- Joined
- Oct 18, 1999
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- 7,756
2 Single Girls Memorial Day Weekend at Universal Orlando
Michelle - Age 26
Stephanie - Age 26
Day 1-Saturday, May 29, 2004
I woke up at 6am and didn't have any trouble jumping out of bed because I was so excited! I was in the car and on the way to pick up Stephanie by 6:45 and we were on our way by 7:15!
The ride over was pretty uneventful and looooooong (1 1/2 hours
), it wasn't really long I'm just impatient. So we pulled into the Royal Pacific parking lot at around 8:45 and looked
for a space in the self-parking area. There were cars parked all over the place! You had to be careful so you didn't hit the ones that were parked all around the curbs (not in spaces!). I managed to find a really good space close to the walkway so we were happy! We decided to just leave the luggage in the car until our room was ready so we walked over to the hotel and took in just how beautiful it really is. I will say that it's a good thing I don't have anything against frogs because the walk into the hotel could be pretty frightful if you did! We approach the front doors, ahhhhh, the air conditioner is on in full force! Refreshing! As we were walking in two bell boys were on their way out the doors
and one of them took a moment to greet us, I thought that was really nice. The lobby is gorgeous, the first thing you see when you walk in is the massive fountain and orchids everywhere! We didn't have to wait at all to check-in and were done within minutes. We had our "golden keys" so we headed to the
walkway to the parks. It's a really nice walk, took less than 10 minutes and there is really beautiful scenery the whole way. It comes out behind Margaritaville, smells good on City Walk, we're both getting a little bit hungry by now. We have to exchange our paper tickets for our plastic ID passed so we do that first
thing. The line was kind of long, a lot of large families/groups that all had to get their pictures taken. It probably didn't take as long as it seemed, remember, I'm impatient, well, I'm not really
impatient, I just don't like standing around waiting, I guess that's kind of impatient but I'm not the rude, griping kind of impatient, I'm more the my legs are tired and my back hurts kind of impatient. LOL So we finally get done and head into Universal. Now we have tunnel vision! Shrek 4-D, NO WAY!, Jimmy Nutron,
Jimmy Schmutron! We only have eyes for The Revenge Of The Mummy! I knew from reading the boards that we had to put our stuff in the lockers so we found those and waited what seemed like an eternity for all the people in front of us to figure out what to do. So we get our lockers and go test out just how magical these keys really are. Welcome ladies, go right in. We walked straight through the express line and right onto the ride, seriously, no wait, the car was just pulling in when we got there. We both thought the ride was absolutely killer and I wish we had ridden it more that day as it was more crowded Monday when we went on it again. We retrieved our bags from the locker and looked to see what time the Ghostbusters show was. It was still about 1 1/2 hours away so we decided to go get something to eat.
We went over to the San Francisco Pastry Co. and we both had the Ham & Swiss Croissant with Chips and Potato Salad. Excellent meal! The seating here is outside and there was a bird looking for handouts. He came and sat on a chair at our table and looked at us for a few minutes before moving on to bug someone else. Then he hit the jackpot. A lady came out and sat her tray on the table and went back inside to get something. The bird took his chance, he went over and got a beakfull of her potato salad and took off. It was sooooo funny! She came back and was clueless that some of her meal had just been pilfered by the little feathered crook. We finished eating and we still had some time so we went down to Jaws, I wanted to get a picture with the big guy but the line was pretty long so we went on to the ride. It was about a 5 minute wait, not too bad. I broke out my 1.00 hand held fan that I
got at walmart (lime green btw), best dollar I've ever spent. It got a lot of use in those hot lines.The ride was more enjoyable than I remembered, probably because I haven't been on it in about 6 years. When we came out there wasn't anyone waiting in line for the big jaws out front so we struck a pose and got our pictures done. It was time to head back for the Ghostbusters show now. The people who post on the Ghostbusters thread will appreciate this little tidbit. When we were walking back one of the
carnival booths was playing Love Shack! LOL The perfect prelude to the show we were about to see! We arrived at the Library and got a spot up front, there were only two other women up there waiting for the show, some others were seated around on curbs and walls but it wasn't crowded at all. I finished up my roll of film so I could have a fresh one for pictures of the show.
