WOOHOO Complete 4/08 Trip Report NOW UPDATING WITH NEW SPRING 2011 PRE TRIP PLANNING

[macraven]

wendy, the fans are rooting for more..........

come back and tell us about the rest of your trip!

 

[Subi WRX]

Are Gold Toe socks the Dom Perignon of socks?

 

[wwessing]

In my opinion they are. They hold up well and my girls usually outgrow them before wearing them out.

DH's do eventually wear out, but they last a very long time. . .not talking months, talking years, before they do.

Prior to going on our Orlando vacation this past April, I purchased some silver toe socks because I needed more socks than I nornally wear and I wasn't going to be near an outlet before leaving. I tried to save a couple dollars over purchasing gold toes in a local department store. HATED THEM!

So as a result of my cheapness, on our first day in Orlando, we had to find an outlet mall that had a gold toe store so I could replace my socks. It all worked out for the best anyway.

Go for the Gold!

 

[wwessing]

Hi Wendy!
Wow! I can't believe I've been to Universal and back for several days since you started this trippie and we haven't even gotten to your Universal part of the trip yet and even started my own trippie! I can't wait much longer.....Please come back!

I know. . .I know! I'm totally a slacker. In my pitiful defense though, we have taken a couple 5 day trips since we returned from Orlando in May and that has kept me occupied. We just returned from our trip to Lake of the Ozarks yesterday.

Next up is Six Flags (St. Louis) for a couple days, but I'll work on my Orlando trippie right now!

 

[wwessing]

Ok - I've just spent a couple hours completing day 2 at SeaWorld and





















MY FREAKING COMPUTER LOST IT'S CONNECTION JUST AS I FINISHED UP

I HAVE NO WORDS TO EXPLAIN MY CURRENT EMOTIONS. . . WELL, I DO, BUT THEY AREN'T ALLOWED HERE

I'LL BE BACK LATER TO START ALL OVER

 

[RVGal]

Oh, Wendy. That's awful. Unfortunately, I know exactly how you feel. After that happened to me, I started creating my trip reports in a word document that I could save and then copying and pasting them to the message board.

Come back when you aren't likely to break the computer screen.

 

[wwessing]

That's a wonderful idea I've had minor problems before. . ya know, answer a few posts then something goes wrong, but over 2 hours of work and my pics were uploading at the same time, just gone. . poof. . . after I finished sitting frozen with my jaw hanging open, I left that angry post and had to walk away for the rest of the day.

I'm feeling better today, but I will create, from now on, in the fashion you described. I actually thought about that, but decided to save myself the step of copy/paste. . . . look where being lazy got me

 

[wwessing]

Much the same as yesterday, we were up early, breakfast in the room and we are loaded into the van on time! Since DH remembers the way to SeaWorld, no need for GPS today. We arrive early and there are already maybe 25 vehicles waiting at the parking lot gates. It’s not too long, however, before they open and we start rolling in. Once parked, which by the way, we did not get quite as good a spot as yesterday, but still just a little walk and will not have to use the tram, we gather our stuff and head to the gates. Seems like most people who are ahead of us are in the line to purchase tickets, so we go right to the turnstiles and get right in with our next day free tickets. . .yep, today is free.

Knowing what we are doing today, we head for the herd developing at “the rope”. I beginning to truly dislike ropes. Fortunately, there aren’t may people there and we are able to get a prime, shady spot to wait in. We found that most folks were polite and there didn’t seem to be pushing and shoving and jockeying for space. Good thing because it’s turning out to be a hot day already and it’s still before 9:00! We wait and true to our experience from the previous day, the National Anthem is played at a minute or two before 9:00 and the ropes are removed and precisely 9:00am. We move quickly toward dolphin cove as we are after feeding the dolphins again and find that we are like 2nd or 3rd in line. DH and I had discussed the issue of dolphin feeding before-hand and determined that we would buy more fish than the day before. It’s exactly 9:15 before they open the “fish window” and DH has his cash ready and orders 12 trays this time. I wanted him to get more, but he said he would feel “greedy” if he did. I figure some people get 12 -15 trays for each person, but he didn’t want to be one of “those” people and he said to imagine if we were at the end of that line and our kids didn’t get fish and had to stand and watch while someone else fed 15 trays to the dolphins. Ok, ok, fine. . whatever, point taken. . . though I still think we earned our right to as many fish as we want because we got up early, arrived early and it’s not my fault those people at the end of the line didn’t do their research properly. DH gave me “the look”, which doesn’t happen often and I knew it was a good time to let it go.

