TigerLilly's Mom
<font color=FF99FF>Victim of a drive-by tagging!
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,471
Just back from a wonderful trip, the kids really enjoyed themselves, and my hubby and I did too. I'm not one for writing day by day trip reports so I'll just do the highlights of everything. I am also happy to answer any questions. This board was so helpful to me planning our trip.
Hard Rock Hotel: I love the hotel. I think it is gorgeous, love the pool and the club level room was great. But we had so many problems that I will soon be writing to let Loews and the Hard Rock how disappointed I am.
First they checked us in an hour late. I felt something was fishy, and when I went into the room, I found out why. Someone had smoked in the room, and they had obviously spent that hour trying to get the horrid smell out. (It was a non smoking room) I felt like they should have been up front about it. When I complained, they offered to have an ozone machine brought in. After 3 times of asking and being reassured it would be brought in, I finally (at 11:00pm) told them I needed to change rooms immediately in the morning, because by now my kids were sleeping. Ozone machine was never brought in. My kids are very allergic and the smell in that room simply made them sick. The next day we were moved to another room and it was fine. Awesome pool view, could see the fireworks at night.
Rowena and Kelly on the club staff were super, everyone else really didn't seem to know what they were doing. I'm not sure if I would pay for club level again. The breakfast was fine if you were there right at 7:30. If you got there after that, all the fruit was gone except for a few pieces floating in the juice (gross!!) and all the good donuts were gone.
I was embarressed to be in the club lounge at night - people acted like animals for a couple mini hot dogs and cheese cubes. After the first couple nights, we just went in to get beers and then hightailed out of there ASAP! And, yes, there was a guy in there one morning wearing his bathrobe like he was at home. No one said anything to him. The next morning, my little girl went in with stocking feet because my DH was trying to dry her wet shoes with the hair dryer, and the guy in the lounge told her she had to leave! Please, what about the half naked guy walking around?!! LOL
Our welcome gift was sent, but it was wrong. They brought us fruit and water! On club level! We could have all the fruit and water we needed. No biggie though. The pool was really fun, the kids loved the slide and DH and I loved lounging and having drinks brought to us.
Our biggest disappointment was the character dinner we booked at the Sunset Grill. We went in and had a super waitress - Nanette. Food was ok at best. After getting drinks, dinner and dessert - no characters except Stoney Moose (don't ask). We get the $70 bill and DH brings VERY heartbroken children back to the room while I speak with the manager. We were told that two surprize Universal characters would be there. Well, the manager tells me he cannot do anything, the characters just never showed up and they had to scramble just to get Stoney. He told me the waitresses were supposed to tell everyone and they were also telling people before seating them. Well, we were never told. Let me tell you, it is shocking to go to a character dinner and have no characters. The manager said he would take of the bill (thanks so much), and if the characters showed up, he would personally send them right up to our room to meet the kids - yeah right, you know that is going to happen right?
Restuarants - We ate at Margaritavill twice and loved it. I love Jimmy Buffet and the food was superb. I had a crab cake sandwich, DH had fish sandwich, DS had the Cheeseburger in Paradise, and DD had spaghetti and meatballs. The kids menu is excellent. The spaghetti was delicious, I tried it and the portion was huge. Same with cheeseburger. We all had the same thing when we went back and it was just as good.
Confisco Grille - OK nothing special. I did not like my pasta at all, it had sort of a canned taste. They were late bring mine because she put the wrong order in, so my family was done eating by the time I got mine. She did offer me a salad while I was waiting so we could all eat together, which I thought was very nice. DH had turkey club and thought it was fine. DS had cheeseburger (yes, again), and DD had chicken tenders that had a really cool crispy coating that was colored, hard to explain, but she liked it fine. The woman in back of us complained about her food to the waitress and manager for like 15 minutes. She said EVERYTHING was bad and went into great detail about how bad it was. She said she would only pay for the ribs because her kids were scarfing them down - poor kids probably never got to eat in peace the whole vacation.
Other than that, we just ate at counter service places and the food was fine.
