- Joined
- Oct 18, 1999
- Messages
- 7,756
2 Single Girls Memorial Day Weekend At Universal Orlando
Michelle ~ Age 26
Stephanie ~ Age 26
Day 2, Sunday, May 30, 2004
Even though we didn't get to bed until around 3am we slept like logs and managed to be out of bed by 8am. Got ready for the day and were off to find some breakfast. The first place we came to wasthe Continental Breakfast place in the lobby. I don't remember what it is called but I really don't recommend it unless you like to be majorly overcharged even by Theme Park standards. There is
nothing wrong with the food there and it's a good selection of pastries, sweet, fruits and juices but I find paying 2.00 for a banana I would have paid 10 cents for at the grocery store just a tad hard to swallow. Okay, enough of that! I had a croissant w/butter, a banana and ruby red grapefruit juice. All very good just a little pricey. Stephanie had a croissant, a cinnamon roll, a banana and orange juice. She thought her food was good as well but we both agreed we would eat somewhere else the next morning. Tummy's full and ready to start our day we headed for the walkway since it exits closer to IOA than the boat does. First stop of the day, Spiderman! Going through express we had an absolutely zero wait, gotta love that! Since I love rides that spin I just have a blast on this one. It's definitely my favorite at IOA. After that we decided to check out Storm Force Acceletron, I didn't
even know what it was or that it was even there until about a month ago. I was delighted to see that it was a teacup type ride! We waited about 5 minutes tops and started spinning our car before the ride even started, did I mention I like rides that spin? LOL I loved the wind on this ride, felt so good on a HOT day! It was a lot of fun, not as nicely themed as the rest of the rides there but sometimes simple is good.
We decided to go on Spiderman again since we had to pass by it anyway, less
than 5 minutes this time. Far cry from the first time we ever went to IOA which was right after it first opened and we waited over an hour, in the hot sun before we ever even got to the line inside
the building!
I think I like this express thing, yes indeedy! We decided to wait until we were on our way back to the hotel to do the water rides so that we could just go back to the room and change.We walked into Toon Lagoon and saw Bullwinkle so I got my picture made with him. He was one fresh little moose. He kept fluffing my hair and then he bumped me with his moose butt so I bumped him back! LOL The handler didn't seem to enjoy his playfullness because he kind of snapped at Bullwinkle and
told him to let my friend take the picture. We walked around the path's behind Popeye's ship for a little bit and took some pictures. Then we made our way over to Jurrassic Park. As I watched the
Pteranodon Flyers overhead I really wished that I had a kid with me so I could go on them. I'm going to borrow someone's kid one day just so I can go on those things. After I pouted a few more moments we got in the line for JPRA, there was no ride conductor there so people from the regular line were just filling in the loading area and getting in the boats when they came up! Then out of the blue 3 people showed up and got things back in order, I don't know where they were in the first place. I was in the front waiting for our boat to come up and the ride operator saw my Lime Green DIS button with my user name on it and wanted to know where my lime green ribbon was. LOL A hidden DISer! We
chatted a minute while waiting for the boat to come, I wish I could remember what his name was. He was from Longwood, Fl so if you're out there, Hi!
JPRA was enjoyable as always, a little more fun since it'd been a couple of years since I was on it last. Got a little wetter this time than I have in the past but as hot as it was I wasn't complaining! We took a look at our picture, pretty funny. Next we were off to the Lost Continent and Poseidon's Fury! We had not seen this show since they
changed it. We both really liked the original and were even more impressed with the newer version. It didn't hurt that "Taylor" was pretty easy on the eyes.
I wanted to eat lunch at Mythos so we walked in and signed up for a 1:30 reservation, I made sure to note on there that we were hotel guests just in case it helped us get seated faster and then we were off to Seuss Landing. We saw some characters out but the lines were too long so we proceeded to Cat In The Hat. I love this ride too! It spins you know! 