We proceed to the side of the pool with our trays of fish, set them on the side as instructed and laugh as the dolphins swarm. I’ve decided that today I’m going to enjoy the experience and let the camera hang. I take my time and soak up every single minute of the experience and dh has decided to get a dolphin to come to him even though he doesn’t have fish. He likely would have been successful . . he’s a very patient man. . . if it hadn’t been for the girls deciding they were going to do it too but they kept moving around and splashing their hands in the water, all the things you are not supposed to do. That’s when they all realize I still have fish and the dolphins are still coming up to me. Of course I gave up my last tray of fish to my kids. . . . I’m a sucker. . . and dh had a moments peace to get a dolphin to approach his hand! He was thrilled!!

So, finished with feeding, we clean up and head out. We pass the photo kiosks because we picked up so many photos the day before. We want to stay in the general area as we are going to the first Blue Horizons show of the day.

We visit the alligators

And the manatee rescue exhibit

Then on to Journey to Atlantis. It is walk on at this point, but we are turned back to place our stuff in lockers. Fortunately DH has a few quarters as the lockers cost .50 each. We stow our gear and back to the ride. We walk right on, take our seats. . . . and realize dd15 is balking at getting on. There are 3 people behind her and they want to board the boat, but dd15 won’t get on. We cajole (force) her to get in the boat as we know she is afraid of the unknown rather than the ride itself. She reluctantly gets on, but starts to get off when the try to place the single rider next to her. He was like, it’s fine, there’s a bunch of empty boats right behind you and I would rather be up front anyway. So, finally loaded and our boat moves off. I must say this ride is pretty cool and seemed longer than your average boat/log type ride. Know when you go on this ride YOU WILL GET WET!!! Everyone on every boat was wet.. . . dd’s 9 & 11 were soaked head to toe as they sat in the front, but we were plenty wet ourselves as were the people behind us, including dd15. Let me just say the last drops a doozy!

After the ride, dd15 admits it was cool, but doesn’t think she wants to go again. Ok, we’ll take that as it hopefully means she will trust us next time when we assure her it will be fun and not scary. . . . one can always hope, right.

We took a few minutes to check out the gift shop at the exit of Atlantis and found a beautiful sterling silver dolphin frame for dh’s mom (loves and collects dolphin stuff) and retrieve our things from the locker. We wander towards the theatre for the dolphin show and find an empty bench in the shade. DH takes a pit stop and goes to purchase a souvenir cup ($7.98 including tax and I THINK refills were like $1.68). Within 30 seconds he’s going back for a refill as the kids sucked the drink down and then the refill. He reluctantly goes back for a final refill before the show, but won’t let them have the cup. We notice that people are staring to gather at the entrance, so we que up and get a shady spot near, once again. . . . the rope! This was about 45 before showtime so we figured we had at least 15 minutes of standing at the rope, which was almost exactly right.

