Lizzybear
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2006
- Messages
- 2,955
September 18th 2007 (Day 6)
Advance warning: This day is a bit heavy on the negatives, I figure it's all a part of our holiday experience though and that not every day was gonna be filled with joy and happiness from start to finish!!
Up at 7ish today as we wanted to tackle some of the laundry that was mounting up, and also because I wanted an excuse to use the pool! It was dead at that hour of the morning which was nice, I never did use the slide though! When the laundry was done we headed down for breakfast (strawberry pancakes with bacon for me, cheese omelette for Steve.. From about this day on there is very little variation I must warn you!) Today we were going to Universal and we got there just after 9 and it was dead, seriously I think I saw tumbleweeds!
A decidedly unenthusiastic Bart and Lisa
We headed to Men in Black first. Can I just say that I really really hate how Universal force you to use lockers, basically if you're stuck in a long queue you'd be forced to pay which is unfair in my book as it's almost as if they're co-ercing people into purchasing Express Passes. OK, rant over! Next up was Jaws:
Help i'm being eaten by a shark BUT NOT REALLY HAR HAR..! Cliche pictures are fun!
Then on to Earthquake and a stop for the excellent Blues Brothers show:
It's Lucy and Ricky!!
After the show we went on The Mummy where the operator slammed the harness down on Steve way too hard (this has happened at Alton Towers too, I know he's a big lad but if you slam a harness down on anyone it's going to hurt them and there's no need for it!) Our experience of this ride didn't get much better when our locker wouldn't work and we got fobbed off by various employees for 10 minutes before we found someone who could help us and even he didn't seem all that bothered and acted as if it was our fault, a poor show! We decided to watch the Horror make-up show next, no lockers and no harnesses there..!
Like I said, cliches are my thing!
Creepy!
The show was absolutely hilarious.. The girl they picked on look totally bewildered, they're really good at picking up on who has and hasn't seen it before! We were feeling in need of a snack by now so we went to Starbucks and I realised after we'd picked up our drinks that my wallet wasn't in my bag. Cue major panic! We walked and drank, meaning my white top ended up with coffee down it (always happens when I wear white, I am a filth magnet!) I suspected i'd left it in the car so Steve volunteered to go back and check and I went and reported it to lost property just in case (for all they cared..) Luckily it was in the car (i'd accidentally left it when paying the parking fee) Ahh relief!! We decided to watch Shrek next. I felt the pre-show was a bit long but that could have been my feet talking as we hadn't sat down for a while! Took a few pics afterwards:
Jimmy and Dora were more fun than Bart and Lisa
Cool car!
Cooler car!!
Next we headed to Terminator 2, Lucy: A Tribute where I bought a T-shirt and ET, though we forgot to give made up names! We decided to call it a day as we were a bit fed up of Universal by then. If i'm honest there isn't much drawing me to this park now that Back To The Future is gone and I really don't know when we'll visit again if ever. We found we were comparing it to WDW a lot which I know isn't really fair but I think the attitude of some of the staff in particular is really poor.
It was still quite early in the afternoon so we decided to check out Walmart where more money was spent and I got my nails did ($40 including tip, very reasonable)
They ended up breaking within the next few days (probably because of swimming) but oh well, i'd never had them done before and it was fun to have fancy nails for a couple of days!
We'd planned to go to Olive Garden for dinner and the sat nav which up until now had been accurate for all of our routes (despite some people's criticisms of them we found it really useful and wouldn't have been without it) directed us to a totally different place and we ended up stopping for directions at a hotel as we couldn't find it with Mapman's map either and were close to just going to Bahama Breeze instead (in hindsight we probably should have..) We eventually got there and of course the location was blatantly obvious all along (isn't that always the way?!) The server was pleasant enough and we enjoyed the salad and breadsticks but he messed up my order. I asked for eggplant parmigan and was given apricot chicken, he was very apologetic and offered to change it but since we were on a bit of a timeframe I said i'd just have the dish i'd been given which was pretty average (the chicken tasted like reformed Birdseye type stuff, yuck..) Steve had the 5 cheese ziti which he described as 'glorified mac n cheese' We did tip the server but i'm not sure if we'd go again. We were both a bit disappointed as we'd heard so many good things about it, we do have an excellent local Italian place though (Casa Italia, if you're ever in the Liverpool area be sure to pay it a visit!) so maybe our expectations were a bit high. I think if we did give it another try it would be a different location. After dinner we headed to Downtown Disney for Cirque De Soleil. Since the day hadn't been the most successful one we were both a bit tetchy and I didn't realise you could park so close to Cirque and we ended up walking all the way from the Marketplace in foul moods, oops! I thought we were running late but it turned out people were turning up right til 9pm, better to rush than be late though I suppose. The show.. Well, I suppose my opinion might not be that of the majority but I didn't really enjoy it. I love circuses and the theatre but I felt it was mostly artsy posing and not so much acrobatics. It probably didn't help that I was really tired aswell. Steve liked it more than I did but I don't think either of us would watch it again. Another case of glad we've done it once but that was enough. After the show we stopped at Ghiradellis for a couple of truly amazing ice-creams and then headed back to the hotel but not before we spotted this little guy:
Best mailbox ever!
