On the Floor and Out the Door!: a 17 day HalloChristmas, RunDisney, MNSSHP, HHN, MVMCP adventure! new 2/8!

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

That sounds like a lovely evening in Epcot. All the festival treats look yummy! And, how nice that you got great viewing spot with low hassle.

 

[ariane37]

Aw I think I'm the only one who likes Epcot Forever lol! I'm not even really excited about the new show because I believe it has projections and I am 100% anti-projection which makes me 100% old school I know. During the tour we took in January we saw them building/working on the floats? Stands? Whatever for the new show and they did look pretty massive and impressive.

 

[NJlauren]

I had scheduled some FPs ahead of time but since we came to Epcot later than planned, they'd all expired except our Test Track FP had turned to any anytime FP (I assume because of the rain). So we made our way that way.

But you made it and with those wait times seem to have lucked out! I thought i quoted your Magic shot here too but i love this Food and Wine Magic Shot! One of my favs!

So cute!

UGH its 930am and i could go for this RIGHT NOW! SO good!

Our thoughts on the show? Meh. I liked the use of music from the Epcot attractions and I thought the kites were a cool aspect but it didn't wow me. Some of the lights were out already on some of the kites which seemed very un-Disney and the show wasn't even a month old yet. I won't repeat what Mike said the kites looked like to him since this is a family forum lol. I also didn't like that we randomly went from Epcot attraction music to A Whole New World. I know people have said it symbolizes moving into "a new Epcot" but I just feel like there's a ton of Epcot original songs they could've used instead. We're glad we watched it but felt no need to see it again and I'm hoping the new show will start before we get there in May.

UGh same! Really hoping for the new show soon especially since Illumination was my fav show ever!

OH MIKE!

Also be happy he doesn't like sushi or lobster you don't need to SHARE!

 

[TanzUnited99]

Lovely Epcot photos

I’m looking forward to trying all the food and drinks at F&W festival after having seen all the photos and vlogs!

 

[eliseisawkward]

Joining in! Seems like a great trip so far!!

(p.s. they guy giving you the mission on the Millennium Falcon is Hando Ohnaka, a pirate. Dok is the animatronic inside a store that he “owns” and sells the legacy lightsabers and holocrons and stuff)

 

[lvcourtneyy]

I have not seen Epcot forever....I think I am still in denial that Illuminations ended, lol!

You and me both! I loved WIshes too and was devastated when they took it away but I also love Happily Ever After so it lessened the sting. Not liking this show made it worse!

Like you, I really hope the new show is up when I am there in July.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Where did you sleep!?!?!?

I'll sleep anywhere lol

Yikes! Nope!!
Good thing that FP was still useable.

Agreed!

You look like you should be holding a cigarette. Maybe you're channelling Audrey Hepburn or something.

I didn't think of that but you're right! I'm gonna go with that story from now on.

You rode it, but it broke down halfway through and you had to be evacuated. But Mike slipped and stepped into the water and had to walk around the rest of the night making squishy sounds with every second step.

Oo I like it! Our shoes were wet and squishy for the rest of the night so who can argue it!

I've never quite understood the need for a FP there... so many places to watch the show from.

Agreed. It's a good spot to watch from especially when it's time to leave because you're close to Future World but if you want a railing spot, you still have to get there super early so it's not really worth it to me.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Such a nice evening in Epcot
It always a plus to not have massive crowds especially during a festival!

Agreed. It's rough to enjoy the festivals when they're so crowded now so it was really nice that night, even with dealing with the rain!

We didn’t even bother to watch the Epcot night show in January to many meh reviews!

Good choice lol!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Sounds like a fun night! Nice getting a quiet spot for Epcot Forever (which I almost typed out as Illuminations lol)! I'm excited to see what the new show will be like.

It was a great night!

It's very hard for me to accept that Illuminations is gone. I'm excited too- I hope it's a better replacement than Epcot Forever lol

 

[lvcourtneyy]

That sounds like a lovely evening in Epcot. All the festival treats look yummy! And, how nice that you got great viewing spot with low hassle.

It was a great night and everything we tried from the festival was good!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Aw I think I'm the only one who likes Epcot Forever lol! I'm not even really excited about the new show because I believe it has projections and I am 100% anti-projection which makes me 100% old school I know.

You might be lol! I get being anti-projection lol. I like them but I dislike that it makes it harder to see the nighttime shows. Trying to see Happily Ever After is so insane now and you basically have to pick if you want to see fireworks or a good projection view so I don't like that part of it!

During the tour we took in January we saw them building/working on the floats? Stands? Whatever for the new show and they did look pretty massive and impressive.

Oo that's awesome! I would like to see that!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

But you made it and with those wait times seem to have lucked out! I thought i quoted your Magic shot here too but i love this Food and Wine Magic Shot! One of my favs!