Universal Studios - Loved Shrek and Jimmy Nuetron (kids wanted to do this one twice) Posted time for Shrek on the last day we were there was 135 minutes!!! FOTL is the only way to go and for that reason alone I would stay at the Hard Rock again. My kids (8and 5) are brave kids they did almost everything (my son did the Hulk 4 times), but they were scared out of their minds on Earthquake. Just a heads up because I had assumed from all I read that it would not be a big deal. But it really scared them - don't really know why. Jaws was fun, Did MIB about 5 times (we won all five times, but still just got cosmically average) and liked Back to the Future too. My daughter LOVED Barney. She is not a Barney fan, but she really enjoyed this show, probably because it was one thing that was geared specifically toward little ones. Also, did ET twice, Woody twice and they loved The Curious George area. As parents, we hated the Fivel play area. We couldn't tell where the kids were, it is very hard to tell. Thought we had lost DS for good, only to find out he was waiting 40 minutes for the water slide!! Terminator 2 was ok. That is about all I can remember about Universal.
Islands of Adventure - I LOVE the theming in this place, it is really, really great. Port of Entry is so great looking, as is Superhero Island, and Suess Landing. Actually, all the lands are just fabulous. Loved the Hulk - went on four time total. I am not a big coaster person, but this was very smooth and cool. Our favorite ride by far was Spiderman. I think we did this 6 times (not in a row). It is an excellent ride and worth the price of admission alone. Loved the Cat in the Hat ride, went twice and also the Caro-suess-el. The One Fish ride does have an express line (I had read here that it didn't) and we used it. On the Lost Continent we liked The Flying Unicorn (my daughter's (5) favorite), we went on three times. Did not like Poseidon's Fury at all - the building is just incredible, they just need to turn this into a ride somehow. It was so crowded in the rooms we couldn't see anything, and even with FOTL we waited over a half hour to see it. My DH and DS didn't really like the Dueling Dragons, it was a bit more scary to my DS than the Hulk. Loved the Jurassic Park River Adventure, we did this at night and it was cool!! My 5 year old DD is such a sport, she did it with us so we could all go together. The drop was fun and we got soaked in the front row. Tried to do the Pteradon Flyers at night and it was an hour wait. Went first thing in the morning and walked right on. It was ok, but I wouldn't wait too long for it. We loved the Popeye ride in Toon Lagoon, we were already soaked from Jurassic Park, but we would have got very wet if we weren't.
Also, it is nice to walk around at night and have a beer or two. Quite a bit different from Disney, where you can't even find a beer!
Sea World was a night mare! It was so crowded and much different than I remember it from nine years ago. We were there for 5 1/2 hours and really didn't get to do anything but three shows. The Pets Ahoy show is awesome though!
Overall, we really enjoyed this trip. I will try to post a link to some pictures over on the resort board . I am happy to answer any questions. Hopefully, DH and I will be making a grown up trip very soon, I would love to do City Walk at night!
Hard Rock Hotel: I love the hotel. I think it is gorgeous, love the pool and the club level room was great. But we had so many problems that I will soon be writing to let Loews and the Hard Rock how disappointed I am.
First they checked us in an hour late. I felt something was fishy, and when I went into the room, I found out why. Someone had smoked in the room, and they had obviously spent that hour trying to get the horrid smell out. (It was a non smoking room) I felt like they should have been up front about it. When I complained, they offered to have an ozone machine brought in. After 3 times of asking and being reassured it would be brought in, I finally (at 11:00pm) told them I needed to change rooms immediately in the morning, because by now my kids were sleeping. Ozone machine was never brought in. My kids are very allergic and the smell in that room simply made them sick. The next day we were moved to another room and it was fine. Awesome pool view, could see the fireworks at night.
Rowena and Kelly on the club staff were super, everyone else really didn't seem to know what they were doing. I'm not sure if I would pay for club level again. The breakfast was fine if you were there right at 7:30. If you got there after that, all the fruit was gone except for a few pieces floating in the juice (gross!!) and all the good donuts were gone.
I was embarressed to be in the club lounge at night - people acted like animals for a couple mini hot dogs and cheese cubes. After the first couple nights, we just went in to get beers and then hightailed out of there ASAP! And, yes, there was a guy in there one morning wearing his bathrobe like he was at home. No one said anything to him. The next morning, my little girl went in with stocking feet because my DH was trying to dry her wet shoes with the hair dryer, and the guy in the lounge told her she had to leave! Please, what about the half naked guy walking around?!! LOL
Our welcome gift was sent, but it was wrong. They brought us fruit and water! On club level! We could have all the fruit and water we needed. No biggie though. The pool was really fun, the kids loved the slide and DH and I loved lounging and having drinks brought to us.