It was about 15 minutes even with Express but the wait wasn't too bad. After that we headed back over to the Lost Continent to see the Sinbad show. We walked in right as they were opening
the express seating and got a good spot in the center one row above the splash zone. We had never seen the show before but we thought the performers might at some point end up on the section of the stage that is up in the bleachers, we were not disappointed! This was a really great show. We had a little time to waste before lunch so we just wandered through some shops, checked out the restrooms, filled up water bottles, the usual things you do when trying to waste time. We saw Merlin out and
about so I got my picture taken with him. He was making fun of Stephanie saying she didn't know what she was doing with the camera so I told him to zap her, which he very willingly did! LOL It was around 1:15 now so we headed over to Mythos and checked in. There were a ton of people in there waiting. We were given our buzzer and told it would be about 20 minutes. Our request had been for 1:30 so I thought that was pretty good. A group of "VIP's" came in and they took them right in, that really ticked off
this lady that was waiting next to us. If I had heard her say one more time how PO'd she was I think I would have croaked. She was yelling at the hostess and finally her family was the next to get seated even though they had come in later than other people.
I felt sorry for her family, her husband looked like he just wanted her to sit down and shut up. We were the next to be called and I was just saying a quiet prayer that we weren't anywhere near them in the restaurant because I'm sure
she probably complained through the entire meal. I thought the restaurant was really cool inside, it didn't bowl me over as I was expecting from all the rave reviews but it was cool none the less. I did really like the booths. We were seated at a table by the big glass window that overlooked the outdoor eating area and had a good view of Marvel Superhero Island. I ordered a caesar salad for an appetizer. I have to tell you that this was the funniest looking salad I have ever eaten in my life. LOL It was good but it was definitely a surprise. The waitress brings out this beautiful colbalt blue plate with about 10 croutons all precisely placed around the outside rim of the dish and in the center is a bundle
of romaine leaves drizzled with dressing and topped with freshly shaved Parmesan. Once I stopped laughing at my "hoity toity" salad and actually started eating it was very good. The croutons were a little on the hard side but other than that not bad. We couldn't decide what we wanted for our entree. We both thought that the cheeseburger w/smoked applewood bacon looked good and also the BBQ pork sandwich. So since we couldn't decide we each ordered one of them and when they came we split the
burger and sandwich in two and each had half of both. We both thought the burger was a little on the dry side, it had good flavor but the dryness really took away from it, it came with fries but I didn't ask Steph how they were, they were skinny little fries, which in general I don't like unless they are McDonalds. We both thought the BBQ sandwich was very tasty but I didn't care for the chips that came with it. They were alright but kind of hard. I prefer light, crispy potato chips. I think if I eat here again I will get something a little more "upscale" since I don't think average food fare is really their thing. We split the chocolate sampler for dessert. It was really good! There were 4 small chocolate desserts on the plate, another beautiful colbalt blue dish, this one square. If nothing else I really did love their dishes! LOL There was one dessert in each corner and some little something that we still aren't sure of in the middle, we're both still alive so I guess we
really were supposed to eat it... There was chocolate ice cream on top of a chocolate merangue (my favorite), chocolate bread pudding (my least favorite), chocolate crem brulee' (pretty good!) and would you believe that I honestly don't remember what the other one was! I wish I had my pictures developed so I could see what it was, darn it. Then the thing in the middle was a little white powdered sugar something or other. This was not a bad dessert. I will say that the service here was excellent. The
Manager stopped by our table to see how everything was and that always is a nice thing to me. I would eat here again, it just wasn't what I was expecting and hopefully the food will be better if
I order something else next time. When we walked out I was surprised to see the big statue of Atlas? behind the restaurant, I never knew that was back there. I had to climb up on him and assume his position for a picture. We decided to take a little break at this point and go see Shrek 2. We really enjoyed this movie, it's just too funny! I also have to say that this theatre has the most comfortable seats of any theatre I've ever been in and we have some pretty cushy ones around here. When the movie was over we headed back into IOA and went on Spiderman yet again. It was about a 10 minute wait this time so not too bad. We chatted with some people who had never been there before
so that made things move more quickly. After Spidey it was off to the water rides. Popeye was a 40 minute wait for the regular line only, there didn't seem to be a regular line, the person at the
entrance was putting everyone into the express line for some reason. We weren't about to wait 40 minutes so we just went back to Ripsaw Falls which is better than Popeye anyway. It was about 15 minutes but it went by pretty quickly. I love this ride, it's definitely got the best drop of any flume type ride I've ever been on. I was really happy to see that it had indidual seating now too.
