The big solo vacation - live report

[robind]

Hello from sunny (?) Orlando. Since the podcast team was responsible for a portion of my trip, I decided to go ahead and post my trip report here – hope that’s okay.

A little background, I had originally planned on going to WDW for five nights during free dining. Then while listening to the pod cast one day, I heard Kevin or John (?) mention that DCL added a three night cruise on the Magic because it was coming out of dry dock early. I quickly contacted Dreams Unlimited and Tracy got me a good rate on a category 12 cabin. Since I was going solo and it was only 3 nights, I figured I’d bite the bullet and “live with” an inside cabin.

So, now that I’ve decided to go on the cruise, I need to change my WDW dates. The question is, do I go for a few days before or a few days after. Having spent the last nine months working in Europe, I decided to emulate my European colleagues and go before AND stay after – my first ever two week vacation. The plan is to do Monday and Tuesday at Universal, Wed - Saturday DCL to Nassau then Sat - Fri WDW with Food and Wine.

I’m doing a ‘traditional’ WDW trip in early December with my extended family, so this solo trip I want to do a few things I wouldn’t normally do.

Fast forward to Monday morning 4am. Up bright (well not so bright) and early and off to RIC. Somewhat uneventful flight (I had a gentleman next to me that couldn’t stay in his seat, so I got no sleep ), quick change in Atlanta and arrived at MCO @10am, right on time.

Gathered the luggage and got the rental car and off to the Springhill Suites near Universal for the first two nights. I haven’t been to Universal Studios since before Islands of Adventure was built, so I had a lot to check out.

I arrived at city walk around 12:30 and decided to have lunch in Margaritaville of course I had to have the Cheeseburger in Paradise. The burger was good, ordered medium and while, I wouldn’t consider it medium, it wasn’t well done, so that was good. It was at this point that I realized I left my camera in my tote bag in the hotel. Luckily I was able to take a few pics on the iPhone.
I decided I needed one of these for my deck:

After lunch I decided to check out Islands of Adventure, I started out with Seuss Landing – surprisingly I really enjoyed it, thought it was very well themed, the rides were cute and everything was a walk on. Here are a few pictures:

Then it was off to the lost continent, I went to Poseidon’s Fury, which I thought was a ride, but turns out it’s not. It’s a walk through ‘tour’/ adventure; it was interesting but not what I expected. The theming of this area is really cool:

You can see the start of the black clouds, at this point the thunderstorms started. I was expecting the usual 10 – 20 minutes of rain and then clearing. This was not to be – I waited around an hour and it was still raining, so I gave up and headed out.

I finished the evening out with some shopping at the outlets and a quick take out dinner. Plans for tomorrow include, getting to Universal early to check out the Simpsons and the rest of Universal.

 

[bcvdreamer]

Enjoy the trip! Great photos.

 

[UrsulasShadow]

I was horribly disappointed with Poseidon's Fury, myself...it has such a cool lead-in, and you think you're really going on an exciting adventure (I kept waiting for the ride portion, too), but it really is horribly corny and poorly done at the end. You don't sound as disappointed with it as I was, which is a good thing.

 

[luke]

I was horribly disappointed with Poseidon's Fury, myself...it has such a cool lead-in, and you think you're really going on an exciting adventure (I kept waiting for the ride portion, too), but it really is horribly corny and poorly done at the end. You don't sound as disappointed with it as I was, which is a good thing.

totally agree - i found it a complete waste of time (well, apart from to get out of the July sun!!)

I think the "interesting" quote was an attempt at diplomacy

 

[SamSam]

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your adventure.
I haven't been to Universal in years, I think I should go check it out again.

 

[lttlmc3]

Great pics. Can't wait to see what's next!

 

[DisneyKevin]

Hey robind....

We'll see you on the ship!

Woohoo!

 

[WaltD4Me]

I was horribly disappointed with Poseidon's Fury, myself...it has such a cool lead-in, and you think you're really going on an exciting adventure (I kept waiting for the ride portion, too), but it really is horribly corny and poorly done at the end. You don't sound as disappointed with it as I was, which is a good thing.

You mean that very cool looking "mountain" is not a ride??? It is a walk through thing? Wow, that seems like a waste.

I'm one of those that just has no desire to do Universal, but I have to say from your pics, I would LOVE Suesslanding. I've always been a huge Suess fan
(except for the live movies.) So I guess with Suesslanding and Harry Potter coming, I'm finally going to have to check out Universal.

Can't wait for more of your TR! Keep it coming!