This is where I encountered crazy stoller lady. Let me say that there were plenty of strollers in this herd, but the crazy lady with the bashing stroller thought she was going to use her stroller as a weapon to get to the front as was apparently moderately successful. We saw them get in line about 5 minutes before they opened the stadium, so were fairly far back. They somehow managed to bash their way through the crowd behind us, and then she encountered me. After about the 5th bash in the back of the legs with her stroller, I’d had enough. DH saw what was going on, but had to hold his station since we had the kids between us, but he was giving me looks like crazy and after the final bash, he starts shaking his head no because he knows she’s pushed me way too far. So, in deference to my hubby and my kids, I think I’ll set a fairly good example and politely ask her to stop running her stroller into the back of my legs, but didn’t feel comfortable trusting myself to open my mouth and limit myself to polite requests with a smile. So, I turn around and stare, stone faced, right into her face. At first, she looked smug and gave me the “if you don’t like it then move” look, until she realized I was not going to turn back around and she would now have to bash me face to face. Then she whispered something to her apparently long-suffering husband, who took a couple steps to his left, which left her a bit of room to try to maneuver her stroller a bit left, which meant she was going to start pushing on my kids. Uuuummm, yah, I don’t think so! Dh apparently notices this as well and takes a couple little steps to his right so he’s standing next to the husband, who is by the way, holding their small, sleeping child (couldn’t put him in the stroller because she wouldn’t be able to BASH people with it then) and strikes up a conversation. I’m continuing to stare at crazy stroller lady and hoping she heeds my silent warning, but I hear dh saying something about how hot it is and how crazy people tend to get in the heat and I hear her husband say “yeah, don’t I know it”, which causes me to chuckle and dh scores a big point. One of the girls was asking him something, so he took a couple steps back to his spot to answer our daughter and it’s at this time that the ropes are removed and the crowd surges forward. We had already decided on where we wanted to sit, so with dh in the lead, we formed a human rope by holding onto the back of the person in front of us and we got great seats, in the shade. As we are getting seated, I look over and notice that crazy stroller lady and husband are still way back at the entrance trying to leave their stroller in the designated spot and I realize they are not going to get great seats because they filled, literally, within a matter of a few minutes. All seats are probably good, because the stadium is not very big, but there are truly great seats to be had with a little planning. As an aside, we saw this family a little later in the day and they were obviously arguing and their child was screaming. I felt bad for the dad and the baby. . . .but you know, what goes around comes around. She was getting slapped in the face by her own nastiness and probably ruined everyone’s day.

Anyway, the show was absolutely beautiful. The animals and actors and costumes were incredible and it has certainly changed from when we saw the show 4 years ago. It was more focused on the dolphins then, but not so much now. Here’s a few pics.

Kind of hard to get the beauty of the show through these pics, but you can take my word, it is worth the time. . . the time to wait in line, time waiting in the seats, and time watching the show. It's even worth the craziness of getting out of this stadium!

Day two to be continued. . . . .

 

[wwessing]

After the show, we file out in our human chain and make a pit stop. Remember, we had gone on Journey to Atlantis right before the show and the two younger girls were still pretty wet. They were also all starving to death and couldn't walk across the park to the place we had wanted to go for lunch. We came across the Smokey Creek Grill, which while it had a line, wasn't too bad. Dh and I decided it was not worth listening to the whining to make them go where we wanted to go, so we sent them to a table to sit down and wait for us. Smokey Creek is cafeteria style and the line moved quickly. We ordered 3 chicken strip kids meals, complete with a drink and a little plastic souvenir lunch box ($7.29 each) and dh and I decided to share a meal. We got like ½ roasted chicken, some ribs and a piece of steak I think ($14.58). There were some fries and we picked up a giant pickle and some fruit as well. A refill of our cup completed the order and we take our trays and head outside. All the table are outdoors, but most of them are in the shade and quite comfortable with the breeze blowing. I go to the condiments and pick up everything we might need, including wet wipes, nice convenience and return to our tables. Lunch is divided up and before I can snap any pics, our food is half gone. . . sorry! The food was pretty good and the highlight for me was the fruit. Dh had to go back in line and get more strawberries and some watermelon. Our total for the entire meal was $53.87.

While we were eating, there were a couple of ducks that wandered through the tables begging food, but the employees chased them away. They didn’t, however, chase away the little squirrel my girls befriended.

The original plan was to head to the Clyde and Seamore show, then have lunch at SeaFire Inn. . . . since the girls hunger sent us off track, we quickly decided we would probably have to skip the show. Good choice because dd9 is having a terrible time. . .she’s tired, doesn’t feel good, her wet clothes are bothering her and a variety of other complaints. Dh wanted to at least see the penguin exhibit, so I agreed to take dd9 and head back to the entrance with her to wait for the others. She is in tears by this point, but dh takes the camera, I take baggallini and off we go. Dd’s 15 & 11 are with dh, so it’s just me and my baby girl.

