Tink *~*~*
Cast Member
Posts: 1066
Registered: Aug 2002
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Posted 11-17-02 11:17 PM
Saturday 09 November 2002
Meet Us At The IHOP on Palm Parkway
Since Bro PD and SIL D were only in Orlando for the weekend, they wanted to get to Islands of Adventure at the crack of dawn, or upon opening, whichever came first. They told us to meet them at the IHOP on Palm Parkway at 8:30am, whereupon we would drive caravan style to Universal and park together. Well, the four of us at the Ramada got up really early (four people, one bathroom, need I say more), and we phoned bro PD upon entering the IHOP parking lot. They weren’t even there yet! PD had forgotten his wallet, and they had to go back to their hotel. The Ramada Four opted to leave without them. Not for nothing did we all get up excruciatingly early.
“Cousin” Jackie
We pulled up to Universal and decided to spring the extra 3 bucks or whatever it is to get the VIP parking and avoid some of that endless trek we’d done the previous day. The CM in the booth looked at bro ST’s annual pass and said, “Oh we have the same last name!” Now, we are all very Caucasian and she was African American, but my brother deadpanned, “you sound like you’re from NY – you must be our long lost cousin!”. Well, little AN thought this was a hoot, and thereafter, every time we entered a park by car and approached the booth, she would say, “Oh, maybe Cousin Jackie is working today!”
Natasha, dahlink
Immediately upon entering Islands of Adventure (IOA), we spotted Rocky, Bullwinkle, Natasha and Boris and of course had to stop for autographs and pictures. The kid on line before AN had a Disney autograph book and Rocky made much of holding his nose before he signed it. AN had her Universal autograph book, and he applauded her and held it up for the crowd to see, like it was an A+ on a spelling exam or something. AN was so pleased that she had the right autograph book!
I Do Not Like MS Express, I Do Not Like It – What A Mess!
So, ever wonder what operating system is behind the Universal Express ticket machines? Take a wild guess. First thing, we went straight to Dr. Seuss land and did Cat in the Hat. It was really fun, and I loved Thing 1 and Thing 2. After that, we wanted to get some Express passes for some stuff and headed over to the stand of machines by One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. The first machine kept getting a paper jam. The tickets were in there, you could see them, but they wouldn’t come out. The next machine boldly told us that we had an error writing to LPT1 – sounded and looked very familiar. The third machine cheerfully informed us that it was not yet time to be entitled to more Express passes. Expressless, and extremely frustrated, bro ST went into total obnoxious Noo Yawka mode and started dragging every CM he could over to the machines. Finally, one had a walkie talkie and radioed for help. The CM fix-it guy came and swiped his badge in the machines, opened them up and cleared them of the paper jams. Then he gave us a bunch of Express passes and admitted that a lot of the machines in the parks were not operating correctly– we’d seen this at MIB the previous day. This did not bode well for us. We live on short lines, walk-ons, Fast Pass and Express because SIL AD has a steel pin in her ankle. She had been limping the night before. Walking is ok, but the standing around in the lines really gets to her, and let’s face it, she’d been down there for over a week already, since Halloween.
Relief
When we first went to get our pictures taken the day before for our APs, bro ST had inquired about any special dispensation for a person with a steel pin in her ankle. He’d even shown said ankle with its bulging steel pin to the Universal CM, but they said they didn’t know what he was talking about, and turned a deaf ear to him. Apparently, one has to either be in a wheel chair or have a note from mother or something. This never happened to him at Disney, just at Universal. Now that the Express machines were failing us, he marched AD back to customer service and twenty minutes later, returned victorious with a front-of-the-line pass for the day. I don’t want to even know what he said to them to get the pass, but AD seemed greatly relieved – either that it was over, or that he had the pass, or maybe even a bit of both! In the meantime, bro PD and SIL D had arrived from the IHOP and taken AN on Cat in the Hat again. Then we all did One Fish, Two Fish and the Seussosel. We also walked through that little play area with all the interactive get-wet stuff and AN was quite soaked by time we were done in there. I have to say that the Seuss area is just as cute as can be and we all really had a good time in there.
Onward! Marvel SuperHero Island
We marched out of Seuss and were immediately deafened by the very loud music in the streets. The first item on the agenda was Hulk. bro ST, SIL AD and AN opted out – neither of them were at the point yet where they were willing to leave AN and go on a ride without her (but that tune changed later in the day!). We screamed and laughed our heads off – extremely scary but exhilarating! After that, we headed down the street to Spiderman. If you are going to Orlando and going to IOA, RUN DO NOT WALK and go do Spiderman! I have never in my life seen virtual reality that is so real – you are literally IN the living comic strip. Universal’s 3-D puts Disney’s to shame. It is head and shoulders far beyond anything you have ever seen at Disney.
Since AN was shivering inside the attraction in her wet to the bone little sundress, we decided to take a pitstop to change her clothes. We were also looking around for a place to eat, and noticing that there were a few eateries and shops that were closed. Didn’t know what to make of that, as the park seemed quite busy. We continued on into...
Toon Lagoon
I have to say, I never really sat down and thought about just how many comic strip characters Universal actually has. Dagwood and Blondie, Betty Boop, Beetle Bailey, etc. were all represented. We kind of cruised right through the games of chance, and headed directly for some food. The line was interminably long. There was quite a delay, whatever it was, and by the time we got our chicken platters (really just paper cups filled with chicken fingers and French fries), we were ravenous. Then we were all set to go on Popeye and Blutos’s Bilge Rat Barges. It was a really hot day and most of us wanted to get wet. Bro PD elected to go to Me Ship, The Olive and play with AN, since she wasn’t quite ready to get her second outfit of the day wet, and the rest of us went off. They wouldn’t let us go on the ride without having our sneakers on, which kind of doesn’t make sense, since you take them off when you get into the raft any way.
