Ding!
The elevator doors open.
And I get a vague sense of déjà vu.
Fighting back the urge to sing something by Menudo (or at the very least Ricky Martin since I can’t remember anything by Menudo), I redirect my thoughts and ask my husband just what the heck we’re going to do about the fact that a group of strangers are most likely mere steps away from throwing open the door to our hotel room, jumping on our beds and scaring the stuffing out of poor, defenseless Michael Mouse and his parents.
Yes, that was one sentence.
Mrs. Jones would be so proud.
Ever the man of action, DH springs out the door and shoots back at me in his booming authoritative voice reserved for moments such as these, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this. You take the kids downstairs and wait for me in the lobby. If I don’t show up within thirty minutes, call the Law Dog. Ya hear?”
And with that, he rounded the corner and was gone forever.
Or at least the next fifteen minutes.
When we met back up downstairs later on, he relayed the story to me. Play by play. Apparently when he left us, he beat a trail down the hallway, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. One would imagine. As he approached the family, he noticed they were already parked in front of our room. The dad was in the act of desperately trying to open our door with their card key and moments away from putting his back into it and busting the door down when DH sauntered up, circled the other dad, tipped his hat and remarked in a slow, cool Southern drawl, “I’m your huckleberry.”
Okay maybe he didn’t. But he
SO should have.
Instead, he said something along the lines of “Dude. That’s our room.” Or “Hey man, what’s up with the breaking and entering?” Or “Put the card key down, back away slowly, and no one will get hurt.” Take your pick. Your guess is as good as mine because I wasn’t there for it either.
What I do know is that DH basically told the other dad what was up. That he was trying to access a room that was already occupado. Which prompted the dad to recheck the room number they’d given him downstairs, then slap his forehead with his hand and yell “D’OH!”. And if he didn’t, he should have. Because he was actually supposed to be beating down the door
across the hall. He’d gotten his numbers mixed up and instead of being our new roomies, they were our new neighbors.
Honest mistake. Could’ve happened to anybody.
Crisis averted.
As DH walked away leaving the family to check out their
actual room, jump on their
own beds, and tear into snacks bought with
their own coin, he couldn't resist the opportunity to glance back over his shoulder and mutter, “You’re no daisy. You’re no daisy a t’all.”
At least in my mind he couldn't.
Reunited (like Peaches and Herb) and satisfied (unlike the Stones) with the knowledge that our belongings and beds were safe and sound for the time being, we traversed the cavernous lobby and set off downstairs toward the resort walkway. We’d had enough foolin’ around for one morning and we were ready to get our groove on. After a short, pleasant walk in which half of us actually walked and the other half of us ran at the speed of sound with our arms tucked into our new Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts, exclaiming “I have no arms! What happened to my arms?!”, we found ourselves standing in front of Islands of Adventure.
And staring up at this ...really tall and really skinny….thing.
I confess I don’t really understand the logic behind the main identifier at this park. The castle I can see. The hat, the Tree of Life, the Epcot ball. Even the Universal globe makes sense to me. I probably wouldn’t decorate my house with it or go so far as to stencil it on my walls (although we
did have a really good time there, making the globe stencil worthy) but I can understand it. This I thought was just plain weird. But whatever. It was big and at the very least, picture worthy, so we took a few shots and moved on.
Casting curious backward glances at it the whole way into the park.
Yeah, that was just me.
We made our way through the turnstiles and within minutes we were entering the Port of Entry. That’s important to know because it’s at this point that the adventure begins. Or so we were told.
Now, this was a park we had never visited before so everything was all new to us. We had no idea what to expect. We had no preconceived notions. No real expectations. And that was what made it so exciting, I think. It was a clean slate. We were eager to experience it and see just what else they could bring to the table, these Universal Orlando Resort people. I have to say, from the moment we stepped foot in that joker, we were hugely impressed with the theming. Weird, really tall and skinny identifying structure aside. We liked this park better than Universal. US reminded us of MGM, which is not really one of our favorite parks, aesthetically speaking. But IOA was nothing like that. The vibe and the look was completely different. It smelled wonderful (could’ve had something to do with that Cinnabon stand off to the left of our noses) and they really outdid themselves with the theming. It was pretty darn cool.
