Let the Fin, Begin! We're back! (and with a few pics)

[strawberryblonde]

Wed. it is!! Hope we bump into you!

 

[SharkyGoddess]

Wed. it is!! Hope we bump into you!

One week and 2 days???? AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Things to buy! Stuff to pack!!!

Ahem... moment of panic is over for now.

I hope we bump into each other too!!! I'll figure out what I'm wearing and let you know, maybe we can meet for drinks before

 

[strawberryblonde]

One week and 2 days???? AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Things to buy! Stuff to pack!!!

Ahem... moment of panic is over for now.

I hope we bump into each other too!!! I'll figure out what I'm wearing and let you know, maybe we can meet for drinks before

Great idea! I like the sound of Finnegans (sp?) holding area for S+S, would be a fun place for a pre-party drink

I have no idea what we will be wearing that night, it will depend on the weather and/or mood. I have long strawberry hair and freckles and my DH has short dark hair and is on the tall side of average.

We take our doggie to the breeder's (for boarding) a week from today, so it is getting close! We will most likely pull our luggage out of storage this weekend and start to pack a bit. I'm feeling a bit guilty about leaving our puppy for the very first time...wondering how our packing and excitement will affect her. At least I know how much fun she will have with her sister, mom and auntie at the breeder's.

 

[SharkyGoddess]

Great idea! I like the sound of Finnegans (sp?) holding area for S+S, would be a fun place for a pre-party drink

I have no idea what we will be wearing that night, it will depend on the weather and/or mood. I have long strawberry hair and freckles and my DH has short dark hair and is on the tall side of average.

We take our doggie to the breeder's (for boarding) a week from today, so it is getting close! We will most likely pull our luggage out of storage this weekend and start to pack a bit. I'm feeling a bit guilty about leaving our puppy for the very first time...wondering how our packing and excitement will affect her. At least I know how much fun she will have with her sister, mom and auntie at the breeder's.

Sounds great! I have red hair with blonde highlites and will be wearing a purple Zombie shirt

See you there!!!

 

[SharkyGoddess]

I've missed a vital update to my TR!

I decided to help my little guy along in counting down the days until we leave by enlisting the help of none other than... THE TRIP FAERIE! For those of you who don't know her. The Trip Faerie helps kids patiently wait their most wonderous vacation departure dates by leaving them small gifts that all tie in to the trip itself and will give the kiddos something to play with on the long drive.

So far Squishy's TF has left him Spiderman PJs, a Spiderman lanyard, and two small Spiderman toys.

(pics to follow)

 

[SharkyGoddess]

*sigh*

So your resident clutz strikes again. How you may ask? Well let me tell you. 6 days out from our departure day and I decide to show a group of kids how NOT to fall down the stairs by doing a demonstration.

(waiting while everyone finishes laughing)

This past Saturday I took my DD and 4 of her friends to some local Haunted Houses as part of her Birthday Celebration. One house in particular has a wonderful atmosphere but is tricky to navigate in the dark. Soooo while heading down some stairs in pitch blackness, I loudly proclaim to my clan following me "Guys, y'all watch out for the stairs" right as I proceed to fall down them and jam my stinkin' knee! UGH!!! It's going to be ok I think but taking time off of it this week will be extremely difficult considering I've got my house to clean and packing to do all in preparation for our trip and doggie sitters.

Oh, but it gets better, I didn't just fall down the stairs once, oh no, I had to repeat the same action AGAIN while turning a corner where there were stairs.

I told the kids I was making sure they remembered how NOT to fall down stairs in the dark from our previous lesson.

 

[strawberryblonde]

Another redhead !! OK, I'll be looking for you and your purple shirt!

Sorry to hear of you trying to break your legs before your trip, safe travels....may you end up in Universal in one piece!

 

[mom2aandj]

sorry about your injury!! we will be there a few of the same days as you! I have decided I am close enough to the trip to begin compulsively checking weather.com---and the weather looks perfect for your so far!

 

[SharkyGoddess]

Another redhead !! OK, I'll be looking for you and your purple shirt!

Sorry to hear of you trying to break your legs before your trip, safe travels....may you end up in Universal in one piece!

Knee is felling perfect now! I sat around all week with my leg propped up lazy as can be!

I am as can be I am soooo excited and ready to leave... NOW!!!

 

[SharkyGoddess]

sorry about your injury!! we will be there a few of the same days as you! I have decided I am close enough to the trip to begin compulsively checking weather.com---and the weather looks perfect for your so far!

Thank you !!! Knee is much much better now

I've been all over the weather channels too. My iPhone is even loaded with weather apps just to be sure. Here's to hoping we all have beautiful weather while we're there!

