The Dutchies first time to Orlando! *UPDATE 7/27 on pg 11; The end (with surprise!)*

[crossfamily]

Its great to hear the difference between the two parks.. I Cosmic Rays for counter service meal. My kids sat there watching the dinosaur sing forever.. Your pictures are great. Thanks for sharing.

 

[nsalz]

You must have a great camera. I never saw better pictures of the fireworks taken from someone personal camera. Are you two professional photgraphers?!

I love Philharmagic as well. I like to hear your comparisons of the parks. Another great update Marjol!

 

[CriminyCrafft]

I love your TR - I check for updates almost every day! Patiently waiting for a new installment!!!

 

[kindakrazy2]

Loving your report! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Marjol]

I'm sorry for the fact that there haven't been updates in a while, but I've been on vacation to Bulgaria!

I'll try to post an update this evening or tomorrow at its latest.

 

[lovealldisney]

I am looking forward to your next installment!

 

[Marjol]

Day 9, May 13; Universal Studios!

We had breakfast in our room again this morning, and Gerbert watched some of the Formula 1 race before we left for the Universal Studios. We went to the Universal Studios in LA last year (and loved it!!) and we were very curious about this park.
We parked our car somewhat after 9 am at Jaws 214 and walked to the entrance through the Citywalk.
Ofcourse, we had to take a picture of the globe!

Curious George and Shrek were standing at the entrance of the park and ofcourse we took some pictures with them. I've actually never seen anything with Curious George, but I love monkeys.

Our first stop in the park was Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast. It was so quiet that we didn't need our express passes. Actually, we didn't need them all day... does this sound familiar?
Jimmy Neutron was cute. We liked it.
We walked over to Shrek 4 D, which we had already seen in Hollywood, but it was still excellent! I also adore the pre-show. We walked over to Donkey's booth to see Donkey, but I guess he was asleep or something.
We walked to the New York part of the studios and saw Twister (which was nice!) and rode Revenge of the Mummy, which was intense, but better then the one in Hollywood.

We walked to San Francisco and took this familiar picture. We took a picture of the real one last year too!

The first thing we did in San Francisco, was watching the Beetlejuice show. I don't remember much of the movie, but I know I liked it as a kid. I really have to watch it again someday. The show was very nice! Great music!

After the show, we had a bite to eat at Richters Burger Co. Those were some great burgers! I had one with mushrooms, very yummy!

We saw Earthquake after that, but we didn't think it was very spectacular. We went to the Fear Factor Live show, like the one we already saw in Hollywood. The stunts the people had to do weren't that spectacular, but in the intermission some people had to drink a smoothie of worms, insects and sour milk. Yuk! I would never do that for a mug!

We went to Jaws and really liked this boatride. It was hilarious!
After the ride, I had my picture taken with...ehm... in Jaws...

After this, we went to Men in Black, Alien Attack. We liked it very much, we even went twice! It was (in my opinion) better then the Toy Story look a like in Disney.
We walked over to the Kid's Zone and rode ET, which was OK, but more for kids. We saw that the Animal Actors show was starting, so we ran over there to see it. It was cute, very much like the one in Hollywood.

We went back to Donkey's booth to see if he was still asleep, but he was up and talking. I think he's hilarious. He asked us where we were from and when we told him we were from Holland, he asked us where our cloggs were.
We got our picture taken with him, ofcourse.

And Shrek was next to him, so we decided to take a picture with him again. Well, this pictures turned out to be different from the first one. Shrek kissed my hand and pushed Gerbert away. It's one of my favorite pictures of the whole vacation, we had so much fun!

After this, we had some rain and decided to get a milkshake while waiting for the rain to pass. It rained for only 10 minutes or so, so we could go outside when we finished our shakes. We went to the Horror & Make up show, which was pretty funny!

We had seen pretty much everything and walked to the exit. We saw the Terminator 3 D show on our way.

It had been a fun day and we decided we wanted to eat something at the Hardrock Cafe at the citywalk.
I had a stake and Gerbert had steak & chicken wraps. They were both very nice and I always like the atmosphere in a hardrock cafe.

After eating, we drove back to our hotel, where we had a nice and quiet evening!

Up next: Day 10; Blizzard Beach!

 

[punkin413]

loved the update! i'm so jealous you got meet shrek!!! i've been to universal, but it was back in 1992, so it's changed a lot since then! makes me want to go even more when we head back to orlando next april.

 

[BeautyNBeast]

I just found your TR and am loving it. Did you have fun in Bulgaria?