We stood around and took some pictures and then consulted the guide map for a few minutes, unsure of where we wanted to head first. And yes, in that moment I suppose we were “them”. If Universal Orlando Resort has a “them”.
And seeing as how they some sho nuff copyin’ jokers, I wouldn’t put it past ‘em.
Basically, the only thing we really had to do that day was lunch at Mythos. And we weren’t leavin’ that mug without a ride on Jurassic Park. So other than that, the day was wide open. With no gameplan to speak of, we decided to just go with the flow and explore the first section we happened to land in.
It was at this point that we began speaking in rhyme. It was actually pretty annoying, most of the time.
We hung us a right and to our great delight,
we saw buildings askew and colors a-bright.
My oh my, what I spied with my eye!
Theming first rate, not one thing to berate.
Everywhere that we looked, books were alive,
Green Eggs and Ham and all that jive.
We found ourselves lost in the pages
Of quirky little stories that delight all ages
Circus McGurkus and Truffula trees
A Caro-Seussel to ride, if you please
There were flowers aflitter and bubbles aflutter
“I like this place”, we heard the girl mutter.
We were hugely impressed and pronounced it outstanding,
This whimsical place known as Seuss Landing.
In other words: Seuss Landing had it goin' on. The theming in this area was amazing and it really did make us feel like we’d stepped straight into the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.
We wanted to get a better view of the joint so we made a beeline for this bad boy...
Yep, we were getting the heavy hitters out of the way early. Forget the Hulk and Dueling Dragons. Jurassic Park can wait. Put us on the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride first or put us on nothing at all. That’s how we roll.
We walked straight through the queue and boarded our brightly colored trolley within about two minutes flat. We then began our ride around Seuss Landing on the TTA, IOA style and were treated to a pretty decent view of the park.
Notice the line for Thing 1 and Thing 2. That's just about as long as the lines for characters get there.
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish from the air...
A shot of the Jurassic Park Discovery Center across the way. Obviously they spared no expense.
Mythos. Aka: our lunch destination. Is it just me or is it a little on the small side?
Seuss Landing in the forefront with the Hulk and Dr. Doom's FearFall looming off in the distance...
After we went as far as we could go and heard a snipet of almost every Dr. Seuss book known to mankind read aloud by someone whose voice sounded like Keri Strug's, we hopped off and began schlepping around the joint when from out of nowhere Don King came up and grabbed the girl.
Okay, so it wasn’t Don King.
Or Blueberry Muffin. More like a combination of the two.
He (she?) definitely had the ‘do going on. But it was actually Thing 2. And she was more than a little excited about seeing the girl wearing the same duds she was wearing. If only I had been that happy to spot another girl wearing the
exact same dress I was wearing at my junior prom.
But that's another story for another time and another place.
Honestly, you would’ve thought Thing 2 had never seen a kid in a Thing 2 shirt before. She (it?) came up and grabbed the girl, made these hugely animated expressions (with just its arms and hands) and then proceeded to spin her around in the street, dancing with her, and ended it all with a huge, rocking hug. It (he?) absolutely made the girl's day. The child was
beaming. Meanwhile, Thing 1 spotted the boy and his shirt and proceeded to give him the watered down, macho version of the twirling dancing embrace. In other words, they fist bumped and gave each other the head nod. Which was cool with him. He still loves him some character attention but he wants the funny kind, not so much the huggy, lovey dovey, mush mush kind. He is a prenager, after all.
Sigh.
