The Best Trip EVER!!!!!!

[gabzee]

Hey everybody. This is my first trip report and I hope you all like it. Let me start by introducing the family:

Me: Deborah- dentist- I am a Disney fanatic as well as Universal.

DH: lawyer- He gets very stressed at work and deserves a vacation.

DD: 16- She loves to sing and act. She is very excited about this trip because we are celebrating her 16 birthday.

DF: 15- She is my daughter's best friend since 1st grade and is coming with us to celebrate.

DS: 9- He has a lot of enery and loves to play his guitar and basketball.

So.... anyways, I should get back to the pre trip report. I will post my actual trip report after we go on it. But here is my Pre-trip report:

Thursday, Jan. 15-

I didn't have any shopping to do. However, my little one (well not so little) was sick today so he stayed home and missed his field trip at school to go to Kennedy Space Center. He wasn't too upset because we have been there before and he really wanted to get better so he could have fun with us. All I need to do is pack and get everything together. I also still have some laundry to do. By the way, I am a FL resident and have been to Orlando many, many times. In fact we go at least 4 times per a year. We are located about 2.5 hours from Orlando. Okay so I have been planning for this trip and waiting for this weekend for 4 months. We are soooo excited and can't wait for it to start. We are going to be staying at the Portofino Bay Hotel on-site of Universal for 3 nights and 4 days. *** Before you leave on your trip, where ever you are staying research the area and know what to expect.

Next up: The BIG DAY IS HERE!!!!!!! and dinner at Mama Della's.

 

[stich626]

Can't wait to hear about it!

 

[Metro West]

Please continue...the homies love trip reports.

 

[gabzee]

Okay.... We are back!!!! I am so sad though because we all had an amazing time. First let me just say that I love all of your comments and appreciate them. That is what keeps me writing. Okay so lets start from the beginning:
Friday January 16,2009-
We finished packing Thursday night except for my clothes which I packed on Frida morning. The kids couldn't get out of school early so we picked up DS at 3:30 and then drove over to DD and DF school to pick them up at 3:50. Because we put our lugguge in our car earlier, we didnt consider the amount of space their backpacks would take. So, we decide to go take a trip back home and drop off the bag there and take a bathroom break. After that we were on the road for our 2 hour drive by 4:50 pm and got to the beautiful Portofino Bay Hotel by 6:50 pm. We gave the car to valet who helped us with our bags and brought them to our room. We then checked in. Let me just say that we booked two connecting queen bed- garden view rooms. However, when we checked in they gave us the option of having one queen bed room that connected to a king bed room with a roll-a-way free of charge. We decided to go for this. We then went to our rooms and our luggage was delivered. At that point it was 7:30 and we had a 7:45 reservation at Mama Della's. We headed down to Mama Della's and had to wait maybe 15 minutes but we ended up getting our own private room. Dinner was lovely. The atmosphere and entertainment were great. There were Italian musicians that went from table to table and played one song per table and you got to choose. Since we were celebrating DD birthday they also sang Happy Birthday. The service was a little slow but it was worth it. The food was excellent. I had the Vegetable Napolean, DH had the Filet, and all three kids had the Four Cheese Ravioli. Everyone thought everything was excellent. All of our dinners came with a family style salad (yummy!). After our entrees we took a look at the dessert menu but none of us really loved anything on it. We then decided to get the check and go to the gelato store right next to Mama Della's. The gelato was delish. DS got a kick out of the spoons and bowls. They were tri-colored and in a shape of a flower. After that we were tired. We headed to the room to unpack and get ready for a day full of fun.
Up Next:
Islands of Adventure
Universal Studios
Mythos
Rangetsu and a drum show(japanese restaurant)
Bye for now (I will try to do the next post tomorrow)

 

[phamton]

I'm looking forward to reading more about your trip!

 

[donaldduck352]

Kool another TR!!Great so far..

 

[pixeegrl]

new tripee! Allright, guess this means I should finish mine...

 

[Pikester]

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[gabzee]

Hi again. Sorry about the wait. My DD has had a bad cold for the past couple days and my attention has gone to her. Anyways.... I last left you when we finished eating our delishous ice cream and decided to go to bed after our long day.

Saturday January 17-

Okay. So after much needed sleep we woke up at 7:30. We made two wake-up calls (one for each room) and they went off late but oh well. (*Tip- If you go to Disney or Universal and you have an ADR then I suggest making the wake up call 5 mins before you really wanted to make it for because then it will call you at your wanted time. Does that make sense?)

Anyways, we got up and dressed by 8:10 and made our way down to the Trattoria for breakfast. Today it was freezing, it was 40 degrees and went up to 65 degrees.My DD was wearing her birthday pin the whole trip and the matrade happened to notice and wrote it down on the card for the waiter. I thought it was really sweet. We were brought to our table immediately. You had the choice of the buffet or the menu. I choose the menu and got an english muffin, peanut butter (before the big peanut butter problem), and fruit. All of the in on the buffet but this is only what I was going to eat buffet or no buffet. Everyone else ordered the buffet. The buffet consisted of scambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, french toast (yum), pancakes, omelets made to order (YUM; they had egg whites and egg beaters too), cooked oatmeal with toppings, danishes, muffins (okay), bagels, bread, english muffin, fruit, yogert, granola, and assorted cereals. (Sorry for the long list) Everything was good. My only complaint, well my DH complaint was that they didn't have everything bagels any of the days that we were there.

After we finished eating we made our way to the boat and had to wait maybe 5 or so minutes at the most. We got to City Walk by 9:10 and started walking to Islands of Adventure. We stopped to get our preordered tickets and got them in no time. We got thru the gate by 9:45. Our first stop was Spiderman. There was literally no in the Express line. We walked right on the ride. After, we walked around and took random pictures expecially by the Toon Lagoon. We went to see what the wait was for Pteranodon Flyers but it was 60 minutes and we weren't going to wait that long. We then walked over to Dueling Dragons but only DD and DS went on. They rode the Fire one and loved it. DD was wearing Uggs and was afraid that they would fall off so she was holding on to them the whole time but they didn't fall off. After that we went to Poseidon's Fury. We had to wait maybe 10 minutes with Express for the next show. It was okay but we already saw it in previous trips many times and they haven't changed it. At this point it was about 12:15. We had 12:30 reservations at Mythos for lunch. We decided to check in early. We waited maybe 5 or 10 minutes and then got seated. Let me first say that it is a beautiful restaurant with great service and food. I also have pictures but I dont know how to post them. If anyone does please let me know. Anyways, back to the meal. We got seated in a big booth with the view of the entire park and a waterfall. It was beautiful. I ordered a really nice salad. I believe it was the Chinese Chicken Salad. DH ordered the Pad Thai. DF ordered the Grill Chicken Club with cheese no bacon. DD ordered Grilled Chicken Club with no cheese no bacon. DS ordered a kids hamburger. Everyone really enjoyed their meals.

Up next-
Finshed Islands of Adventure
Universal Studios
dinner

 

[macraven]

don't stop now gabzee, i'm hooked and waiting for more trippie report!

 

[gabzee]

Thanks so much for your support and I will do my best to find time to write another post in the next couple of days. I am sorry but I have been tied up at work.

 

[MouseGirl]

Loving your reporot - looking forward to the next installment!!

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

Great job so far, Gabz! And to post pictures, upload them to photobucket and click the image icon (yellow square, looks like mountains) to put the address.

 

[macraven]

come back and tell us more

 

[ky07]

Great trip report and like Metro said we homies love trip reports