 

[Marjol]

loved the update! i'm so jealous you got meet shrek!!! i've been to universal, but it was back in 1992, so it's changed a lot since then! makes me want to go even more when we head back to orlando next april.

You really should go, it's a great park. Not as great as Disney, but change is good

I just found your TR and am loving it. Did you have fun in Bulgaria?

Thanks for reading! And yes, we had fun in Bulgaria! Not as much as in Orlando though

I'm going to write my next installment now!

 

[Marjol]

Day 10, May 14; Blizzard Beach!

Because Blizzard Beach doesn't open before 10 am, we could sleep in this morning! Well, sleeping in means sleeping untill 8.30 for us. We took a shower and drove to Sizzler to have another great breakfast there.
After breakfast, we drove to Blizzard Beach, where we arrived at 10 am sharp.
We parked our car and noticed it wasn't very busy yet. There were only a few cars in the parking lot.
We took the obligatory picture of the entrance of the park

We got into the park, rented a locker and got rid of our valuables. After that we found ourselves a spot around the biggest pool of Blizzard Beach, the Melt Away Bay. We got in the pool for a few minutes to get used to the water temperatures, and after that it was time to try some slides!
We started off with the purple slopes and tried the Downhill Douple Dipper, which is sort of a race between two people in tubes. Gerbert beat me.
We tried the Snow Stormers after that, but didn't like it much; it was pretty rough.
We wanted to try the third purple slide after that, but we took a wrong turn and finished at the Teamboat Springs, so we tried this one. It was fantastic! The best slide in Blizzard Beach, by far!

On our way to the red slopes, we came across the Cross Country Creek and we decided to try this one first. It was, ofcourse, very relaxing and it seemed to take longer to finish one circle then the one in Typhoon Lagoon.
After that, we tried the three Red slopes slides; the Runoff Rapids. We liked them all, but there also were a lot of stairs involved; 129 steps each time! But hey, who's counting?

We went back to the purple slopes to try the Toboggan racers which we missed before and after that, we walked to the chairlift (I really don't know if that's a good English word, but I don't know the word for "stoeltjeslift") and went up to the highest slides. We went on the Teamboat Springs again, because I was too scared to try the other two!

Gerbert wasn't, and he went up again to try Slush Gusher and Summit Plummit. A nice oppurtunity for me to take some action pictures!
So, I got my camera and waited for a couple of minutes. And Gerbert tried those two slides. Here is the proof. You can see him on the Slush Gusher, on the one with the Summit Plummit he is way up there.

Gerbert liked the slides very much, but he said I wouldn't have liked them.
We took some other pictures of the park after that, including this one of the Melt Away Bay:

We decided to get something to eat after this. When we were in Typhoon Lagoon, I saw someone eating a funnel cake and it looked so delicious, that I wanted to try one this time. And it was indeed delicious. It tastes like "oliebollen", something we eat on New Years eve in the Netherlands.

After lunch and some more swimming, we went back to our seats to get dry. We stayed there for another hour and walked to the exit after that. We came across these snowmen on our way:

It was somewhere around 2.30 when we left Blizzard Beach.
We went back to our hotel to take a shower and relax a little. We had some shopping time left, so we drove to the Premium Outlets, where we bought a couple of shirts. Clothes are so much cheaper in the US! We bought shirts for 10 dollars, in the Netherlands you pay at least $20 for a shirt!
We also visited the Lake Buena Vista Outlets and Wal*Mart, to get some breakfast stuff and some souvenirs.

We decided to get some dinner at Olive Garden again, because we liked it so much. I tried the mixed grill this time, and it was excellent!
We were back in our hotel around 9 am, where we watched a Friends marathon on tv!

Up next: Day 11; Disney Studios & Animal Kingdom

 

[CriminyCrafft]

Yay, great update! I love the picture with Shrek! I've never been to the water parks.

Chairlift is the correct word. As many people have said, your English is excellent.

How was Bulgaria? That sounds like a very exciting vacation. It made me think of Durmstrang from Harry Potter.

 

[tinawv]

This is a great trip report. Don't worry about your English because it a lot better than some of us who speak it. Looking forward to reading more and viiewing more wonderful pictures.

