The "I Didn't Get To That" But Still The Best Trip Ever! **Final Thoughts 1/27/09**

[LurrrvtheDuck]

We plopped down and waited for a concert to begin......

Those guys are awesome!

We still had some time to kill before the Petals meet and somewhere by this time Kat had texted me saying KC had arrived and they had gone to AK.

So we continued on our relaxing tour of WS. Look a hidden Mickey!

It was so cool to explore Morocco and we even checked out the menu for Marrakesh, but it kinda scared us... Sorry Kat.

By this time it was time to leave and head over to the Petals meet and on our way back through the BC, we saw this poor girl's hair :

We got to POP! and found our way to the pool and I located this lovely group of ladies all chatting away and having a super time and some yummy drinks.

And some more people watching

Sadly we had to leave earlier than others as it was almost time for our ressie at Sci-Fi. Kat decided to opt out of going with us to spend some time with KC and their friends.

So we said our goodbyes to everyone and jumped back in the car and headed over to MGM....aka DHS.

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

We arrived just in time to eat

I was really excited to eat the overpriced burgers here, but when I looked at the menu (which was kinda hard in the dim light) it was nowhere to be found. So I settled for this

and one of these

Yani got some kind of Chili thing I think....

The food was good, but I don't know if I'll be eating here many more times. I later found out you could get the burger if you requested it.

Our waiter came by and took our pic too

They must've known I was a Focker 'cuz check out the color of our car

We walked around MGM and headed to the Villains store

Mel and Bob had told us they were gonna try to see Fantasmic and if we wanted to join them, so I texted them to see if they were still going to do that and whilst we waited their reply we saw this very coordinated lady

Mel eventually texted back, saying they were cancelling on Fantasmic since it looked like it was going to rain again. Around this time I'm also getting texted from Kat all excited that they got into Marakkesh.

So Yani and I decided to just relax and enjoy our last day in the park and decide what to do next when I look up and see

The most perfect rainbow I have ever seen. I pointed it out to Yani and all of a sudden the people who saw me point up started looking up and then everyone seemed to be looking at the rainbow and taking pics.

Since we weren't going to Fantasmic we took our chances to see if we could ride TSM one last time since the majority of the park was headed towards the arena for FM. As we were walking towards TSM the music changed and all of a sudden they were playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the loudspeakers, I thought it was funny and very fitting!

Luckily for us there was hardly a wait on TSM and we got in line just before it closed and got one last whirl!

Yani kicked my butt, because I stupidly opened my mouth and told her the first time to try and hit the higher point stuff.

I texted Kat and told her we were heading to Epcot to see IROE and she was still there, but we never found her. Yani loves IROE so we did that for her.

So then we hightailed it out of Epcot to the monorails to hit up MK by the time Wishes starts, since I love me some Wishes. Plus Kat was headed that way and we were still trying to meet up.

We finally found each other and were reunited with extra friends to enjoy our last night in the parks. But it was finally time to say goodbye to all our company and as we headed out of MK the CM's were there with these cute signs:

It was a very long, but fun day and we were determined to get as much park time in before we left.



Ok Back to your regularly scheduled TR.

 

[Muffinygood]

Man, I totally need to get off my butt and complete my TWO tr's....

Great updates (hijacked thread) Z!


MEL

 

[DisneyJo]

Z lovely report and you saw the famous rainbow too!!!! We were in Epcot when that happened

 

[scottny]

great hijack and pics

confused me for a minute.

which isn't really hard to do

 

[jordanyosh]

Kat,

Going from dawn to late at night day after day takes it's toll. Add a little booze and well. I'm sure you were pooped by the end of your stay.....

But think about the lasting memories and new friends!!!!!!

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

Man, I totally need to get off my butt and complete my TWO tr's....

Great updates (hijacked thread) Z!


MEL

Don't worry Mel, I still haven't finished mine from 2 yrs ago!

Z lovely report and you saw the famous rainbow too!!!! We were in Epcot when that happened

It really was very pretty and kinda cool that it was over the Happiest Place on Earth :dream:

great hijack and pics

confused me for a minute.

which isn't really hard to do

Sorry Scott, I did put a title and explained it was what my friend Yani and I did that day whilst Kat toured with KC. Thanks !

 

[KatGarcia]

Z- Awesome Hijack!!!! I love that I got you guys hooked on the french bakery! I am kinda sad I didn't get to eat at Sci-Fi, esp. since you got a car- but there will be other times. I know the food isn't fab but I wanted to try it for the atmosphere. I am also really jealous that you got on TSM again!!!!

great hijack and pics

confused me for a minute.

which isn't really hard to do

Kat,

Going from dawn to late at night day after day takes it's toll. Add a little booze and well. I'm sure you were pooped by the end of your stay.....