The characters cut up with the kids a good bit and very patiently posed for the camera. I have to say we all LOVED Thing 1 and Thing 2 and they were the character highlight of our trip. To Universal anyway. They were really funny and engaging and spent a lot of time with the kids. Before, they weren’t even on our radar. But now we absolutely
adore them. Thing 1 and Thing 2. They're the new Chip and Dale.
After telling the Things goodbye, we ran into these two knuckleheads.
Who knew Mike Myers and Jim Carrey hung out at Islands of Adventure?
I suppose it could’ve been worse though. Instead of standing around posing for pictures and looking like they were up to no good (especially the green one), they could’ve been harnessed to a jungle gym or falling out of the back end of a rhino. That would
not have been cool.
Once we made all the rounds in Seuss Landing, we walked off the pages of the books and straight into the Lost and Found Continent.
And THIS is where our lack of planning came back to bite us in the butt.
You just knew it eventually would, didn’t you?
Upon entering the Lost and Found Continent and standing around oohing and ahhing for a minute or two at the “ancient” buildings and the statues that looked like they belonged on a beach with Dr. Jack Shepard and the rest of the Losties, we said what the hey, we’ll go on the first attraction that we come to.
Poseidon's Fury. Or, as it would later come to be known as, LaLa’s Fury.
Not knowing much about it other than the fact that it was a walking attraction and it involved a showdown of some sort complete with special effects, we asked the attendant working the Universal Express pass line whether it was scary and if so, if he thought it would be too scary for the girl.
“No, it’s not scary AT ALL.” was his reply.
Thing Number 1 we didn’t know about Poseidon’s Fury : It's scary.
Blissfully ignorant of what we would soon encounter, we began our walking tour by entering the building and winding our way through the neverending queue area. At least, we thought it was a queue area. Maybe it was the actual attraction. Who knows. What I do know is that we walked. And we strolled. Walked some more. Strolled some more. And then we got tired of walking. And strolling. This part ALONE seemed to take a good fifteen minutes, which meant the girl was already tired by the time we finally made it to the preshow area.
Thing Number 2 we didn’t know about Poseidon’s Fury: It’s more like a walking contraption than a walking attraction. Lots of walking. Even more strolling. No breaks. Lots of steps.
As we finally found our way into the inner room and the preshow began, we all stood there squished together like a bunch of sardines. In the dark. With noxious fumes (of the Humanus Pootarius and Underarminus Deodorantus varieties) accosting our noses. Five minutes into the preshow, I wanted out. It was very dark (both literally AND figuratively) and parts of it just didn’t sit well with me. Not at all. But as much as I didn’t like it, the girl liked it even less.
She was scared. Scared of the “not at all” scary attraction.
She began to cry and tried to burrow her head down deep into my femur bone. So I picked her up and she immediately buried her head in my neck, hiding her eyes and latching onto my jugular with a death grip. But there were no lost sunglasses to blame it on this time. The child was downright terrified. And she wasn’t the only one. I heard several crying children in the room in our immediate vicinity and I immediately became angry. I don’t know who I was angry at because it was my own dumb fault for not doing more research on the attraction before bringing her in there. Yes, we had asked the attendant whether it was scary before we entered and he had assured us it wasn’t. But that shouldn’t take the place of some serious ride research before the fact. I’m normally much more prepared than that. And I suppose I was a little angry with myself that I hadn’t been this time around. We were stuck with no other choice but to continue forward with a terrified child and all I knew was I hated that feeling. I was just ready to get the heck out of there. We moved into the next room and between me and my husband, we were able to distract the girl a little. The boy kept a tight grip on my shorts as well, claiming he didn’t like it one bit either, and we all heaved a sigh of relief when we moved onto the third and final room in the attraction.
The only part of the entire experience that was cool was this little trick.