The last time we went on it the cars were two people in front, two people in back and it was pretty cramped. Still is pretty cramped but at least you have your own space to be cramped into. LOL Once we were done with Dudley we decided to head back to the hotel for awhile before dinner. The late night before was starting to catch up with us. We got smoothies from that place by the pool, Emil & Bobo's or whatever it's called, I can't remember at the moment. The smoothies were out of this world! We went up to the room to relax and enjoy our smoothies. We changed into dry clothes and watched some tv when I noticed something wasn't right. My stuffed Stitch wasn't on the bed where I left him
that morning. I was a bit frantic and we about tore the room apart looking for him. We looked under both beds, behind the curtains, in both suitcases, in all the drawers (even ones he wouldn't fit in),
the closet, the bathroom, everywhere. He was nowhere to be found. I was about to cry, he was a birthday present from a friend and I like to sleep with him. I know I'm 26 and it's silly to be so attached to a stuffed animal but it was upsetting. I went down to the front desk to report it missing and they called lost and found and let me file a report with them. They said they would call if he turned up but I haven't heard anything. I don't know if someone intentionally took him or if maybe they accidently picked him up with the sheets or something. My cd player was sitting on the table so I would think if someone was going to steal something they would have taken that instead of a stuffed animal. I wish they had taken the cd player, I could have replaced that, I can't replace Stitch. I could buy another one but it won't be the same. That kind of put a damper on my evening. After I got back to the room we just decided to hang out there the rest of the night. Neither of us were hungry so we just watched tv until around 9:30 when I decided I wanted some dinner. We went down to the
Islands Dining Room and asked the hostess if we could get something to go and she said it would be no problem. She gave us the menu and we made our selections. While we waited we sat on a bench outside the restaurant and listenend to people singing karaoke in Jake's. That was amusing and entertaining.
Some of the people were good and some were just awful! We only had to wait about 15 minutes and we took our dinner back to the room. I had the Grilled Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo which was fabulous and Stephanie had a pepperoni pizza which she said was very good. The portions were huge too. We watched a little
more tv (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and called it a night around 11:30. So that was the end of day 2, a lot of fun and a few dissappointments but overall not a bad day. Day 3 still to come!
Michelle ~ Age 26
Stephanie ~ Age 26
Day 2, Sunday, May 30, 2004
Even though we didn't get to bed until around 3am we slept like logs and managed to be out of bed by 8am. Got ready for the day and were off to find some breakfast. The first place we came to wasthe Continental Breakfast place in the lobby. I don't remember what it is called but I really don't recommend it unless you like to be majorly overcharged even by Theme Park standards. There is
nothing wrong with the food there and it's a good selection of pastries, sweet, fruits and juices but I find paying 2.00 for a banana I would have paid 10 cents for at the grocery store just a tad hard to swallow. Okay, enough of that! I had a croissant w/butter, a banana and ruby red grapefruit juice. All very good just a little pricey. Stephanie had a croissant, a cinnamon roll, a banana and orange juice. She thought her food was good as well but we both agreed we would eat somewhere else the next morning. Tummy's full and ready to start our day we headed for the walkway since it exits closer to IOA than the boat does. First stop of the day, Spiderman! Going through express we had an absolutely zero wait, gotta love that! Since I love rides that spin I just have a blast on this one. It's definitely my favorite at IOA. After that we decided to check out Storm Force Acceletron, I didn't
even know what it was or that it was even there until about a month ago. I was delighted to see that it was a teacup type ride! We waited about 5 minutes tops and started spinning our car before the ride even started, did I mention I like rides that spin? LOL I loved the wind on this ride, felt so good on a HOT day! It was a lot of fun, not as nicely themed as the rest of the rides there but sometimes simple is good.
We decided to go on Spiderman again since we had to pass by it anyway, lessthan 5 minutes this time. Far cry from the first time we ever went to IOA which was right after it first opened and we waited over an hour, in the hot sun before we ever even got to the line inside
the building!
