[PrincessSharon]

Day Two – Saturday, May 31
“Dark Side” Is Right!!

I was up bright and early, so I got ready for the day. I grabbed a few photos of my villa. I had a view of the golf course. You can see it out the door.



The one bedroom villa has a full kitchen (like I needed that. Though I did enjoy having the refrigerator).



The bedroom has a queen size bed and a Jacuzzi tub.





The villa was quite nice, for the time I spent there. I needed to make a run to Publix to pick up some breakfast items for myself, and some water for everyone (Eileen also made a request for Mike’s Hard Lime).

I drove to Publix and got some cereal, milk, juice, some fruit, two cases of water and Mike’s Hard Lemonade (they were out of the Lime). So it was only 7:30 a.m., it’s not like I was drinking it right then! Anyway, when I got to the register, the cashier scanned the Mike’s, looked at me and asked for ID. I was prepared (even though I’m old enough – some people think I look young) so I handed her my ID. She looked at it and said “You gotta be kidding me!!” It made my day! (Although, now that I think about it, maybe I should be insulted. Nah, I’ll take it as a compliment )

I quickly returned to Mystic Dunes and put my stuff in the fridge. I left one case of water in the car for the CLT-1+2 and the Mike’s stayed in the trunk (where it slid around for like three days until we finally drank them). Incidentally, 2 cases of water (48 bottles) cost $7. In the parks, one bottle of water costs $2. This makes me wish I could make a Publix run on every trip!

I grabbed one bottle of water and hit the road to Universal. I arrived at the Portofino and instantly felt nostalgic. I used to work for Loews Hotels in Hotel Training, and I was on the opening team for the Portofino Bay Hotel. In fact, I’m probably one of the first “official” registered guests. It was like seeing my baby all grown up. I’d walk around and think “I remember when they were painting these walls.”

Aaanyway I checked in and was happy to hear my room was ready. I found it with no problem. It was in a great location, but my view was of a garden. Well, more like woods, but it was OK. I took a few photos.




“I remember when they first put these beds in. They assembled them incorrectly and a few people had them break down while they were in them. Luckily, that didn’t happen to me!”



The Portofino has nice, big bathrooms, which I love!





I was ready to hit the parks, so I headed out to the boat dock. I’ve never been to Italy, but from pictures I’ve seen, this is how it looks. So beautiful!












There are rickshaws you can take to other places in the resort

There’s Italian music playing, and live entertainment at different times throughout the day. It’s very atmospheric. The rickshaws are new since my last visit (which was, I think, October 2005). I made a note to get a ride later, but unfortunately, I never found time for it.

Here’s something funny that happened several times during the day. I had on a t-shirt with a picture of Homer Simpson on it and “WOO HOO” in big red letters. About eight or nine times during the day, people would randomly just say “woo hoo” to me. The funny thing is, it took like two or three people doing it before I finally caught on!

A boat arrived just as I reached the dock. The ride over was pleasant and took about 5 minutes. I really had one reason for being on the “dark side,” so I started with Universal Studios.



I could see Homer and Marge Simpson posing for autographs right outside the entrance, but the line was longer than I felt like waiting, so I got a photo of them with some anonymous kid.



Once I entered the park, I headed right for the Simpsons Ride. Universal has done away with their Express Pass system (their version of FastPass). Well, not done away with, but it’s not free. UNLESS, you are a guest of one of the three Universal Resort Hotels, which I was. So I was able to show my room key and use the express entrance at every attraction, and as many times as I wanted to. The park was fairly empty, but I figured every little bit would help.

I saw that the Simpsons gift shop had been themed to be like the Kwik-E-Mart, which I thought was fairly clever.



The ride itself was quite well themed, too.



I loved how, like Shrek 3-D, they make fun of theme parks. The story is the whole place is the Krustyland Theme Park. Of course, since it’s run by Krusty the Clown, it’s a huge ripoff, and probably not the safest place either. There were posters and stuff for rides, a few of which were spoofs of Disney attractions.















There’s a hilarious preshow where Krusty comes on and talks about the opening of a brand new ride. Then he picks a family to be the first to ride it. Naturally, it’s the Simpsons. The Simpsons are then asked to pick another “group” to join them and they choose us. Woohoo! Unfortunately, Sideshow Bob is around and trying to sabotage the ride and KILL the Simpsons! Maybe it’s not so great that we get to go with them.

The posted wait time was 25 minutes, but on the Express line it took about 10. There’s a long preshow, though, so it was almost 20 minutes before I was actually in the ride vehicle.

The ride itself is very similar to the old Back to the Future ride, which it replaced. But because of the theme, it works. You ride through a bunch of different attractions around the park with Sideshow Bob hot on your tail trying to kill everyone. It’s a bit frantic, but loads of fun. While I was riding, I thought about how much my DF would love it, so I decided we needed to come back to Universal on our family trip in December.

Continued…