After unpacking, we went down to the pool to relax. The Hard Rock pool bar is a cool place to hang out. I had a Creamsicle and my wife had a Rasberry Mojito. The Creamsicle is a frozen ice cream drink with mango. Both drinks were excellent.
The water slide is a lot of fun but should be approached with caution. The first time I went down I scraped my back on the bottom of the pool. I think the water level was a little low. The lifeguard suggested not lying down flat when launching into the pool. Another time I almost flipped over around a fast turn. None of that prevented me from going on numerous times. It’s a lot of fun.
We went back to the room and took a shower, or should I say I took a shower and got ready and then waited an hour for my wife to finish. You guys know what I mean! It was about 5 o’clock and we took the boat over to Citywalk. My wife wanted to check out the Fossil store.
Now might be a good time to talk about the boat. We were so lucky. Almost every time we wanted to go over to the parks or Citywalk, the boat was either just pulling up or was there in minutes. We only walked over to Universal twice during our entire stay. The walk is not bad at all from the Hard Rock but I wouldn’t be walking from the other hotels.
Back at the store, my wife bought a nice watch and purse and it was back to the hotel for a little more relaxation. We decided to purchase the express passes for the night while passing by the concierge desk in the hotel lobby. We got over to the Halloween Horror Nights around 7 P.M. It was not that crowded. I was surprised to see the metal detectors at the entrances. They made us throw away our opened bottles of water.
Once in the park we made a right. We really enjoyed the first two houses we hit: Silver Screams and The Spawning. The wait time was posted at only 10 minutes but we used our express passes anyways. We missed Chucky and went over to Saw, which was good as well.
We were getting hungry but went into Leave it to Cleaver before heading over to Finnegans. Cleaver wasn’t that good, neither was my dinner. The restaurant was empty, except in the bar area where they had the Yankee game on. My wife had the chicken pot pie, which was good. My fish and chips were sopping with oil. I had a few bites of the fish and that was all I could stand. The server was nice. I didn’t feel like complaining. I gave her a good tip.
The next house was Frankentein. The wait times were getting longer and now we could see just how valuable the express passes are. This house wasn’t that good either. We went back to the hotel to relax for a while.
We walked back over for a second round at about 10 o’clock. It had gotten pretty crowded but we had plenty of time to see the houses we missed; Chucky, Dracula, and Wolfman (in order of most enjoyable). The wait times were 70 minutes now. Chucky was probably the best house overall with that spinning tunnel you have to walk through.
As far as the conga line issue, it wasn’t a problem at all for us. I just walked slowly and tried not to look ahead. A couple of times a worker would say move along or something, but I basically ignored them and it worked out great. It was funny because a few times, strangers behind us were hanging onto my shirt!
As far as the smoking on the line issue, there were people smoking on the regular lines and they were packed in tightly. This would have made me uncomfortable. The park should consider adding more no smoking signs and putting up cooling fans in those packed areas.
All in all we had a really good time, but one night was enough for both of us. We saw all the houses and passed on the two shows because we always get bored in those. We passed on the rides because we were going to the parks the next two days. The scare zones were nothing special, but one guy really got us when he jumped out from behind a corner (and said boo). And of course, we added a couple of lighted drink glasses to our collection.
It was about 1 o’clock when we got back to the hotel. I ordered a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato sandwich and fruit instead of fries from room service. It was delivered quickly within 20 minutes. The sandwich was bad but the fruit was good. It was about what I was expecting from late night room service. The bed was very comfortable and the linens and sheets were clean and cozy. We had no problems nodding off and sleeping straight through the night, with our heads filled with recollections of the day, and dreams of the days to come.
End of Day 1
...makes me wish I was there.
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Totally sitting here reading and enjoying