Here's what the others did

Dd9 and I slowly stroll back towards the entrance, but take time to stop at the dolphin nursery, which was beautiful but I don’t have the camera. We stroll through a few shops and find my grandson a t-shirt, then head to the main gate area. I feel like having an iced mocha, so wander into a kiosk with candy and coffee drinks and have to persuade them they can make me an iced mocha . We compromised on they make me a mocha, and give me a large up of ice and I’ll be happy. After purchasing that and a bottle of water for my baby girl ($6.06), we find a seat in the shade to wait. Dd9 had seen a shirt she thought she would like in a shop near where we were sitting and a few minutes later, the rest of the gang shows up. Dh takes the girls into the store for a little shopping (4 shirts $92) and before long, we are ready to go. Man it’s seemed like a llloooooooonnnnng walk back to the van! Loaded up and ready to roll we return to the hotel. It’s amazing how refreshed those kids are now!! Geesh, no problem changing into swimsuits with clothes flying everywhere. Dh took the girls down today and I stayed behind to clean up and do some preliminary packing up as we move to HRH tomorrow morning. Dh comes back, says we should do a laundry so we had down to the facilities with our laundry bag. We wave at the kids who are happily splashing around in the pool, get our 4 loads of laundry started and go back on the balcony to watch them play. After the clothes were loaded into the dryers, dh decides to get his trunks on and go to the pool to play with the girls a while, while I shower and dress. I quickly take care of my chores, and go outside with the camera as it is nearing slime time. Get a couple pics of the sliming and motion for my family to come up for showers. Get the girls in the shower, dh goes to retrieve our laundry and we prepare for dinner. Now, all of a sudden, the girls are tired and fighting and generally being little pains in the buttocks, so dh and I make an executive decision to leave them watching movies while we go retrieve take out. Everyone agrees on Chick fil A (I know, I know, but we don’t have one in my neck of the woods), so off we go to grab some Chick. Ok, uuumm why the heck are they not open. . . . dope, it’s Sunday and we’ve forgotten about that. So, after a moment of pouting, we head out to find some pizza place we had seen advertised. Into some little strip mall we go only to find that the pizza place isn’t open yet!!!! Ok, now I’m getting ticked. I tell dh to pull the friggin van in a parking place until we can decide what to do. As he does, we look over and see a TGI Friday’s. Now we have this where we live, so were weren’t too excited, but figured we could get a good meal and we were already right here so dh heads inside to see if we can order take out. He comes back out with a menu, we call the girls and find out what they would like and go back inside to order and wait. We decide to just sit down and people watch, which was interesting and it didn’t take but 15-20 minutes before our food is ready! Finally!!! We had kids chicken fingers with salad, kids spaghetti with salad, kids mac n cheese with salad, 3 kids cup o dirt cake complete with gummy worms, dh and I each had some chicken plate and an order of nachos. Dinner total was $61.64 not including whatever dh tipped the young lady who handled our order so efficiently. Back to the hotel for dinner sitting on my bed watching TV. Ok, I can handle this for one night and it’s not long before the girls are getting restless. Since we’ve not had any time to explore this hotel, we decide to go check out the arcade. Off we go, locate the arcade and purchase some lanyards in preparation for our fotl room keys the next morning. I purchase a game card for each kid and decide that this arcade is kind of sucky. It’s small without a good variety of games so I go right outside the arcade entrance, get a bottle of water form the Pizza Hut and sit myself down on a cushiony bench where my kids can see me and wait for them to get bored. It’s not but a few minutes until dh joins me and not 20 minutes after that the girls have spent all their money and are bored with the arcade. Kids wanted root beer floats, but dh said “nada” because we had bought them those cups o dirt cake and thought that was plenty of sugar. Back to the room we drag them and off to bed they go. Dh settles in for the night with the remote and I do a little paperwork before dropping off while reading my novel. Oh, I think I forgot to mention parking at seaworld was $15 each day.

Next up, Monday and our move to Hard Rock Hotel at Universal Resorts!!!!