 

[SharkyGoddess]

Hi everybody!!! I know it's been two weeks since we returned and I haven't updated my trip report, but it has been a hectic two weeks!

First of all, I have to apologize for the lack of pictures. I was so busy just enjoying my time "at home" in US/IOA that I didn't take my usual gazillion pics of every single second. There will be pics, but very few.

Starting off my disappointments, and I am SO SAD to even have this in my trip report, but I do have a few, VERY IMPORTANT complaints. Starting with Hard Rock hotel. (shaking head) I really cannot recommend this hotel to anyone. I was disheartened to arrive and find myself so unimpressed. The decor is mediocre. Sure, there is some very nice rock-n-roll memorabilia, but the rest of the hotel is, well, bland. I can't even really say "at least is was clean" because as we were sitting waiting for our room to be ready, well not sitting, but exploring the hotel, I looked up to notice that over the big windows in the lobby was the most disgusting growth of either mold or dust. It was nasty! The rooms were uninspiring as well. Very boring and remarkably small. Our bathroom had tiles in the shower that had been either damaged or fell out and were poorly GLUED back, the safety bar in the shower was broken and there was a bright orange "buy here pay here" sticker on the bathroom sink. Seriously. Housekeeping didn't see the screaming at you orange sticker?

Now for the Hard Rock All Access card. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY! This card was denied/refused from the word go. We were refused the use of the All Access when booking our room, being told we would need to use the card upon arrival. Ok, no biggie. It was also suggested I call frequently to check for room upgrades, because with our All Access we were to be given one should one be available. So, I did this and was told that I could not request a room upgrade over the phone, and had to wait until I arrived. Ok, maybe the All Access rep didn't know this. Hey, that happens. We arrive and present our All Access card only to be told we should have used it when booking our room. Um... WE TRIED TO! I got over this, and decided we would head to the park for a few hours of play and deal with the All Access mess when we got back.

Off to print our tickets. Should be simple, right? *sigh* They gave us 5 sets of HHN + Express tickets. Ok, now I accept full responsibility for not reading my email correctly when it confirmed my tickets, but correcting it should be simple. Right? Oh no. Not only was it a real time consumer, but they printed our tickets FIVE times and every single time the stupid things wouldn't scan at the gate. Ever had a gate attendant accuse you of trying to use fake tickets? I have. Thankfully a wonderful woman named Lydia opened the gates for us and told us to enjoy what was left of our night and to come see her after close and the whole mess would be corrected. She was WONDERFUL! The ticket issue was a headache, and kept us from enjoying the parks for about 2 hours, but in the end everything was fixed and they did it with smiles on their faces. AWESOME CUSTOMER SERVICE AWARD!!!! They even gave us a sticker to avoid the finger scan for my youngest who has CAPD. Short explanation, he has sensory issues and the scanner never worked when scanning his finger any way. Add to that the horrible gate attendant who grabbed him by his arm and tried forcing him to hold his finger to the scan, and again, the guest services bunch was right on it, taking care of our needs.

Back to the Hard Rock All Access and our room upgrade. We return, I am exhausted but I decide, what the heck, I can check again. You'll never believe what I was told. I was told that had we presented our All Access card at check in (which we DID) that we could have had the Club Level for the week, minus one day. WHAT?!?!?! So again, DO NOT GET THE ALL ACCESS CARD. Apparently it should read, NO ACCESS.

Well, there are my disappointments. Believe me when I say that it really bothers me to have this in my trip report, but I really wanted to let others know about my experience so that they can make informed choices and hopefully avoid my frustrations. While we continued to enjoy ourselves in the parks, and we had a BLAST, these experiences have forced me to make the decision to never stay with Hard Rock again.

As soon as I get my pics onto my new laptop (yay me) I will post the happy times during our trip. Back to update soon!

 

[SharkyGoddess]

Now on to the fun stuff!

After we got in to the parks, we headed straight for IOA to enjoy Poseidon's Fury. My DD loves that walk through and Babboo had never been. It's definitely on our "must experience at least once" list. We love Poseidon!

After a tour through the sea, we wandered our way back through IOA and headed on back to the hotel to enjoy dinner and let Squishy take a late night swim before bed. The late night swim became our (almost) nightly ritual.

Our room, as I stated earlier, wasn't that impressive, but I still took pics.

Squishy had to test the beds.

The coffee maker. We used it daily. I thought I had read some where you could request other flavors, but when we did we were told there were no other flavors No biggie.

The rest of the week we took things slow and easy, getting up for early admission to WWoHP only twice and sleeping until 9 the rest of the week. Ahhhh vacation

I can honestly say that our time spent in the parks was wonderful. We used our FOTL passes every chance so our waits were never more than a few minutes and FJ rarely had a long wait at all. Our first ride on the FJ was hilarious! We got stuck right at the end as Dumbledore was telling "Don't forget..." Stick figure exited the ride saying "Great! Now we'll never know what we were supposed to not forget!" Too. Stinkin. Funny. There was one day that the FJ was down for about 3 hours. We waited for a bit, got bored and decided to get out of line and go ride some other rides.

