Hijinks & Shenanigans but not much Mayhem@The Dark Side+Disney:Link to DL/Hawaii TR

P.S. I kinda liked NM's shadow trip report, can we hear more?

That depends on if Dee slacks off or not... I'll be out of commission next week while I have my gall bladder out but I may be able to come up with a narcotic induced fog of a doozy, parallel universe sort of a trip report.

I also wonder if Buzzy the Fly is going to make an appearance in Dee's Travels. He has managed to infest himself in many a guest experience at the BC this summer. We will have to see if he joins the family for an ADR or two, not to mention a Sunken Treasure or three! (He is SUCH a Lush!)

~NM
 
That depends on if Dee slacks off or not... I'll be out of commission next week while I have my gall bladder out but I may be able to come up with a narcotic induced fog of a doozy, parallel universe sort of a trip report.

I also wonder if Buzzy the Fly is going to make an appearance in Dee's Travels. He has managed to infest himself in many a guest experience at the BC this summer. We will have to see if he joins the family for an ADR or two, not to mention a Sunken Treasure or three! (He is SUCH a Lush!)

~NM

Good luck with your surgery NM :goodvibes Maybe we can keep you entertained on here while you recover (even if you're not up to joining in) but hopefully you will find yourself with itchy fingers just dying to be let loose on a keyboard and that alone should be enough to keep Dee hard at it with the updates because we all know how much trouble she gets into when you are doing the reporting!! :rotfl2::rotfl2:
 
Love the views from the windows in Lombards Dee though the ones from your table not so much :confused3 Hate it when you are given a rubbish table-we just ask to be moved now as its happened so many times I think the staff are just on auto-pilot and don't realise :confused3
The food looks great for seafood but as you know I'm not really a fish eater (unless you count cod and chips-think Rose and Crown ) but that milkshake looks amazing ! I'd go just for the milkshake ;)
 
Hmmm, yeah, I guess the table at Lombard's wasn't quite as good, made even worse since there was virtually nobody there. :confused3

Haha, I look at that photo of "Disaster" and all I see is "That's where the Walking Dead were... walking" :laughing:
 

Always have problems eating seafood in Florida- I'm always afraid that coming from NE that it won't be as good, especially a 'lobsta' roll and clam 'chowda'. :rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:
 
The expanded Simpsons area looks awesome! We watched the Simpsons religiously when I was in college (late 1980's to early 1990's) so I have a nostalgic love for all things Simpsons. :lovestruc
Sorry your dining experience was disappointing. It's so hard to know if it was just an unfortunate seating or the restaurant is less good than before...

Amanda
 
what a bummer about the meal, and odd that they gave you such a meh view when clearly others were available.

The lobster mac and sweet potato fries looks good! Dessert sounds strange at best.
 
So sorry to take so long to get to replies, and sincere apologies to everyone for getting so behind on your wonderful trip reports. I'm going to do my best to catch up with everyone in the next few days!


Don't you hate when a restaurant is fairly empty and you get a crappy seat. *sigh*

At least you got great pictures from the window. Nice perspective of the park.

You food looks yummy. Glad the food was an A. I'm not sure I would care for that peanut butter dessert shooter either.

The boys were really hoping for a tank-view table. Honestly, I was too. I suppose I should have asked if we could be seated downstairs, but I had no idea what would be awaiting us in the upstairs dining room, and I hated to be a PITA.

The window views were really good. No table would have all of the views, but at least I could get up and check them all out.

:)


Phew, all caught up. Great start to US. We like the Universal parks, but don't feel as immersed while in them while we're there. But don't get me wrong, I love the rides. I loooove The Simpsons ride (but I still kinda miss Back to the Future), despicable Me is a lame "ride" but I'm a sucker for that movie. And I'll save everything I love about WWoHP for when that chapter comes around the bend.

Onto the food, I've never eaten at a TS restaurant in the parks. I was struck by how reasonable the prices were for your lunches! Even though the atmosphere sucked, the food looked good!

Can't wait to hear more!

P.S. I kinda liked NM's shadow trip report, can we hear more?

Can't wait for your Universal update!!!

I guess this is the place where I should post the picture of the last remaining relics from Back to the future- the Delorean and the train:





You're right- the prices weren't too bad. You can easily rack up a bill of $60 for a counter service at Disney for a family of 4!

;)


We ate at Lombards on ourvtrip. We actually got the tank table but the food was just ok. Inthink we will try Finnegans next time as well.