 

[wwessing]

Yeah!!! A day of great anticipation for all of us, even though we have had a wonderful few days already, we’ve been looking forward to our stay at Hard Rock.

Knowing our room won’t be ready so early; we take our time, have a light breakfast in our room, pack up and call for help with our luggage. If you read my pre-trippie, you will know that we have a couple of large suitcases . . . one with drinks and one with breakfast/snack food. The suitcase with the drinks was WAY, WAY heavy. DH made certain to warn anyone who came to help about the weight of that case. He didn’t want someone grabbing it thinking it was “normal” weight for a case that size, because it was not even close. I struggled just to sit it upright! Anyway, a young man comes to our room with a cart and dh gives him the usual warning. . .apparently he didn’t believe dh when he said “careful, that bag is seriously heavy” because he snatched it up to toss it on the cart with everything else and. . .oops, it didn’t move. He looks at dh and says “dude, did you bring a library of books or what”. Dh doesn’t think it’s any of his business what’s in there so just says, I told you it was heavy, bro. He finally gets everything loaded on the cart and we ask him to meet us at the luggage stand out front. We pile in the van and drive around front so I can check out and dh can supervise the reloading of the van. We finish up about the same time, dh tips the luggage dude a very nice amount, I verify all the charges on our bill are accurate and we are ready to roll!

We decide that since it is heading towards lunch time and we don’t want to leave once we get to HRH/Universal, we will make our stop at Chick Fil A for lunch. It’s certainly open on Monday, we all order some yummy chicken and lunch totals $25. We sit down and have our meal in the restaurant and as we are waiting for dd11 to finish up, the manager comes over and asks if everything was good, refills our drink cups for the road and clears our table for us. Woo hoo, our day is good!

So back into the van, program gps for HRH and off we go. In only a few minutes, we are turning into the drive and here is what we see

We roll up to the front door and are immediately greeted, doors opened and someone is helping with the luggage. DH issues the by now standard of “that bag is seriously heavy”. Giant luggage dude picks it up and is like, what the heck is in here? Did you have to pay extra for that on the plane? Dh says we didn’t fly, we drove and they began a conversation of how far, how long, etc. etc. Giant luggage dude kept calling dh “boss”, which he thought was weird. Dh tips funny, weird, giant luggage dude and we experience our first glimpse of Hard Rock Hotel.

There was no line so we went right up to the check in desk and was promptly assisted by a wonderfully nice young lady who gave my girls plastic inflatable guitars, and assured them that when we came back from the park there would be cookies and milk waiting for them! She prepared all our room keys, added appropriate charging privileges to those we indicated and even punched holes in them so we could hook them on our lanyards. By the way, for those who know or care, we had that elusive “1” on our keys! She told us the room wasn’t ready, but that it was priority and they had just started working on it. We said that was fine, we wanted to explore the parks a bit anyway and left both our cell phone numbers to call when the room was ready.

So off we go to the parks, catch the boat since the girls wanted to ride.

Here they are waiting for our first boat ride to city walk.

We also saw this while waiting

We make our way to the Studios, get our 7 day unlimited access admission tickets activated and went to explore. We wandered around for a while, just checking things out, stopped in a shop to get dd15 a hat since she was way too cool to get a visor at Sea World, but now understands the need to keep her sunburned face protected and picked up some sunglasses for dd9 ($26.61 total). We head to the back of the park and hopped on Jaws.

By the time we got off, dh noticed he had a missed call and it was the hotel. He called back and was told our room was ready so we decide to head back, check out the room, freshen up and then whatever. We stop and pick up a couple bottles of water at the ridiculous rate of $2.75 each (we carried in our own after that) and decided to walk the path back to HRH. It only took a few minutes, as we expected, and it was a beautiful walk. We arrive at the hotel, go right to the room and find a maintenance cart blocking the door open. Our luggage has been delivered, but the maintenance mans is exiting as we walk up and he wants us to use our key to enter. Fine, I completely understand that and probably would have been very upset if he had just allowed us to walk in the room since he had no idea who we were. Key worked fine, in we go and the very nice maintenance man welcomes us and wishes us a good stay. Nice guy! So in we go and explore the room a bit.

