Joyciemc
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2002
- Messages
- 2,701
Day 3: We made $20 bucks!
Our third day at Universal began just before 7AM. We must've been well rested because we got up ahead of the alarm. That almost never happens for me. We made use of the Keuring again and I moleskinned up my feet. They were pretty sore in one spot from my Crocs, but my feet in general felt so much better with those on that I just moleskinned the crap out of them and kept wearing the Crocs.
We learned our lesson from yesterday and did not skip breakfast. Instead, we headed to the Trattoria before heading to the parks. This meal definitely did its part to break the bank- we ate some very expensive French toast and an egg burrito. On the plus side, this was the best French toast I've ever had!
We had decided that we would use today to re visit our favorites at both parks. The low crowd levels meant that we wouldn't need a 4th day at Universal. We now planned to leave early the next day to head to Disney!
We headed to Universal first, and the park was eerily empty.
We were heading in the general direction of MIB when we were stopped by a lady who wanted us to participate in a TV show preview and give our opinions of this show. It would take an hour and they'd pay us each $10. That's half the cost of my French toast!
Since we had the time, we decided to do it. We walked into this store front:
And each sat down at a computer with headphones to watch a new sitcom. Man, oh man, $10 was not enough to be paying people to watch this show. It was bad. Really bad. Not funny, not entertaining. The pilot actually premieres this Wednesday- I can't imagine it will go on much more than the one episode...
I finished answering the survey questions pretty quickly and headed out to wait for Ben. He took a bit longer, and I grabbed some pictures of the storefronts in this area (is it New York? San Francisco?)
I thought the themeing here was great- much more detailed than the DHS streets. After a bit, Ben walked out. We got our money in cash and continued on with our day.
MIB was empty- we had the car to ourselves. They were only loading one track. We ended up never being able to ride the other side, which we was a little disappointing.
Of course we had to see the Simpsons again- and saw a bunch of things we had missed the first time.
This shows most of my shirt- Frosted Flakes! I heard 'They'rrrrrrre Great' a lot this day! It seemed like our wardrobes were destined to get us plenty of attention this trip.
After riding the Mummy a couple of times, we used the single rider line at Ripe Ride Rockit on our way out of the park at 11:45AM. It was time for our daily pool break, so that is what we did. It was Saturday and the pool was more crowded now. Not too bad, but I needed a chair in the shade and only found one in the kids' pool area. Funny enough, there were hardly any kids in that section and it was very relaxing! Ben headed off for a message at the Spa (I didn't want one- after a very public and windy message in Jamaica, I prefer to skip messages when on vacation) and I stayed at the pool to read.
He loved his message and said the spa was really nice.
We were pretty hungry and decided to get some food at the poolside pizza place. The food was good, but not amazing. After lunch we headed to IOA for the last time. We had a list of pictures we wanted to take (including the Beetle Baily Baby Bath you saw in the last post) as well as some rides we wanted to re visit. We used the single rider line for the Forbidden Journey (the stand-by line was over an hour) and got on pretty quickly. This line bypasses all the cool stuff in Hogwarts, so I wouldn't do it if you have'nt seen the rest before!
We wanted to stop for another drink at the Hog's Head, so we weaved through the crowd and walked up to the door. Two CMs were standing there and asked if we were getting a drink. When we said we were, they pointed to a line going around the corner from the building. Looking inside, there were only about 15 people in the bar. So I'm not sure what that was all about, but we just laughed and said 'Nevermind!'
We passed Poseidon's Fury Stuntshow and figured we'd check it out. The building was really elaborate and we thought that much effort for a stunt show must mean it would be pretty good.
Boy, were we wrong! After waiting for a while, we were led into a room. Throughout a ridiculous plot with a weak story, we moved from room to room with a crowd of people. We actually almost got squeezed out of one room... I wonder what would've happened to us if we were left behind?
The one redeeming thing was the water hallway. Otherwise, it was bad. And it won the title of the worst attraction ever. Ever.
Free from that ADVENTURE, we ended up at the Backwater Bar on the way out of the park. It was happy hour and we got a couple of cheaper beers. Universal was very strict about carding and sticking to their one drink per ID rule. I had to get up and wave for Ben to get two beers.
