Well, the wedding is over! In just a few hourse we will be off to Orlando!!! We will be driving the 1030 miles to Orlando for the second time in 2 years.(getting there is half the fun right?)Hopefully all will go will and we will be in Florida Early Monday morning. We want to make a stop at Daytona USA, then jump over to Orlando later that afternoon. We hope to be checking into the RP by dinner. I'll keep the laptop with so I can post our trip report everyday. Can't wait to be standing inline at IOA on Tuesday morning.
Universal Journal 1
- Thread starter aaronr121
- Start date
Minnie's Guy
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2001
- Messages
- 297
Have a wonderful honeymoon - we will be
there on Aug. 12th, RPH. (club level).
I would love to meet everyone and anyone
from the DIS boards.
there on Aug. 12th, RPH. (club level).
I would love to meet everyone and anyone
from the DIS boards.
Well, we made it! We arrived in Florida yesterday evening at about 6:30. So, it took 16 hours to drive from Boyertown PA to Jacksonville Fl, about 850 miles. Since we weren't sure if we could make the drive in one day, we didn't make reservations for RPR for Sunday night. So, we decided to stop since the weather was miserable. It certainly wasn't sunny Florida yesterday, almost needed a jacket!
We stayed in the cheapest place available, Valu-Lodge or something like that, the parking lot was flooded and the room was pretty crappy. Couldn't wait to get out of there this morning, so we got up at 6 showered and took off. Since we had 'till 4pm to check in, we stopped at Daytona USA and visited Daytona Beach. Daytona USA was pretty cool, we took the track tour and I raced in the new Acceleration Alley 3x (I only had to pay the first 2 times, the girl at the counter gave me a freebie on the third race!) If you play any of the Nascar Sims, you'll do well with at this (actually the graphics and gameplay on the PC version are better.) But I hated the start. You and the other human players start on pit road and have to accelerate out of the pits and onto the track, while the computer opponents get a running start out on the track. If you don't get a good start, forget about racing them - they just pull away. The Dreamlap simulator was neat also, but other than that it's a lot of memorobilia and interactive displays. If you want to go, don't plan on spending a whole day, it only takes about 4 hours at most to go through.
Daytona beach was nice, I never got the chance to ever drive on a beach before, so that was cool. It was only $5 for the afternoon, but I'm not much of a beach person, so we left after an hour and a half. The water was clear and warm, with small waves and lightly crowded. Certainly different than the Jersey shore (water is brown and smelly, and the beaches are crowded.) Almost as nice as the beach we hit in St. Petersburg 2 years ago.
We finally got to the RPR at 4:30 this afternoon and wow, this place is so incredible! They put as much detailing into this place as they do in the parks. I was impressed, I heard people say HRH and PBH are nicer, but I've never been to them yet, so I have nothing to compare it to. We started out in the 2nd tower on level 3 with room facing the Palm Garden, but it was a smoking room; we smelled it the moment we opened the door to the room. We reserved a non-smoking, so we complained a little and they gave us a different room in tower 2, on the fifth level. This one was on the entrance side, so we have a great view of the waterfall underneath the entrance walk, and a view of IOA. It's such a tease to be this close to the parks, but not being able to get in to them!!!!
We unpacked, showered and took a walk around. Everything here is so incredible! The pool, the restaurants, the lobby (gotta love the courtyard!) We ate at the Island and that place was great. We had the Cucumber and Chicken noodle soup, followed up with a Sushi platter and the Sorbet trio. Awesome. Scooby Doo and Shaggy showed up to entertain everybody also. I was surprised they had charcters roaming around the restaurants. After that we walked over to IOA to just check out the walk (gota be preparred for tomorrow morning!) and came back to our room. So, it's time to get some sleep and get ready for our first of many days at the best themeparks in the world. I just hope the weather stays nice, it's calling for isolated thunderstorms and a new tropical storm could be forming off the coast of the carolinas. Oh well, just gotta hope for the best.
Tune in tomorrow for Journal 3: Return to IOA.