But think about the lasting memories and new friends!!!!!!

SOOOOO worth every tired second!

 

[lazydoxy66]

Kat, I can't believe someone hijacked your TR! Those Fockers think they can do anything they want!

Great update, Z!
That rainbow was wonderful. Lurve the way you are posing with those drinks all sexy-like.

 

[KatGarcia]

We slept late. It was departure day for us all. So we didn’t get up until 9:30am. KC & Ricky were coming to get me sometime that late morning/early afternoon to take me to the time share hotel they were staying at. I was excited to get to spend time with KC but sad to have to leave my roomies!

First I tried to talk KC, Ricky, Angela & Vara to come to POR and swim with me there since we didn’t get to use the pool at all this trip. They agreed but were on vacation time so by the time they were ready to swim it was kinda late. Vara & Angela were flying home that afternoon and wanted to stay at the time share so they had time to shower before they got on the plane. So much for the pool at POR. I wanted to try out the slide. LOL.

I did have my bathing suit on tho, with a dress type cover up to make it quicker to get to the pool at the time share. I didn’t swim all week and I look fwd to it every trip because there aren’t a lot of opportunities in NY to swim.
So what hotel was the time share you ask??? Westgate Lakes Resort. Very nice place! The room was HUGE. It’s like 4 times bigger than my house!

Here look see:

Apparently the pictures on the camera KC took are somewhere else and I dunno where so I only have a few pics. There was a full kitchen, laundry area, a master bedroom with a giant Jacuzzi tub and a standing shower. Another bedroom with 2 twin beds and its own bathroom and the gigantic living room area. There was also a large balcony with lounge chairs. In the living room the bed pulled out as well. A really nice place! I def recommend it if you aren’t staying on property, it was a 10 minute drive to be on property.

We spent the afternoon at the pool and then eventually changed so we could all hop in the car and take the girls to the airport. We had a semi teary goodbye. It was really good to see them!

So I was at a loss for what the heck to do then, and we all know I am a planner- and it was a struggle to not have real plans. We decided to go to have some dinner at Cracker Barrel. I had heard good things about it and I love me some southern food! I had a country fried steak. YUM. White gravy rules. And the whole meal cost the 3 of us like $35. Can’t beat that!!

Oh I need to point out that we are thankful for GPS on this trip, and google maps. KC’s phone navigated us everywhere this trip. Ricky had been to Orlando a bunch of time with his family but never drove himself around. Let’s say his sense of direction is not the best. Finding cracker barrel was our first attempt at directing him…it was an experience to drive around the rest of the week, that’s for sure! KC & I learned our way around but poor Ricky just never caught on.

We headed back to the hotel and the guys played some time playing guitar hero. I settled us into the master bedroom and did a load of laundry. I unpacked and got all our stuff organized. I cleaned up a little too. I remember Ricky taking a long nap at some point too.

We were all in bed around 1am.

It was weird to not be on Disney time and needing to run around all day.
So this is what vacations are supposed to feel like right? Who knew.

Next Installment : HERE!!

 

[KatGarcia]

Ricky came and woke us up around 9am so we could go down and take advantage of the free continental breakfast. I made a pot of coffee from some of my leftover coffee I had brought to Disney with me. We even had bottled water so the coffee was yummy! No carpy florida water for me. The breakfast was nice. We had juice and muffins and croissants and Danish. KC got some cereal too.

We took some showers and got ready to find something to do for the afternoon. When I came out of the shower this is what I saw…

KC said “The couch had me”.

We decided on Checkers for lunch. Apparently we went to the World’s Largest Checkers! Who knew! I have had Checkers before but KC hadn’t. Yum. I love their fries!

After that very healthy lunch we decided to go to a local flea market. It was pretty ghetto. Not much in the way of cool deals. I bought an asian-ish fan there tho. Ricky got a new piercing for his nipple (TMI? LOL). We were there maybe ½ hour.

We didn’t know what the heck to do next so we went….to the “other place”…ya know…universal. SHH. Don’t tell Mickey. None of us had ever been there before so we decided to check out city walk and what the hype was about. Here’s why I wasn’t happy with US.

We paid $12 to park. KC & I paid since Ricky was paying for gas. We park, find the moving walkways (where’s the people mover when u need it) and we proceeded to take about 40 of them to get to anywhere near US property!!!!!

