time with it if the screen was higher resolution. I inadvertingly start to focus on the fuzzy screen while being whipped around. I think my sickness has alot to do with that. If the screen resolution and clarity could be improved, I feel it would be easier on those of us prone to motion sickness.
In a stable, slightly disoriented condition, we exited the ride and immediately noticed it getting hotter outside. I think we visited the T2 gift shop for me to recover.
My wife and I were totally tired today and walking around like zombies. We grabbed a speed pass (or whatever they call it) for Jaws. I wanted to go on this last time I was here, but we ran out of time. It was close enough to stop and get a bite to eat. We noticed the food prices at Universal are higher than Disney, but we wound-up grabbing a couple enormous-sized burgers from the restaurant on the water. After finishing our huge lunch, we moved towards the Alfred Hitchcock attraction. We waited a good 30 minutes before the next show started. We both enjoyed it. I thought there used to be some acting with the shower scene, but I guess I was hallucinating. Oh well, we liked it anyway.
We watched a parade pass while waiting for Alfred Hitchcock. It was just some Universal cars from different movies with a characters waving. We saw Scooby Doo and Shaggy and their Mystery Machine, the Ghostbusters and some others. It was nothing to write home about. Hardly any guest there paid much attention to it. It was a very unexciting parade. I don't see why Universal even bothered.
We did try the Men in Black ride after lunch and it was a bunch of fun. I scored much better than with Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom. I can't decide which ride I like better. I thougt they were both fun and would do either one again. My wife liked it too, including getting shot. The spinning was really fun. I think she encouraged us getting shot by the aliens.
For the rest of the day my wife and I didn't really do anything. I wanted to go on Earthquake, but my wife wasn't feeling well. Honestly the heat and exhaustion were getting to me also. It was hard to drag my legs around anymore. We were both bummed by the lack of excitement in the air and the mediocre attractions. We even passed on our Jaws express passes. We sat down on the dock and shared a lemon icy that was as unsweet as you can imagine. It seriously needed sugar. Itw as like drinking very tart lemon juice. I somehow managed to finish it, but then felt worse.
We walked over to the ET gift shop and bought a bunch of ET merchandise, including the VHS movie that is impossible to find online and hasn't been manufactured since 1997. Now that I finally found a copy, they can go ahead and release the DVD. Isn't that always how it is? The store clerk did tell me they would probably release ET on DVD next year to commemorate 25 years. I'll have no problem purchasing it again for the DVD format.
Anyway, the day was dragging and we were getting no where fast. My head was pounding and my wife was getting sunburnt through her sunscreen. She wasn't feeling well either. I hate to utilize the full potential of any pass I have, but what was the sense hanging in a park that didn't excite you when you were feeling crumby anyway? Needless to say we left about 4pm or something. We hardly got around the park. Shoulda stuck at Disney and used a plus option for a waterpark. That would have been much more exciting and relaxing.
We got back to our hotel at Buena Vista Suites and instantly fell asleep. I didn't wake until 8:30pm or something. We grabbed the phone book and located an Olive Garden. We drove around awhile looking for it. I'm not all that great at finding someplace unless I have explicit directions to it. We did finally locate an Olive Garden, but were worried they were going to close. Ours here closes at 10pm, but the one we found was open through midnight. I still had gift certificates left for this one, so we easily used them on a couple plates of lasagna. We talked about our lack of enthusiasm for Universal Studios over dinner. I guess we both learned an important lesson - when tired, take it easy! We found a gift shop across the street from Olive Garden (after a delicious meal and good service) and bought a ton of sourvenirs, Disney and Orlando-stuffs.
Back to the hotel and off to bed.. my laptop had been a pain in the butt the last few days. I had set it to download pictures off my digital camera over the serial link (ultra slow). Well I didn't realize it right away, but it was only downloading about half the pictures off my 64MB card. I deleted a bunch of good pictures from Disney not immediately realizing this. The laptop is a 486, 25Mhz with 12MB ram. It is a royal slow pain int he butt. I couldn;t even open the pictures to see what they were because the machine is so outdated. I only needed it to download pictures off the camera and it was failing at that. I got enough pictures off the camera to be satisfied, but I had to delete pictures off my camera one-by-one to clear the memory for new pictures. This was annoying. Anyway, hopefully soon I will find time to setup a webpage with all of our good pictures that we do still have.
Tomorrow we go to a variety of Disney places.. we went super-park hopping. We also stopped at River Country. More later...
