*Marty_Mouse_House*
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2004
- Messages
- 60
Vacationers:
Husband - early 40s
Self - early 40s (college sweeathearts - married 20 years)
Son - 15
Beagle - 9
Active Cat - 3
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Our day at Universal continued. After doing the new Mummy ride and enjoying it, we continued to the Jaws ride. I found this ride to be pretty fun - a sort of hyped up version of the Jungle Cruise. That's what I did - compared every Universal ride with one of the Disney rides. My son wasn't wild about the loud explosions here. Next was Men In Black (sort of like Buzz Lightyear). We got on twice in a row because we all enjoyed it. DH said he felt the spinning of the car more when we were sitting in the 2nd row instead of the 1st. We were so good with our scores that we were awarded "the suit" at the end (whatever that meant).
DS rode Back To The Future ("Star Tours") by himself while we looked over the merchandise in the gift shop. Then we rode E.T. ("Peter Pan") - a ride that I enjoyed - one of those non-scary and enjoyable rides. Next, I said that I would be willing to do Back To The Future if we went right then. As we were waiting in line, an employee (do they call them cast members here?) asked if there were a party of 3 so we raised our hand. This was a mistake. They put us in with a family of 5. I specifically told the employee I wanted to sit in the front row. I had sat crammed in the back row on a previous trip and got so jostled that I didn't enjoy myself, plus you couldn't see - a bad idea on a virtual ride. After the pre-show of Doc Brown in the little room, the family of 5 raced for the front row of the vehicle and then after they did some musical chairs, it ended up that the dad and 2 kids sat in the front (leaving 1 seat in the front) and the mom and 1 kid sat in the back row (leaving 2 seats in the back). Now I didn't know where to sit. My husband grabbed the front seat row - he wasn't going to be stuck sitting in the last row again either. My son had no choice but to sit in the back seat row. The whole set up with the car irked me (only because I knew I would get sick if I sat in the back row again) that I told the employee I wasn't going to ride it. They showed me out a door and said I could wait in the hall 5 minutes for the rest of my party. Now, I ride Star Tours and Body Wars and really enjoy them both. But this whole set up at Back To The Future was unnerving.
Next was the new Shrek 4-D movie. They had a little line set up out front for the "front of the line" people so we only waited a few minutes before the doors opened. Little did I know that this was just a precursor to going into Another room and more irritation before they actually let you into the theatre. This was the way Universal was set up. You couldn't get on a ride or see a show before standing in line outside, then they would "allow" you to go inside (before waiting around some more - usually while an employee rambles on and on over the microphone in order to cram more people in), then you finally get to shuffle in to see the attraction. We were let into the pre-show first which meant that we were crammed next to the front wall while they let the hundreds of other people in. When we finally got to actually see the movie, it was good although why did they feel like they had to make the seats jump around also? There was nobody sitting in front of us in 4 seats and with no weight on them, it was a little bit disconcerting as they were hurtling around during the horseback riding scene.
It was getting to be about lunchtime and we had already decided to eat at Jimmy Buffett's restaurant. We walked out of the park and headed that way. We ordered: lemonade - $1.95, chips and salsa (not on the menu but good) - $1.95, veggie burger - $8.25 (comes with fries), fried fish sandwich and fries - $9.95 and chicken quesadillas - $7.95. I ordered my usual ice water which was free, but the water tasted so bad that I couldn't drink it. We made our purchases in the gift shop and left.
It was starting to heat up and I was worried about my film in the car, and we had our cooler in there too as well as luggage (as we hadn't carried it into the hotel yet) so we decided to walk back to the hotel.
Later, we decided to continue our Universal day at Islands of Adventure. It was at this time that we were contemplating maybe not even going into the Universal parks tomorrow but just getting on the road early for going back home. (We originally thought that we might stay for a half day in the parks before heading home.) This left a question about our tickets. We had only used 1 day of a 3 day ticket ("buy 2 days and get the 3rd day free") and all 3 days had to be used within 7 days. I decided to ask guest services at the park what they would do. They were very accommodating and said that they would reissue the tickets so that we would have 1 day left on each one which would be good forever. We would lose the free 3rd day however. This sounded good to us because we knew we wouldn't be using the 3rd day on this trip anyway. So that's what we did.