Of course I was snapping pics along the way….

it really took entirely too long to get to actual city walk. Which turns out to be more or less a few shops and stuff that connects the 2 parks. Laugh at me if you knew that already but I didn’t. The one thing that really excited me was this:

I got some real coffee…a chai latte, which KC had to have them add extra concentrate to. Apprently we make it stronger up here. But soon I was very happy.

We sat in Starbucks for a while then wandered about. KC found something he had never had and always wanted to try:

Dippin’ Dots! He loved them. It was hot out too so they hit the spot. We walked around and went into some shops and took some pics.

Cool looking Hard Rock Café.

Bob Marley Museum, club place. It was closed. I wanted to go in.

This store was neat…

I didn’t know pirates were endangered….

Poor Nemo got into my stash again.

I got a bracelet in here actually. It’s a mood type of bracelet but and all little wolves. I call KC my werewolf because he’s so warm all the time and in Twilight that’s how the weres are…thus my werewolf and my need for the bracelet. It’s purdy. It was I think $8.

I remembered there was a boat over to the hotels so we decided to check that out and take a peek at the hard rock hotel, which we heard was awesome (thanks Nicole).

From the boat…

Good ‘ole ERSAL Studios…

The Hard Rock Hotel was really nice. We had a good time checking out the lobby and pool and relaxing in the neat lounge area there. We decided we’d love to stay there when the Harry Potter stuff is done and I actually want to go back to US. We made a quick trip to the potty and thank god I had my camera…I was Amazed by this rest room….

This is in the woman’s room…

Crazy. It’s the nicest restroom I’d ever been in! A one flusher (thanks Jordan) for sure!

We hopped back on the boat and back to city walk. There wasn’t really anything else to do so we left. It took us about 20 minutes to get back to the car. All in all we were there for about an hour and a half. $12 for that long. I think it’s cheaper to park in NYC. Anyway.

We stopped at Wallmart on the way home (there was a giant one a few blocks from the hotel) to pick up some food and drinks for the hotel. Ricky was cooking us dinner. He’s currently in culinary school, and we had never had his cooking before. We got some chicken and stuff for dinner and picked up a very large bottle of Arbour Mist too.

Here’s Chef Ricky cooking us dinner in the gigantic kitchen.

I called it Chicken Ricky. It’s chicken cordon blue but he used jack cheese. The sauce was a wine cream sauce. YUM.

There was a bit leftover…KC said “waste not want not”….

We hopped in the hot tub for a bit with some wine and relaxed. Then we got dressed for our night out. We were going back to the motherland…and DTD…so we could say an official goodbye to all the clubs, esp. The Adventurer’s Club. That’s next…stay tuned. Thanks for bearing with my non WDW part of the trip.

Next Installment: HERE!!!

 

[LurrrvtheDuck]

It was very sad to say goodbye and Kat was kind enough to give me a parting gift. I told her I was headed to DTD to get me a Lime Green Mickey Head keychain thingy. And she took the one off her bag and gave it to me. It's been on my keychain ever since Kat.

That sounded like a nice relaxing time Kat. Very nice hotel/time share too.

Yeah, there's not that much in City Walk to see and OMG the walk is neverending.

I didn't know non-guests could take the boats to the US hotels. Good to know... I would love to stay at one of their resorts but every time I check the prices they're outrageous

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

The Hard Rock does look very nice, I however have my heart set on the Portofino.

 

[cmp1111]

Great updates, Kat. I, too, would have been a little anxious with no "plan", especially with a larger group of people. Groups can be hard to get moving and making decisions.

The hotel sounds lovely!

 

[jcc0621]

Universal charges to park at the hotels too, even if you are staying there That is the only thing annoying me about our August trip. It's like $20 a day or something like that!

Westgate is like a mile from my parents. I didn't know that's where you were going after WDW. I would have told my mom to come check up on you all

 

[scottny]

great updates and pics.

I have to get over to US.

I love Dippin' Dots. So sad when they closed there store on 54th and 9th.

 

[addictedtothemouse]

Thanks for the info on US. I might take the girls there "someday". Maybe after the HP stuff is up and going? I always fell like I'm "cheating" on Walt if I contemplate going somewhere else.

 

[Disneyland_Mama]

Great updates, ladies!

So cool you got to see the rainbow, too! Wasn't it amazing? We were in DTD eating ice cream from Ghirasmelli's.

 

[englishrose47]

Morning Kat!!

 

[PrincessAlways]

Don't worry, we won't tell Mickey! The Hard Rock hotel looks like a great place!