:thumbsup2


Ehhh. Too bad about the less than exciting seating. I hate getting a boring seat when there are so many others to choose from! Nice views from the windows though!

Glad the meals were all pretty good, those desserts look pretty tasty!

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I'm not really sorry we ate there, but it sounds like I should have considered some other options or at least asked for a different table.

:)


From what I remember, Lombards was good. We didn't get the tank table but sat a couple of tables away.

When I read the lobster had Dijon I thought...what??! As well, but remembered you weren't in New England.
I had a fantastic lobster roll at a place called Flo's clam shack last week. It's in R.I. And we go there often mostly for the fried clams and clam cakes- soooo good!!! Yum. :)

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Love a good lobster roll!

I had hoped to try the ones at Hurricane Hanna's or Board Walk while we were at the Beach Club, but that never happened.

Mark and I used to work at Weathervane Seafoods, a small chain in Maine and NH. No, not where we met (that was junior high)

:yay:


That sucks that you got a crappy view but the food looked delicious!! I haven't eaten at Lombard's before. I have tried Finnegan's but it has been a looong time. Looks like a great place to try next time :thumbsup2

It is so strange after so many years of the Disney dining experience of planning meals so far in advanced, that it just doesn't seem right to not have a reservation for the restaurants at Universal/IoA!

;)


That depends on if Dee slacks off or not... I'll be out of commission next week while I have my gall bladder out but I may be able to come up with a narcotic induced fog of a doozy, parallel universe sort of a trip report.

I also wonder if Buzzy the Fly is going to make an appearance in Dee's Travels. He has managed to infest himself in many a guest experience at the BC this summer. We will have to see if he joins the family for an ADR or two, not to mention a Sunken Treasure or three! (He is SUCH a Lush!)

~NM

Best wishes this week, Ninja! Please let us know how you are doing when you can!!!

:hug:


Love the views from the windows in Lombards Dee though the ones from your table not so much :confused3 Hate it when you are given a rubbish table-we just ask to be moved now as its happened so many times I think the staff are just on auto-pilot and don't realise :confused3
The food looks great for seafood but as you know I'm not really a fish eater (unless you count cod and chips-think Rose and Crown ) but that milkshake looks amazing ! I'd go just for the milkshake ;)

The milkshake looks almost bigger than Ben!!!

:rotfl2:



Hmmm, yeah, I guess the table at Lombard's wasn't quite as good, made even worse since there was virtually nobody there. :confused3

Haha, I look at that photo of "Disaster" and all I see is "That's where the Walking Dead were... walking" :laughing:

:lmao:

That's funny! We didn't see any zombies, but WE were close to it by the end of that day!



Always have problems eating seafood in Florida- I'm always afraid that coming from NE that it won't be as good, especially a 'lobsta' roll and clam 'chowda'. :rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:

Yeah, not really sure what we were thinking. We are about 15 minutes from the beach, and are surrounded by countless excellent seafood places. And that's what we order in Florida???

:confused3


The expanded Simpsons area looks awesome! We watched the Simpsons religiously when I was in college (late 1980's to early 1990's) so I have a nostalgic love for all things Simpsons. :lovestruc
Sorry your dining experience was disappointing. It's so hard to know if it was just an unfortunate seating or the restaurant is less good than before...

Amanda

The expansion is great, and they are building even more in that area!

Ironically, my favorite thing was the walls, which will come down once the construction is done!

:lmao:


what a bummer about the meal, and odd that they gave you such a meh view when clearly others were available.

The lobster mac and sweet potato fries looks good! Dessert sounds strange at best.

Wish I had the opportunity to sample the lobster mac & cheese, but taking food off the plate of the teen could have placed me in grave danger! He doesn't like sweet potato fries, though, so I got to sample those!

:goodvibes
 
We've been to Weathervane before. There used to be one in Dartmouth ( a long time ago) a couple of towns away from me.
We went to one for lunch last year in Kittery. :)

I am having " lobsta" today. Yay!!!

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Is that a more recent picture of the train and delorian? It's in a different spot then where it was when we saw it last year.
I LOVE the Simpsons ride. It's our families favorite Universal ride for sure and might be one of our all time favorites or in the top 10. I will say Back to the Future is still my all time favorite...I so wish it was still there.

That whole area is great though. you are making me want to go back again soon!
 
