Running from Ivan....Right into Jeanne- Updated (10/12/04) Day 4-Segway Tour/Wishes About This Page:

[shelleyg74]

Our 10th Anniversary Trip

The cast- Shelley-18th trip, Disney fanatic

Jim (DH) 9th trip, the wonderful man who has put up

with my Disney craziness for all these years

Dates- Sept 18-27

Hotel- Holiday Inn Universal Studios/Boardwalk Inn



Pre Trip Info

I had an extremely busy few months at work (traveling out of town, being without a manager) and for a time was unsure if we were going to be able to make this trip. A week before we were scheduled to leave dear ole Ivan enters the gulf and we are watching and wondering if someone higher than us is trying to tell us "YOU DO NOT NEED TO GO ON THIS TRIP"



The Tuesday before we were scheduled to leave we boarded up the house, headed to Wal-mart for batteries, water, non perishable food, etc. I also made a call to CRO to find out what I needed to do if we were to cancel. I was told to call back on Thursday or Friday after the storm hit and to see what needed to be done at that time. All day Wednesday we waited and prepared for the storm. At 8pm Wed. night our power went out. That is when DH says to me, "if the power is off we are not going. You know this, right?" Although we did get some wind here there was very little rain. Ivan really wasn't what I expected. We have had worse rain in an afternoon thunderstorm than what we experienced with Ivan. At 9am Thursday morning the power came back on. I ran into the bedroom and started signing, "I'm going to Disneyworld" (you know that song from one of those older Disney vacation videos they send out )



Luckily there was no damage to my store and we opened up for business on Friday. By Saturday I could hardly believe after everything that has been happening over the past couple of months we were actually going. At 2:30 we picked up my parents for the drive over to New Orleans. We arrived at the airport and headed to the Southwest counter. Even though we arrived over 2 hours early for our flight we were given a "B" card Oh well we are on our way. Our flight to MCO was uneventful and we arrived about 9pm and headed to baggage claim and to pick up our rental car. We usually use a town car service, but since this time we were spending a couple of day’s offsite we got a rental car. First let me say I am soooo glad that we did not have a reservation with Alamo. I think there are still people waiting in that line to pick up their car. We had a slight wait at the National counter, but the rental process was easy and soon we were in the garage picking up our car.



I had printed out directions to our hotel, but figured since it stated it was directly across the street from the main entrance to USF that we could just follow the signs to Universal. Once we found the hotel, we started driving around to find something to eat. It was close to 10pm and neither one of us has really eaten all day. A block from our hotel, DH was like “OHHH”, that’s when I saw the Carrabba’s sign. I didn’t even say anything, but turned into the parking lot. My BIL works for Outback which owns Carrabba’s and the closest one is in Mobile, so it is a treat anytime we get to go there. The meal was wonderful and quick. I guess that’s what happens when you arrive at 10pm LOL



After dinner we drove to the hotel to check in. Check in took longer than I would have liked, but there was a lady in front of me who booked a package which she thought the hotel was already paid for, but it wasn’t and she said she didn’t bring ANY credit cards with her because everything was already supposed to be paid for. I didn’t really understand how you could go on vacation and not bring the credit card even for an emergency, but I digress.



The room was ok. They had some flooding in the hallway leading up to our room because the dryer/blower thing was running the entire time we were there. I can say that I was not very impressed with the room and was even less impressed when we went to go to bed and there was what looked like dried blood on the underside of the comforter and top blanket. It was not a great deal, but gross none the less. Needless to say we slept in the other bed after careful inspection. Uck! The park hours for IOA and USF were 9-7pm the next day so we set the alarm for 7 and were off to sleep pretty quickly.



Coming up: Islands of Adventure/Studios and where are the crowds?

[buckysmom]

Wow, can't wait to read more...sounds like frying pan into the fire! Glad things are okay at home

[Tig&Poo]

Sounds like an interesting beginning. i look forward to your next post.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Shelley Hurry back with more

[Joy J]

Great first installment, Shelley! I'm really looking forward to reading more.

Joy

[LizardCop]

Great start. Looking forward to more...

[luvnwdwgal]

Great start Shelley!! Looking forward to more!!

[shelleyg74]

Day 2 Islands of Adventure/Studios and where are the crowds?