This was a relaxing place and we enjoyed it.
He wasn't really grumpy- just modeling!
We were planning on getting sushi at the Royal Pacific, so we left IOA and headed over there. As we got off the water taxi, we found the tiki bar outside of the Tchoup Chop restaurant. It was still happy hour so we got more cheap drinks and soaked up the atmosphere. This felt like a little sneak peak of the Poly.
After this, we headed up to the sushi bar. We ended up eating at a bar near the actual restaurant. Our food was amazingly good! It was accompanied by a few more drinks.
Once back at the Portofino, I wanted to see if the gelato place was still open. Somehow we got sidetracked and ended up at the Bar American. The bartender, Manuel, was great and we had a lot of fun talking to him. We also drank too much. This evening ended up costing a lot of money. Lots. Alcohol is not cheap at the resort. Neither is food. But it was a lot of fun and we met some great people. Once we made it back to the room, I collapsed into bed. We didn't set the alarm- we had no plans the next day until dinner at 'Ohana at 7:40PM.
Overall, we really enjoyed our trip to US. Having time to relax at a beautiful resort was a bonus- we got a couple hours of pool time each day!
The parks are great and offer some awesome attractions. But Ben and I agreed that they lacked something. Whatever it is about Disney parks that makes us want to just hang out there even without riding rides. I can't put my finger on it, but it was missing at US. Ben thinks it has to do with nostalgia- we just don't have the sentimental attachment to these parks because we've never been before. I think the music was too loud and un-themy. But that's just me.
We probably won't be back here anytime too soon, but I really hope that wasn't our last stay at the Portofino!
I finished a whole day in one post!
Up next will be Day 4: You just drank too much at Universal, where are you going to go now?
Our third day at Universal began just before 7AM. We must've been well rested because we got up ahead of the alarm. That almost never happens for me. We made use of the Keuring again and I moleskinned up my feet. They were pretty sore in one spot from my Crocs, but my feet in general felt so much better with those on that I just moleskinned the crap out of them and kept wearing the Crocs.
We learned our lesson from yesterday and did not skip breakfast. Instead, we headed to the Trattoria before heading to the parks. This meal definitely did its part to break the bank- we ate some very expensive French toast and an egg burrito. On the plus side, this was the best French toast I've ever had!
We had decided that we would use today to re visit our favorites at both parks. The low crowd levels meant that we wouldn't need a 4th day at Universal. We now planned to leave early the next day to head to Disney!
We headed to Universal first, and the park was eerily empty.
We were heading in the general direction of MIB when we were stopped by a lady who wanted us to participate in a TV show preview and give our opinions of this show. It would take an hour and they'd pay us each $10. That's half the cost of my French toast!
Since we had the time, we decided to do it. We walked into this store front:
And each sat down at a computer with headphones to watch a new sitcom. Man, oh man, $10 was not enough to be paying people to watch this show. It was bad. Really bad. Not funny, not entertaining. The pilot actually premieres this Wednesday- I can't imagine it will go on much more than the one episode...
I finished answering the survey questions pretty quickly and headed out to wait for Ben. He took a bit longer, and I grabbed some pictures of the storefronts in this area (is it New York? San Francisco?)
I thought the themeing here was great- much more detailed than the DHS streets. After a bit, Ben walked out. We got our money in cash and continued on with our day.
MIB was empty- we had the car to ourselves. They were only loading one track. We ended up never being able to ride the other side, which we was a little disappointing.
Of course we had to see the Simpsons again- and saw a bunch of things we had missed the first time.
This shows most of my shirt- Frosted Flakes! I heard 'They'rrrrrrre Great' a lot this day! It seemed like our wardrobes were destined to get us plenty of attention this trip.
After riding the Mummy a couple of times, we used the single rider line at Ripe Ride Rockit on our way out of the park at 11:45AM. It was time for our daily pool break, so that is what we did. It was Saturday and the pool was more crowded now. Not too bad, but I needed a chair in the shade and only found one in the kids' pool area. Funny enough, there were hardly any kids in that section and it was very relaxing! Ben headed off for a message at the Spa (I didn't want one- after a very public and windy message in Jamaica, I prefer to skip messages when on vacation) and I stayed at the pool to read.