Advance warning: This day is a bit heavy on the negatives, I figure it's all a part of our holiday experience though and that not every day was gonna be filled with joy and happiness from start to finish!!
Up at 7ish today as we wanted to tackle some of the laundry that was mounting up, and also because I wanted an excuse to use the pool! It was dead at that hour of the morning which was nice, I never did use the slide though! When the laundry was done we headed down for breakfast (strawberry pancakes with bacon for me, cheese omelette for Steve.. From about this day on there is very little variation I must warn you!) Today we were going to Universal and we got there just after 9 and it was dead, seriously I think I saw tumbleweeds!
A decidedly unenthusiastic Bart and Lisa
We headed to Men in Black first. Can I just say that I really really hate how Universal force you to use lockers, basically if you're stuck in a long queue you'd be forced to pay which is unfair in my book as it's almost as if they're co-ercing people into purchasing Express Passes. OK, rant over! Next up was Jaws:
Help i'm being eaten by a shark BUT NOT REALLY HAR HAR..! Cliche pictures are fun!
Then on to Earthquake and a stop for the excellent Blues Brothers show:
It's Lucy and Ricky!!
After the show we went on The Mummy where the operator slammed the harness down on Steve way too hard (this has happened at Alton Towers too, I know he's a big lad but if you slam a harness down on anyone it's going to hurt them and there's no need for it!) Our experience of this ride didn't get much better when our locker wouldn't work and we got fobbed off by various employees for 10 minutes before we found someone who could help us and even he didn't seem all that bothered and acted as if it was our fault, a poor show! We decided to watch the Horror make-up show next, no lockers and no harnesses there..!
Like I said, cliches are my thing!
Creepy!
The show was absolutely hilarious.. The girl they picked on look totally bewildered, they're really good at picking up on who has and hasn't seen it before! We were feeling in need of a snack by now so we went to Starbucks and I realised after we'd picked up our drinks that my wallet wasn't in my bag. Cue major panic! We walked and drank, meaning my white top ended up with coffee down it (always happens when I wear white, I am a filth magnet!) I suspected i'd left it in the car so Steve volunteered to go back and check and I went and reported it to lost property just in case (for all they cared..) Luckily it was in the car (i'd accidentally left it when paying the parking fee) Ahh relief!! We decided to watch Shrek next. I felt the pre-show was a bit long but that could have been my feet talking as we hadn't sat down for a while! Took a few pics afterwards:
Jimmy and Dora were more fun than Bart and Lisa
Cool car!
Cooler car!!
Next we headed to Terminator 2, Lucy: A Tribute where I bought a T-shirt and ET, though we forgot to give made up names! We decided to call it a day as we were a bit fed up of Universal by then. If i'm honest there isn't much drawing me to this park now that Back To The Future is gone and I really don't know when we'll visit again if ever. We found we were comparing it to WDW a lot which I know isn't really fair but I think the attitude of some of the staff in particular is really poor.
It was still quite early in the afternoon so we decided to check out Walmart where more money was spent and I got my nails did ($40 including tip, very reasonable)
They ended up breaking within the next few days (probably because of swimming) but oh well, i'd never had them done before and it was fun to have fancy nails for a couple of days!
We'd planned to go to Olive Garden for dinner and the sat nav which up until now had been accurate for all of our routes (despite some people's criticisms of them we found it really useful and wouldn't have been without it) directed us to a totally different place and we ended up stopping for directions at a hotel as we couldn't find it with Mapman's map either and were close to just going to Bahama Breeze instead (in hindsight we probably should have..) We eventually got there and of course the location was blatantly obvious all along (isn't that always the way?!) The server was pleasant enough and we enjoyed the salad and breadsticks but he messed up my order. I asked for eggplant parmigan and was given apricot chicken, he was very apologetic and offered to change it but since we were on a bit of a timeframe I said i'd just have the dish i'd been given which was pretty average (the chicken tasted like reformed Birdseye type stuff, yuck..) Steve had the 5 cheese ziti which he described as 'glorified mac n cheese' We did tip the server but i'm not sure if we'd go again. We were both a bit disappointed as we'd heard so many good things about it, we do have an excellent local Italian place though (Casa Italia, if you're ever in the Liverpool area be sure to pay it a visit!) so maybe our expectations were a bit high. I think if we did give it another try it would be a different location. After dinner we headed to Downtown Disney for Cirque De Soleil. Since the day hadn't been the most successful one we were both a bit tetchy and I didn't realise you could park so close to Cirque and we ended up walking all the way from the Marketplace in foul moods, oops! I thought we were running late but it turned out people were turning up right til 9pm, better to rush than be late though I suppose. The show.. Well, I suppose my opinion might not be that of the majority but I didn't really enjoy it. I love circuses and the theatre but I felt it was mostly artsy posing and not so much acrobatics. It probably didn't help that I was really tired aswell. Steve liked it more than I did but I don't think either of us would watch it again. Another case of glad we've done it once but that was enough. After the show we stopped at Ghiradellis for a couple of truly amazing ice-creams and then headed back to the hotel but not before we spotted this little guy:
Best mailbox ever!