We walked into Islands of Adventure. The first ride we did was Spiderman. This was a favorite of ours on the last trip and it was good this time too. I have a limit as to how many times in a row I can do 3-D and virtual reality rides before they make me sick - but this time I was able to do Spiderman once with my eyes open and a 2nd time with my eyes closed part-time (only during the dropping scenes). The boys did Dr. Doom Freefall next ("Tower of Terror"). As I don't do Tower of Terror, I won't do this ride either, even though I can see what this one does. While I was waiting I heard one mom say, "That doesn't look too bad". And then the dad said, "Well, you can go do it then, because I'll be waiting right here!" It kind of sums it up.
Next, DS did Jurassic Park ("Splash Mountain") alone. We did it on the last trip and although it took me 3 days in order to get my courage up to do it, the water drop really wasn't that bad. I don't know if it was because of the big rafts or what, but I really didn't feel the drop very much. I just didn't want to get wet today. I was really looking forward to the Triceratops walkway, but that was closed. Also, by this time we had missed the last Sinbad stunt show.
Around this time, the skies started darkening up a bit and they had closed One Fish Two Fish ("Dumbo") also. DS and I got on the Seuss Carousel ("Cinderella's Carousel"). Next we got on the Cat In The Hat ride ("Winnie The Pooh") but DH had gotten enough spinning in Men In Black and Cat In The Hat does spin your car a little bit, so he sat this one out. The rain was starting to come down so we were getting ready to head out of the park. As we were walking past Spiderman, DS decided he wanted to do it again, so DH and I waited in the gift shop. It was then that the sky really fell out and tons of people were coming in to wait it out. As there were no covered walkways or continuous shops here, that was all anybody could do. Finally after about an hour it wasn't letting up and everybody was sitting on the display tables or the floor. Nobody was buying anything except ponchos anyway. DH said to DS, "It's going to be really hard to get your Mother back to Universal again." After our son had thumbed through all of the spiderman books in the store for the umpteenth time, I suggested that we might as well ride the ride again rather than sit there some more. I hoped that I hadn't gone over my "virtual reality" limit. I kept my eyes closed most of the time - then we headed back to the hotel through the rain. I was wondering why I had given up another day in Disney for this.
Back at the hotel, we changed and decided to take the car over to some of the cute little shopping centers we had seen on the drive over from Disney. We stopped at Barnes & Noble, and Publix (I had never been in one before) and it was really nice and we shopped for juice, fruit and assorted donuts and pastries for tomorrow's breakfast. My husband peeked in the Edwin Watts Golf shop. We were trying to decide what to do for dinner and I made the suggestion of going back to that fabulous McDonald's that we ate breakfast at! This was agreed to. Tonight, the chef was there cooking everyone's made to order pasta. We ordered chicken parmesan with ravioli and garlic bread - $8.99, and ravioli with marinara and garlic bread - $6.49. They also offered personal pizza - $3.29-3.59, gourmet sandwiches and paninis - $5.49-5.89, and cheesecake desserts - $5.29. After the chef in the white hat cooked it up, the waitress brought our meals on real china and silverware. We thought it was great and too much to eat.
We made our way back to the hotel (and saw a couple of golden retrievers and labradors in the lobby, as they allow dogs) which made us think about our Beagle back home. I knew that if we had an early enough wake-up call, we could drive home in time to pick up the Beagle and Active Cat at their respective kennels. I had the call set up for 6:30 a.m. and spent the night dreaming on my Contour Cloud.