He loved his message and said the spa was really nice.
We were pretty hungry and decided to get some food at the poolside pizza place. The food was good, but not amazing. After lunch we headed to IOA for the last time. We had a list of pictures we wanted to take (including the Beetle Baily Baby Bath you saw in the last post) as well as some rides we wanted to re visit. We used the single rider line for the Forbidden Journey (the stand-by line was over an hour) and got on pretty quickly. This line bypasses all the cool stuff in Hogwarts, so I wouldn't do it if you have'nt seen the rest before!
We wanted to stop for another drink at the Hog's Head, so we weaved through the crowd and walked up to the door. Two CMs were standing there and asked if we were getting a drink. When we said we were, they pointed to a line going around the corner from the building. Looking inside, there were only about 15 people in the bar. So I'm not sure what that was all about, but we just laughed and said 'Nevermind!'
We passed Poseidon's Fury Stuntshow and figured we'd check it out. The building was really elaborate and we thought that much effort for a stunt show must mean it would be pretty good.
Boy, were we wrong! After waiting for a while, we were led into a room. Throughout a ridiculous plot with a weak story, we moved from room to room with a crowd of people. We actually almost got squeezed out of one room... I wonder what would've happened to us if we were left behind?The one redeeming thing was the water hallway. Otherwise, it was bad. And it won the title of the worst attraction ever. Ever.
Free from that ADVENTURE, we ended up at the Backwater Bar on the way out of the park. It was happy hour and we got a couple of cheaper beers. Universal was very strict about carding and sticking to their one drink per ID rule. I had to get up and wave for Ben to get two beers.
This was a relaxing place and we enjoyed it.
He wasn't really grumpy- just modeling!
We were planning on getting sushi at the Royal Pacific, so we left IOA and headed over there. As we got off the water taxi, we found the tiki bar outside of the Tchoup Chop restaurant. It was still happy hour so we got more cheap drinks and soaked up the atmosphere. This felt like a little sneak peak of the Poly.
After this, we headed up to the sushi bar. We ended up eating at a bar near the actual restaurant. Our food was amazingly good! It was accompanied by a few more drinks.
Once back at the Portofino, I wanted to see if the gelato place was still open. Somehow we got sidetracked and ended up at the Bar American. The bartender, Manuel, was great and we had a lot of fun talking to him. We also drank too much. This evening ended up costing a lot of money. Lots. Alcohol is not cheap at the resort. Neither is food. But it was a lot of fun and we met some great people. Once we made it back to the room, I collapsed into bed. We didn't set the alarm- we had no plans the next day until dinner at 'Ohana at 7:40PM.
Overall, we really enjoyed our trip to US. Having time to relax at a beautiful resort was a bonus- we got a couple hours of pool time each day!
The parks are great and offer some awesome attractions. But Ben and I agreed that they lacked something. Whatever it is about Disney parks that makes us want to just hang out there even without riding rides. I can't put my finger on it, but it was missing at US. Ben thinks it has to do with nostalgia- we just don't have the sentimental attachment to these parks because we've never been before. I think the music was too loud and un-themy. But that's just me.
We probably won't be back here anytime too soon, but I really hope that wasn't our last stay at the Portofino!
I finished a whole day in one post!
Up next will be Day 4: You just drank too much at Universal, where are you going to go now?
Oh my goodness, that was probably my worst ride experience ever. I was about 10 and was not expecting the drop at the end. I was traumatized. My ride photo literally looks like the one of my eyes was in the process of popping right out of my head. 
I'm hoping when we go to WDW in a couple weeks we will have low wait times and can spend LOTS of time at the pool. 
)
)
We were there! I will say that it felt very strange to be heading into WDW after already having been at a theme park for 3 days! 
I hope the room wasn't bad!
I dont like using the word 'reality' when referring to Dis and the Magic. Im SO hoping that everything works out for you.
