We want to remember it all!!! Dec.11-19 2006- UPDATED Feb.21,Day 9

[Bee]

Day 7, Dec. 17.

I woke up bright and early and did laundry. I felt the need to have most of it out of the way so we could enjoy our last 3 days and not worry about it. I must say, I ALMOST enjoyed doing laundry at POP. I made laundry room friends One guy had arrived the same day we did and was moving to HRH the same day we were and then flying home 3 days later, just like us. ALMOST creepy and ALMOST cool. I actually saw him at one of the Universal parks and at the airport. Small world!

I checked our print out of spending while in the laundry room. Yikes. I checked everything and found they'd charged us every day for a fridge. We had no fridge we requested no fridge, we were not paying for a fridge. Amazingly, all the other charges were actually ours . While waiting for the drier I ran to the lobby and explained to a CM my problem. He believed me and credited the bill. It took FOREVER. They were having all kinds of problems there. Someone finally showed him how to void them himself and he did it in front of me, but he had to do each day seperately. It took FOREVER. Then the printer wouldn't work. It took FOREVER to print it, but I felt I really needed it, just in case something else was messed up. Well, I was impatient. You know why right???...because I'm not IN A PARK!

I finally emerge from the lobby and finish the laundry, sprint to the room and madly pack everything. This was another time it was awesome to have two rooms. Ban the 3 boys to their (empty) room while I cram all the stuff into the suitcases. I had the CM at the desk call a taxi van for us, to arrive at 9:30. We got out there at 9:40. No van. None of the CMs out front knew anything about it. Finally a van showed up, not ours, but we took it anyway! We left POP about 9:50. I took less than 30 min to get to the Hard Rock Hotel. We happily paid our taxi dude and crawled out of the van.

Arriving at the Hard Rock Hotel is awesome. It just is. The luggage dudes are more like bouncers. Everyone seems very cool. Makes us cool too We were told our room would probably not be ready, which is what we were counting on, but we could check in and get our key so we could use Front of the Line privilages. That was my plan, I'm an informed Disser! Guess what...our room WAS ready! Yup, at 10:30 in the morning. So a nice bouncer dude took us on a short tour of the hotel and then to our room. This place is huge. You could easily get lost going to your room. I never did get lost, amazingly, but it seems very possible.

We liked the room We did not have the same feeling as when we stepped into POP. This place is nice. We have gotten a bit spoiled living overseas, you often times have to stay in 4 and 5 star places because everything else is too risky. Hard Rock felt familiar and happy! The only problem is 5 people in one room. They brought a roll-away and we were happy.

Now we've been in the room about 5 minutes and mom is impatient!! Lets get to a Park!!!! Load up the esentials for the day and depart. We took the water taxi because it was just too cool not too It took just a few minutes. Very nice. Then we walk the few steps to the entrance of Islands of Adventure. We were very excited about coming here. This was our first visit to Universal.

First impression, it felt more like Six Flags than Disney. Fair enough. We LIKE Six Flags Suess Landing First. Rode Cat in the Hat. Loved it. Very, very cute. Rode the Merry-Go-Round, me too. Even Jacob liked it, he could move the tounge or eyes or something (I forget) on his creature. cool. Then we visited the Grinch. He was Grinchy and funny. We took our own photo and it is dark . Oh well. Then we found some other Dr. Suess guys to pose with, I'm not sure who they are, but they were funny and cute too. Then we rode the Trolley Train Ride. Very fun. I could see my kiddos protesting Seuss Landing just like Fantasy Land if we ever return, they are getting OLD for some of this. I, on the other hand, am NOT.

Next we did Poseidon's Fury. This was great fun! We all liked it. I think we ate next. We ate at the Enchanted Oak Tavern. It was fine. I remember that we all liked it, but I don't remember what we had! Then straight onto Dueling Dragons. Yup, really, right after lunch. Matthew is still too small, so he and Scott hung out and waited for us. He was not too happy about that. Jacob, Nathan and I loved it! Rode it twice. Once of each color!! I did have a headache following, but that is all. I wish we would have returned and rode it again, it was really that great. While they waited Scott and Matthew rode The Flying Unicorn. Then we all rode it. I think 3 times. Matthew liked it, so did I.

Next on the map was Jurassic Park Discovery Center. I was almost afraid to go here. My boys go to things like this and want to spend the whole day there. Maybe because we've always gone to Childrens Museums, etc and spent whole days there. Anyway, I was afraid. I should have been. They loved it. We let them try it all for a good long while, then we forced them to move on. Mother is impatient!