Tomorrow: The Trip Home and Summary
----------------------------
Previous Disney Trips - 30 plus trips in 32 years
Since being married we have stayed at: Fort Wilderness Campground, Fort Wilderness Cabins, Yacht Club, Caribbean Beach, Polynesian, Beach Club, Swan and Dolphin, All-Star Sports, All-Star Music, Port Orleans Riverside, Contemporary Resort
Husband - early 40s
Self - early 40s (college sweeathearts - married 20 years)
Son - 15
Beagle - 9
Active Cat - 3
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Our day at Universal continued. After doing the new Mummy ride and enjoying it, we continued to the Jaws ride. I found this ride to be pretty fun - a sort of hyped up version of the Jungle Cruise. That's what I did - compared every Universal ride with one of the Disney rides. My son wasn't wild about the loud explosions here. Next was Men In Black (sort of like Buzz Lightyear). We got on twice in a row because we all enjoyed it. DH said he felt the spinning of the car more when we were sitting in the 2nd row instead of the 1st. We were so good with our scores that we were awarded "the suit" at the end (whatever that meant).
DS rode Back To The Future ("Star Tours") by himself while we looked over the merchandise in the gift shop. Then we rode E.T. ("Peter Pan") - a ride that I enjoyed - one of those non-scary and enjoyable rides. Next, I said that I would be willing to do Back To The Future if we went right then. As we were waiting in line, an employee (do they call them cast members here?) asked if there were a party of 3 so we raised our hand. This was a mistake. They put us in with a family of 5. I specifically told the employee I wanted to sit in the front row. I had sat crammed in the back row on a previous trip and got so jostled that I didn't enjoy myself, plus you couldn't see - a bad idea on a virtual ride. After the pre-show of Doc Brown in the little room, the family of 5 raced for the front row of the vehicle and then after they did some musical chairs, it ended up that the dad and 2 kids sat in the front (leaving 1 seat in the front) and the mom and 1 kid sat in the back row (leaving 2 seats in the back). Now I didn't know where to sit. My husband grabbed the front seat row - he wasn't going to be stuck sitting in the last row again either. My son had no choice but to sit in the back seat row. The whole set up with the car irked me (only because I knew I would get sick if I sat in the back row again) that I told the employee I wasn't going to ride it. They showed me out a door and said I could wait in the hall 5 minutes for the rest of my party. Now, I ride Star Tours and Body Wars and really enjoy them both. But this whole set up at Back To The Future was unnerving.
Next was the new Shrek 4-D movie. They had a little line set up out front for the "front of the line" people so we only waited a few minutes before the doors opened. Little did I know that this was just a precursor to going into Another room and more irritation before they actually let you into the theatre. This was the way Universal was set up. You couldn't get on a ride or see a show before standing in line outside, then they would "allow" you to go inside (before waiting around some more - usually while an employee rambles on and on over the microphone in order to cram more people in), then you finally get to shuffle in to see the attraction. We were let into the pre-show first which meant that we were crammed next to the front wall while they let the hundreds of other people in. When we finally got to actually see the movie, it was good although why did they feel like they had to make the seats jump around also? There was nobody sitting in front of us in 4 seats and with no weight on them, it was a little bit disconcerting as they were hurtling around during the horseback riding scene.
It was getting to be about lunchtime and we had already decided to eat at Jimmy Buffett's restaurant. We walked out of the park and headed that way. We ordered: lemonade - $1.95, chips and salsa (not on the menu but good) - $1.95, veggie burger - $8.25 (comes with fries), fried fish sandwich and fries - $9.95 and chicken quesadillas - $7.95. I ordered my usual ice water which was free, but the water tasted so bad that I couldn't drink it. We made our purchases in the gift shop and left.
It was starting to heat up and I was worried about my film in the car, and we had our cooler in there too as well as luggage (as we hadn't carried it into the hotel yet) so we decided to walk back to the hotel.
Later, we decided to continue our Universal day at Islands of Adventure. It was at this time that we were contemplating maybe not even going into the Universal parks tomorrow but just getting on the road early for going back home. (We originally thought that we might stay for a half day in the parks before heading home.) This left a question about our tickets. We had only used 1 day of a 3 day ticket ("buy 2 days and get the 3rd day free") and all 3 days had to be used within 7 days. I decided to ask guest services at the park what they would do. They were very accommodating and said that they would reissue the tickets so that we would have 1 day left on each one which would be good forever. We would lose the free 3rd day however. This sounded good to us because we knew we wouldn't be using the 3rd day on this trip anyway. So that's what we did.