I was up at 7 and let Jim sleep in a bit. After getting ready we headed to the front desk. I did not think there was a shuttle and wanted to ask about the walk. The lady at the front desk tried to discourage us saying it was about a 20 minute walk from the hotel, but I didn’t see any sense in us driving across the street, paying to park and still having to walk forever to get to the parks. The walk was not so bad and the hundreds of lizards on the side walk kept us entertained. When we arrived at Citywalk we went to Starbucks for coffee and fruit. Our first stop was IOA. I had ordered our passes online (2day,2park) and went to the kiosk to pick them up. The first kiosk I went to was not working, but soon we had our passes in our hand and were entering the park.

Our first stop was Hulk. DH loves this ride, we walked straight on and if we were not awake from the coffee this ride made sure we were awake now. After Hulk, we rode Spiderman and Dr. Doom (Side note: I HATE freefalls. Now I can ride ToT all day long with no problems, but I cannot stand the ones that are outside and even worse the ones where you end up on your back at the end. DH does not like Mission:Space so we made an agreement, I would ride Dr. Doom and he would ride Mission: Space. As Dr. Doom is terribly disappointing, I got the better end of the deal!) We walked right on the Jurassic Park and then rode both fire and ice Dueling Dragons in the front row with now waits. We had never seen Posideion’s Fury before so we experienced it and can now cross that off as a “we’ll pass” We went on one last ride on Hulk before exiting IOA before noon. We could not believe that we had ridden every major attraction there in less than 3 hours. We did not do the water rides, but if time permitted in the after noon we said we would come back and ride them before heading to the hotel.

We walked over to the Studios and went straight for the new Mummy ride. I really didn’t know anything about it, other than it had replace Kongfrontation.
** Spoiler** this ride is really cool the first time if you don’t know what is coming. I had no idea it would turn into a roller coaster. I thought it was more on the lines of Dinosaur; however it is very similar to RnRC (minus the loops)

After Mummy we had lunch at the pizza place near the Mummy ride. Jaws was down for repairs (is this ride EVER open?) so we walked over to MIB. Jim’s gun was not working so the only points he got were from hitting the red button at the end. We walked back towards the front of the park and saw T2, Twister, and Shrek 4D (this is really funny, but the bashing Disney stuff is s bit overkill) by this time it was about 3:30 and we had seen/ridden everything we wanted to. We went back and rode Mummy again and headed back to IOA for the water rides. While @ IOA I actually ran into my old boss and some other people I had worked with about 5 years ago. They were in town opening a new store and took one day to go to a park. How random! We rode Dudley Do Right and managed to not get soaked until we went passed the water cannons at the end and the nice people on the bridge felt we were not wet enough. Gee thanks! Side Note: On all of the roller coaster rides Universal provides lockers for free for the first hour. The lockers @ Dudley Do Right are $2/hour. Just because you don’t HAVE to put your stuff in there they charge you, but you stuff could get more messed up on the water ride than another ride. It was very frustrating. Rant over
We were going to go on one last ride on Hulk before leaving (did I mention that DH likes this ride?) While we were walking up some CM’s asked us if we wanted to bypass the line. We said sure and they took us up the elevator and we got right on the ride. Pretty cool.
We left IOA about 4:30 and went to Margaritaville for dinner. After dinner we shopped a bit @ citywalk. We went back to the hotel, picked up the car and found a Wal-Mart down the road. We got some things we thought we would need for our upcoming week.

Next: Is that a gold room key?

[Colexis Mom]

Another great update Shelley Boy, you guys did just about everything in the park Sounds like a great time!

Hurry back with more

[Caldercup]

[ QUOTE ]
Next: Is that a gold room key?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooooh.... what could this mean?!

Great trip report -- I haven't been to Universal since 1994. Sounds like I have to go back!

Eileen

[luvnwdwgal]

Sounds like you guys had a great day!! Looking forward to more!!

[Tara O'Hara]

trip report, so far, Shelley!! Can't wait to see what the gold rrom key means! Also, very cool that you guys got your last ride at the park in a VIP manner!

[pparm]

Great report! Looking forward to more.
Paula ºOº

[CRCrazy]

Ooooh - the tan keys are issued to all "VIP" guests at the concierge level - are we seeing an upgrade here????

[dsnytina]

Can't wait to hear more!!!