Jurassic Park River Adventure is next. Wet, but not too wet, was what I was counting on. I was right. It was great! We did it twice. Purchased the photo on round 2. Maybe I will miraculously learn how to scan and post and you can see it too....maybe... Anyway, we liked it. Then Camp Jurrassic. The line for Pteranodon Flyers was long, so we just let the kids play in the camp for a while. They emerged...SOAKED. Really, really, dripping way wet, SOAKED. To give them credit...I had announced that now we were going to do all the wet rides and get wet, then go back to HRH and swim. But I had missed somehow in all my research that Camp Jurrasic had soaking capabilities. Apparently it does. Oh well. I did not fuss, we just dripped our way to the water rides.

Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls was first. Jacob had a slushie or something, so he waited for us while we rode. We were SOAKED but happy. It was great fun. We like any flume rides, but this was great, probably 2nd after Splash Mountain IMHO.Then I watched while the 4 guys went. They got even more soaked! Made for a drippy photo! Then we went and paid money to soak other people floating by on the ride. Yup, we are THOSE people who find it funny. Yup. Onto Popeye and Bluto's Blige-Rat Barges. Very fun, very wet. Onto Me Ship, The Olive. Here you can soak people floating by...for FREE. Yup, did it again. The boys enjoyed playing here. Even soaking wet.

Time to go. We dripped our way out. Scott purchased me a margarita from Margaritaville . Yum And onward to our water taxi to ride home to the Hard Rock Hotel. We changed out of our soaking wet clothes and into dry swimsuits! We went to the pool bar/restaurant and settled in to order before we hopped in the water. The boys and I enjoyed the pool but were disappointed at first because there was no underwater music! Luckily that changed as the evening went on and we were able to float on our backs and listen to rock-n-roll. We had a lot of fun on the slide. The food was ok, not great. We didn't go to bed hungry, so who can complain! We really liked just being there and hanging out.

Tucked everyone in and fell fast asleep.

Blessings
1. Hard Rock Hotel- it was just way cool and way cool for the boys to be there.
2. Riding Dueling Dragons with my two, big, brave boys.
3. Seeing my grinning kiddos emerge soaked from the playground.
4. DH buying me a Margaritaville Margarita.
5. The pool with the kids.
6. Another great day.

Katy

Ok, me again... Where did you get info about IOA and Universal. My girls are 10 and 12. We are going to WDW in September and we were wondering what to do on the weekend. Sea World, Universal, Kennedy Space Center?

Would you recommend this then.. and is Front of Line worth the extra cost? Was Hard Rock Hotel connected to Universal? Sorry for all the questions.. I am just a lowly Nebraska girl for goodness sake

 

[Katy Belle]

Hi Bee! We did like Universal. I would recommend it. But have you ever been to a Sea World? We haven't been to the one in Orlando, but have been to others and Sea World is loads of fun too.

There is a Universal Board here on the DisBoards! That is where I found lots of my info. Also go to www.universalorlando.com. That is thier official website. They have 3 hotels, if you stay at one of them you get Front of the Line Privilages by showing your room key. OR you can stay elsewhere and pay for it, I have no idea what it costs. That is why we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, and the fact that it just sounds cool for a girl from Nebraska to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel! Oh, I also bought a book from Amazon about Universal. There aren't many published. It was helpful too.

Hard Rock was really, really close to both Universal parks. It takes about 5 minutes, seems like less, to get to the entrance of either park. Its a fun place. It does not have the same feel as Disney. My oldest son said that you don't feel the magic and that is probably true, but it still is fun.

I'm not sure how busy they would be in Sept on a weekend. You may not need Front of the Line if its not busy.

Have fun researching and deciding what you want to do! Please feel free to ask any other questions.
Katy

 

[Katy Belle]

Day 8, Dec. 18

We woke up at HRH and had a breakfast of stuff I brought, plus we split two very sticky, gooey, pecan covered rolls DH found in the shop downstairs! Yum. We made our way to the water taxi again. We decided to finish what we had missed at Islands of Adventure and then do STudios. Matthew was not tall enough for HULK, so he and I went to Pteranodon Flyers. We got there about 9:30 and it already had a 30 min. wait. It was worth it, we loved it! The sign says you must have a child with you to ride, but they were letting everyone on. While we did that DH had the big boys riding Hulk. They loved it and I now regret not taking time to ride with them. Oh well, there is always next time. We called them and they were just exiting Doctor Doom's Fearfall. Matthew and I wanted to ride, so we all rode together, and then some of us rode again. Very fun!