 

[BriarRosie]

I was horribly disappointed with Poseidon's Fury, myself...it has such a cool lead-in, and you think you're really going on an exciting adventure (I kept waiting for the ride portion, too), but it really is horribly corny and poorly done at the end. You don't sound as disappointed with it as I was, which is a good thing.

Oh I totally agree. I remember my first time seeing it, back in 2000. I was so disappointed that the ginormous show building housed a walk-through show, a sort of silly show at that, with a couple of note-worthy special effects. The storyline had changed since then, but it still stinks.

I have to wonder if it's a case of "Oops, we blew the budget on the facade...let's throw something in there as filler since we can't afford a ride system!"

The funny part was that when we entered the first show room, I thought, "Oh there's a preshow." By the third room, it dawned on me that the entire "ride" was a bunch of preshows.

 

[DVCsince02]

I love trip reports!

 

[exwdwcm]

can't wait to read more of your adventure

 

[robind]

Hey robind....

We'll see you on the ship!

Woohoo!

Can't wait, I need to find out how long it will take to get to the port, so I can figure out what time to leave.

By the way, if you guys could get the pod cast up before I have to leave, so I can have something to listen to on the way to the ship

 

[robind]

You mean that very cool looking "mountain" is not a ride??? It is a walk through thing? Wow, that seems like a waste.

I'm one of those that just has no desire to do Universal, but I have to say from your pics, I would LOVE Suesslanding. I've always been a huge Suess fan
(except for the live movies.) So I guess with Suesslanding and Harry Potter coming, I'm finally going to have to check out Universal.

Can't wait for more of your TR! Keep it coming!

There are Ministry of Magic decrees posted around the park:

so it's coming. I can't wait, I love Harry Potter.

I have to wonder if it's a case of "Oops, we blew the budget on the facade...let's throw something in there as filler since we can't afford a ride system!"

I think you are on to something

 

[robind]

Day 2 started out relatively early, my original plan of being at Universal when they opened did not quite happen. I decided sleep was a better idea, but I did make it to the parking lot by 9:30, not too bad. Of course, I didn’t make it to the park until almost 10:00 Both days I’ve ended up in the farthest parking lot – Jaws, so after 2 escalators and about 10 moving walkways I finally got to the park.

My strategy was to hit the Simpsons first then just hit all the rides counter clockwise around the park. You could see where they were getting ready for Halloween Horror Nights:

Love the pumpkins in the trees:

The Simpsons was a walk on – and I LOVED it. They did a really great job, my only complaint was when you are waiting to get into the ride, the little “funhouse” is not air-conditioned and it was a sauna. All the little comments that the characters made where hilarious, as was the preshow.
Quick shot of the entrance – not many people around – this was around 10:15

After The Simpsons, it was on to MIB – time for my mini-rant, and I can’t believe Pete hasn’t mentioned this one. You are REQUIRED to put all bags in a ‘free’ locker (don’t understand why they can’t put little pockets in the car for your stuff like they have on Dinosaur- but that’s another story.) I go over to the locker area and in order to open the locker – they take your fingerprint - what is up with that????? Makes you wonder if they have the police standing nearby in case a fugitive shows up to ride Men in Black
The ride was done well, but I thought it was difficult to determine what/ who you were supposed to be shooting at. My score was 34K, so not too bad.

Continuing around I managed to miss Jaws and didn’t realize it until I got to the Mummy, another awesome ride – again, it was a walk up, the queue took about five minutes to walk through and there were so many turns that the queue made me dizzier than the ride. I managed to catch this guy in front of the ride.

One thing that I noticed here that is different than WDW, is that the ‘characters’ do not have anyone with them, so if you are traveling solo like I do a lot you really don’t have much chance to get pictures with them. Which may actually be a good thing, pictures of me can be scary.

Next up was Twister – Ride it out – okay, here is another disappointment. This is not a ride!!!! Similar to Poseidon – it’s a bunch of ‘preshows’ tied together. What is up with Universal?

Finished up with the remaining rides – one thing I noticed on the Jimmy Neutron ride – if you are “fluffy” I would suggest sitting in the middle two seats of the vehicle. There isn’t a problem with fitting, it’s just that the lap bar is padded, but the padding ends before the end of the bar, about ½ way over the end seats. Where the padding ends, the edge pokes you really hard in the stomach and is painful. Hope that explanation makes sense.

After all the rides I doubled back and hit the shows, Terminator and Shrek and rode ET since it was closed when I got to the park.