Here’s pics of our room. Room 6099; Queen Deluxe and faces the back garden where you walk to get on the boat, or take the path. You could see the boats coming and going from our window and it was very peaceful and beautiful, especially at night.

And the view

So, I decide to jump in the shower real quick before we head back. Kids immediately start whining that they don’t want to wait so I tell dh to go ahead without me and he doesn’t want to. He comes to the bathroom door to talk with me about it, leans up against the door frame and right into wet paint!!! Ok, nice maintenance guy was touching up our room, which we appreciated, but why didn’t he tell us there was wet paint???? It is a question for the ages and one no one could answer. To complicate things, the shirt dh was wearing had been given to him as a gift from a very close family member and was a limited edition Dale Earnhardt, Sr. shirt AND it was the first time he had worn it! Ok, so now we have trouble. He is seriously ticked. I tell him to change shirts and after I jump in the shower, as I’m already undressed, I will call a manager and find out what the heck is going on. As promised, I called for the manager I had previously worked with, but he was not on duty so I spoke with a wonderful young lady who was the manager on duty at that time. I purposely will be leaving out certain details regarding our stay at HRH and managers names as I was asked to do that many, many months ago when another kind diser gave me information I needed to assist with making some arrangements for our special needs daughter. Anyway, the manager on duty (from now on mod) returned my call within minutes and I explained what happened. DH was not sure he was willing to send the shirt to the laundry for fear they would ruin it trying to get the paint out. We spoke with the manager, she said to touch base with her as soon as he decided what he wanted to do and expressed a great deal of remorse for what had happened. In addition, the young lady at check in had told my girls that milk and cookies would be waiting for them when we got to the room and they were not there. No big deal really, but she shouldn't have told them that and they wouldn't have been excited about it. I mentioned that to the manager while I had her on the phone and she said she was sorry about that too and would have the gift sent up directly. I also took a minute to call star services to request turn down service, some extra pillows since we would be using the hide a bed and another robe so none of the girls would be left out. They were wonderful and promised everything would be there when we got back from dinner. So, with the afternoon dampened, we decide to return to the park and get some dinner. Back out we go and the kids want to ride the boat again. Since there was one just docking, we were in luck and got to citywalk within a few minutes. By this time it’s nearing 7:00 and we find that the parks are closing. Kids are disappointed, but we assure them we have plenty of time to return. Somewhat mollified, we agree to have dinner at NASCAR Sports Grille. We explore a bit, then head in to the restaurant, after a photo next to the old #8 Dale, Jr. car.