Did I say we wanted to get wet? Well, we were doing a pretty good job of it on our own, but at one point we heard our names called, and looked up to see PD and AN standing on the deck of The Olive, squirting the crap out of us with water guns! They got us good, too. Total surprise, I had no idea that they could do that from The Olive. I had seen other places where you had to put a quarter in a machine to spray people floating by, but on The Olive it was apparently a “feature” of the interactive play area. We decided to get all our soakings over with at once, and headed for Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. It has been forever since I’ve seen a Dudley Do-Right cartoon – guess I should be tuning into the Cartoon Channel more often. That big drop at the end is tons of fun, and this time AN came with us, since she saw that her sundress was quickly drying (we had it draped over the top of the stroller, and it was really hot! Did I mention it was really hot? It was scarcely a week ago, and we’re having a cold, wet nor’easter on Long Island at the moment, so it all seems so distant, but trust me, it was really hot!). So now we were on a roll with the wet rides, and we headed for...
Jurassic Park
Ah, relative quiet! This area of IOA reminds me a bit of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the way it is so lushly planted with tropical foliage. Aside from the annoyance factor of the theme music from the film playing over and over and over and over, it was relatively quiet and peaceful. We got on Jurassic Park River Adventure to complete the soaking. Let me tell you, that 85 foot drop at the end is stupendous – I don’t understand how any water remains in the “river” after that. By this time, AN had lost all her fear of the scary stuff and didn’t even flinch when the huge dinosaur tried to eat us toward the end before the drop.
After we’d wrung ourselves out, we were determined to find a place that sold pretzels, but again faced a couple of places that were shut down. There was one place that sold pretzels and margaritas, right near the entrance to the Lost Continent, so we got on the very long line, and soon realized there was only one counter person/bartender. Finally got to the head of the line, and there were no pretzels, only margaritas! The bartender told us that there was some sort of “strep throat” epidemic and that scads of employees had called in sick that day, which explained all the closed shops and eateries. She also told us she didn’t believe it, and hinted that it might be something like a protest or whatever. Anyone know what that was all about?
Thirst in the act of being quenched, we crossed over onto...
The Lost Continent
First order of business was the Flying Unicorn, a small roller coaster that AN loved and did twice. The rest of us sipped on our margaritas, and bro PD went and hunted down the elusive pretzels, which we downed ravenously. Next, we saw the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad show, and did the inevitable round of autographs afterward. (I have to stop and mention again that this was my first trip to Orlando with an actual child. Now I know what one of my friends meant when she came down there with me one year and was so happy to be childless because she didn’t have to stop and meet characters every where she went!) The show was really entertaining and the effects were well done. We liked when they put their hand into a cavern over there and the hand waved out of a hole over here!
Finally, we headed for the biggie – Dueling Dragons! We opted for the line to sit across the front. AN was too short and SIL AD stayed with her. The rest of us waited and waited for that front seat, and when we finally got there, I was appalled – I HAD NO IDEA THAT YOUR FEET DANGLE FOR THE ENTIRE RIDE! We had opted for Fire, which is faster (Ice has more loops, we were told), and now here we are in the front seat with the feet dangling, and OH MY! I never, never, NEVER do feet-dangling rides! Well, OK, I did do Soarin’ Over California, but you’re not moving on that one, the screen is. But it was too late, two of my little brothers standing there ready to call me chicken, I’d never live it down...so I gulped a big gulp and away we went. This was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done in a theme park and I’m not ever going to do it again. I felt slightly sick when I got off, not because of the speed or the upside down stuff, but because my feet had been dangling. UGH. I shudder even now just thinking about it.
Back to Disney – Narcoosee’s at the Grand Floridian
Gratefully, we were done with this park and it was time for everyone to go back to hotels and change for dinner. Yes tonight was the big night at Narcoosee’s at the Grand Floridian! We hurried back to our rooms and showered and changed and headed over to the GF. We took Babbling Boo with us for company. PD and D got a little lost and called for directions and I talked them back. We had a 7:20 PM PS and managed to snag the last window table along the lagoon, with a perfect view of the castle. Just before our meal was served, the lights dimmed, the music started, and we watched the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom. Ah, Disney! Then Tom, who was very attentive and witty, served our meal. I had the lobster in vanilla sauce, very tasty. I can’t remember what all everyone else had, but there was lots of swapping back and forth of bites. Bro PD found a piece of tinfoil in his potatoes and dessert was on the house! We had the mousse, of course. Sometime between the meal and dessert, we got a surprise. Of course I knew about the electric boat parade, but clean forgot that it would be coming through. We went outside on the porch so we could hear the music better. I’d never seen the boats before, and we were all delighted.
We all walked back to our cars through the main hotel, which is absolutely beautiful. I wish we’d been there closer to Christmas – I bet they have a HUGE old tree in the lobby at Christmas time! It had been an exhausting day, and we were all grateful for our beds.
TOMORROW: Oh, no! We’re Going To MGM, and It’s Super Soap Weekend!
[Edited by Tink *~*~*]
Tink *~*~*
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