RPH 7/20 - 7/25 - First Visit

[sherries]

This is a little delayed. Sorry. I wanted to say thanks for all the advice I received here. The information I received from this board saved us some money and make our trip more enjoyable. After a 13 hour drive, we arrived late into Orlando and stayed offiste on the 19th at the Homewood Suites on Hospitality Way. We got there and it was really crowded at check-in. After waiting a few minutes, we received our room key and went to the room. It was very nice. The Homewood Suites at this location is new and our room was very spacious and CLEAN. A priority for me. Two queen beds in the bedroom section, it had a small kitchen and a living area. Not my taste in the decorating department, but very nice for the money. We got the AAA rate of $80.00. Got up early the next morning to head to RPH for check-in. Now, I had requested a certain room number (1610) after reading on this Board that it was an exceptional room. Checkin was with Mikael (from Sweden, very nice). The requested room was not ready but that was o.k. as we left the luggage with the bellman and planned to go on to the parks. My son received the backpack gift even though he isn't a teenager (he's 10). I explained that the sandpail was a bit too young for him. Anyway, he wasn't that impressed with the backpack either. It had some crunchy snack in it, with a few free samples of hair shampoo and sunscreen, I think. Not the stuff a 10 year boy finds interesting, I am sorry to say. Anyway, I had not received my Lowes First card as yet even though I had registered online more than 8 weeks before our trip. Still have not received it, and we are back. I did, however, get the number from the Lowes people by phone and was able to give that at checkin. Mikael was very pleasant and took the information for the welcome gift and morning paper of choice. We took our room keys and headed off to the parks. More to come . . .

 

[sherries]

Took the boat taxi over to Citywalk and went to Universal first. First thing we saw was Jimmy Neutron and DS loves that show so we (me, DH and DS) jumped in the express line. It was still early in the day so even the regular line wasn't too bad and I thought, wow, maybe we didn't need FOTL (Boy, was I wrong). We loved this ride. From there, we looked over at Shrek and noticed that it already had a significant line. Decided to do that later. (Bad move). We walked on down the road and noticed that Twister was nearby. My son loves the movie Twister and any other movie he has seen like this. So, of course, we went into the building. Didn't know what to expect, but from the pictures on the Universal brochures, we thought we were going to be holding on for dear life in a wind tunnel or something. WRONG. This was a lame attraction and my son hated it. You stand on a platform looking out at a barnyard scene. The platform is covered and we were in one of the back rows. There is a little water falling down from the roof of the platform and some lightening, some noise, some fire, an animated cow flying by, etc. We didn't like it. So we moved on and didn't go back to that one. Next was Earthquake. I volunteered to help out with the special effects demonstration and while it wasn't much, my son enjoyed seeing his mom front and center. This was a pretty cool attraction, but after going through it two times, and my son volunteered the second time and was the one that gets wet, we didn't go on it again, because we didn't want to have to sit through the special effects demonstration again. Just wanted to get on the subway ride. It would be nice if they had that option. On to Jaws! Of course, my DH and I had seen the movie and knew what was going on but DS was clueless! I couldn't stop laughing when we got on the boat and he was seated on the end! He was looking at me and asking what was so funny. I didn't answer. Boy, he was shocked. The look on his face when that shark jumped out of the water and then the look when the thing in the water explodes (it is somewht noisy) was priceless. I felt a little bad I hadn't clued him in, but he survived. More to come . . .

