The Sybah Shelstah
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2002
- Messages
- 456
Day 7 in Florida
12/30/02
We have 2.5 days left in Florida with 1 day left on WDW park hoppers and haven't even touched our 5 consecutive days (there is a difference! I wish days could be saved on US/IOA tickets! LOL) at US/IOA. So we decide to go to US today and IOA on 12/31. We would also use our meal/movie deal tickets we'd purchased on 1/31/02. Figured how many people would be going to the movies to see The Wild Thornberries (we have to watch a kid show with the kids you know LOL) on NYE? (apparently we were right- we were the only ones in there watching that! LOL)
Anyway- I won't go into great detail because I think US/IOA have their own forums here and those reading this report aren't interested in reading this.
Let's just say we went to US on 12/30/02- we got there a little late because I overslept again (and everyone counts on ME to get them all up- ugh LOL) and we rode a lot of rides and watched a lot of shows. The highlights of the day were E.T. (son begging to do it again but no express tickets were allowed anymore for that day- so we had to do our FIRST really long standing in line -just for the little twerp. Um, did I just say that out loud? HAHA just kidding ofcourse. I was glad he finally was digging some of the rides!) -Terminator 2 was hubby's fav but it kinda scared the kids at times. Not too bad though- just had to keep explaining to my son that some of the things they were doing weren't 'real'- like a movie at home son.
Also Back to the Future, Men in Black II (they wanted to do that one again and kept asking-but too long of a line and no more express tickets for that one either. 
Jaws was great, earthquake was alright, twister did nothing for us except mess up our hair. LOL
Kids loved Barney show and Animal Planet live. They gave us BACK our tickets I had as a "free" express ticket for any ride (in a booklet they were giving out at the citywalk entrance) and we used it to ride E.T. again! hehe Unfortunately something messed up and ruined our last E.T. experience (which was great because even our youngest could ride that ride!!) because they were backed up and we kept stopping and starting- we could see the ones in front of us so that ruined the illusion and stopping for long periods of time and then jostling us a bit forward to a complete stop again was not cool. Their response when we said something is wrong and explained what happened when we got off? "that happens all the time". Well that's not cool!
They liked the WoodyWoodpecker roller coaster, Fiefel's (how do you spell that? LOL) playground, Curious George where they got soaking wet right before we left LOL, and kidzone. Lots of other stuff. I think the kids liked US better than WDW. I know that's horrible.. my kids are traitors of Mickey! wahhhhhhh Kids.. what're ya gonna do with em, right? LOL
We ate at Motown (with our meal/movie tickets- great deal and food delicious) and then went home... we'd do the movie part of it the next night. My son was so tired (for the first time the entire vacation) that he complained for the first time that he was tired of walking so DH carried him on his shoulders. Music was blasting through citywalk (ofcourse- it was getting later) and I have great videotape of my son AND husband dancing while he's on his shoulders. My husband isn't very spontaneous like that- so you'd have to know him to understand why I videotaped that. He's not really shy- just usually "reserved" in public- yanno? We all danced our way out of there and I don't care if people thought we were fools. We were on vacation! Maybe for me it was lack of sleep induced hysteria- I don't know. But it was fun.. and put the tired kids back in a good mood. Although I noticed my 2yr old was asleep in the stroller I was pushing while dancing. LOL Guess she's not a citywalk party animal.
Got more Krispy Kreme donuts (hehe) and headed home.
Oh, and I have blisters on the bottom of some of my toes by this point. Don't ask me why. My tennis shoes were not knew and I had no blisters anywhere else. LOL But they hurt and btw- so did my knees. I have had knee problems for about a year now and we can't figure out why. MRI's and removing water from the knee/etc and the dr can't figure out anything wrong with them- just get swollen with water in the knee for some reason. They've ran all kinds of test on the fluids removed too- nothing. Anyway, all the park walking and then up/down the stairs in our "townhouse" have my knees ready to break down on me. LOL
12/31/02
Finally got up on time- because I made myself go to bed by 2am this time. LOL Hey, that's early for me!