There is literally no wait so we endure the photo then are shown to our table. That’s when I realize. . . .uh oh, I’ve forgotten our gift card for the Grille, and now I have to tell dh. I decide to wait until we order, because we are all starving and I’m afraid if I tell him before we order he will make us leave and go somewhere else. See, this is because we have so many places we want to eat and only a limited number of meals to do so and we did not plan on repeating any restaurants. We had to carefully prepare due to our daughter’s special needs and eating out is one of her BIG issues. With the parks getting ready to close, or having closed by this time, I knew we would have trouble getting dinner soon anywhere else and were so lucky to snag our table when we did. We didn’t even have to use the priority seating benefit. Now that I’ve made the decision to be manipulative and not tell dh about the missing gift card, I need to focus on helping the girls with their meal choices. We decided to meal share between the girls because they have a tendency to order too much so we get our order placed. Drinks arrive and the photo we had taken prior to being seated arrives. Here’s the deal, the photo arrives already printed and ready for you to purchase. If you want it, you just add it to your tab, if not, no big deal. Dh looks at the picture and wants to know if he can have his choice of driver as the border portion and is told, unfortunately, no, not at this time. This is all they have, but they are working on it. So, he of course doesn’t want the photo but the rest of us look at it, think it is good and we all want it. Dh finally gives in and says fine, he’ll get it. I had a salad coming with my dinner and so did dh, so those arrive about the same time as the onion rings dh ordered. Everyone digs in, I share my salad with dd9 and we forget to take pictures again. I said that was ok, we’ll get pics of the entrée’s and shortly those arrive. Well, you might guess, I get busy sharing out the dinners that I forgot to take the pics again! Geesh!! So dd 15 has this ginormous chicken salad, which is almost all she will ever order, and dd9 wants to share some of it. I ask dd15 for if she will pass me her big ole plate of salad and she refuses. I asked again, very nicely, and she still refuses. I asked her why she wouldn’t and she said she decided not to share her meal because she was hungry. I assured her there was no way she was going to eat all that and it would be fine if she shared. . .nope, I’m going to eat every single bite all by myself. It’s as I write this I wish I would have had a picture of this salad because there was no way, no matter what, that she was going to eat this thing. . . likely not even half of it. I tried to reason with her some more, but she refused to budge. Dh is getting very irritated by this point and he’s going to get up and go take the plate from her so I can share a little with dd9, but I knew if he did she would have a melt down, right there, and we would end up leaving. So I said I think it’s time we teach her a little lesson. I said fine, if you are soooo hungry that you can’t share even a little of that salad you will not get up from this table until you have eaten every leaf of lettuce, morsel of carrots and whatever else is in that bowl. She decides to be a smart alec and says “does this have to include the crackers”. I wanted to laugh, but dh was turning purple and I said no, but you will give me those (dd9 loves crackers) and she said fine and threw them at me. Now no one is happy except dd11 but we make it through dinner and actually enjoy the meal and dd9 gets plenty to eat. Well, low and behold, when everyone else is done, dd15 is still sitting here with half her salad. Dh decides to get up and explore a bit, so dd 9 & 11 get up to go with him and so does miss smarty mouth I don’t wanna share and he says, sit your a$$ down and finish that salad and off they go. She look stunned and I probably looked stunned because my kindhearted dh NEVER speaks to our kids like that. I told dd15 that I hoped she realized he was serious and she better get busy on that salad or they will be getting on the boat and she and I would still be sitting there. It took her another 30 minutes to choke down enough of that salad to satisfy dh. We went through all sorts of drama during that time, but I’ll spare you most of that. She did, at several points, pretend to gag as if she was about to lose it, and I just calmly said, please turn your head and get it on the floor rather than the table please, then you will have plenty of room to finish your dinner. So by the time she was finished, she was near tears and soooo angry with us she wouldn’t talk to us the rest of the night. Dh determines she has eaten enough and hopes that she has learned a fine lesson about sharing. I sure hope so too! So he settles the bill and out we go. So I can’t remember exactly what we had other than dh and I each had a chicken something, of course the infamous chicken salad, a kids meal, 5 drinks and the onion rings. Plus he bought the 8x10 photo and with tip, the bill was $80. Not bad! I should probably mention that I, for whatever reason, ordered a sweet tea. Now, I don’t drink tea unless it is green and/or decaf. I haven’t consumed caffeine for several years due to an extra heartbeat issue, but decided that one glass of sweet tea wouldn’t hurt, right? Shortly after dinner we left and returned to the hotel since we were getting up very early the next day to drive to Busch Gardens. It was on the boat back to the hotel that I said “oh, gosh, we forgot to use the gift card for NASCAR Grille”. Dh says, oh well, we’ll find a time to go back and use it, even if we only use it in the gift shop. I’m thinking, okay, that was too easy and I really had forgotten about it due to the salad fiasco. Once in the room, we couldn’t seem to settle down, so decided to explore for a few minutes. We went down to check out the pool, and everything on the lower floor when the kids discovered Emack and Bolio. . . uh oh. . . I’m starting to feel sick, stomach pain, heartburn, and can feel my extra heartbeat is pronounced. At this point, I say I’m going back upstairs to lay down and dh is on his own regarding the ice cream. I head up, take some medication, lay down and it’s not long before they are coming in the door and I’m feeling a little better. I can still feel the pronounced extra beat but know I will for a while yet. They had gotten rootbeer floats, sundaes and bless their thoughtful little hearts, had brought me something too ($24.44). I had downed 2 bottles of water when I got to the room to help with the caffeine in my system issue, so was really, really full but knew I had to be excited and eat the stuff, so I did. . .well, most of it and was sure I was going to be sick. I managed to maintain, but had a miserable night. It’s about this point when we realize that there is still no milk and cookies. No one really cares because we all might be sick at the sight of more food, so everyone settled down for the night. We also realized that no extra pillows or robe had been brought up. We made do for the night. I placed 2 wake up call requests and got through about 3 paragraphs of my novel before I fell out. . . . for a minute. Suffice it to say that I had a dreadful night. . . no more tea no matter how tempting. . . dang I’m stupid!!

