Live From Orlando

[Purseval]

Got into the parks right around noon, people are dressed up like it's February. There's a chill wind and it's supposed to be in the 50's for HHN. Light crowds, 30 minute wait on The Simpsons with a line going outside but that is because they don't have much of the queue open. We did a quick circuit of both parks and that seems to be the case on all of the rides. 10 minute posted wait for Hulk, 20 minutes for Spiderman. HR3 is down with more problems.

We're down in Celebration at the Radisson ATM, wifey is taking a bath and I'm messing with the controls on the Sleepnumber bed. It took us less than 15 minutes to get here so we'll leave around 4pm to get back to Universal for S&S. If anyone is going to be at Finnegan's tonight we'll be there. I'll be wearing a navy blue Ed Hardy hoodie with an eagle perched on a skull with a snake slithering through the different skull openings, stop over and say Hi.

Someone tell me the name of the tavern in Celebration that has the really good seafood, I'll be here all week so we want to check it out

 

[ClanHarrison]

Would that be the Celebration Town Tavern? http://www.thecelebrationtowntavern.com/

721 FRONT STREET
CELEBRATION, FL 34747
407.566.2526

This place looks great! I've heard nothing but good reviews & have it at the top of our list of restaurants to visit on our next trip.

Please report back how you liked it. Thanks.

 

[donaldduck352]

Town Tavern looks pretty kool.If this is what your looking for Purseval let me know how it is.
Here is the proper website:

http://www.thecelebrationtowntavern.com/

 

[Purseval]

Thanks for the replies. Wolfman wasn't set up properly again tonight, I'm beginning to think S&S is a waste of time. Not much point in being first into houses that look like crap. Made it through 5 houses by 7:30 then went to B&T, only to find out they cancelled the first show. We went to the 10pm show and the big monitor wasn't working, maybe they tried to fix it during the cancellation time and gave up. The Mummy was also down for a while but it did get back up eventually. 120 minute wait for Saw at 10:30pm, 45 minutes for Wolfman. We left at 11pm. On the way out we asked the guy at the exit if they were selling discount EPs outside, he didn't know what we were talking about, suggested guest services.

A lot of people were totally unprepared for the weather, you saw people in shorts and t-shirts that had to be suffering but were willing to get pneumonia before they didn't get their money's worth.

We signed up for the Unmasking The Horror tour, that will be thursday afernoon at 1:30pm. Not a bad deal for $40, we'll be looking forward to that. Now it's time for a glass of wine and bed.

BTW, my wife always wears a pedometer. We did 21,000 steps today, which is over 8 miles, and we didn't get an early start. A Universal/WDW vacation is always a workout, if you aren't used to walking a lot you should probably get some practice in before you head down here.

 

[Purseval]

Would that be the Celebration Town Tavern?

This place looks great! I've heard nothing but good reviews & have it at the top of our list of restaurants to visit on our next trip.

Please report back how you liked it. Thanks.

Town Tavern looks pretty kool.If this is what your looking for Purseval let me know how it is.

Well, we just got back from lunch and your wish is my command Click on any picture to have a bigger look.


Here it is, Celebration Town Tavern. They have indoor tables but since it was a pleasant afternoon
we chose to eat outside.


A view from our table


Another view from our table


The menu


My appetizer, fried Calamari


My sweet bride chose to have potato skins


The salads that came with our meal. I had the garden salad with the house recommended mango chutney dressing while the Mrs. had a Caesar salad


I had the fried seafood dinner with clam strips instead of Ipswich clams


Wifey had tenderloin tips with garden vegetables and, since she already had baked potatoes for her appetizer, fries.


My darling spouse holding a glass of Barefoot bubbly, looking smart in her Polo shirt and Prada sunglasses. I don't understand why women pay so much to advertise brands. They should rent out space instead, they are the ones making these brands seen in all the right places. You don't think that Jeff Gordon goes out and buys a shiny new muffler then places a sticker on his car do you?


We were both pretty much stuffed by the time dessert rolled around but we had to try the Key Lime pie


For those of you planning a meal budget. It's expensive compared to Captain D's but the bargain of the century if you've ever eaten at that British pub in Epcot or Fulton's Crab House in DTD

 

[donaldduck352]

Thanks Purseval,great pics.The food looks great!!

The price is'nt as bad as what I paid for at Texas de Brazil.. That is one expansive restraunt..

 

[ClanHarrison]

This place looks really nice! The food looks great, but that was a pricey lunch. I think we may agree to take turns and give the adults a "date" meal (take a day or two and the adult couple go out without the kiddies for a lunch or dinner).

Thanks Purseval, those pics made me feel like I was at the table across from you...eating my stuffed flounder .

I also have TdeB on my list. Also won't be a group meal, but at least it's all you can eat. Not sure we'll go while there since we have the exact same restaurant here, but a different name...and husband & I have done it AT LEAST 3 or 4 times. The last time, I got so drunk off meat, I haven't had the urge to return yet . But I love their food. It's such a struggle to NOT overeat from the salad bar. Such freshness & good quality produce & imported meat/cheeses etc.

That weather looked absolutely GORGEOUS for lunch outside! Hope you enjoyed it all.