We've been to Weathervane before. There used to be one in Dartmouth ( a long time ago) a couple of towns away from me.
We went to one for lunch last year in Kittery. :)

I am having " lobsta" today. Yay!!!

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We actually had lunch with my dad at the Weathervane in Dover (NH) last week. The boys ordered the "Steamed Supreme"- 1/2 lb. mussels, 1/2 lb. steamers and 2 lobster claws.

It was the first time the boys have tried steamers. They liked them, but Nate actually prefers mussels.


Is that a more recent picture of the train and delorian? It's in a different spot then where it was when we saw it last year.
I LOVE the Simpsons ride. It's our families favorite Universal ride for sure and might be one of our all time favorites or in the top 10. I will say Back to the Future is still my all time favorite...I so wish it was still there.

That whole area is great though. you are making me want to go back again soon!

Yes, I think they moved them. I think they were near New York/Central Park last time we visited. I don't think I ever did the Back to the Future Ride. :sad1:
 
I decided to start on the Disney portion of this trip report- interspersing stories and pictures with posts I am doing about Universal. I’ll have everything indexed in the 2nd post of the report, so if it gets confusing, you can just follow one or the other.

Except for this upcoming update, which has both.

Tuesday July 16 was check-in day at the Beach Club for our Disney trip.

But first, we have a little more magic to attend to.





We still had admissions for Universal/Islands of Adventure, so we started our day at the 7 am early opening of the Wizarding World.

I’ll be posting LOADS of pictures later in this report, but for now I will just add a few specific to this morning.



We had seen Olivander’s Wand Show earlier in the week, where an older teen girl all dressed in Gryffindor gear was chosen by the wandmaker. As we walked by the forming line this morning, I noticed there were only about a dozen people in line, which means we would be in the next group, and more importantly, only one other young person in that “tween-early teen” demographic of children who have a good shot at being picked to participate in the show. Since the odds were ever in our favor (oops-wrong movie) and you don’t get much better than 1-2 odds of being selected for that show (maybe 2 out of 3 since Nate is still an outside contender), we got into line.

We were let in, and the helper-wizard placed Ben and the other youngster, a girl, front and center in the room.

And the wandmaker chose…

The girl!

Who didn’t speak English, so there was a lot of pantomime going on during the show.


Slightly disappointing, but it was still worth a shot!







Although the wand show is very short, about 5 minutes, it did put us a little bit behind for the wait for Forbidden Journey, the only ride at US/IoA that does not have an express pass line. But we were fairly far along in the greenhouse, and since Hogwarts Castle is arguably the best queue ever, we enjoyed our time in line, and once again the ride.





Picture from another day:





We rode Flight of the Hippogriff, a very short, tame coaster.

And then things fell apart just a bit. Ben and I decided to do Forbidden Journey one more time using the Single Rider line, while Mark and Nate rode Dragon Challenge. We would meet back at our Butter Beer Spot, and the first group there would order.

I had my phone with me, but Mark and Nate did not. When we entered the Single Rider Line, we were told it would be 10 minutes and we waited in a part of the castle where you couldn’t see the regular line. By the time we got to the Gryffindor Common Room, where you merge with the regular line, it had probably been 20 minutes, with 5 or 10 more to go.

Meanwhile, Mark and Nate were somewhat fuming over their frozen butter beer. They had gone on Dueling Dragons once (there are two different tracks), which takes about 10 minutes total, then ordered the drinks and then waited and waited for us. Mark finds waiting around, not doing anything to be very frustrating!

There was a little “unpleasantness” as we arrived, and Nate and Mark took off to do the other track on Dragon Challenge. Ben and I finished the butter beer and took pictures of nearby windows as we waited.




Once the guys returned and we reunited, tempers had settled and we were ready to move on.


Our destination was one more ride on Spiderman for Ben and me, and one more go on the Hulk for Nate and Ben. Many of you have seen the results of the pictures I took while Ben and I waited, but they are some of my favorite of the trip, so I will post them again.

I discovered that I had actually captured a picture of Mark and Nate riding the Hulk when I took this picture. That's them, 4th row from the front, on the left.





Here's a crop of the picture:





It was just after 10 when we started to make our way back to the Hard Rock for checkout. The boys went ahead to Emilio’s to pick up some breakfast pastries and yogurt parfaits and back to the room for last minute packing.