Aside from the good looking men shaking what their momma's gave 'em it really is a great show. Very, very funny!!! We decided to walk down and see what the waits were like on Jimmy Neutron and Shrek, JN was 20 minutes even for express, I didn't feel like waiting that long so we crossed the street to do Shrek. We were told 15 minutes but it was more like 35 (way better than the 2 hour wait for the regular line though!), very hot, very long line. This was the longest wait we encountered the whole weekend. We haven't been to Universal since this attraction opened so we didn't really know what to expect. I thought the pre-show was pretty funny. When the cast member (do they call them that
at Universal?) was doing their little spiel and they kept talking about if you do this you'll be flogged, if you do that you'll be flogged someone yelled out "FLOG ME FIRST!", it was too funny. Nice little show but definitely not worth more than a 30 minute wait in my opinion. When we got out JN was still a long
wait so we decided to call and see if our room was ready yet. I called the number that they had given me and the room was ready, we were in 3456, can't really forget that! LOL So we went to the room and dropped off our backpacks then went down to the car to get our luggage. We were a little bit of a walk from the elevator but right next to a door for the stairs so we thought we'd just take the stairs down. Bad idea! They put you outside the building about a 10 minute walk from the parking lot! We finally
got to the car and got the suitcases and got back to the room. We hung out for a few minutes and then caught the boat back to City Walk and went over to the Cineplex to see what the showtimes were for later that night. We then went back to Universal and JN was still a 20 minute wait on Express so we headed in the other direction and did Terminator. We waited maybe 10 minutes. I've alway liked this show and it was good to enjoy it once again. After that we did E.T., less than 10 minutes there too. Just a tip, if you decide to make up a name for E.T. don't use the name Penelope, apparently it's not in their system so I had to shorten it to Penny. LOL We passed through the Kid's play area and saw Scooby
and the Woodpeckers out but the lines were too long so we didn't get pictures. We did go on Woody's Nuthouse Coaster. I quickly learned why they tell you to sit the tallest person on the outside. I have a nice little bruise on my arm from when it rounds that last corner coming back into the station. If a little kid were sitting on the outside with an adult or bigger kid on the left side they'd get crushed. It was still a pretty fun little coaster though, I thought it was just a tad more thrilling than the Barnstormer, although I like that one too! We came upon the Horror Movie Makeup show, another one we hadn't seen before, it started in about 15 minutes so we went and got a lemon slush (a new favorite treat, boy did they hit the spot in that heat!) and then went to the show. I had heard some good reviews of it but it was even better than I expected. I think we lucked out having this be our first show because the "volunteer" from the audience didn't speak a lick of english. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen, I swear! We were laughing about it the rest of the day. After we left there we
went over to Back To The Future, we waited about 15 minutes for this one. We lucked out and got the front of the car. I enjoyed the ride a whole lot more sitting up there as opposed to my past rides
that were all in the back seat where you get your head smashed. This one girl that ended up sitting in the back kept saying ouch the whole ride, she was rubbing her head when she got off. On to MIB! I had only been on this ride once before but I really liked it so I was looking forward to going on it again. I think we waited about 15 minutes for this one too. Very fun but neither of us were over 30,000.00, we kind of sucked. It was almost time for the Beetlejuice show when we left MIB so we headed in that direction. The Dippin Dots stand caught our eye so we decided to get a little snack for the show. Vanilla Dippin Dots are about as good as Ambrosia on a hot, humid Florida day. We enjoyed our treat while
waiting for seating to open for the show. We got some good seats in the center of the theatre. This was another one we hadn't seen before and we both enjoyed it. We decided to call it a day for the parks and go over to City Walk and find some dinner. We went to Margaritaville first but it was an hour wait unless you wanted to sit at the bar, which we didn't really mind but we couldn't find any seats there either so we went over to Pastamore. I'm glad we did! We were seated instantly and it was the best meal we had all weekend! I got the fried ravioli w/red pepper dipping sauce for an appetizer. Out of this world! They just melted in your mouth. Stephanie had the sauteed mushrooms, which she thoroughly