 

[Marjol]

Day 11, May 15; Disney MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom and baseball game

When I woke up, I felt a little sad. Our wonderful vacation was almost to its end! We were going to visit all the Disney parks again in the next two days, but it was still sad... But hey, I was definately going to enjoy this day! We decided to do the Studios and Animal Kingdom today, because I really wanted to end our vacation with Wishes, and the MK was a good combination with Epcot. And we also had a baseball game planned this evening, so we had to leave soon, and Animal Kingdom closes at 6, so that was perfect!
After the usual taking a shower and having breakfast in our room, we got in our car around 8.45 and drove to the studios, where we arrived shortly after nine.
We ofcourse started off with our favorite ride of this park, the Tower of Terror! This time we also took some pictures inside.

It was extremely quiet at this side of the park; the elevators weren't even full! And we were able to ride ToT three times and Rock & Rollercoaster twice in less then 45 minutes

We said our goodbyes to the ToT after that and decided to take some pictures with characters. We walked to the spot where Lightning McQueen and Mater were, but the line had already closed, we had to come back later!
We decided to go and see the Muppet 3D movie again and on our way there we ran into were Buzz and Woody!

The Muppet show was still very nice and after the show, we did get our pictures taken with the cars characters. They are very popular, there were LONG lines!

There were two things left we wanted to do, the Extreme stunt show and the Indiana Jones show. Last time we were here, the Indiana Jones show was cancelled because of the bad weather.

We started off with the Extreme Stunt Show, which is an exact copy of the one in Paris. I thought it was funny that this woman on stage started her story in french and asked: "Well, did you understand what I just said?" and everyone yelled "Nooooo!" and I said "Yes!" We get French in high school, so I do speak it a little.
Gerbert liked the show, I didn't. But hey, at least I didn't fall asleep... I fell asleep the last time we saw this show in Paris

We got a pretzel to go on our way to the Indiana Jones show. This time the weather was nice, so we got to see the whole show. It was entertaining.

After this show, it was time to leave the park and head to Animal Kingdom! I was looking forward to seeing the Nemo show again!

On arrival in AK, we got our picture taken in front of the tree of life:

We walked to Expedition Everest. The stand by line said 30 minutes, so we were ready to walk in. But some nice person asked me if we were with two people and gave us two fastpasses that we could use in 10 minutes. Great, even better! I thanked him and we decided to get an ice cream while waiting for our fastpass time.
We rode Expedition Everest and it was still excellent. I like sitting in the front a little better then sitting in the back of the train. We rode it again through the single riders line, which took about 10 minutes to get in.

After this, we walked to my favorite thing in this park; the Nemo show!
Unfortunately, you can't take any pictures of the show, but I took one of the stage when the show hadn't started yet.

Oh, do I love this show. I got all teary-eyed when it finished....

We wanted to ride Dinosaur again, but it was closed because of an oil-leak. Too bad. We got a bite to eat at the McDonalds.
On our way to the exit we saw It's a bugs life again. I love the fact that they let the bugs leave the theatre first!

We waved goodbye to the Animal Kingdom (well, I did.. Gerbert looked at me as if I was going mad... ) and drove to Disney's Wide World of Sports, to go and see the baseball game between the Devil Rays and the Texas Rangers.
Here is Gerbert at the entrance:

Ofcourse we were there way to early, the game wouldn't start untill 7.10 and we were there around 5.40. But we were entertained with tv and training.

At 7.10, it was finally time to get things started. And it turned out to be very boring! Gerbert liked it... but I was bored. I walked around a bit and got us some drinks and snacks.. and took some pictures.

After three hours, it was 3-3 and Gerbert got bored too, so we decided to leave. We weren't alone, but at least we beat the crowds...
Back in the hotel we heard the Rays had won with 4-3. Well, yay!

It had been a tiring day, so we fell asleep shortly after we arrived.

Up next: Our last day in Disney!

 

[Kristina]

I am wondering, how does Gerbert feel about Disney now? Has he been enlightened ? He looks so happy in his pictures but I know he wasn't keen on a WDW trip at first. Hope it's easier for you to convince him the next time you want to visit.
Also I am envious that you both had your pictures taken with the Cars and I wonder, if they 'speak' while you are taking a picture? Like, do they say..hi how are you? and such? That would be pretty funny if they did !
Also we love Universal but have never seen Donkey so we will be on the lookout for him next trip!

 

[scottny]

Very nice update. Love all the pics.

 

[crossfamily]

So are you planning your next trip to Walt Disney World? We to go to baseball games while on vacation although we are huge sports fans.. Your picture of Gilbert on the slide at BB is awsome.. You take really good pictures.. Your english is wonderful. We call them chair lifts as well in our house.. Thanks for the wonderful pictures and great stories..