I stayed behind to go to the photo shop where I could pick up the 5x7 (or 8x10 if preferred) print that was included in our Photo Connect package. I chose the “Sees No Evil. Hears No Evil. Speaks No Evil. Refuses to Participate” Ripsaw Falls picture.





On the way out, there was a photographer taking pictures of the Islands of Adventure entrance icon, so I stopped and had a few pictures taken- getting my money’s worth, even at the last possible seconds.











Checkout was very smooth, except there was an issue with a charge that had been reversed at one of the merchandise shops the night before, but was still appearing on our room bill. I just showed my receipts and it was fixed.

We waited for our driver Rick from Ed Korgan Transportation, who would be bringing us to the Beach Club. He arrived shortly before 11 and we were on our way back “Home”


Continued in Next Post:
 


Spoiler Alert: We were NOT upgraded to a suite (as indicated above), but we ain’t complaining!!! I just had to post this Jumble!


The ride to the Beach Club was uneventful- not a “Magical Express”, but not bad at all.


I was excited as we approached:









And then my anticipation ramped up as we passed signs that said “EPCOT RESORTS”





I have mentioned this earlier in this report and on the Beach Club FAQ board. This was my first trip back to the Beach Club since I volunteered to manage that forum. As I told Mark when we arrived, “Although I 'visit' this resort every day, today I am actually here!” It was surreal!











Now this is the part of the report where normally I would give an overview of the resort and post pictures of the lobby, restaurants, grounds, pool, etc. but I am not going to do that for a couple of reasons:

1) I still have not organized all of my Beach Club Photos
2) There is already a place where you can get all of that information ;)


We were brought up to the 5th floor to check-in.





I spy with my little eye a string bag with a customized Beach Club Resort button!





My requests had been for a full balcony, please and a daybed, if possible. We didn’t need one but Nate prefers his own bed to sharing one with his brother. CL CM Vilma informed us that we had a room with an extra-large balcony, daybed and, score, a water view! We had booked a garden view, but we were magically upgraded! I told Vilma that I was close to crying tears of joy when she described our room!

The boys went to get snacks and drinks while Mark and I checked in.

Can you all picture me sitting on my hands and biting my tongue as Vilma is telling me all about the Beach Club???

Our room was ready :woohoo: so we decided to dump our carry-ons and check it out. The room was a pretty distant walk from the lounge, down a second corridor, but it was a great location and very quiet.


Next Up: Check Out Our Room!!!


.
 
If you look on your first picture, up at the balcony on the top floor with the crap it, that's OUR crap.....I mean our lovely wet water gear drying out! Wait, when did you check in? Wednesday? Then it might be Joel, Jay and Amy's beach towels from their day at Cocoa Beach.

I'm so excited to read about your time at BC!
 
GAH you are going to make us wait to see your room?

:sad:

FUN last morning at IoA though I can so totally see that butterbeer brewhaha happening. It can be frustrating, especially when you know the clock is ticking, to feel like you are waiting forever for another group. Of course, had they had their phones....

What a bummer Ben wasn't chosen at Ollivanders! We've still not done it and since are not on property in Dec/Jan it is probably unlikely unless one of the boys really wants to.

Lord knows my dad will. :rotfl:

I'm still amazed you did all that pre-checkout, and got out in time. I can only pull off something like that on a trip without my family.
 
I'm all excited now to see your room and hear all you get up to on your Disney portion of the trip. Love hearing all about universal too so I'm looking forward to reading more of everything really!
 
OMG I can't wait to see the room!!!

My boys do not like to sleep together either, but we weren't able to get a daybed when we stayed there just a rollaway so that is huge you scored the daybed!! Yay!

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But first, we have a little more magic to attend to.

Cute pictures. I am a huge Harry Potter fan. The only reason I would go to Universal would be to see all the HP stuff. Maybe I'll get over there someday. It looks awesome. :)


Am I the only one who thinks that the answer should be "pixie dust"? ;)

Can you all picture me sitting on my hands and biting my tongue as Vilma is telling me all about the Beach Club???
That's funny. Did she get anything wrong? ;)

If you look on your first picture, up at the balcony on the top floor with the crap it, that's OUR crap.....I mean our lovely wet water gear drying out! Wait, when did you check in? Wednesday? Then it might be Joel, Jay and Amy's beach towels from their day at Cocoa Beach.

I'm so excited to read about your time at BC!

What a weird coincidence that your stuff is in her picture. :goodvibes
 














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