I have no idea how they made this happen, but we basically walked through a centrifuge of water. A water tunnel, if you will. The effect was downright amazing and if the entire left side of my body hadn’t gotten soaked to the dadgum bone while walking through the water tunnel, causing me to slip and nearly fall as I walked up the steps into the next room, it would’ve been even cooler. But as it was, I got even more raged up. Not only were the kids scared but now I was soaking wet. My flip flops were squeaking and my hair was curling. And it was only the second attraction of the day. After slipping in the water, I sidled up against my husband and began to give him an earful about all the things I didn't like about that attraction. Which isn’t normal for me. I’m the even keeled one. The one whose feathers never get ruffled over dumb stuff.
Must’ve been the close proximity to the Hulk.
All I needed was one more thing to happen up in that mug and I was two seconds away from turning green and rippin' my shirt off.
Not really.
I decided to leave that to the couple in front of us.
Thing Number 3 we didn’t know about Poseidon’s Fury: It’s a total and complete turn on.
Not so much for us. Or most other sane people. But for the couple who was standing directly in front of us, it was the ultimate turn on. Apparently. They were all over each other. It was Makeout City. And yes, the tongue was engaged. The worst part of it was the fact that they were standing about a foot away from us. Directly in our line of vision.
Let’s recap, shall we? So far we’ve got two scared kids clawing our flesh off with their fingernails, I get soaked to the bone on an attraction without a “You May Get Wet” sign out front and now we’ve got Joanie and Chachi up there to contend with.
As a last ditch effort, I turned my head up to the sky and screamed two little words.
SERENITY NOW!
Didn’t help.
Not wanting to witness a child being conceived in a theme park (or a trailer park either, for that matter) we scooted as far away from the couple as possible and told them to get a room. Well, I did.
Under my breath and more to myself than out loud.
We were relieved when the last blast of water had exploded in front of us and we were ushered out of the room. There had been some really cool special effects but I think we’ll be skipping that one from now on out. I can think of plenty of other, better ways to spend my time at Islands of Adventure than taking a neverending stroll through LaLa’s Fury.
On a positive note, the building was cool. So at least there’s that.
We continued on around our loop to the right and within short order, we found ourselves in front of Dueling Banjos. Which is what I would have named it had I been in charge of naming stuff.
We stood and watched the other guests get their scream on for a little while. Our eyes followed the loops and corkscrews as the cars careened around the track at light speed. Then we stood quietly and said “Huh.” To no one and everyone all at the same time.
DH thought he might want to ride it. Possibly. Definitely. Maybe. But he just wanted to watch the ride a little longer. To get the feel of it first. Before he decided to ride it by himself. It was at some point during this extended "picking up the vibe" session that I suggested we ride something the kids might get some enjoyment out of now and come back to Dueling Banjos a little bit later. Seeing as how they were still recovering from our little stroll through Hades and in need of a smidgen of Yellow, he agreed that was a good idea. Much more quickly than I thought he would.
So instead of a round on Fire and Ice, we strolled on over to take a ride on this adrenaline pumping beast of a roller coaster…
Go ahead and laugh. It may not be Dueling Dragons, but this little puppy actually ended up surprising us. We boarded our car (in mere MINUTES!) and as we headed up the lift, I took a picture of the view in front of me.
I was preparing to snap a few shots midride, seeing as how this was sure to be a real snoozer. I needed a lil sumpm sumpm to remember it by because from the looks of things, I was sure to forget I was even
on a coaster the second we took off.
No sooner had I taken the picture than I heard a loud booming voice come over the loudspeaker:
YOU THERE WITH THE CAMERA.
Who, me?
YES. YOU WITH THE HALF WET, HALF DRY YELLOW SHIRT AND THE WILTING, HUMIDITY WRACKED HAIR. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE PICTURES. SECURE YOUR CAMERA RIGHT AWAY OR PREPARE TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!!!! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, STITCH’S GREAT ESCAPE?!
My bad.
If my family could’ve sidestepped it straight out the nearest door, they would have. Instead, they were trapped in a car with me. So they did the only thing they could do. They publicly heckled me. Loudly. To make sure everyone within five miles knew they didn't approve of me and my camera.