Coming soon, Our BEAUTIFUL day at Busch Gardens.

 

[RAPstar]

Yay! An update! lol I'm loving you TR. Sorry to hear about the fiasco with your daughter......though I'm sure I did something similar when I was her age or younger. I hope you got to feeling better after the caffeine issue. The HRH looks wonderful. I'll definitely have to stay there eventually. Anywho, can't wait to read more!!!

 

[wwessing]

Gotta take the good with the bad, right?

I've completed the next day, Busch Gardens. I just have to get it posted and the photos uploaded. Hopefully I'll be able to get that done yet today.

Thanks for reading!! and hanging in there!!!

 

[LeslieR]

I'm enjoying your report...

The stroller lady-- Glad to hear you stood your ground. I really hate to encounter rude people on vacation (or anywhere, for that matter).

Looking forward to more info about HRH. We'll be there in a few weeks---wonder if we'll get the welcome gift?!?

Hope all your computer issues have cleared up!

 

[macraven]

i'm guessing i was that kind diser...


ok, what do i win since i guessed right........

 

[wwessing]

i'm guessing i was that kind diser...


ok, what do i win since i guessed right........

Ding Ding Ding! We've got a winner. . . . . here's your prize

 

[wwessing]

I'm enjoying your report...

The stroller lady-- Glad to hear you stood your ground. I really hate to encounter rude people on vacation (or anywhere, for that matter).

Looking forward to more info about HRH. We'll be there in a few weeks---wonder if we'll get the welcome gift?!?

Hope all your computer issues have cleared up!

I'll be glad to answer any questions I can regarding HRH, or share an experience or opinion with you. . . feel free to ask.

There is no reason not to get your welcome gift. They call it a perk for being a Loews member and if you don't get it, you should call star services and let them know. One thing I can say from experience now, is if you have a problem, you need to let someone know and they will do their very best to see that you are satisfied. I think alot of the complaints I have read about are a result of folks just not speaking up, then complaining later. They can't fix something they don't know is broken. . .so if you have any issues while you are there, please be certain to bring it to someone's attention.

This reminds me that I did not include tipping information in my first day's HRH report and I had intended to do that. There seems to be alot of discussion regarding tipping, so I'll be sure to discuss it in my next installment.

Thanks for reading!

 

[sandshal]

Thanx for the next instalment! 4 Weeks today and we'll be heading off across "The Pond" to the States - last 2 days at HRH. We had some real issues with HRH last year during HHN, the noise was unbelievable and we had a few issues we hadn't expected, to be fair they comp'd us our last night and have given us a really great rate for club this year ...... to the Lady MOD who arranged our latest rate ... the HRH staff have been really helpful so far this time!

Looking forward to the next bit ......

 

[macraven]

you mean people actually go to universal when they have the annual hard ticket event of HHN, stay on site and don't plan to attend HHN...............


puzzling......

 

[melissac]

This is the best review I have read(so far). Thanks for the wonderful pictures and info. Just wondering what ahppened with your husband shirt?

 

[sandshal]

you mean people actually go to universal when they have the annual hard ticket event of HHN, stay on site and don't plan to attend HHN...............


puzzling......

Two young boys so HHN out of the question, picked an Oct trip for my husbands 40th, love IOA and US but would definately not stay onsite during HHN again! having said that ..... I think we simply encountered a group of inconsiderate guests.

HRH staff told us this particular night they'd received a record number of noise complaints. HRH handled the situation really well, which is why we're returning there in 4 weeks time.

Havn't got an excuse for our next trip .............. guess we just love FL!