 

[Marjol]

I am wondering, how does Gerbert feel about Disney now? Has he been enlightened ? He looks so happy in his pictures but I know he wasn't keen on a WDW trip at first. Hope it's easier for you to convince him the next time you want to visit.
Also I am envious that you both had your pictures taken with the Cars and I wonder, if they 'speak' while you are taking a picture? Like, do they say..hi how are you? and such? That would be pretty funny if they did !
Also we love Universal but have never seen Donkey so we will be on the lookout for him next trip!

Gerbert had a great time. I'll let you know his thoughts after I finish the trip report!
And no, the cars don't speak.. unfortunately. It would be cool if they did though...!
You really should visit Donkey the next time you're there, he's hilarious!

Very nice update. Love all the pics.

Thanks!

So are you planning your next trip to Walt Disney World? We to go to baseball games while on vacation although we are huge sports fans.. Your picture of Gilbert on the slide at BB is awsome.. You take really good pictures.. Your english is wonderful. We call them chair lifts as well in our house.. Thanks for the wonderful pictures and great stories..

I really had the idea that baseball games would be more interesting... nothing happened! They barely even scored!
And who'se Gilbert? His name is Gerbert!

Next update will follow soon!

 

[Marjol]

Day 12, May 16: Epcot & Magic Kingdom

Today finally was the day... the day I wasn't looking forward to... our last day in Disney! We had so much fun these last 11 eleven days that I couldn't imagine us sitting in the plane back home tomorrow.
But on the other hand, this was the first morning we both had troubles getting out of bed; we were feeling tired. I guess that's not so strange after 11 days of fun

But hey, our last day in Disney! So we managed to get up quite early anyway and after the morning ritual we drove to the Ticket & Transportation Center, where we parked our car and took the monorail to Epcot.
We walked over to Gerbert's favorite ride first; Test Track!

It was so quiet, that the ride was a walk on twice in a row. We even got to ride with 4 people in a car. Because we now knew where the camera was, we got this picture taken!

We also visited Club Cool, one of the things we didn't do when we were here last week. We tasted all 8 flavors. Some were good (like the one from Japan), but the Beverly was digusting! How can people drink that?

We walked over to Soarin', where we got a fastpass which we could use one and a half hour later. To kill that time, we went on the Nemo ride again, saw Turtle Talk with Crush again (which was very different from the first time!) and had lunch at the Electric Umbrella, where they had a very nice chicken salad!

After lunch it was time to ride Soarin' and we got to sit in the front row this time! And this was much better then the other rows... you don't see any dangling feet! I liked Soarin' much better without those feet!

After Soarin', we walked around World Showcase again. We ate an icecream in France and saw some Mariachi's around Mexico.

We also did some things we didn't do last time; Ellen's Energy Adventure, which was long but nice, and Spaceship Earth, which we found very boring. You really can't hear what those people are saying! And we also got stuck for about 15 minutes!

We took some last pictures of the Flower & Garden festival and headed to the exit. I especially liked this one of Beauty & the Beast:

It was around 3.30 when we got on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom.
Although it was Parade time when we got there, we instantly saw there were way less people there than last saturday, which was good!
We walked to Splash Mountain to get a fastpass. On our way there I got another pineapple float and Gerbert got an icecream. A nice photopass photographer took a picture of us at Splash Mountain while we were there:

With a Splash Mountain fastpass in our pocket, we walked to Big Thunder Mountain, where we only had to wait a few minutes. We also visited the Pirates again, which was a walk on.
It was our fastpass time for Splash Mountain, so we went back there. I really love this ride and getting wet when it is this hot!
After this, we took the train to Mickey's Toontown Fair to do some Fantasyland rides. We rode Snowwhite's Scary Adventures, Pooh, Mickey's Philharmagic and It's a small world.

We got some pizza and fries at Pinocchio's and rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority and saw the Monsters Inc laugh club again.
It was 8.30 and we were ready to see Wishes! We walked through some shops and found ourselves a spot on Main Street USA to watch Wishes.
A photopass photographer took this picture of us. We had this one printed and framed after we got home and I love looking at it!

Wishes was still marvellous! We didn't take many pictures this time, but I liked this one:

After Wishes, it was really time to leave Disney!
We got to our car pretty fast and after stopping for some gas, we were back in our hotel for our last night around 10.15.


Up next: Flying home!

 

[nsalz]

Wow...Marjol, I'm getting sad now knowing your trip report is coming to an end. You really have done a nice job with it. The pictures are really great. You are the first person who might have convinced me to go visit Universal. The pictures you took made it very inviting. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us!