The Darling Family June 2010 Trip Report: When are the Parents Showing Up?11/5 New TR

[mickeystoontown]

Wendy's pearl necklace is so pretty and I can see why she'd want a pic with it.

It sounds like you were able to wrap up your last Disney day in a great way.....breakfast at Wolfgang Puck's....snacks at Goofy's....pics with a pirate skeleton and shopping at DTD.

 

[Stefy]

Love Wendy's necklace, very pretty

Looks like a fun morning in DTD, looking forward to your US update

 

[DrMomof3]

Were you sad to leave Disney? Or just excited about Universal and Harry Potter? It's always so sad to have a last day!

Amanda

 

[Angies1274]

Love all your pictures of MSEP!! There is nothing like a night at MK!! Your photopass pictures in front of the castle turned out great! How wonderful that the CM gave your kids the balloon! What a magical end to the night!

Looks like you had a fun morning at DTD! We've never tried WPE for breakfast! That pizza looks yummy! We'll definitely have to give it a try!

 

[mermaid764]

So sad that the Disney portion of your trip had come to an end, but hopefully the universal part was just as exciting

I love the baby minnie...we were going to buy my two month old nephew the mickey one like that but opted for the softer one with the bells inside instead.

Looking forward to more

 

[dismagiclover]

Wendy's pearl necklace is so pretty and I can see why she'd want a pic with it.

It sounds like you were able to wrap up your last Disney day in a great way.....breakfast at Wolfgang Puck's....snacks at Goofy's....pics with a pirate skeleton and shopping at DTD.

It was a good Disney wrap up. We were excited to get on with the Universal part of the trip.

Love Wendy's necklace, very pretty

Looks like a fun morning in DTD, looking forward to your US update

I may even get some of the Universal stuff up before you leave

Were you sad to leave Disney? Or just excited about Universal and Harry Potter? It's always so sad to have a last day!

Amanda

Surprisingly I wasn't that sad to leave Disney this time. We were excited to get DH and let him in on the vacation. Plus we weren't going home yet. We also had 2 trips in the works so I knew we'd be back soon. That always helps.

Love all your pictures of MSEP!! There is nothing like a night at MK!! Your photopass pictures in front of the castle turned out great! How wonderful that the CM gave your kids the balloon! What a magical end to the night!

Looks like you had a fun morning at DTD! We've never tried WPE for breakfast! That pizza looks yummy! We'll definitely have to give it a try!

It was a great evening at the MK and a great way to end the Disney portion of the trip. WPE was great for breakfast. I don't know if we'll do it again though because usually we are at a rope drop.

So sad that the Disney portion of your trip had come to an end, but hopefully the universal part was just as exciting

I love the baby minnie...we were going to buy my two month old nephew the mickey one like that but opted for the softer one with the bells inside instead.

Looking forward to more

The Universal part was fun too. We were happy to have DH with us. There is nothing like Disney though. My niece loved her Baby Minnie (well at least the kids and I loved giving it to her)

 

[Stefy]

I may even get some of the Universal stuff up before you leave

Oh I hope so as I am keen to know what you thought of WWoHP

 

[dismagiclover]

Oh I hope so as I am keen to know what you thought of WWoHP

I should get to it in another couple of days.

 

[dismagiclover]

It didn’t take long to reach the airport and before we knew it we were happily greeting DH. And let me tell you DH was ready to have some fun! I think it was a bit tough on him that we’d been having a grand old time for the past week while he was stuck at work. It didn’t take long to get over to Universal where we checked in at our hotel, the Royal Pacific. Our room wasn’t ready so we parked the car and headed for the parks. Here is the 1st picture I took as evidence that DH finally joined us. That is the Royal Pacific Hotel you see in the background.

I don’t know what DH is doing with his shirt, but it proves that he’s finally joined us. We walked through one of the buildings searching for the boat dock. Michael was happy to finally have his own stroller that DH had reluctantly brought down.

We finally found the boat dock and I snapped this picture of the view of the park.

The boat showed up and we hopped on. As you can see John was happy to be there. Wendy was complaining about the heat. (She’s gonna love this picture.)