We all rode Spider Man, twice! Loved it. Then Nathan and Brian went in search of a Dueling Dragon's shirt for Nathan. The rest of us rode Dr. Doom, again. We met up with DH and Nathan and decided to eat lunch before heading the The Studios. We ate at The Captain America Diner. Burgers for all, I think. Very good.

Off we go to Universal STudios. First time here. I believe we started with Jimmy Neutron. The boys and I loved it. DH not so much. The motion sickness thing It is pretty amazing to me though, how they do these cool ride/movie things. Then onto Shrek 4-D. Very funny. We were all having a great time!

I don't have my map, so I'm going by the on-line map and my photos, so I'm likely to miss stuff, but we will get the general idea. We saw all the Macy's balloons. They are quite amazing. At the time I was thinking we would watch that parade later, but it wasn't meant to be. We are really not parade people, or maybe we are just people not willing to wait for a parade. It may be the impatient mother thing . Anyway...We watched the Blues Brothers Holiday show. Cute, but I would not spend time doing this again. The boys didn't enjoy it so much.

We all rode Twister together. Very cool! Gotta love the cow. The boys really liked it. Then it was time for Mummy. Matthew was not feeling so brave about this one, so he and I wandered around outside. DH and the boys rode Mummy and came out happy, but not overwhelmed. This is out of order but I want to tell it now. We ALL, even Matthew rode Mummy the next day. I thought it was fabulous! Probably one of the best at US. Anyway...we went to JAWS and Earthquake. Loved them both. Then had a funnel cake break . We went to Fear Factor Live. Wow. I just don't get it. OK, maybe for a bunch of money, but do you know what the people who do this show at the park get???? A yellow, PLASTIC, mug that says "I ate a bug" with the Fear Factor logo. YUCK . These 4 people had to drink a cup full of nasty stuff...meat, worms, grubs, other nasty stuff. Why or why??? One was gagging while drinking. Ok, enough of remembering that. The physical stunt stuff was pretty cool. I could see doing that if you were physically fit and competitive. We really enjoyed watching it.

I think we did Back to the Future and MIB that day too. Liked Back to the Future, LOVED MIB. Seems like we did the Curious George area for a little while and rode ET. I was looking so forward to ET. It was great. Really liked it.

Then back to Hard Rock Hotel. A repeat of the previous night, but this time DH swam and I observed. Ate at the same pool bar/restaurant. We liked it out there. Very few people swimming, but great fun.

Back to the room. I packed up what I could, we were flying out the next day. The end of another great day!

Blessings...
1.Brave boys and a really fun day.

Katy

 

[jamal]

He says, "It doesn't matter where you are going. You are our family of the day." So he takes us backstage and we get to go into the "control room" where the CMs are making sure the ride is functioning properly...or something. The boys were allowed to mess with all the buttons and switches, it was great fun. Then he took us to the front of the line, let Scott out the chicken exit(no roundy-round or spinny rides) and we rode! MS is a fun ride.

What???

You were so calm, so casual about this, Katy!! First, this ride, even reading about it again, gave me sweaty palms. I am happy for your family (you clearly have better go-with-the-flow genes) but better you than me!!

Second, Family of the Day!! Yippee!! Oh, how I wish I had a pic here. Never mind You give us great visuals with your storytelling.

OK, I am all caught up but now I have to catch up with your non-Disney portion. We've never done that so I am a bit curious!!

Thanks for taking us with you!

Jam

 

[Katy Belle]

Hi Jami!

I guess I didn't get too excited when writing the Mission Space stuff. It was really exciting. The boys really ate up all the attention. I think its great that Disney is doing this. We had several little things and they all made it just a little more fun.

You should do Universal some day. It won't replace Disney for you, but it is still fun. Your boys would enjoy it! Dueling Dragons is probably the most aggressive roller coaster we've ridden. It was fabulous!

More later. Just have the last day and overall impressions to do to finish the report!
Katy

 

[Katy Belle]

Day 9, Dec. 19 Final day, flying to Nebraska today

Ok final day! So sad, really. I hate the last day of a vacation. I hate returning to reality

This morning I went to the little shop downstairs at HRH and purchased milk and coffee cake to share. yum. Supplemented that with the stuff I had hauled in the suitcases and we were good to go. Oh wait...we also had to pack everything, check out, get the Bouncer-like luggage guy to come get our 42 suitcases to store until our flight and leave. We managed to do all of that in a fairly timely manner and decided to hit US again. I had thought the kids would want to do IOA, but they chose Studios! Partly because there were still several things there that we didn't do/see yet and partly because they liked it! Also, while at IOA we rode most of the rides more than once, so maybe they were more ready to move on.