Our biggest disappointment was the character dinner we booked at the Sunset Grill. We went in and had a super waitress - Nanette. Food was ok at best. After getting drinks, dinner and dessert - no characters except Stoney Moose (don't ask). We get the $70 bill and DH brings VERY heartbroken children back to the room while I speak with the manager. We were told that two surprize Universal characters would be there. Well, the manager tells me he cannot do anything, the characters just never showed up and they had to scramble just to get Stoney. He told me the waitresses were supposed to tell everyone and they were also telling people before seating them. Well, we were never told. Let me tell you, it is shocking to go to a character dinner and have no characters. The manager said he would take of the bill (thanks so much), and if the characters showed up, he would personally send them right up to our room to meet the kids - yeah right, you know that is going to happen right?
Restuarants - We ate at Margaritavill twice and loved it. I love Jimmy Buffet and the food was superb. I had a crab cake sandwich, DH had fish sandwich, DS had the Cheeseburger in Paradise, and DD had spaghetti and meatballs. The kids menu is excellent. The spaghetti was delicious, I tried it and the portion was huge. Same with cheeseburger. We all had the same thing when we went back and it was just as good.
Confisco Grille - OK nothing special. I did not like my pasta at all, it had sort of a canned taste. They were late bring mine because she put the wrong order in, so my family was done eating by the time I got mine. She did offer me a salad while I was waiting so we could all eat together, which I thought was very nice. DH had turkey club and thought it was fine. DS had cheeseburger (yes, again), and DD had chicken tenders that had a really cool crispy coating that was colored, hard to explain, but she liked it fine. The woman in back of us complained about her food to the waitress and manager for like 15 minutes. She said EVERYTHING was bad and went into great detail about how bad it was. She said she would only pay for the ribs because her kids were scarfing them down - poor kids probably never got to eat in peace the whole vacation.
Other than that, we just ate at counter service places and the food was fine.
Universal Studios - Loved Shrek and Jimmy Nuetron (kids wanted to do this one twice) Posted time for Shrek on the last day we were there was 135 minutes!!! FOTL is the only way to go and for that reason alone I would stay at the Hard Rock again. My kids (8and 5) are brave kids they did almost everything (my son did the Hulk 4 times), but they were scared out of their minds on Earthquake. Just a heads up because I had assumed from all I read that it would not be a big deal. But it really scared them - don't really know why. Jaws was fun, Did MIB about 5 times (we won all five times, but still just got cosmically average) and liked Back to the Future too. My daughter LOVED Barney. She is not a Barney fan, but she really enjoyed this show, probably because it was one thing that was geared specifically toward little ones. Also, did ET twice, Woody twice and they loved The Curious George area. As parents, we hated the Fivel play area. We couldn't tell where the kids were, it is very hard to tell. Thought we had lost DS for good, only to find out he was waiting 40 minutes for the water slide!! Terminator 2 was ok. That is about all I can remember about Universal.
Islands of Adventure - I LOVE the theming in this place, it is really, really great. Port of Entry is so great looking, as is Superhero Island, and Suess Landing. Actually, all the lands are just fabulous. Loved the Hulk - went on four time total. I am not a big coaster person, but this was very smooth and cool. Our favorite ride by far was Spiderman. I think we did this 6 times (not in a row). It is an excellent ride and worth the price of admission alone. Loved the Cat in the Hat ride, went twice and also the Caro-suess-el. The One Fish ride does have an express line (I had read here that it didn't) and we used it. On the Lost Continent we liked The Flying Unicorn (my daughter's (5) favorite), we went on three times. Did not like Poseidon's Fury at all - the building is just incredible, they just need to turn this into a ride somehow. It was so crowded in the rooms we couldn't see anything, and even with FOTL we waited over a half hour to see it. My DH and DS didn't really like the Dueling Dragons, it was a bit more scary to my DS than the Hulk. Loved the Jurassic Park River Adventure, we did this at night and it was cool!! My 5 year old DD is such a sport, she did it with us so we could all go together. The drop was fun and we got soaked in the front row. Tried to do the Pteradon Flyers at night and it was an hour wait. Went first thing in the morning and walked right on. It was ok, but I wouldn't wait too long for it. We loved the Popeye ride in Toon Lagoon, we were already soaked from Jurassic Park, but we would have got very wet if we weren't.
Also, it is nice to walk around at night and have a beer or two. Quite a bit different from Disney, where you can't even find a beer!
Sea World was a night mare! It was so crowded and much different than I remember it from nine years ago. We were there for 5 1/2 hours and really didn't get to do anything but three shows. The Pets Ahoy show is awesome though!
Overall, we really enjoyed this trip. I will try to post a link to some pictures over on the resort board . I am happy to answer any questions. Hopefully, DH and I will be making a grown up trip very soon, I would love to do City Walk at night!