We passed by a little beach area that we never visited.

It was close to 1:30 when we finally arrived here.

I think you can tell by the picture that it was hot! We only had a few days here though so we were determined to explore. Our plan for this day was to check out Universal Studios. Here are the boys showing which rides they are tall enough for.

We headed into the park and my first impression was really good. This is a visually beautiful park. Lots of attractive buildings and some really nice theming. I was impressed. I wish I would have taken more pictures. We headed to our first ride.

This was a really cute, really fun ride. Michael especially really liked it. Wendy, on the other hand, is a little creeped out by ET so she simply tolerated it. Next stop

This is Men in Black. This is a great ride! It is like the Buzz ride on Steroids. Lots of great monsters to shoot and the car spins you around much more than Buzz. A really fun ride.

So at this point the boys were hankering to go ride ET again. (Yes we had just ridden it.) Anyway DH and I both wanted to ride the Mummy so we figured this was as good as time as any to do it. I took the kids back to ET while DH rode the Mummy. Then he met us at Men in Black and they rode that again while I rode the Mummy. Because we had the Universal Express Pass this was easy to do. We just always headed to the front of the line. This was especially great at the Mummy. Literally walked right on! The Mummy was a fun ride. I didn’t realize it was actually kind of like a roller coaster, but with special effects. Great ride! Now is as good as time as any to also mention how much we loved the Universal Express Pass. It eliminated all of the lines in the park. We didn’t need to have a plan because we could pretty much walk on any ride we wanted. Such a perk to staying on site! It was definitely worth it! The lines here weren’t as long as they get in Disney, but it was still great to be able to say to the kids, “Sure we can go again.”

Once we all met back up our destination was Shrek. On our way we casually strolled through the areas set up as movie sets. Again, this was a very visually appealing area of the park. Here are a few pictures.

On our stroll we ran across this car.

This is the car used in filming Back to the Future. I must say this car looked much better when I saw the movie 25 years ago. Now it looks like an old clunker. I guess modern is relative. We finally made it over to Shrek and had to take the prerequisite picture of the 3D glasses.

This was a great 3D show! The seats actually moved. Very entertaining. We were really enjoying the afternoon, but tummys were starting to rumble. Where did we head for our late lunch/early dinner?

 

[klacey1]

Glad that everyone enjoyed their first Universal afternoon! We absolutely love it-- although DBF still hasn't gotten over the feeling of "cheating" on Disney . I think the line for ET is so well-themed and the Mummy is one of my favorite them park rides ever! Glad you liked it!

 

[mickeystoontown]

It's been so many years since we visited Universal. Things didn't even look the same to me. It certainly sounds like the express pass is the way to go.

 

[mermaid764]

Universal looks like a lot of fun!

Staying on propery there sure has it's benefits and it's awesome that you guys were able to walk onto everything with the express path.

Can't wait to hear where lunch was at

 

[Stefy]

Great update, looks like you had alot of fun.

The Mummy is just awesome isn't it? My fav part is where you go upside down and through the ring of fire, or is that the other way round.

Express Passes are fantastic and a must have, totally worth the money.

Looking forward to more

 

[dismagiclover]

Glad that everyone enjoyed their first Universal afternoon! We absolutely love it-- although DBF still hasn't gotten over the feeling of "cheating" on Disney . I think the line for ET is so well-themed and the Mummy is one of my favorite them park rides ever! Glad you liked it!

We actually missed the line for ET because of the Express Pass. Guess there are some disadvantages. We just went directly into the preshow video. Mummy is a really great ride!

It's been so many years since we visited Universal. Things didn't even look the same to me. It certainly sounds like the express pass is the way to go.

Definitely recommend the express pass. If you stay on property you can ride over and over. Awesome!

Universal looks like a lot of fun!

Staying on propery there sure has it's benefits and it's awesome that you guys were able to walk onto everything with the express path.

Can't wait to hear where lunch was at

The benefits to staying on property at Universal are way better than any Disney onsite benefits. Of course they don't have near as many on site resorts. Giving benefits like that to Disney onsite would just make the express pass lines long.