enjoyed. For my entree I ordered the roasted garlic tenderloin steak with red pepper boursin cheese on top. It came with garlic roasted red potatoes and red peppers. Outstanding! By far the best steak I have ever eaten. The potatoes weren't done enough for my liking but I love roasted red peppers and they
were delish. Stephanie had the Lasagne, I don't remember if it came with anything or not but she thought it was good. Our waiter was the best too, very attentive and just all around great! We also
had the manager stop at our table twice, once he asked us how our waiter was doing and I was very happy to tell him just how wonderful he was! I really liked this restaurant and would love to go there again. Even the bathrooms were nice and unique! LOL After dinner we decided to head back to the hotel to relax a little bit. We went down to the pool for a little while. It is an awesome looking pool area but the water was like a tepid bath, not cool at all! A lot of kids there, I don't have anything against kids I just wish that their parents would watch them. I'm laying on my float just trying to relax when out of nowhere I'm smacked right in the face with a beach ball! There were these 3 little boys that had absolutely no regard for anyone around them, I have no idea where their parents were but they were just little pool terrors. We ended up moving to another part of the pool just to get
away from them and their killer beach ball. The pool is big enough that they should make one section for people who want to play and one section for people who want to swim and relax. The lifeguards were getting onto a lot of kids that night. It was still a pretty enjoyable pool experience inspite of the little mishaps. It was pretty funny watching Stephanie sink into the water like a boat with a hole in it when the air came out of the pillow part of her float! LOL Back up to the room to shower and change so we could go to the movies. We caught the 12:30 showing of The Day After Tomorrow. I think I caught a little cat nap a few times but it was a really good movie! It was pretty cool walking through
City Walk when everything was closed and all the people were gone. We took some pictures that we weren't able to get for the earlier crowds. The boats were no longer running by this time so we walked back to the resort and got to bed around 3am. A very full, very tiring, very fun first day! I know this is super long so if you read it all, thanks, I hope you enjoyed it and I'll try to be more brief the next two days! LOL
Michelle - Age 26
Stephanie - Age 26
Day 1-Saturday, May 29, 2004
I woke up at 6am and didn't have any trouble jumping out of bed because I was so excited! I was in the car and on the way to pick up Stephanie by 6:45 and we were on our way by 7:15!
The ride over was pretty uneventful and looooooong (1 1/2 hours
), it wasn't really long I'm just impatient. So we pulled into the Royal Pacific parking lot at around 8:45 and lookedfor a space in the self-parking area. There were cars parked all over the place! You had to be careful so you didn't hit the ones that were parked all around the curbs (not in spaces!). I managed to find a really good space close to the walkway so we were happy! We decided to just leave the luggage in the car until our room was ready so we walked over to the hotel and took in just how beautiful it really is. I will say that it's a good thing I don't have anything against frogs because the walk into the hotel could be pretty frightful if you did! We approach the front doors, ahhhhh, the air conditioner is on in full force! Refreshing! As we were walking in two bell boys were on their way out the doors
and one of them took a moment to greet us, I thought that was really nice. The lobby is gorgeous, the first thing you see when you walk in is the massive fountain and orchids everywhere! We didn't have to wait at all to check-in and were done within minutes. We had our "golden keys" so we headed to the
walkway to the parks. It's a really nice walk, took less than 10 minutes and there is really beautiful scenery the whole way. It comes out behind Margaritaville, smells good on City Walk, we're both getting a little bit hungry by now. We have to exchange our paper tickets for our plastic ID passed so we do that first
thing. The line was kind of long, a lot of large families/groups that all had to get their pictures taken. It probably didn't take as long as it seemed, remember, I'm impatient, well, I'm not really
impatient, I just don't like standing around waiting, I guess that's kind of impatient but I'm not the rude, griping kind of impatient, I'm more the my legs are tired and my back hurts kind of impatient. LOL So we finally get done and head into Universal. Now we have tunnel vision! Shrek 4-D, NO WAY!, Jimmy Nutron,
Jimmy Schmutron! We only have eyes for The Revenge Of The Mummy! I knew from reading the boards that we had to put our stuff in the lockers so we found those and waited what seemed like an eternity for all the people in front of us to figure out what to do.