 

[sherries]

On to MIB. Now, I really appreciate the FOTL. The park has gotten a little more crowded and MIB is pretty busy. We zoom through the express line and get the front seat of a car. I printed off all the tips on getting a good score, but hadn't read it yet. All I remembered was that someone suggested keeping the trigger of the gun pressed at all times, so that is what I did while aiming. I was pretty terrible. My DS had the highest score in our group, but we were all pretty bad. The teen age boys behind us were great. When you ride out and Will Smith tells you whether you are average or beyond, they were MIB candidates or something like that, but of course, we were just average. We rode this attraction about four times this day, each time we were just o.k., but we really liked it, so that's o.k. We went on to Back to the Future and it was pretty good. Wasn't the right time for the Animal Planet show, so we kept walking and decided to have lunch at Mel's Diner. It was just o.k. Nothing special, hot dogs and hamburgers, $26 for the three of us, I think. Saw the Blues Brothers and really enjoyed that. Loved the NYC staging. Really neat. I think we went on Jimmy Neutron again and then decided to go back to Shrek. Well, the regular line was at 90 minutes at this point and we jumped into the express line. We still had to wait about 15 to 20 minutes. Did NOT like having to go into that room with about 100 other people and be scrunched together. Crowds don't usually bother me, but I didn't like this room at all. The constant "snoring" of those pigs was irritating. Finally, after what seemed like another 20 minutes, we were allowed to go into the theatre. The movie was really good. The 4-D effects were great. Worth the wait. However, we didn't do it again during our trip. After Shrek, we called the hotel and was told that the room still wasn't ready. It is now about 3:00 p.m. We decide that we are all tired and HOT and we will go back to try and retrieve our bathing suits and go to the pool. When we get to the lobby I decided to go up to the desk and speak with Mikael just to see if something had changed during our walk to the hotel. He said that room 1610 was still not available and at this point, I gave up. I said, could we please have another room? He said, sure. Gave us 1508. YEAH Some place to call home for the next five days. A bellman retrieved our luggage and took us up to the room. It was pretty nice, but much smaller than the Homewood Suites, so we had to adjust. Places in the room needed a paint touchup, but I said, no problem with the room and tiped the guy and fell onto the bed! After a quick rest, I began to take in the room. We had a water view (booked the MC deal where you get a free upgrade) and it did overlook the pool, but we had a giant palm tree directly in front of the window. Just had to look around it. The bathroom was pretty nice. One of the sconces over the sink didn't work. I remember reading this from someone else, so I don't know if they make them that way or not? We unpacked the bathing suits and headed down to the pool. Had a smoothey at the pool and it was delicious. DS enjoyed swimming and liked the pool. We had reservations for Mythos this evening, my DH's birthday. So, we stayed a while and then went to get cleaned up for dinner. Took the water taxi to Citywalk and went to IOA to find Mythos. It is at the very back of the park, so it was somewhat of a walk. Found it and they really had my reservation made through central reservations. Restaurant was really lovely. Food was GREAT. My DH had the filet mignon, I had salmon and my DS of course had pizza. All were very good. Oh, I had the stuffed mushrooms to begin the dinner and I shared with DH. They were also good. Really liked this restaurant. With tip, the meal was around $60, I think. Not bad at all. More to come. . .

 

[SpideyHulk24]

Great trip report. Keep it coming. Reading your report brings back such great memories from our trip!

 

[>>^..^<<]

sherries... I am loving your reports... keep them coming!

That was a funny story about jaws.. when the shark came up my daughter jumped up climbed over me into the row behind with the people sitting there grabbing and helping her... it all happened so fast... it was a big laugh that she ended up in the row behind me sitting with another family

>>^..^<<

 

[sherries]

Forgot to mention something about the room at RPH. The bathroom shower was miserable. It had little to no water pressure. Thought about calling Star Service but each time we showered, tried to adjust the shower head hoping it would work better. It didn't.

Arrived back from Mythos and was expecting the milk and cookies (we didn't get dessert at the restaurant for this purpose). No cookies to be found. Called Star Service. They asked if I had filled out the proper paperwork during check in. I stated that I had, however, since we changed room numbers, maybe there had been some confusion. They promised to bring the next night.

I'll start day two on another thread.

 

[MadamG2U]

Thanks for sharing I am enjoying it!

 

[Minniespal]

Thanx for sharing ~ Wonderful reports!!!!