We decided to walk today and found the path closed, so we rode the water taxi. I'm still amazed at how close it is. Way better than the time it takes to get to a park at WDW. Well, we do choose to stay at resorts far from the parks, due to expense. Staying at HRH was really awesome for being close to the parks.

Nathan was dying to do Mummy again and Matthew was feeling brave, so we went there first. It was awesome! Really, really great! Next we decided to do Terminator, but only Nathan wanted to see it, so he and I went with the plan to meet the rest for the Horror Make-up Show when we finished. Well, the Terminator was not working. They told us the time they thought they would show it and we left. We ended up having ice cream and going back to check, still broken. Meanwhile DH and the other boys were in the Curious George play land, having a great time. Nathan was pretty upset about the breakdown, he really wanted to see it. We looked at the schedule and decided we could all go see Animal Actors together. Loved it! Very cute.

We all rode MIB again, twice I think. We really liked it and we were able to get loads of points and were very happy about it! We ate lunch at some point at a pizza place near Curious George land and even got to hug Curious George. That made me very happy, he is so cute and I remember Mom reading me the stories when I was young and I've read them to my kiddos too We rode ET again too. Love it. For my "passport" I told them my name was "Mom" so I got to hear ET call me MOM! Loved it.

We were nearing the end of our time. We had a plane to catch Nathan really wanted to see Terminator, so we did! It was fixed and we timed it right and we were able to see it! Jacob came with us. I have a fabulous photo of the two of them in their 3D glasses looking like bouncers. If I could post it I would The boys really liked the show. I liked it, but not a lot. I could visit US and not see it again. During this time Scott and Matthew went to the Horror Make-up show. I was nervous about having Matthew see this because it is marked on the schedule as PG13 or something. We took a chance. He LOVED it. Not scared. He and DH sat in the front row and the guy on stage asked him his name and age and kind of included him in the show! He was so happy! When we got on the Water Taxi to leave a family recognized him from the show and he felt like a celebrity! Big stuff!

Well, our time had run out. We went to the big shop and made final purchases. I regret not buying more. I really do. We are not big spenders and I have a hard time spending money. We bought a shirt for each of us and a few christmas gifts for the kids and that was it. I wish I had bought THING 1, THING 2, THING 3 Shirts. I wish I had bought Nathan the shirt with Donkey(from shrek) on it that said "The part of annoying talking animal is already taken." N talks a lot He liked it and so did I, but he already had his shirt.

We boarded the Water Taxi and headed to HRH. Took some photos along the way and inside. Gotta love the Gingerbread Graceland! Waited a short time for our luggage and our van and away we go! So sad to leave but we had a fabulous time. So happy we decided to do this trip. So lucky.

The day before my BIL had called DH and told him that they were forcasting ice/freezing rain for the night of the 19th. We would be driving to the farm from Omaha at that time. We debated booking a room and spending the night in Omaha, but then we could get stuck there. DH monitored the weather via his blackberry and we decided to just try and drive it, knowing if it got too bad we would have to stop and spend the night somewhere.

I booked these flights through Expedia. First time I used them. I had booked the return flight to leave around 4 and land around 9. Since we had a 3 hour drive to the farm, that seemed ok. We could still do Universal the last day and get home at an ok time. Well, about a month or so out, they cancelled that flight and booked us on a flight leaving Orlando at noon or some other early crazy time. I called and complained that they were taking a day of vacation from us. They let us pick another flight, but it was due to land in Omaha at midnight. ugh. I decided that was better than noon, so we took it. It had a biggish layover in Atlanta. All in all, the flight went fine. We landed around midnight. No freezing rain yet. Thermometer was at 33. We began the drive to the farm. DH kept monitoring the weather with his blackberry. The temp did drop below freezing, but the moisture held off and we arrived around 3am. Happy to be at Grandmas and ready for bed!

Up next...final thoughts

Blessings
1.Hugging Curious George with my boys
2.Riding ET and hearing him say MOM!
3.Big scores on MIB
4.Terminator finally opening up
5.Matthew getting attention at the Horror Make-up show, listenting to him and DH tell the story
6.DH taking care of us, monitoring the weather and getting us home safely.
7.The end of a fantastic trip!!!!!!

Katy

 

[Bee]

So sad it is over!
Thanks for the ride!

From Bee in Omaha!!

 

[Katy Belle]

Thanks Bee! I will think of you when I fly into Omaha in June!

I am intending to do a final thoughts entry. Not tonight though. I'm in a rotten mood and I know it wouldn't do well.

Thanks for reading!

Katy