So we get our lockers and go test out just how magical these keys really are. Welcome ladies, go right in. We walked straight through the express line and right onto the ride, seriously, no wait, the car was just pulling in when we got there. We both thought the ride was absolutely killer and I wish we had ridden it more that day as it was more crowded Monday when we went on it again. We retrieved our bags from the locker and looked to see what time the Ghostbusters show was. It was still about 1 1/2 hours away so we decided to go get something to eat.We went over to the San Francisco Pastry Co. and we both had the Ham & Swiss Croissant with Chips and Potato Salad. Excellent meal! The seating here is outside and there was a bird looking for handouts. He came and sat on a chair at our table and looked at us for a few minutes before moving on to bug someone else. Then he hit the jackpot. A lady came out and sat her tray on the table and went back inside to get something. The bird took his chance, he went over and got a beakfull of her potato salad and took off. It was sooooo funny! She came back and was clueless that some of her meal had just been pilfered by the little feathered crook. We finished eating and we still had some time so we went down to Jaws, I wanted to get a picture with the big guy but the line was pretty long so we went on to the ride. It was about a 5 minute wait, not too bad. I broke out my 1.00 hand held fan that I
got at walmart (lime green btw), best dollar I've ever spent. It got a lot of use in those hot lines.The ride was more enjoyable than I remembered, probably because I haven't been on it in about 6 years. When we came out there wasn't anyone waiting in line for the big jaws out front so we struck a pose and got our pictures done. It was time to head back for the Ghostbusters show now. The people who post on the Ghostbusters thread will appreciate this little tidbit. When we were walking back one of the
carnival booths was playing Love Shack! LOL The perfect prelude to the show we were about to see! We arrived at the Library and got a spot up front, there were only two other women up there waiting for the show, some others were seated around on curbs and walls but it wasn't crowded at all. I finished up my roll of film so I could have a fresh one for pictures of the show.
Aside from the good looking men shaking what their momma's gave 'em it really is a great show. Very, very funny!!! We decided to walk down and see what the waits were like on Jimmy Neutron and Shrek, JN was 20 minutes even for express, I didn't feel like waiting that long so we crossed the street to do Shrek. We were told 15 minutes but it was more like 35 (way better than the 2 hour wait for the regular line though!), very hot, very long line. This was the longest wait we encountered the whole weekend. We haven't been to Universal since this attraction opened so we didn't really know what to expect. I thought the pre-show was pretty funny. When the cast member (do they call them thatat Universal?) was doing their little spiel and they kept talking about if you do this you'll be flogged, if you do that you'll be flogged someone yelled out "FLOG ME FIRST!", it was too funny. Nice little show but definitely not worth more than a 30 minute wait in my opinion. When we got out JN was still a long
wait so we decided to call and see if our room was ready yet. I called the number that they had given me and the room was ready, we were in 3456, can't really forget that! LOL So we went to the room and dropped off our backpacks then went down to the car to get our luggage. We were a little bit of a walk from the elevator but right next to a door for the stairs so we thought we'd just take the stairs down. Bad idea! They put you outside the building about a 10 minute walk from the parking lot! We finally
got to the car and got the suitcases and got back to the room. We hung out for a few minutes and then caught the boat back to City Walk and went over to the Cineplex to see what the showtimes were for later that night. We then went back to Universal and JN was still a 20 minute wait on Express so we headed in the other direction and did Terminator. We waited maybe 10 minutes. I've alway liked this show and it was good to enjoy it once again. After that we did E.T., less than 10 minutes there too. Just a tip, if you decide to make up a name for E.T. don't use the name Penelope, apparently it's not in their system so I had to shorten it to Penny. LOL We passed through the Kid's play area and saw Scooby
