I have received so much helpful information on these boards while planning this trip that I hope I can give some back with a report.
A little background info.... I live in Missouri moved here 2 years ago for school from west palm beach, FL. My family still lives in FL so I decided to go back home for thanksgiving and take my lil sis to orlando for her 18th b-day. I flew into florida on thanksgiving morning but I will spare you all the boring details of that day and get onto the orlando trip.
My sis and I woke up at 7 on friday morning and went to John-G's at the lake worth beach for breakfast. This restaurant has the most amazing breakfasts and I make it a point to eat there at least once every time I go home. Had wonderful raisin cream cheese stuffed french toast and an ocean view table. Got on the road to orlando around 10 am and got there at about 12:30. Had to make a quick stop at ticket mania to pick up our pleasure island tickets. This place is fabulous. Saved about 4 dollars each on the tickets very easy to find too. Then we went to our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton studio city which I got from priceline for $49 dollars a night. This hotel was great especially for universal since it is only a 5 minute drive away. Check in was smooth even though we were checking in a couple of hours early. Very friendly staff and they never mentioned the reservation was through priceline. Had a room on the 6th floor with a view of IOA. The beds are sheraton sweet sleeper beds and very comfortable. The only thing I didn't like about the room is it doesn't have a table so it makes it hard to eat in the room. After we checked in we went to the pool for a bit and had a virgin pina colada which was very good. The pool area is very nice but a bit small. One thing I was disappointed in is they have no jacuzzi. A jacuzzi would have been nice after a day at the parks. Around 3 we went next door to the new congo river golf. Its a very nice course and we had free passes from the last time we were in orlando. It is literally right next door to the hotel which is very convenient. After that we walked across the street to have an early dinner at red lobster. This was very good and the service was outstanding. After dinner we went back to the room to get ready for pleasure island. We got to downtown disney at about 7:30 and the parking was crazy!!
We ended up parking way out by cirque de soleil and very far away from everything that we were planning on doing. Downtown disney was very crowded. We tried to go into some stores but there were just too many people so we decided to come back sunday morning for shopping. So we went over to pleasure island but none of the clubs were open yet. We decided to check out the adventurers club since I had heard good things about it on these boards. This place was sooo much fun. They have short shows and they are sooo funny. We saw two shows here the radio broadcast and the award presentation. My sister was picked to go up and play the part of the fiancé in the radio broadcast. That absolutely made her night. We stayed here for a while and then went to check out the other clubs. We went to the rock n roll beach club and I was shocked to see two little kids inside dancing by the stage. This struck me as very odd I thought the clubs in pleasure island were 18 and over except for the 2 that are 21 and up but in all the ones we had gone into there were kids. The adventurers club had a lot of kids and 8-trax also had some kids inside on the dance floor. The last time I had been to PI you had to have a ticket just to get into the complex so there weren't little kids running all over the place. It just my opinion but this isn't a place to bring kids this is definitely an adult environment. Anyway after bouncing around the clubs for a bit we were really tired and had to get up early the next day so we left at around 12.
We woke up at 7 on saturday and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. This is very convenient to universal. We got to the gates of universal at 9:30 and got our tickets from the kiosk. The tips about getting here early were definitely right. There were very few people there this early and we were able to walk right onto shrek and twister. I was worried about trying to do both parks on thanksgiving weekend because I thought the lines were going to be very long. This wasn't the case at all. The longest line we waited in was for spider man and that was about 30 min. After going on twister we went on earthquake, Men in black, ET, beetle juice's rock n roll review and did some shopping. By this time it was about 3pm and we went over to IOA. Then we made a big mistake by riding popeye and blutos bilge rat barges. We got drenched and we were both wearing jeans which are not comfortable wet. Also about this time the sun started to go down and it was starting to get chilly. We decided that we had to go change but first we went to see the stunt show since it was the last showing of the day. After this we went back to the hotel to change and got back to IOA in about 45 minutes. On our way to IOA we grabbed a hotdog in citywalk and a funnel cake at port of entry. We then went on poisidens fury and spider man and then it was just about time for the park to close. We probably shouldn't have eaten that funnel cake because we were both feeling a bit sick. We walked around the shops for a bit and then decided not to eat at hard rock like we had planned. We were both very tired from the long day. We grabbed take out from denny's next to the hotel and ate it in the room.
Sunday morning we woke up early and checked out of the hotel. The hotel no longer charges the resort fee that I had read about which is nice because I never use the phone or read the paper that they charge for. We went to downtown disney to do some shopping but the stores dont open until 9:30 so we looked for a place for breakfast. I was surprised that there are no places for breakfast here. The candy store had coffee and some danishes but we weren't in the mood for that. We did some shopping and left a little after 10 stopping at dunkin donuts for breakfast sandwiches for the drive back.
Sorry this got so long. So to sum it up we had a very nice if short vacation. It is possible to do both parks in 1 day but you wont get to ride all the rides. We dont do roller coasters and we chickened out and didn't ride the Mummy but we did almost all the rides that we wanted to do. Time to start planning a trip for spring break.
Some tips: The refillable mugs are great get one early to make the most of it. If you have AAA bring your card since you can get a discount pretty much everywhere. I used it everywhere except the drink stands. I even used it to get 10% off my funnel cake that was pretty cool. They did ask for it every time though.
