When last I left I had downed about a twelve pack and a couple of shots and was up til about 1am...8 am was a rude awakening...
Called the Sunset Grill to see how much the buffet was..was too much $$$ for my taste..drove out to the Albertsons that is up past Turkey Lake Rd off of Sand Lake. They also have an Einsteins bagels in the same shopping plaza and it made for a decent breakfast...
Made it out to the parks by 9 after using the water taxi... Lines were a bit longer getting in as this was a Saturday...after the gate though with FOTL, we didn't notice..
Started off with Twister...FOTL here dumped you into a separate waiting area and we got joined together with a tour (I guess one of the VIP ones). From what I heard from the tour guide, I would only recommend this for people who are WAY into Universal... the part of the tour I heard almost bored me to tears..couldn't imagine a whole day of it...(note- not that it was the tour operators fault, there was just way too much info being spewed and I hate structure..) FOTL seemed kind weird because of this, like we didn't really belong there, really the only bad FOTL queue at USF.. The actual Twister show was pretty good and i think it freaked out my little brother a bit...
Next we went on MIB one more time...our group of 5 got put with some punk kid whose gun was broken and was giving him points for anything...he had 999,999 within 10 seconds and wouldn't shut up about it...other than that it was a fun ride the 2nd time thru...
After that is was onto ET...good FOTL here, but they really need to do something about that stink...I don't know if that is what ET is supposed to smell like but at least make it pleasant. Got used to it after a while but still...Ride was pretty good as I wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised
We then hit the Animal Planet Live show. It was pretty good..they had FOTL for this which made no sense to me since it seemed to be general admission. Here FOTL seemed unnecessary. The show was cute and the kids seem to like it...
We hit one more show, the Hollywood Horror...whatever they call it show. This one of the better times I had in USF...the two actors in the show were very good and funny even though you could tell they were working with dated material.. For our show, they managed to find a pretty good rube in the crowd who actually thought some harm would come to her... The actors played off of her and themselves rather well..
Our final USF stop was at Terminator 3D...FOTL is very good here but the pre-show did nothing for me... I just wanted to see the 3-D. Once we got into the actual theater, the show was excellent, a cool mix of live action and 3-D.
Having had enough of sitting, we headed over to IOA for some rides before lunch at Mythos...Tried to get my little brother onto Dueling Dragons but he was having none of it..rode three times before lunch (only took about fifteen minutes)
Ate at Mythos around 3. Everything everyone has said about this place is true.. the building is cool with a great view over to Marvel...our server, forgot his name, was excellent..consistently refilled our drinks and kept the bread coming..which is all i pretty much ask for... had the wild mushroom meatloaf which was great..tried a little of my mom's risotto of the day..that was even better...kids had a caesar salad they weren't too keen on but I don't think they knew what they were getting into...anyway, food was great, bill only came to $60 for 5 people...and our server got us a 10% discount with the discover card...since we weren't expecting this at all we gave it back to him on top of the 18% we usually tip for good service.
So of course now with a full stomach and a hangover still raging, the kids decide since it is the last day it is time for a coaster marathon. We first hit Dueling Dragons 3 more times each, then Spidey once, Hulk 4 times and Spidey once more.. I was about to lose it when mercifully everyone had determined they had had their fill of IOA and USF....
Got out of IOA by 4 -- had done everything we wanted to do and more..FOTL is great and we would be cursing the fact that they did not have it at Wet n Wild the next day...
Checked back into the Clarion Universal..again, a real nice, inexpensive offsite hotel..
Since it was only 5 and we had pretty much finished eating for the day, I took the kids out mini-golfing to a place called Pirates Cove on International Drive. This was a fun time but a little overpriced for mini-golf by my standards..i think it was $8 per adult, $7 for kids, it was fun nonetheless..there was a guy there doing paintings who was worth going and checking out alone..he had a little foam brush and would paint out people's names in tropical scenery...i know it sounds weird but if you saw it it was real cool... After that, off to Friendly's for the requisite nightly vacation ice cream...