Thank you!

UGH its 930am and i could go for this RIGHT NOW! SO good!

Me too! I just ordered sushi actually because Mike is working and I'm craving it!

Also be happy he doesn't like sushi or lobster you don't need to SHARE!

Good point lol! It drives me nuts when I want to try more things and he doesn't want to share them but also it's convenient to know it's all mine

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Lovely Epcot photos

I’m looking forward to trying all the food and drinks at F&W festival after having seen all the photos and vlogs!

Thank you!

There are so many yummy options during Food and Wine!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Joining in! Seems like a great trip so far!!

Thanks for reading!

(p.s. they guy giving you the mission on the Millennium Falcon is Hando Ohnaka, a pirate. Dok is the animatronic inside a store that he “owns” and sells the legacy lightsabers and holocrons and stuff)

Oo thank you!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Saturday, October 26, 2019 Part 1

We "slept in" the next morning and didn't get up until 8:30 am. Mike's nephew had driven up the night before since he'd be joining us for the Universal portion of the trip and helped Mike repack the car.

We had two quick service credits left to use so we walked to El Centro to get breakfast before leaving.

Coronado was looking pretty picture perfect!





My plan was for us to get 2 bounty platters which I thought were ubiquitous to resort QS locations for breakfast to split between the 3 of us but it turns out they don't have them at Coronado. So we just each chose what we wanted and paid out of pocket for one meal.



Mike and I both chose Mickey waffles and his nephew got pancakes. Since Mike and I used QS credits, we were entitled to 2 alcoholic drinks and we weren't about to forgo those just because it was breakfast.



So we chose two options from the drink case and received many judgemental looks and comments from the others in line.

Mike drank his with breakfast with the argument that coffee was intended for breakfast-time but I saved mine to enjoy later in the trip!

After breakfast, we said goodbye to CSR and headed out!



Before going to Universal though, we stopped at Walmart to stock up on some snacks and a few items we'd forgotten.

I helpful contributed to the shopping by following Mike around with this hand puppet (he hates Baby Shark and I think it's adorable lol).

https://imgur.com/jiVXNMM

He told one of the Walmart employees I was harassing him and the employee just shrugged and kept walking. #iwin

I also spotted this wannabe Uno lol.



Eventually we made it out of Walmart (without Baby Shark or Dos ), and drove in the direction of Universal.

We had chosen not to stay on-property at Universal to save money and I scored a great priceline express deal at the Rosen Inn nearest Universal. What I didn't know at the time was that there's a million Rosen Inn's in Orlando and we passed 3 others while driving there! I was driving and every time we passed one, Mike asked if this was the right one yet.

Finally we found the right one and it truly was nearest Universal. It was less than a 5 minute drive from the entrance and was literally right down the block from the newest Universal resort, Endless Summer.

We arrived a little before noon and went to see if we could check-in early. The staff at the desk were SO friendly and helpful- just as good as Disney CMs! They had a room ready for us and gave us all kinds of coupons for the attached/nearby restaurants (spoiler alert: we used none of them). Mike couldn't help himself (because he talks to everyone) and told them we were amazed by how many Rosen Inns we passed while driving. They found this hysterical and told us there's something like 11 of them in Orlando and 4 on International Drive alone! Crazy!

We moved our cars closer to where they said our room was and started unpacking. Our room was clean and a decent size. It wasn't fancy by any means but it suited our needs perfectly. It was quiet and clean and felt safe and that's really all I was asking for.









As we were unloading the car, I realized you could see Volcano Bay from outside our room!



We paid something like $48 a night for our stay which really couldn't be beat. If you're looking for an affordable, decent hotel close to Universal, I would recommend it especially because parking was free! My sister and I actually stayed here again for our December trip.

Once we got our stuff situated, we made the short drive over to Universal around 12:40.



We parked and made it quickly through security and I just have to say it: Universal's security system is SO much more efficient than Disney's. It's similar to the airports and your stuff all goes through the x-ray screening and you all go through the metal detector. Disney- get on board please!

Soon enough, we were in Citiwalk and trying to decide which park to go to first.



We decided to watch which direction most people in front of us were going and just go the opposite way.

Our first stop was to guest services. Mike and I had decided to get seasonal APs since they were similar in price to multi-day tickets!

]

Most of our Universal time in the recent past had been for Halloween Horror Nights so I was excited for more time in the Universal parks! Mike's nephew also had to stop at guest services because there ended up being family drama about who was paying for his pass which made me angry on his behalf but it's not my family drama to share so I'll leave it at this:

It was blazing hot in the son and I didn't want to make Mike's nephew feel worse about the situation so I told Mike to stay with him outside the park at guest services while I went into the park to activate our photo package.