I think I like this express thing, yes indeedy! We decided to wait until we were on our way back to the hotel to do the water rides so that we could just go back to the room and change.We walked into Toon Lagoon and saw Bullwinkle so I got my picture made with him. He was one fresh little moose. He kept fluffing my hair and then he bumped me with his moose butt so I bumped him back! LOL The handler didn't seem to enjoy his playfullness because he kind of snapped at Bullwinkle andtold him to let my friend take the picture. We walked around the path's behind Popeye's ship for a little bit and took some pictures. Then we made our way over to Jurrassic Park. As I watched the
Pteranodon Flyers overhead I really wished that I had a kid with me so I could go on them. I'm going to borrow someone's kid one day just so I can go on those things. After I pouted a few more moments we got in the line for JPRA, there was no ride conductor there so people from the regular line were just filling in the loading area and getting in the boats when they came up! Then out of the blue 3 people showed up and got things back in order, I don't know where they were in the first place. I was in the front waiting for our boat to come up and the ride operator saw my Lime Green DIS button with my user name on it and wanted to know where my lime green ribbon was. LOL A hidden DISer! We
chatted a minute while waiting for the boat to come, I wish I could remember what his name was. He was from Longwood, Fl so if you're out there, Hi!
JPRA was enjoyable as always, a little more fun since it'd been a couple of years since I was on it last. Got a little wetter this time than I have in the past but as hot as it was I wasn't complaining! We took a look at our picture, pretty funny. Next we were off to the Lost Continent and Poseidon's Fury! We had not seen this show since theychanged it. We both really liked the original and were even more impressed with the newer version. It didn't hurt that "Taylor" was pretty easy on the eyes.
I wanted to eat lunch at Mythos so we walked in and signed up for a 1:30 reservation, I made sure to note on there that we were hotel guests just in case it helped us get seated faster and then we were off to Seuss Landing. We saw some characters out but the lines were too long so we proceeded to Cat In The Hat. I love this ride too! It spins you know! It was about 15 minutes even with Express but the wait wasn't too bad. After that we headed back over to the Lost Continent to see the Sinbad show. We walked in right as they were openingthe express seating and got a good spot in the center one row above the splash zone. We had never seen the show before but we thought the performers might at some point end up on the section of the stage that is up in the bleachers, we were not disappointed! This was a really great show. We had a little time to waste before lunch so we just wandered through some shops, checked out the restrooms, filled up water bottles, the usual things you do when trying to waste time. We saw Merlin out and
about so I got my picture taken with him. He was making fun of Stephanie saying she didn't know what she was doing with the camera so I told him to zap her, which he very willingly did! LOL It was around 1:15 now so we headed over to Mythos and checked in. There were a ton of people in there waiting. We were given our buzzer and told it would be about 20 minutes. Our request had been for 1:30 so I thought that was pretty good. A group of "VIP's" came in and they took them right in, that really ticked off
this lady that was waiting next to us. If I had heard her say one more time how PO'd she was I think I would have croaked. She was yelling at the hostess and finally her family was the next to get seated even though they had come in later than other people.
I felt sorry for her family, her husband looked like he just wanted her to sit down and shut up. We were the next to be called and I was just saying a quiet prayer that we weren't anywhere near them in the restaurant because I'm sureshe probably complained through the entire meal. I thought the restaurant was really cool inside, it didn't bowl me over as I was expecting from all the rave reviews but it was cool none the less. I did really like the booths. We were seated at a table by the big glass window that overlooked the outdoor eating area and had a good view of Marvel Superhero Island. I ordered a caesar salad for an appetizer. I have to tell you that this was the funniest looking salad I have ever eaten in my life. LOL It was good but it was definitely a surprise. The waitress brings out this beautiful colbalt blue plate with about 10 croutons all precisely placed around the outside rim of the dish and in the center is a bundle
of romaine leaves drizzled with dressing and topped with freshly shaved Parmesan. Once I stopped laughing at my "hoity toity" salad and actually started eating it was very good. The croutons were a little on the hard side but other than that not bad. We couldn't decide what we wanted for our entree. We both thought that the cheeseburger w/smoked applewood bacon looked good and also the BBQ pork sandwich. So since we couldn't decide we each ordered one of them and when they came we split the
burger and sandwich in two and each had half of both. We both thought the burger was a little on the dry side, it had good flavor but the dryness really took away from it, it came with fries but I didn't ask Steph how they were, they were skinny little fries, which in general I don't like unless they are McDonalds. We both thought the BBQ sandwich was very tasty but I didn't care for the chips that came with it. They were alright but kind of hard. I prefer light, crispy potato chips. I think if I eat here again I will get something a little more "upscale" since I don't think average food fare is really their thing. We split the chocolate sampler for dessert. It was really good! There were 4 small chocolate desserts on the plate, another beautiful colbalt blue dish, this one square. If nothing else I really did love their dishes! LOL There was one dessert in each corner and some little something that we still aren't sure of in the middle, we're both still alive so I guess we
really were supposed to eat it... There was chocolate ice cream on top of a chocolate merangue (my favorite), chocolate bread pudding (my least favorite), chocolate crem brulee' (pretty good!) and would you believe that I honestly don't remember what the other one was! I wish I had my pictures developed so I could see what it was, darn it. Then the thing in the middle was a little white powdered sugar something or other. This was not a bad dessert. I will say that the service here was excellent. The
Manager stopped by our table to see how everything was and that always is a nice thing to me. I would eat here again, it just wasn't what I was expecting and hopefully the food will be better if
I order something else next time. When we walked out I was surprised to see the big statue of Atlas? behind the restaurant, I never knew that was back there. I had to climb up on him and assume his position for a picture.
