July 2002 Florida Trip...

And so we begin...

Upon our return from the Mighty Penobscot, we jumped onto a an airplane and headed off for Orlando International Airport.

We were originally booked through Fairfield Resorts but found that we could book the trip ourselves as inexpensively and without the hassle of listening to a 2-hour timeshare sales pitch. Oh, and a hint - ALWAYS get something in writing from these cheats beforehand. Contrary to what you're told on the phone, what you get in the mail is the final contract and you're not always told of the restrictions. In otherwords, never, ever buy anything without having the whole thing in writing beforehand. Fortunately, all it cost us to cancel anything was the cost of the Priority mail back to these crooks.

Day One...very laid back. We rented a convertable Mustange through Budget and headed off to our hotel, where we spent the rest of the day swimming for the most part, until we got hungry. We packed it in and headed off for Universal City Walk. City Walk is essentially the equivalent of "Downtown Disney" and "Paradise Island" rolled into one place. There's several stores and restaurants and some entertainment for the adult crowd. We had dinner at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and took in the sights.

 

On the list of "WANTS" was to check out the Bob Marley restaurant, but we chose Parrotheads over Dreadlocks.

We walked around to get the feel for the place - checked out the Hard Rock Cafe, and several of the stores. Even stopped at the Arcade and played some air-hockey (plus it was rather hot and humid so we wanted the reprieve an arcade would give us).

There was a great memorabilia store there called "All Star Collectables." We're not really sure where their price points came from for autographed memorabilia - some things seems out of whack with other stuff - but they had an interesting selection. I actually picked up a Superbowl XXXVI beer stein on the clearance rack for $5! So, I travelled 1500 miles to pick up even more Patriots stuff. Woo Hoo...

Day Two...Universal Studios. This was the primary goal of our trip. At least one of the JM1's was looking forward to hitting Nickelodeon Studios at the park. Upon entering the park, we ran into the Wild Thornberries - Eliza and Donny - and our fave dude, Spongebob.

Gateway to Universal Studios...	...another shot	The Wild Thornberries
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea...	Heh heh heh heh heh!	ET phone home!
How hot is it?	MIB...	...alien attack
Meeting the MIB dog	Wild Wild West	Is it Martha's Vineyard...
...or just the Jaws set?	JAWS!
The Hard Rock Orlando	Shrek
The Slime Machine before..	...and after	Just wasting away again..
Shaggy in the Mystery Machine	Fred Flintstone's Rockmobile...	Scooby Dooby Doo!

Universal is quite the contrast from the DisneyWorld parks. For instance, while there are areas designed strictly for children, they aren't the focus of the place. One notices the beer stands located throughout the park as an illustration of this point.

It is, though, well done and professional, as one might expect. Afterall, major conglomerates do their best not to associate with second rate product.

Another interesting feature of the park was the liberal use of water and fans throughout. While waiting in line, there was almost always a constant stream of water being blown on us from the above fans.

We headed into the E.T. attaction and the Men In Black Alien Attack. That was quite possibly the best of the attractions we saw.

 

We made it into the Wild Wild Wild West Stunt show and deliberately sat in the "splash" zone. Actually, we were more in the splash zone that we had originally thought, as the "splash" came from the "well" right in front of us.

We walked around "Martha's Vineyard" for a while on the Jaws section of the park. Funny about that, I suppose that to someone whose never been to Martha's Vineyard it could look lifelike, but there was just something about it. I understand the famous Black Dog cafe/bakery is in financial trouble. Perhaps they should try to strike some kind of deal with Universal to sell their Blackdog Tshirts the the "MV" oval decals at the Universal parks.

 

We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. There's just something about paying $10 for a hamburger. Yikes. The food was okay, but the atmosphere was excellent. In case you're ever there, we sat over by Tom Petty's shirt.

 

After lunch we headed over to Nickelodeon. We met Shrek on the way and Michele had to have her picture taken with him.

 

Once inside, the kids were separated from their families for a "Games and Sports" or "GAS" show. A participation-type show using both adults and kids. It was a lot of fun. We met the host, not sure who he is, but we decided that it was better to take the picture and find out later than not to and find out he was someone REALLY famous.

We of course posted in all the little photo op places they have just outside - with "Face" from Nick Jr and on a "Rugrats" rollercoaster.

We also checked out the Hanna Barberra ride and met Scooby Doo and Shaggy.

 

There is a kids' area of the park where all the kiddie rides are. We had gone earlier in the day and ridden the Woody Woodpecker rollercoaster 3 times before it finally got to the adults. Later in the day, though, there was plenty of water to go around (who knew? We woulda worn our suits!! Note to self: Bring bathing suit to Universal).

 

We spent the better part of 10 hours wandering the park and by the end of the day, we were exhausted. We wanted to go over to the Margaritaville Store and pick up a few things as we had a very secret plan for the next day and wouldn't be back. We wanted to go back and swim, but no sooner had we gotten ourselves back to our rented convertable, it started to pour like you read about. <sigh>.

Day Three. The Top Secret Place, that only a billion people (give or take) know about. Disney's Magic Kingdom Theme Park. We didn't say where we were going. We played a little game along the way - "pay attention to your surroundings." She finally caught on when she noticed the highway signs changed colors (from the standard green and white to the Disney-style ones). With the 1+1 put together we were on our way.

We did the standard stuff - Dumbo ride, etc. When last we were at the Magic Kingdom, we took some great pictures of the young ladies on this ride.

With the little one a little older, we were able to do some of the stuff we weren't able to do with her before - some of the more "grown up" rides. Fresh off her first couple of roller coaster experiences that weren't too bad, we went for the Thunder Mountain Railroad...it was a lot of fun. Splash Mountain was a blast.

The guidebooks say that seven is a good age to bring a kid to Disney. Where before when she met a character, in her mind she was really meeting that character which was cool, she is now coming into her own - her confidence building and trust a little more evident. It was great being with her.

We spent the entire day at the Magic Kingdom, we even did the Haunted Mansion. Who knew?

As the day progressed, though, we became more and more tired in the Hot Orlando July and started doing less strenuous things - like the people mover. We were going to do a couple more things, but it was actually the girl's idea not to wait because it was so hot.

We stopped to get some ice cream and there was no fuss when we told her it was time to leave the park to go back to the hotel.

We've never really been big fans of DisneyWorld, but the Disney company does a fine job of making the day enjoyable - right down to getting out of the park and back to your car. The monorail through the Polynesian was like one final ride for the weary travellers.

The next day we began our odessey home. <Sigh> back to the grind.