Feel free to ask questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability.
A little background info.... I live in Missouri moved here 2 years ago for school from west palm beach, FL. My family still lives in FL so I decided to go back home for thanksgiving and take my lil sis to orlando for her 18th b-day. I flew into florida on thanksgiving morning but I will spare you all the boring details of that day and get onto the orlando trip.
My sis and I woke up at 7 on friday morning and went to John-G's at the lake worth beach for breakfast. This restaurant has the most amazing breakfasts and I make it a point to eat there at least once every time I go home. Had wonderful raisin cream cheese stuffed french toast and an ocean view table. Got on the road to orlando around 10 am and got there at about 12:30. Had to make a quick stop at ticket mania to pick up our pleasure island tickets. This place is fabulous. Saved about 4 dollars each on the tickets very easy to find too. Then we went to our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton studio city which I got from priceline for $49 dollars a night. This hotel was great especially for universal since it is only a 5 minute drive away. Check in was smooth even though we were checking in a couple of hours early. Very friendly staff and they never mentioned the reservation was through priceline. Had a room on the 6th floor with a view of IOA. The beds are sheraton sweet sleeper beds and very comfortable. The only thing I didn't like about the room is it doesn't have a table so it makes it hard to eat in the room. After we checked in we went to the pool for a bit and had a virgin pina colada which was very good. The pool area is very nice but a bit small. One thing I was disappointed in is they have no jacuzzi. A jacuzzi would have been nice after a day at the parks. Around 3 we went next door to the new congo river golf. Its a very nice course and we had free passes from the last time we were in orlando. It is literally right next door to the hotel which is very convenient. After that we walked across the street to have an early dinner at red lobster. This was very good and the service was outstanding. After dinner we went back to the room to get ready for pleasure island. We got to downtown disney at about 7:30 and the parking was crazy!!
We ended up parking way out by cirque de soleil and very far away from everything that we were planning on doing. Downtown disney was very crowded. We tried to go into some stores but there were just too many people so we decided to come back sunday morning for shopping. So we went over to pleasure island but none of the clubs were open yet. We decided to check out the adventurers club since I had heard good things about it on these boards. This place was sooo much fun. They have short shows and they are sooo funny. We saw two shows here the radio broadcast and the award presentation. My sister was picked to go up and play the part of the fiancé in the radio broadcast. That absolutely made her night. We stayed here for a while and then went to check out the other clubs. We went to the rock n roll beach club and I was shocked to see two little kids inside dancing by the stage. This struck me as very odd I thought the clubs in pleasure island were 18 and over except for the 2 that are 21 and up but in all the ones we had gone into there were kids. The adventurers club had a lot of kids and 8-trax also had some kids inside on the dance floor. The last time I had been to PI you had to have a ticket just to get into the complex so there weren't little kids running all over the place. It just my opinion but this isn't a place to bring kids this is definitely an adult environment. Anyway after bouncing around the clubs for a bit we were really tired and had to get up early the next day so we left at around 12. We woke up at 7 on saturday and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. This is very convenient to universal. We got to the gates of universal at 9:30 and got our tickets from the kiosk. The tips about getting here early were definitely right. There were very few people there this early and we were able to walk right onto shrek and twister. I was worried about trying to do both parks on thanksgiving weekend because I thought the lines were going to be very long. This wasn't the case at all. The longest line we waited in was for spider man and that was about 30 min. After going on twister we went on earthquake, Men in black, ET, beetle juice's rock n roll review and did some shopping. By this time it was about 3pm and we went over to IOA. Then we made a big mistake by riding popeye and blutos bilge rat barges. We got drenched and we were both wearing jeans which are not comfortable wet. Also about this time the sun started to go down and it was starting to get chilly. We decided that we had to go change but first we went to see the stunt show since it was the last showing of the day. After this we went back to the hotel to change and got back to IOA in about 45 minutes. On our way to IOA we grabbed a hotdog in citywalk and a funnel cake at port of entry. We then went on poisidens fury and spider man and then it was just about time for the park to close. We probably shouldn't have eaten that funnel cake because we were both feeling a bit sick. We walked around the shops for a bit and then decided not to eat at hard rock like we had planned. We were both very tired from the long day. We grabbed take out from denny's next to the hotel and ate it in the room.
Sunday morning we woke up early and checked out of the hotel. The hotel no longer charges the resort fee that I had read about which is nice because I never use the phone or read the paper that they charge for. We went to downtown disney to do some shopping but the stores dont open until 9:30 so we looked for a place for breakfast. I was surprised that there are no places for breakfast here. The candy store had coffee and some danishes but we weren't in the mood for that. We did some shopping and left a little after 10 stopping at dunkin donuts for breakfast sandwiches for the drive back.
Sorry this got so long. So to sum it up we had a very nice if short vacation. It is possible to do both parks in 1 day but you wont get to ride all the rides. We dont do roller coasters and we chickened out and didn't ride the Mummy but we did almost all the rides that we wanted to do. Time to start planning a trip for spring break.
Some tips: The refillable mugs are great get one early to make the most of it. If you have AAA bring your card since you can get a discount pretty much everywhere. I used it everywhere except the drink stands. I even used it to get 10% off my funnel cake that was pretty cool. They did ask for it every time though.
Feel free to ask questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability.