We walked into Islands of Adventure. The first ride we did was Spiderman. This was a favorite of ours on the last trip and it was good this time too. I have a limit as to how many times in a row I can do 3-D and virtual reality rides before they make me sick - but this time I was able to do Spiderman once with my eyes open and a 2nd time with my eyes closed part-time (only during the dropping scenes). The boys did Dr. Doom Freefall next ("Tower of Terror"). As I don't do Tower of Terror, I won't do this ride either, even though I can see what this one does. While I was waiting I heard one mom say, "That doesn't look too bad". And then the dad said, "Well, you can go do it then, because I'll be waiting right here!" It kind of sums it up.
Next, DS did Jurassic Park ("Splash Mountain") alone. We did it on the last trip and although it took me 3 days in order to get my courage up to do it, the water drop really wasn't that bad. I don't know if it was because of the big rafts or what, but I really didn't feel the drop very much. I just didn't want to get wet today. I was really looking forward to the Triceratops walkway, but that was closed. Also, by this time we had missed the last Sinbad stunt show.
Around this time, the skies started darkening up a bit and they had closed One Fish Two Fish ("Dumbo") also. DS and I got on the Seuss Carousel ("Cinderella's Carousel"). Next we got on the Cat In The Hat ride ("Winnie The Pooh") but DH had gotten enough spinning in Men In Black and Cat In The Hat does spin your car a little bit, so he sat this one out. The rain was starting to come down so we were getting ready to head out of the park. As we were walking past Spiderman, DS decided he wanted to do it again, so DH and I waited in the gift shop. It was then that the sky really fell out and tons of people were coming in to wait it out. As there were no covered walkways or continuous shops here, that was all anybody could do. Finally after about an hour it wasn't letting up and everybody was sitting on the display tables or the floor. Nobody was buying anything except ponchos anyway. DH said to DS, "It's going to be really hard to get your Mother back to Universal again." After our son had thumbed through all of the spiderman books in the store for the umpteenth time, I suggested that we might as well ride the ride again rather than sit there some more. I hoped that I hadn't gone over my "virtual reality" limit. I kept my eyes closed most of the time - then we headed back to the hotel through the rain. I was wondering why I had given up another day in Disney for this.
Back at the hotel, we changed and decided to take the car over to some of the cute little shopping centers we had seen on the drive over from Disney. We stopped at Barnes & Noble, and Publix (I had never been in one before) and it was really nice and we shopped for juice, fruit and assorted donuts and pastries for tomorrow's breakfast. My husband peeked in the Edwin Watts Golf shop. We were trying to decide what to do for dinner and I made the suggestion of going back to that fabulous McDonald's that we ate breakfast at! This was agreed to. Tonight, the chef was there cooking everyone's made to order pasta. We ordered chicken parmesan with ravioli and garlic bread - $8.99, and ravioli with marinara and garlic bread - $6.49. They also offered personal pizza - $3.29-3.59, gourmet sandwiches and paninis - $5.49-5.89, and cheesecake desserts - $5.29. After the chef in the white hat cooked it up, the waitress brought our meals on real china and silverware. We thought it was great and too much to eat.
We made our way back to the hotel (and saw a couple of golden retrievers and labradors in the lobby, as they allow dogs) which made us think about our Beagle back home. I knew that if we had an early enough wake-up call, we could drive home in time to pick up the Beagle and Active Cat at their respective kennels. I had the call set up for 6:30 a.m. and spent the night dreaming on my Contour Cloud.
Tomorrow: The Trip Home and Summary
----------------------------
Previous Disney Trips - 30 plus trips in 32 years
Since being married we have stayed at: Fort Wilderness Campground, Fort Wilderness Cabins, Yacht Club, Caribbean Beach, Polynesian, Beach Club, Swan and Dolphin, All-Star Sports, All-Star Music, Port Orleans Riverside, Contemporary Resort