 

[Purseval]

You could have had a burger or a wrap for a lot less money. For us we planned on it being our main meal for the day because in my normal job I'm on 2nd shift so dinner at noon is a normal thing. It also gave us th rest of the day to work the meal off. Even without a park visit we did over 10,000 steps because we cruised the outlet mall near 535 then went over to Downtown Disney. At 2500 steps/mile for people with a normal stride that's 4 miles +. Tomorrow we have another timeshare presentation at 7:30am then we'll head over to the Studios for the day so I'd better rest up.

 

[Purseval]

Thanks to our timeshare presentation we didn't get over to IOA until after noon. No worry, 10 minute wait for Spiderman, walk in to Hulk, 5 minutes on DD, 5 minutes on Cat In The Hat. My wife saw the 8th Voyage Of Sinbad for the first time then we went over to US.

Surprise, the wait time posted for The Simpsons was longer than the wait time for HR3. We went to the Singles line and they told us that it could be longer than waiting in the regular line. They weren't kidding, it took us an hour to get on the ride.

When we came down from the ride we tried to get our stuff out of the locker and were hit with a $3 charge for going over time. There was an attendant nearby so we got him to open it for free. Don't just passively pay if you are stuck in a long line.

12,000 steps so far but we are going out walking tonight so we'll tack another few thousand on. Weather is very pleasant today, I even got a bit of a burn on my face.

 

[Purseval]

This place looks really nice! The food looks great, but that was a pricey lunch. I think we may agree to take turns and give the adults a "date" meal (take a day or two and the adult couple go out without the kiddies for a lunch or dinner).

Thanks Purseval, those pics made me feel like I was at the table across from you...eating my stuffed flounder .

We were back in the area today and took some menu pics, click on them to make them readable:







As you can see, it's not that bad if you want something lighter than a dinner.

Now we're off to S&S

 

[macraven]

purseval, sounds like this is a great vacation..


have fun at hhn tonight.


i heard the temps are good now.
should make it a better night at the parks.


thanks for your live reporting!

 

[rpbert1]

Seems you are having a great time. Doing quite a bit of walking

Meal in Celebration looks lovely, price did not seem to be that bad IMHO, especially when you take the price $28 for the 2 drinks of the price.

 

[Purseval]

Finally got to take pictures of Cirque du Freak tonight, click on any picture to enlarge it:













Decent crowds tonight, didn't see a line over 60 minutes. Beautiful weather, nice temps but 2 brief periods of rain. Mummy was down. I don't care what the others say, Chucky is still our favorite house. Wolfman stinks if you go early, top notch if you go after 9pm when they get everything settled in and working.
Rocky Horror is better than Bill and Ted.

16,800 steps today, 14,000 yesterday and we still haven't hit the parks really hard. Tomorrow we go to the Unmasking The Horror tour, we will post lots of pics.

 

[Purseval]

Well it turns out that yesterday's crowd set some kind of record for lowest attendance. They are trying to make up for it today. They have extended the hours to 2am and the crowds are just pouring in. Still, we made it through 7 houses before 8pm and the only reason we didn't do all 8 was because we just weren't interested in Spawning.

Today we took the Unmasking The Horror tour. It was very informative and entertaining, we would recommend it to anyone. Our tour guide David knew a few people from The Dis. In fact he asked that we refrain from posting pictures of the house models until after HHN ends or he would sic Macraven on us Since he did such a good job I'll respect his wishes so here are pictures from the Frankenstein and Dracula houses. We also walked through Wolfman but no picture taking was allowed because it's based on a movie that hasn't been released yet. Click on any picture to enlarge it:
















Our intrepid tour guide David. He asked if we could email Universal and ask them to keep the tour or else
it may go away again next year.

 

[macraven]

and purseval, how many red licorice sticks did you get on the tour............


i had david on oct 8th for the tour.



i paved the way...............



i took oodles of pics of the model.
it was so kewl !!

 

[Purseval]

All we got were flashlights to use and nice new HHN lanyards. One thing he did say that I thought was pretty exciting: I asked him what the odds were that WWOHP would be open by March 2010 and he said pretty high. He seems to be a person who knows what's going on and that would be great news if he's right. We will be there for Mardi Gras and my stepdaughter, her husband and their children will be coming over from England to join us. That would be a nice new feature to show them for their first visit to America.

Something I forgot to mention about HHN: it seems they have been listening to feedback and now there are a lot more chainsaw
people in Lights, Camera, Hacktion! Tonight was the first time a scarezone was even remotely scary. There were lots of screams in there tonight, we enjoyed it very much.

 

[Coach81]

Nice report! Thanks for all the info and pics! My oldest son would be THRILLED if by some miracle HP would be up and available by our Mardi Gras trip next Feb.. but I'm not holding my breath.. LOL Keep it comin'!

 

[Purseval]

Well we were hoping that Universal would add some days onto Frequent Fear so we could extend our stay a day or 2, but they haven't So now I'll start packing up for home. Unless we see some megaboss deal this will be our last trip of the year. So, until next March, it's byebye Orlando and thanks for the memories.

 

[Metro West]

Well we were hoping that Universal would add some days onto Frequent Fear so we could extend our stay a day or 2, but they haven't So now I'll start packing up for home. Unless we see some megaboss deal this will be our last trip of the year. So, until next March, it's byebye Orlando and thanks for the memories.

They added dates in the past due to so much bad weather and this year has been perfect weather wise...no rain to worry about.

 

[macraven]

didn't they extend last night to 2 am due to low crowds on wednesday?