Got my drink on at the Clarion Bar this night. The beers there were pretty reasonable...$4 for a 24 oz beer.. they had one of my faves, Bud Ice, on tap so I could not pass it up...$28 later, I was out on the floor again (see a pattern- go out drinking late and you get nowhere to sleep), resting up for Wet n Wild.. (rest I would definitely need)
drew
Called the Sunset Grill to see how much the buffet was..was too much $$$ for my taste..drove out to the Albertsons that is up past Turkey Lake Rd off of Sand Lake. They also have an Einsteins bagels in the same shopping plaza and it made for a decent breakfast...
Made it out to the parks by 9 after using the water taxi... Lines were a bit longer getting in as this was a Saturday...after the gate though with FOTL, we didn't notice..
Started off with Twister...FOTL here dumped you into a separate waiting area and we got joined together with a tour (I guess one of the VIP ones). From what I heard from the tour guide, I would only recommend this for people who are WAY into Universal... the part of the tour I heard almost bored me to tears..couldn't imagine a whole day of it...(note- not that it was the tour operators fault, there was just way too much info being spewed and I hate structure..) FOTL seemed kind weird because of this, like we didn't really belong there, really the only bad FOTL queue at USF.. The actual Twister show was pretty good and i think it freaked out my little brother a bit...
Next we went on MIB one more time...our group of 5 got put with some punk kid whose gun was broken and was giving him points for anything...he had 999,999 within 10 seconds and wouldn't shut up about it...other than that it was a fun ride the 2nd time thru...
After that is was onto ET...good FOTL here, but they really need to do something about that stink...I don't know if that is what ET is supposed to smell like but at least make it pleasant. Got used to it after a while but still...Ride was pretty good as I wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised
We then hit the Animal Planet Live show. It was pretty good..they had FOTL for this which made no sense to me since it seemed to be general admission. Here FOTL seemed unnecessary. The show was cute and the kids seem to like it...
We hit one more show, the Hollywood Horror...whatever they call it show. This one of the better times I had in USF...the two actors in the show were very good and funny even though you could tell they were working with dated material.. For our show, they managed to find a pretty good rube in the crowd who actually thought some harm would come to her... The actors played off of her and themselves rather well..
Our final USF stop was at Terminator 3D...FOTL is very good here but the pre-show did nothing for me... I just wanted to see the 3-D. Once we got into the actual theater, the show was excellent, a cool mix of live action and 3-D.
Having had enough of sitting, we headed over to IOA for some rides before lunch at Mythos...Tried to get my little brother onto Dueling Dragons but he was having none of it..rode three times before lunch (only took about fifteen minutes)
Ate at Mythos around 3. Everything everyone has said about this place is true.. the building is cool with a great view over to Marvel...our server, forgot his name, was excellent..consistently refilled our drinks and kept the bread coming..which is all i pretty much ask for... had the wild mushroom meatloaf which was great..tried a little of my mom's risotto of the day..that was even better...kids had a caesar salad they weren't too keen on but I don't think they knew what they were getting into...anyway, food was great, bill only came to $60 for 5 people...and our server got us a 10% discount with the discover card...since we weren't expecting this at all we gave it back to him on top of the 18% we usually tip for good service.
So of course now with a full stomach and a hangover still raging, the kids decide since it is the last day it is time for a coaster marathon. We first hit Dueling Dragons 3 more times each, then Spidey once, Hulk 4 times and Spidey once more.. I was about to lose it when mercifully everyone had determined they had had their fill of IOA and USF....
Got out of IOA by 4 -- had done everything we wanted to do and more..FOTL is great and we would be cursing the fact that they did not have it at Wet n Wild the next day...
Checked back into the Clarion Universal..again, a real nice, inexpensive offsite hotel..
Since it was only 5 and we had pretty much finished eating for the day, I took the kids out mini-golfing to a place called Pirates Cove on International Drive. This was a fun time but a little overpriced for mini-golf by my standards..i think it was $8 per adult, $7 for kids, it was fun nonetheless..there was a guy there doing paintings who was worth going and checking out alone..he had a little foam brush and would paint out people's names in tropical scenery...i know it sounds weird but if you saw it it was real cool... After that, off to Friendly's for the requisite nightly vacation ice cream...
Got my drink on at the Clarion Bar this night. The beers there were pretty reasonable...$4 for a 24 oz beer.. they had one of my faves, Bud Ice, on tap so I could not pass it up...$28 later, I was out on the floor again (see a pattern- go out drinking late and you get nowhere to sleep), resting up for Wet n Wild.. (rest I would definitely need)
drew