Great update, looks like you had alot of fun.

The Mummy is just awesome isn't it? My fav part is where you go upside down and through the ring of fire, or is that the other way round.

Express Passes are fantastic and a must have, totally worth the money.

Looking forward to more

The Mummy is an awesome ride. I didn't have any idea what to expect beforehand which made it even more fun. I'll get another update up later today and then tomorrow I'll finally get to the Harry Potter stuff.

 

[heaven2dc]

After seeing your pics of Universal and comments on the rides, I really hope we get a chance to head over there on our upcoming trip. Loved the description of the rides and also thanks for the tip on the pass!

 

[dismagiclover]

After seeing your pics of Universal and comments on the rides, I really hope we get a chance to head over there on our upcoming trip. Loved the description of the rides and also thanks for the tip on the pass!

I'm really glad we headed over to Universal. It's not something we will do every trip, but it is definitely worth a visit. And we'll go back sometime.

 

[dismagiclover]

Thanks to a report I’d read here on the DIS we headed here for dinner.

We had a nice meal. The food was good. Nothing fabulous. About what you’d expect from a Pub. I think I had the shepherd’s pie. After dinner Wendy and Michael were clamoring to go on Men in Black again, but John didn’t feel like it. So we headed over that way and stopped for this picture by the Jaws attraction.

John and I left the others at Men in Black and then we headed for Fievel’s Playland. One thing Universal definitely provides is places for little boys to get wet.

John played a while here until DH and the other kids showed up. Then Michael and John decided they wanted to go on the waterslide. So we sent them up and waited what felt like forever at the bottom. It was easily the longest wait of the day. They were probably up there 15 minutes and I missed the shot of them actually coming down the slide. Here they are walking away from it though.

So next stop was the Curious George playground. FYI for anyone considering visiting here. Your children will get soaked. There is no way to prevent it. There were some kids there in bathing suits and those kids had some smart parents. The kids all had a grand time here though and the theming was absolutely adorable. Here are some pictures.

See the big bucket of water dropping. That is what will unequivocally soak your kids.

A few more pictures.

This shows how wet my 2 little monkeys were.

We were pretty much finished with this park for the day, but there was one thing we wanted to get. We headed back to the ET gift shop for a little souvenir. This souvenir really freaks Wendy out

Here is the little guy taking a ride in the stroller.

It was only around 6:30 when we got back to our room. So we decided to try out the pool. Unfortunately no pictures. (I’m always a little paranoid about taking the camera to the pool.) It is a nice pool though. It’s really spacious. There is no waterslide, but they do have a fun play area and we all enjoyed the evening there. We didn’t stay too late. Tomorrow was a big day. We were finally going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and we wanted to be up bright and early for it.

Up next: We finally make it to Harry Potter

 

[jmskinner]

Your making me want to go back to Universal. We stayed at Royal Pacific also. Didn't like it as much as a Disney hotel, but I guess that is just me.

And having the express pass is the best thing ever. I always recommend people stay onsite when going to Universal.

Your boys looked just like my son did after a nice time in that Curious George area. Did they find the ball area?

We loved MIB and I really loved ET. I wanted to ride it twice myself, but none of my family did.

 

[Stefy]

Loving the update Looks like everyone had fun in the Curious George park, how much water does that bucket pour out

Looking forward to your next update

 

[dismagiclover]

Your making me want to go back to Universal. We stayed at Royal Pacific also. Didn't like it as much as a Disney hotel, but I guess that is just me.

And having the express pass is the best thing ever. I always recommend people stay onsite when going to Universal.

Your boys looked just like my son did after a nice time in that Curious George area. Did they find the ball area?

We loved MIB and I really loved ET. I wanted to ride it twice myself, but none of my family did.

I didn't like Royal Pacific as much as a Disney hotel either, but I'm a bit biased. I don't remember if the boys said anything about a ball area at Curious George or not. We loved how we could ride over and over again with the Express Pass

Loving the update Looks like everyone had fun in the Curious George park, how much water does that bucket pour out

Looking forward to your next update

That bucket dumps a bunch of water! Harry Potter is coming right up.