One thing I learned today was that I have short legs. I’ve always known that I was short, but there were at least 3 rides where my feet didn’t completely touch the floor of the ride vehicles. I noticed that a lot of the rides there have a little ‘bump’ between your legs, and the back of the seats tend to sit lower than your knees, not very comfortable if you have short legs.

I managed to hit everything I wanted to see by 3:30. I wanted to do a late lunch/ early dinner at Emerils and have an early night. What I didn’t know was that they were closed between 2:00 and 5:15. So, I headed back to the hotels for a quick break, and then headed back around 6pm. No problem getting in even without a reservation.

Food was great as was the service. They have some daily specials and a daily tasting menu. I was going to go for the tasting menu but the waiter pointed out that they had a Chocolate Grand Marnier soufflé, so since I wanted to try that I did not do the tasting menu. There were several appetizers I wanted to try, but I settled on the barbecue shrimp, which is served with a rosemary biscuit. I’ve had barbeque shrimp that had a garlic, butter type sauce. This was more of a traditional red BBQ sauce with a good amount of heat but not so hot you couldn’t taste the flavors.

The entrée was one of the specials – a blackened rib eye, with a garlic butter and sweet corn reduction sauce, served with a twice baked pepper jack baked potato:

This had a good flavor and was cooked as requested. When it was served I thought of all the cardiologist having a fit, a hunk of red meat smothered in butter!
Now it was time for the soufflé:

The waiter pours the hot fudge sauce into in when it is served and it looked great. I must say this was a disappointment. The Grand Marnier was overpowering, it had such a flavor of alcohol that I could not eat very much of it.

Dinner here is not cheap, but I would highly recommend it. Appetizers range from 8.50 – 14, entrees 21 – 42 with the specials up to 47, desserts ranged from 7.50 – 8.50 except for the soufflé at 12.

I almost did not go back tonight because I was tired, but I didn't want to wait until next week, because I didn't want to have to pay another $12 to park. However, I found out that after the parks close you do not have to pay for parking.

Now I need to repack a few things and figure out what time to leave for the port tomorrow. My feet with be glad to have a break, the next three days will be spent relaxing in a lounge chair.

 

[BriarRosie]

The good news is that I know MIB and The Mummy totally make up for the lack of oomph in Poseiden's Mild Temper Tantrum and the Somewhat Blustery Day attractions.

It sounds like The Simpsons is really something not to miss, like the Spiderman ride. Oh, I ate at Emeril's a few years ago, and my friend and I had the tasting menu, I believe. The oddest part of the meal was that our table was smack dab up against a "decorative" glass wine cabinet that housed the really expensive stuff.

They actually had to interrupt our meal and MOVE THE TABLE to get to a bottle of wine that sold for I believe $400 a bottle! I had the feeling that nobody really buys that stuff, and Emeril's staff seemed a bit nonplussed that someone actually wanted it. The staff was really embarrassed that they had to ask us to move, but we were good sports about it. It only took a few minutes.

 

[robind]

The good news is that I know MIB and The Mummy totally make up for the lack of oomph in Poseiden's Mild Temper Tantrum and the Somewhat Blustery Day attractions.

It sounds like The Simpsons is really something not to miss, like the Spiderman ride. Oh, I ate at Emeril's a few years ago, and my friend and I had the tasting menu, I believe. The oddest part of the meal was that our table was smack dab up against a "decorative" glass wine cabinet that housed the really expensive stuff.

They actually had to interrupt our meal and MOVE THE TABLE to get to a bottle of wine that sold for I believe $400 a bottle! I had the feeling that nobody really buys that stuff, and Emeril's staff seemed a bit nonplussed that someone actually wanted it. The staff was really embarrassed that they had to ask us to move, but we were good sports about it. It only took a few minutes.

I agree that those two made up for the other silly two "attractions". Wow a $400 bottle of wine - yikes. They should have given you a glass for disturbing your meal.

 

[TXYankee]

I am loving your report! Thank you!

When I travel solo, I love to get a good meal and Emril's is sure a place to do it! Food porn rocks!

 

[BriarRosie]

I agree that those two made up for the other silly two "attractions". Wow a $400 bottle of wine - yikes. They should have given you a glass for disturbing your meal.

I think they did do something for us to compensate for disturbing our meal, but I don't recall what it was.

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

Emerils sounds great. Good start to your report. I cant wait to hea the rest.

 

[klsdisney]

I was on the 3 day magic cruise too! I wonder if we met and didn't even know it. We had an awesome time even though the seas were kinda rough. I can't wait to hear about your trip. Thanks for the report!