We decided to take a little break at this point and go see Shrek 2. We really enjoyed this movie, it's just too funny! I also have to say that this theatre has the most comfortable seats of any theatre I've ever been in and we have some pretty cushy ones around here. When the movie was over we headed back into IOA and went on Spiderman yet again. It was about a 10 minute wait this time so not too bad. We chatted with some people who had never been there beforeso that made things move more quickly. After Spidey it was off to the water rides. Popeye was a 40 minute wait for the regular line only, there didn't seem to be a regular line, the person at the
entrance was putting everyone into the express line for some reason. We weren't about to wait 40 minutes so we just went back to Ripsaw Falls which is better than Popeye anyway. It was about 15 minutes but it went by pretty quickly. I love this ride, it's definitely got the best drop of any flume type ride I've ever been on. I was really happy to see that it had indidual seating now too.
The last time we went on it the cars were two people in front, two people in back and it was pretty cramped. Still is pretty cramped but at least you have your own space to be cramped into. LOL Once we were done with Dudley we decided to head back to the hotel for awhile before dinner. The late night before was starting to catch up with us. We got smoothies from that place by the pool, Emil & Bobo's or whatever it's called, I can't remember at the moment. The smoothies were out of this world! We went up to the room to relax and enjoy our smoothies. We changed into dry clothes and watched some tv when I noticed something wasn't right. My stuffed Stitch wasn't on the bed where I left him
that morning. I was a bit frantic and we about tore the room apart looking for him. We looked under both beds, behind the curtains, in both suitcases, in all the drawers (even ones he wouldn't fit in),
the closet, the bathroom, everywhere. He was nowhere to be found. I was about to cry, he was a birthday present from a friend and I like to sleep with him. I know I'm 26 and it's silly to be so attached to a stuffed animal but it was upsetting. I went down to the front desk to report it missing and they called lost and found and let me file a report with them. They said they would call if he turned up but I haven't heard anything. I don't know if someone intentionally took him or if maybe they accidently picked him up with the sheets or something. My cd player was sitting on the table so I would think if someone was going to steal something they would have taken that instead of a stuffed animal. I wish they had taken the cd player, I could have replaced that, I can't replace Stitch. I could buy another one but it won't be the same. That kind of put a damper on my evening. After I got back to the room we just decided to hang out there the rest of the night. Neither of us were hungry so we just watched tv until around 9:30 when I decided I wanted some dinner. We went down to the
Islands Dining Room and asked the hostess if we could get something to go and she said it would be no problem. She gave us the menu and we made our selections. While we waited we sat on a bench outside the restaurant and listenend to people singing karaoke in Jake's. That was amusing and entertaining.
Some of the people were good and some were just awful! We only had to wait about 15 minutes and we took our dinner back to the room. I had the Grilled Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo which was fabulous and Stephanie had a pepperoni pizza which she said was very good. The portions were huge too. We watched a little
more tv (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and called it a night around 11:30. So that was the end of day 2, a lot of fun and a few dissappointments but overall not a bad day. Day 3 still to come!
, but the report was great!
Poor Stitchy - it makes me sad Michelle. I hope he did get mixed up with the sheets and not stolen - that would be just so wrong. 
Poor Stitch is LOST! 