The added benefit was that the photo counter was indoors in air conditioning lol.

Universal's photo system is called My Universal photos and they run sales on packages several times a year which I found out by following them on Facebook. I had pre-purchased a 5 day package during one of these sales which included 5 consectutive days of photos for digital download, 3 different size prints and a shutterbuttons video session for $59.99. For comparison, the regular price on their website for a 1 day package is $69.99 so this was a great deal for me!

I showed the TM by confirmation email and he gave me the card to scan for our photos and I was done! It was super quick and easy and I still had time for a bathroom break before Mike and his nephew were done at guest services.

I got my first look at one of the scare zones for HHN which got me really excited for the next day when we'd be attending!



They met up with me near Race through New York with Jimmy Fallon and I was going to use the app to sign us up for the virtual queue to ride but Mike pointed out it only had a 5 minute wait time so we just went in the regular entrance.

The cards are color coded and the lights in the preshow area to change to tell you when it's your turn to ride.





The last time Mike and I rode this was when it was in soft openings and the preshow area was very entertaining with live performers of the ragtime gals and hashtag the panda was walking around taking pictures with guests but that wasn't happening this time. It was still nice to sit in the AC and watch show clips while waiting.

The ride is a basic 3d simulator type but I think it's a fun one!

It exits you into a gift shop (of course) and we looked around for a few minutes. When we exited, it was just after 2 pm and the Universal's Superstar Parade was starting and since we were on the route, we were able to just stop in place and watch.









The parade was short but cute to watch and easy to just walk up and see without holding a spot for a long time.

After the parade, I was dying that I'd been in Universal this amount of time without butterbeer and led them to Diagon Alley.

We passed another scare zone on the way!



I'm home!



As soon as we got there though, Mike and Steve (his nephew) decided they were starving and didn't want anything from Diagon Alley.

Since we had dinner plans, it made sense that if we were going to eat a meal, we do it now before it got any later and closer to dinner so I abandoned my quest for butterbeer and agreed to their choice of food.

Next time: Where do we end up eating and how does Universal's version of mobile ordering do?​

 

[amazingact21]

That's an amazing deal on the hotel. I mean, when you just need a place to crash you want somewhere clean and safe. You couldn't beat that price.

It would be hard to resist Butterbeer! That's the number one thing to get inside Universal, right?

 

[disneyAndi14]

Great idea to turn your US tickets into a season pass. I sure wish I would have done that in August!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

So we chose two options from the drink case and received many judgemental looks and comments from the others in line.

They were just jealous that they weren't maximizing their DDP use!

We paid something like $48 a night for our stay which really couldn't be beat.

That is an amazing deal! Great work.

For comparison, the regular price on their website for a 1 day package is $69.99 so this was a great deal for me!

Wow, good to know to look for specials. That's a big difference.

 

[NJlauren]

So we chose two options from the drink case and received many judgemental looks and comments from the others in line.

Mike drank his with breakfast with the argument that coffee was intended for breakfast-time but I saved mine to enjoy later in the trip!

I am sorry what! Honestly who turns down free alcohol, i mean i know tech you paid for it, but it was free kinda and who are these people???

helpful contributed to the shopping by following Mike around with this hand puppet (he hates Baby Shark and I think it's adorable lol).

We have this! HAHAH Maren loves it!

We arrived a little before noon and went to see if we could check-in early. The staff at the desk were SO friendly and helpful- just as good as Disney CMs! They had a room ready for us and gave us all kinds of coupons for the attached/nearby restaurants (spoiler alert: we used none of them). Mike couldn't help himself (because he talks to everyone) and told them we were amazed by how many Rosen Inns we passed while driving. They found this hysterical and told us there's something like 11 of them in Orlando and 4 on International Drive alone! Crazy!

Wow that is ALOT of hotels, nice to hear they have good staff! Its always nice when you arrive some place and the staff is nice and up to par!

We paid something like $48 a night for our stay which really couldn't be beat. If you're looking for an affordable, decent hotel close to Universal, I would recommend it especially because parking was free! My sister and I actually stayed here again for our December trip.

WOW this is a great price!

We parked and made it quickly through security and I just have to say it: Universal's security system is SO much more efficient than Disney's. It's similar to the airports and your stuff all goes through the x-ray screening and you all go through the metal detector. Disney- get on board please!

yeah i always wonder if there is a better way to run the security at the parks, like is this really the best way?

Looks like a good start to the Universal stay of your trip! I am debating if we should do 1 day at universal in Nov, but we only have 6 park days.... so i just cant decide...

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Your meal at Polite Pig looked great!

I agree about Epcot Forever, it was just meh.

Great deal on your next hotel, can't wait to hear more about Universal!