I was very tired and my blistered toes were hurting. HUGE blisters covering the entire back of 2 toes- any idea why that happened? LOL
Went to Islands of Adventure and had a blast. The long and short of it is that the kids enjoyed the rides A LOT there and Spiderman was there- the ride and the ACTUAL (haha) Spiderman! Well, that was enough for my son. His favorite place on earth now. Can he go there everyday? Ofcourse you cannot son. LOL (we got great pics of him with Spiderman ofcourse)
We rode just about everything there- some twice- spiderman ride 3 times. It was crowded walking around there- but for some reason the lines were either short or it was easy to do the express thing there. Can't really figure it out. We did everything except some "shows" and the water rides. We didn't want to get THAT soaked and I wasn't about to pay $6 per person for the coverups (I can't think of the name of them now! ugh!) to keep us semi-dry on those rides. So we just avoided them. But the kids had a blast, we had a pretty good time too- food there and at US wasn't the best in the world- but a pretty good variety and not quite as expensive as it seemed to be in the WDW parks (ofcourse now that I have had more time to research it online with menus/etc- I see that there are reasonable places to eat in WDW and I just hadn't known that at the time! I couldn't very well walk the entire park looking at every single menu then though. LOL) The kids loved the Cat in the Hat area or whatever it's called- the rides, the play areas and Grinch playing with them! He really played his part well- really looked like him realistically and his voice was even the same- attitude too. we got pictures earlier of the kids with him in a different Christmas outfit- I told them that could be their christmas pics this year instead of with Santa since we missed doing that this year. LOL I had some time alone with the kids for 2hrs also- because we forgot the diaper bag at the room and it took that long for my husband to go all the way back to get it and get parked again/etc. That was straight there and back! So I don't guess it would be a good idea to leave midday from IOA for a nap and come back or anything. Not when they close earlier! LOL
We went over to US for the parade since I SOMEHOW completely forgot about it the day before and I really wanted to tape that Macy's float parade also! But just as we parked ourselves in good spots- they said the winds were too high to do the balloons which were the main part of the parade! It was very windy that day though. Almost everyone got up and left to not watch the parade! LOL We rode E.T. again and that made my son happy... even though he had to let me know it wasn't as good as the spiderman ride. Spiderman ride ruined ET for him. LOL Rode some rides again, etc etc.
We used our movie part of our "deal" tickets to see Wild thornberry's adventure and the kids liked it. Oh and I have to say - I really liked the coca cola slushees (icees- whatever you call them) at US/IOA and at the movies. That's my favorite to drink rather than just soda- even if it's cold outside. Does WDW have those anywhere? I didn't notice it while there.
Anyway, we came out and it was pouring down rain! This was NYE and the movies comes out right on the citywalk! Needless to say I was VERY VERY happy that we'd cancelled our babysitting/citywalk expensive plans for that night. For it would have really spoiled the night for me to get soaking wet to the bone that night while paying so much for a night out! Sometimes it pays to be frugal I guess. So with a grin and thankful I hadn't done that- we went home.
see conclusion of our trip in pt8
12/30/02
We have 2.5 days left in Florida with 1 day left on WDW park hoppers and haven't even touched our 5 consecutive days (there is a difference! I wish days could be saved on US/IOA tickets! LOL) at US/IOA. So we decide to go to US today and IOA on 12/31. We would also use our meal/movie deal tickets we'd purchased on 1/31/02. Figured how many people would be going to the movies to see The Wild Thornberries (we have to watch a kid show with the kids you know LOL) on NYE? (apparently we were right- we were the only ones in there watching that! LOL)
Anyway- I won't go into great detail because I think US/IOA have their own forums here and those reading this report aren't interested in reading this.
Let's just say we went to US on 12/30/02- we got there a little late because I overslept again (and everyone counts on ME to get them all up- ugh LOL) and we rode a lot of rides and watched a lot of shows. The highlights of the day were E.T. (son begging to do it again but no express tickets were allowed anymore for that day- so we had to do our FIRST really long standing in line -just for the little twerp. Um, did I just say that out loud? HAHA just kidding ofcourse. I was glad he finally was digging some of the rides!) -Terminator 2 was hubby's fav but it kinda scared the kids at times. Not too bad though- just had to keep explaining to my son that some of the things they were doing weren't 'real'- like a movie at home son.
Also Back to the Future, Men in Black II (they wanted to do that one again and kept asking-but too long of a line and no more express tickets for that one either. Jaws was great, earthquake was alright, twister did nothing for us except mess up our hair. LOL Kids loved Barney show and Animal Planet live. They gave us BACK our tickets I had as a "free" express ticket for any ride (in a booklet they were giving out at the citywalk entrance) and we used it to ride E.T. again! hehe Unfortunately something messed up and ruined our last E.T. experience (which was great because even our youngest could ride that ride!!) because they were backed up and we kept stopping and starting- we could see the ones in front of us so that ruined the illusion and stopping for long periods of time and then jostling us a bit forward to a complete stop again was not cool. Their response when we said something is wrong and explained what happened when we got off? "that happens all the time". Well that's not cool!