and the Woodpeckers out but the lines were too long so we didn't get pictures. We did go on Woody's Nuthouse Coaster. I quickly learned why they tell you to sit the tallest person on the outside. I have a nice little bruise on my arm from when it rounds that last corner coming back into the station. If a little kid were sitting on the outside with an adult or bigger kid on the left side they'd get crushed. It was still a pretty fun little coaster though, I thought it was just a tad more thrilling than the Barnstormer, although I like that one too! We came upon the Horror Movie Makeup show, another one we hadn't seen before, it started in about 15 minutes so we went and got a lemon slush (a new favorite treat, boy did they hit the spot in that heat!) and then went to the show. I had heard some good reviews of it but it was even better than I expected. I think we lucked out having this be our first show because the "volunteer" from the audience didn't speak a lick of english. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen, I swear! We were laughing about it the rest of the day. After we left there we
went over to Back To The Future, we waited about 15 minutes for this one. We lucked out and got the front of the car. I enjoyed the ride a whole lot more sitting up there as opposed to my past rides
that were all in the back seat where you get your head smashed. This one girl that ended up sitting in the back kept saying ouch the whole ride, she was rubbing her head when she got off. On to MIB! I had only been on this ride once before but I really liked it so I was looking forward to going on it again. I think we waited about 15 minutes for this one too. Very fun but neither of us were over 30,000.00, we kind of sucked. It was almost time for the Beetlejuice show when we left MIB so we headed in that direction. The Dippin Dots stand caught our eye so we decided to get a little snack for the show. Vanilla Dippin Dots are about as good as Ambrosia on a hot, humid Florida day. We enjoyed our treat while
waiting for seating to open for the show. We got some good seats in the center of the theatre. This was another one we hadn't seen before and we both enjoyed it. We decided to call it a day for the parks and go over to City Walk and find some dinner. We went to Margaritaville first but it was an hour wait unless you wanted to sit at the bar, which we didn't really mind but we couldn't find any seats there either so we went over to Pastamore. I'm glad we did! We were seated instantly and it was the best meal we had all weekend! I got the fried ravioli w/red pepper dipping sauce for an appetizer. Out of this world! They just melted in your mouth. Stephanie had the sauteed mushrooms, which she thoroughly
enjoyed. For my entree I ordered the roasted garlic tenderloin steak with red pepper boursin cheese on top. It came with garlic roasted red potatoes and red peppers. Outstanding! By far the best steak I have ever eaten. The potatoes weren't done enough for my liking but I love roasted red peppers and they
were delish. Stephanie had the Lasagne, I don't remember if it came with anything or not but she thought it was good. Our waiter was the best too, very attentive and just all around great! We also
had the manager stop at our table twice, once he asked us how our waiter was doing and I was very happy to tell him just how wonderful he was! I really liked this restaurant and would love to go there again. Even the bathrooms were nice and unique! LOL After dinner we decided to head back to the hotel to relax a little bit. We went down to the pool for a little while. It is an awesome looking pool area but the water was like a tepid bath, not cool at all! A lot of kids there, I don't have anything against kids I just wish that their parents would watch them. I'm laying on my float just trying to relax when out of nowhere I'm smacked right in the face with a beach ball! There were these 3 little boys that had absolutely no regard for anyone around them, I have no idea where their parents were but they were just little pool terrors. We ended up moving to another part of the pool just to get
away from them and their killer beach ball. The pool is big enough that they should make one section for people who want to play and one section for people who want to swim and relax. The lifeguards were getting onto a lot of kids that night. It was still a pretty enjoyable pool experience inspite of the little mishaps. It was pretty funny watching Stephanie sink into the water like a boat with a hole in it when the air came out of the pillow part of her float! LOL Back up to the room to shower and change so we could go to the movies. We caught the 12:30 showing of The Day After Tomorrow. I think I caught a little cat nap a few times but it was a really good movie! It was pretty cool walking through
City Walk when everything was closed and all the people were gone. We took some pictures that we weren't able to get for the earlier crowds. The boats were no longer running by this time so we walked back to the resort and got to bed around 3am. A very full, very tiring, very fun first day! I know this is super long so if you read it all, thanks, I hope you enjoyed it and I'll try to be more brief the next two days! LOL
Chelle, sounds like a great trip.. no wonder you are so tired! Get some sleep, and then start typing.. can't wait to hear the rest! Hugs to you.