I wish I had taken pics of a wonderful waiter by the name of Klotter. He was our waiter for two of the three mornings we ate breakfast at the Kitchen. The buffet is delicious and Klotter's personality made this place #1 for food service during our stay. Not that Klotter will ever read this, but just in case... Klotter, my son STILL talks about you when playing games on the iPhone. Thank you so much for your wonderful service. You are #1 in our book!

Now for silly family times

What trip to Universal is complete with out the obligatory Jaws pic?

Squishy's facial expression is priceless. Notice my oldest son's grin. Wishful thinking?

On to Jurassic Park!!! Me and Stealth Child had experienced the river ride several times in our past trips. Babboo, Squishy, and Screaming Teen however had never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Rex. Let the joys of screaming begin! They loved it! So much so it was a must ride for the rest of our trip. Here they are sharing a turkey leg with Mr. Rex.

Goofballs

On our way in one morning, we were greeted by this friendly character. PICTURE OP!!!

Squishy... gotta love his expressions!

Another of our families fav spots is Seuss Landing!

"I'm touching the butt!" We know, we know. It's a Disney thing, but it's hilarious and we go around saying it. Alot.

Since we first started going to US/IOA in 2002, my DD has loved One Fish Two Fish. She first rode it with her Grandfather and this trip she was determined to be the one to experience the ride with Squishy.

So sweet

Like I said, not too many pics, but lots and lots of wonderful memories.

 

[damo]

Hard Rock seems to be hit or miss. Some people absolutely love it and wouldn't go anywhere else and other people just don't like it. Your room does sound like a real dud and hopefully you were taken care of.

 

[SharkyGoddess]

Now for our first ever Haunted Horror nights experience

We really enjoyed ourselves and actually ended up going two nights instead of one. YAYness! I should start by explaining that I have grown up with horror movies and touring haunted houses since I was a very young kid and Babboo and I both not only have people come to our home just for our Halloween decorations and costumes, but we also have friends who host haunted houses and have been involved with them for quite some time. We are The couple who can not be scared. And... we weren't. But, that doesn't mean that other people won't get that jolt from the loud sounds or creatures jumping out at you. What we enjoyed the most were the costumes, the attention to details and the atmosphere. Going through the houses with others who get startled easily was so much fun for us. That alone was worth it to us.

I took this pic while it was still day light, but I loved the way it turned out.

I took a pic of this guy over in the Zombiegras scare zone for my DD. She play Sax too.

(horrible pic of me coming up) I LOVED this guy!!! I was talking with Babboo about the scarezone and wanting pics, turned around and there he was. I cracked up laughing (as you can see) because he startled me and I said "Well! Hello there!" He was doing this heavy breathing thing and I swear he even had pumpkin breath!

BLOOD BAGS!!!! for all of you wondering who have never tried these. Don't. They tasted like cough syrup. I drank it anyway, along with a few beers

Now for our park gate pics. They turned out great!

HHN was such a wonderful experience. We're already making plans to do the RIP tour next time.

 

[strawberryblonde]

Great pics! I love the "touching the butt" one ...always a good joke, no matter where you happen to be.

Sorry that you did not end up liking HRH. It was a great fit for us, but I can see how it isn't for everyone. Did you get the chance to take a look at the other two hotels on property? I never did make it to RPR, and I had wanted to check it out. We did peek at PBH, and it was nice, but HRH still wins for us. I would have ordered the all access card for us, but it could not arrive to us (overseas) in time, so I didn't try. Sounds as though it would have been wasted money, I'm sorry that it didn't bring any perks your way.

Your HHN photos turned out fab, I'm jealous! Wish we would have bumped into each other, sigh!

 

[Planogirl]

I finally took time to read this and I appreciate the report. We've walked around the Hard Rock and it seemed a little bland to me too. I didn't see the mold or whatever is was though. Ugh! I might just stick with RPR.

I want to go to HHN so bad. We do local houses too and love those so I bet that HHN would be perfect for us.

Finally, I'm quite late but my condolences on your loss.

 

[schumigirl]

That Pumpkinhead man got me a real good scare in 2008.....Didn`t know I could run at all!!!!! No I don`t like bloodbags either......sickly sweet nothingness.

You`re the 3rd person in a week I`ve read not happy with HRH......such a shame.

Glad you had such a good time and your pictures are very good

 

[Genie 410]

This is really fun to read your thoughts and activities leading up to your trip! Lots of good advice being posted here! Thank you!