They liked the WoodyWoodpecker roller coaster, Fiefel's (how do you spell that? LOL) playground, Curious George where they got soaking wet right before we left LOL, and kidzone. Lots of other stuff. I think the kids liked US better than WDW. I know that's horrible.. my kids are traitors of Mickey! wahhhhhhh Kids.. what're ya gonna do with em, right? LOL
We ate at Motown (with our meal/movie tickets- great deal and food delicious) and then went home... we'd do the movie part of it the next night. My son was so tired (for the first time the entire vacation) that he complained for the first time that he was tired of walking so DH carried him on his shoulders. Music was blasting through citywalk (ofcourse- it was getting later) and I have great videotape of my son AND husband dancing while he's on his shoulders. My husband isn't very spontaneous like that- so you'd have to know him to understand why I videotaped that. He's not really shy- just usually "reserved" in public- yanno?
We all danced our way out of there and I don't care if people thought we were fools. We were on vacation! Maybe for me it was lack of sleep induced hysteria- I don't know. But it was fun.. and put the tired kids back in a good mood. Although I noticed my 2yr old was asleep in the stroller I was pushing while dancing. LOL Guess she's not a citywalk party animal. Got more Krispy Kreme donuts (hehe) and headed home.
Oh, and I have blisters on the bottom of some of my toes by this point. Don't ask me why. My tennis shoes were not knew and I had no blisters anywhere else. LOL But they hurt and btw- so did my knees. I have had knee problems for about a year now and we can't figure out why. MRI's and removing water from the knee/etc and the dr can't figure out anything wrong with them- just get swollen with water in the knee for some reason. They've ran all kinds of test on the fluids removed too- nothing. Anyway, all the park walking and then up/down the stairs in our "townhouse" have my knees ready to break down on me. LOL
12/31/02
Finally got up on time- because I made myself go to bed by 2am this time. LOL Hey, that's early for me!
I was very tired and my blistered toes were hurting. HUGE blisters covering the entire back of 2 toes- any idea why that happened? LOL
Went to Islands of Adventure and had a blast. The long and short of it is that the kids enjoyed the rides A LOT there and Spiderman was there- the ride and the ACTUAL (haha) Spiderman! Well, that was enough for my son. His favorite place on earth now. Can he go there everyday? Ofcourse you cannot son. LOL (we got great pics of him with Spiderman ofcourse)
We rode just about everything there- some twice- spiderman ride 3 times. It was crowded walking around there- but for some reason the lines were either short or it was easy to do the express thing there. Can't really figure it out. We did everything except some "shows" and the water rides. We didn't want to get THAT soaked and I wasn't about to pay $6 per person for the coverups (I can't think of the name of them now! ugh!) to keep us semi-dry on those rides. So we just avoided them. But the kids had a blast, we had a pretty good time too- food there and at US wasn't the best in the world- but a pretty good variety and not quite as expensive as it seemed to be in the WDW parks (ofcourse now that I have had more time to research it online with menus/etc- I see that there are reasonable places to eat in WDW and I just hadn't known that at the time! I couldn't very well walk the entire park looking at every single menu then though. LOL) The kids loved the Cat in the Hat area or whatever it's called- the rides, the play areas and Grinch playing with them! He really played his part well- really looked like him realistically and his voice was even the same- attitude too. we got pictures earlier of the kids with him in a different Christmas outfit- I told them that could be their christmas pics this year instead of with Santa since we missed doing that this year. LOL I had some time alone with the kids for 2hrs also- because we forgot the diaper bag at the room and it took that long for my husband to go all the way back to get it and get parked again/etc. That was straight there and back! So I don't guess it would be a good idea to leave midday from IOA for a nap and come back or anything. Not when they close earlier! LOL
We went over to US for the parade since I SOMEHOW completely forgot about it the day before and I really wanted to tape that Macy's float parade also! But just as we parked ourselves in good spots- they said the winds were too high to do the balloons which were the main part of the parade! It was very windy that day though. Almost everyone got up and left to not watch the parade! LOL We rode E.T. again and that made my son happy... even though he had to let me know it wasn't as good as the spiderman ride. Spiderman ride ruined ET for him. LOL Rode some rides again, etc etc.
We used our movie part of our "deal" tickets to see Wild thornberry's adventure and the kids liked it. Oh and I have to say - I really liked the coca cola slushees (icees- whatever you call them) at US/IOA and at the movies. That's my favorite to drink rather than just soda- even if it's cold outside. Does WDW have those anywhere? I didn't notice it while there.
Anyway, we came out and it was pouring down rain! This was NYE and the movies comes out right on the citywalk! Needless to say I was VERY VERY happy that we'd cancelled our babysitting/citywalk expensive plans for that night. For it would have really spoiled the night for me to get soaking wet to the bone that night while paying so much for a night out! Sometimes it pays to be frugal I guess.
So with a grin and thankful I hadn't done that- we went home. see conclusion of our trip in pt8
Happy to hear that you all enjoyed Universal. My favorite ride anywhere is Back to the Future. We never got to go to IOA but it is definately happening next trip!