We stayed in the cheapest place available, Valu-Lodge or something like that, the parking lot was flooded and the room was pretty crappy. Couldn't wait to get out of there this morning, so we got up at 6 showered and took off. Since we had 'till 4pm to check in, we stopped at Daytona USA and visited Daytona Beach. Daytona USA was pretty cool, we took the track tour and I raced in the new Acceleration Alley 3x (I only had to pay the first 2 times, the girl at the counter gave me a freebie on the third race!) If you play any of the Nascar Sims, you'll do well with at this (actually the graphics and gameplay on the PC version are better.) But I hated the start. You and the other human players start on pit road and have to accelerate out of the pits and onto the track, while the computer opponents get a running start out on the track. If you don't get a good start, forget about racing them - they just pull away. The Dreamlap simulator was neat also, but other than that it's a lot of memorobilia and interactive displays. If you want to go, don't plan on spending a whole day, it only takes about 4 hours at most to go through.
Daytona beach was nice, I never got the chance to ever drive on a beach before, so that was cool. It was only $5 for the afternoon, but I'm not much of a beach person, so we left after an hour and a half. The water was clear and warm, with small waves and lightly crowded. Certainly different than the Jersey shore (water is brown and smelly, and the beaches are crowded.) Almost as nice as the beach we hit in St. Petersburg 2 years ago.
We finally got to the RPR at 4:30 this afternoon and wow, this place is so incredible! They put as much detailing into this place as they do in the parks. I was impressed, I heard people say HRH and PBH are nicer, but I've never been to them yet, so I have nothing to compare it to. We started out in the 2nd tower on level 3 with room facing the Palm Garden, but it was a smoking room; we smelled it the moment we opened the door to the room. We reserved a non-smoking, so we complained a little and they gave us a different room in tower 2, on the fifth level. This one was on the entrance side, so we have a great view of the waterfall underneath the entrance walk, and a view of IOA. It's such a tease to be this close to the parks, but not being able to get in to them!!!!
We unpacked, showered and took a walk around. Everything here is so incredible! The pool, the restaurants, the lobby (gotta love the courtyard!) We ate at the Island and that place was great. We had the Cucumber and Chicken noodle soup, followed up with a Sushi platter and the Sorbet trio. Awesome. Scooby Doo and Shaggy showed up to entertain everybody also. I was surprised they had charcters roaming around the restaurants. After that we walked over to IOA to just check out the walk (gota be preparred for tomorrow morning!) and came back to our room. So, it's time to get some sleep and get ready for our first of many days at the best themeparks in the world. I just hope the weather stays nice, it's calling for isolated thunderstorms and a new tropical storm could be forming off the coast of the carolinas. Oh well, just gotta hope for the best.
Tune in tomorrow for Journal 3: Return to IOA.
Well, I saw a lot of women chasing after kids CPM! If you are at IOA tomorrow we'll be there. I'll probably be wearing tan shorts and a olive green Jurassic Park T-shirt, glasses. If you do say hi. We're always interested in meeting people who love this place also.
Hi Minnie, we'll still be there on the 12th. So, when you get here hopefully we'll see you as well.
Hi Minnie, we'll still be there on the 12th. So, when you get here hopefully we'll see you as well.
A Mickeyfan
DIS Legend
- Joined
- May 31, 2000
- Messages
- 10,422
LOL, I'll be at the pool all day! then going to IOA at 6pm. We did all of Universal today from 7-10pm NO lines and a lot cooler!
I love club level, I'll write a report when I'm back.
But I'll look for the Jurassic Park Tee shirt!
CPM
<font color=blue>Stands up in the Spider-Man ride
- Joined
- Dec 12, 1999
- Messages
- 8,696
The above post was from me not Sharon! LOL She used my computer & never logged off, so when I posted it was under her name.
Didn't run into you today arron. Most likely we'll be at the pool again & parks later. There are no lines for express after 6!
Didn't run into you today arron. Most likely we'll be at the pool again & parks later. There are no lines for express after 6!
Well, we are back. Unfortunately I didn't keep posting mny journal entries. After I found out the hotel charges $1 a minute for a 10 minute local call and .05 a minute afterwards, I tried to stay off the phone line. (it really adds up when you have a slow 133 laptop!) The trip was great tho! I didn't see any board people while there tho. After we get straightened out I'll post the rest of our journal up.
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