“Mom, I can’t believe you’re taking pictures! Put DOWN the camera, Mom! Just put it down. That’s against the law, Mom. You’re going to get arrested if you don’t stop taking pictures right now. Sheesh, woman!”
And then from behind me I hear the girl pipe up and put her two cents in, effectively disassociating her little seven year old self from the woman who gave birth to her, “You shunta done that, Mom. Daddy told you not to take so many pictures.”
And from the man I married, I heard nothing but laughter.
Amazing how fast a little public humiliation can make your loved ones turn on you. From that point on, we were outcasts, my camera and me. The subject of public ridicule for the remainder of the trip. It was sad, really. But about two seconds later, I fully understood why they have a no camera policy on the ride.
We went over the hill at the top and right as I made sure the camera was firmly attached to my wrist by way of the strap and grabbed it with my hand for extra security, we took off down the hill at lightning speed.
LIGHTNING SPEED.
They weren’t kiddin’ when they called it a Flying Unicorn. We were
moving. We took a curve and my entire body flew up against the side of the car. The side of the car that was on the OTHER side of the boy. Poor kid couldn’t get his mom off him. I had no control whatsoever. The faster we went and the harder I tried to move back to the other side of the car, the more I squished him. And the more we laughed. It was really surprising how fast that sucker was. I can completely see someone losing a camera and beaming some unsuspecting tourist in the head on the ground below. So word to the wise: if you’re going on the Flying Unicorn, secure your camera before you go over the lift.
Otherwise you just might shoot somebody’s eye out. Kid.
After we let DH tool around in Sir Testosterone’s Souvenir Shop where they sell nothing but wooden swords and family crests and only (not quite yet approaching) middle aged men are the only ones interested in the merchandise…
…we happened upon the funniest talking water fountain we’d ever seen.
Granted, it was the
only talking water fountain we’d ever seen. But this guy was downright hilarious. He played games, squirted people with water, and performed what amounted to an interactive stand up routine. Complete with plenty of references to the Disney parks. At one point everyone was laughing at one of his jokes and he remarked without missing a beat "What's with all the laughing and smiling? Where do you people think you are, Disney?"
And then somebody got it right in the kisser.
The boy didn't come away unscathed. He walked away with his Alabama hat SOAKING WET. For some reason, that's just about the only place the fountain was ever able to hit the boy with his stream of water. Must've been an Auburn fan.
We stood around and listened to his act for a good twenty minutes or so and then decided it was time to head over to Mythos.
Am I the only one who finds it fitting that the restaurant we were eating lunch in that day just so happened to have a guy throwing up carved into the side of the joint?
If you’ve ever ventured over to the Universal Boards, you will probably recognize the name of this restaurant immediately. In fact, that’s how I found out about it in the first place. By perusing the Universal boards. I saw pictures and read a few reviews and was thoroughly impressed with what I saw. I decided then and there that it was one of two places we HAD to dine while we were at Universal. In fact, I’d been looking forward to this meal for some time. Not nearly as long as Tchoup Chop. But still. I’d been looking forward to it for
days. Weeks even. And no, my expectations weren’t stratospheric at that point because I’d learned my lesson where that’s concerned.
But as we walked up to the door to check in, I couldn’t help but notice a lil sumpm sumpm that gave me pause.
In case some of you were wondering who the best of the best is, it’s right there on that plaque. Honestly, it seemed pretty arrogant to me, considering the company it was in. But I like that in a restaurant.
Would Mythos live up to the hype or would it crash and burn? Would I be able to pronounce "Fiji" right if given the opportunity to redeem myself? Would we ever get around to riding Jurassic Park and if so, would DH scream like a little girl on the way down? Would I thoroughly exhaust each and every memorable line from Top Gun if I haven't already?
Stick around and find out.
Or not.
Whatever.
Up next: Islands of Adventure Part II
Not even on my lunch break... 
