galaga-girl
10-05-04, 07:58 PM
Hey guys,
This is the same trip report that I gave out to my Disney obsessed friends, and I just didn't have time to write a seperate one to post here, so it may be a little long for some people so you are excused for not reading it :) Also us Disney folk use a lot of abbreviations, so if you don't understand some of it, sorry.
I just got back from my very first trip to Orlando, being from Australia it was a very long flight, all up with layovers, flights and bus trips the time from my house to the hotel was almost 32 hours, so when we arrived at the Best Western Plaza International on I-Drive we went to sleep almost immediately.
We were picked up at the airport by Carlos who works with Quicksilver Tours and Transportation - a town car service, he was really nice and the trip to the hotel was nice. We arrived at around 8pm on the 8th of September.
The first thing we noticed was how damn hot it was! I couldn't believe it, we have hot summers here but this was a totally different heat, I thought I was going to die! Thank goodness for air conditioning :) But it only took about a week and we were used to it and it didn't really bother us as much.
Our first 9 nights we were spending at the Best Western on I-Drive, I had purchased 5 park orlando flex tickets from ticket mania before we left and decided that we would only do these parks while on I-Drive and leave Disney to our 9 nights on-site (next trip report)
We went to most parks more than once, some like Seaworld we visited 3 times, so I'll just put each one into its own heading and sum up what we thought of each instead of saying what we did each day.
Universal Studios
Upon arriving to Universal Orlando I noticed how much like Universal Hollywood it was from the outside, they have the same gates etc, but once we got inside it was a completely different park and I wouldn't compare them to one another at all except for the name.
I noticed how clean the park was and also it was really easy to get around and not feel lost. We didn't need the guide map much because we knew that what we didn't see that day we would see when we came back for another day.
Our first attractions that we did were the ones closest to the entrance: Jimmy Neutron and Shrek 3D, both we walked on to, the park was really empty. We then decided that we wanted to do some more thrilling rides so we went to Twister and Earthquake and enjoyed both of them. I really wanted to use my new camcorder and tape Twister but never got around to doing it - I would have needed a plastic bag to protect it from the rain and just forgot about it in the end.
We were going to go on the Mummy but the line was HUGE by lunch time so did Jaws and Men In Black - MIB was my sisters favourite ride at the park and we went on it over 10 times during our 2 days.
We decided to brave the line for The Mummy, they weren't giving out express passes so the wait was around 30 mins, I was really really impressed by the line waiting area! It didn't even feel like we were in line for 30 mins because there was so much to look at, it was almost like an attraction in itself! We loved the ride, my sister has nightmares from scary movies and doesn't like the Mummy movies so I had to really make sure she wanted to go on it, but she did and we ended up doing it again on our next visit with only a 10 min wait this time. I can not express enough how much we really did love this roller coaster!!
ET is exactly the same as the ride at Universal Hollywood except when he went to say our names at the end he broke and didn't say them :( also Back to the Future was the same as well, but we did them both because we had the time to and didn't want to leave without going on every single ride the parks had to offer. I think that Back to the Future either needs to be completely re-done or made into another attraction, it just feels really out of date and almost embarrassing. I love BTTF so it was disappointing to feel that way after a ride.
One thing we loved the most about the park was the Hollywood Horror Make-up Show! It was fantastic, and so damn funny, the two guys who did it were great and I am glad that I taped it so I can watch it over and over again. I would definitely tell people not to miss this show if going to Universal Studios.
Another thing that made the Orlando park different from the Hollywood park were the characters, I noticed there were hardly any in Orlando! When we were in Hollywood they were everywhere and it was great, Beetlejuice, The Nutty Professor, and the Nickelodeon characters were all there, and the whole time at Orlando I think we saw Curious George and Chucky! That was it!!! I was really quite disappointed about that.
The food at the park I found to be good, my sister and I are quite fussy eaters so it is mainly pizza and fries for me and either burgers or hotdogs and fries for her, but we had a really nice meal at The Monster Cafe, I liked the decor in the building and it was fun to see all of the "old" monsters on the TV's.
Overall we had a fantastic time at Universal Orlando, which was why we went back for a second day, I think you can do the park in 1 day but to appreciate it more definitely 2 days is better.
Islands of Adventure
We were really looking forward to IOA because we like rides and roller-coasters and from what I had read and seen it looked like a really fun park, we were disappointed. I didn't like this park much at all. We spent almost a full day here but managed to do all of the rides except go into the Jurassic Park Discovery Centre. The sections of the park especially Jurassic Park seemed way too small, there was only one ride there!!! We didn't go to any of the shows in the park, so I can't comment on those.
We went on the Jurassic Park river adventure 3 times and really enjoyed it, Dinosaurs are Racheal's favourite and she loves the movies so it was a lot of fun, we got soaked once but the other two times not so much! If you sit in the front and the back you're going to get much wetter than sitting in the middle. Twice we were by ourselves and walked right on and the other time we were with another 2 people. In fact I don't remember waiting in line for more than 5 mins on any ride in IOA which could explain why we finished the park so soon.
Even though I do like roller-coasters I hated Duelling Dragons, I can't remember if we went on Fire or Ice, I'm sure Racheal would know but this ride just felt too jerky to me and I got thrown around a lot, maybe if I had of done it twice it would have been better but I didn't enjoy the ride at all.
The Hulk coaster I LOVED!!! We rode it 3 times in a row, the ride was so smooth it was great, I also loved how the lockers were free! Not something we saw at Disney once.
If anyone is planning on going on the Bilge Rat Barge's (Popeye themed raft ride) PLEASE bring spare clothes, we did (only after what happened to us at Busch Gardens - read on, you'll see!) you will be glad you did because this ride gets you so wet it is ridiculous! I am all for getting wet, but do they really have to have walls of water!?!
The food situation at IOA seemed almost non existent, we couldn't find anywhere to eat so had ice-cream instead! Which was nice but still very expensive just for ice cream.
All in all, I didn't enjoy IOA with the exception of The Hulk and Jurassic Park River Adventure, if they had these rides at Universal I'd just go there and save a few bucks :)
Busch Gardens
My sister was really looking forward to Busch Gardens, anything with animals is a big plus with her - she is a major animal freak. Because we had the 5 park flex-tickets we got the free bus to BG from Seaworld, the drive there was great, we watched Freaky Friday and on the way back Finding Nemo, the bus driver was really nice and the trip was quicker than I first thought. Upon arriving I liked the look of the park but after walking around for about an hour I began to really hate the place. I didn't like the themed areas and thought in some cases they were really tacky, they should just stick to animal trails and rides, not stupid themes like Egypt that don't seem to fit in properly.
I knew before going that the Safari was around $30 and couldn't afford it because I knew we could see animals at AK for free, and also knew about Rhino Rally. So we headed over there only to come across a really rude staff member who told us there was some flooding and the ride wouldn't be open that day - we were disappointed. We did get to see quite a few animals on the train ride though, but it was really noisy and most of the animals weren't close enough to see properly.
I can not stress enough how much I hated the River Rapids at this park!!! I got so wet that I had to buy new super UGLY clothes at one of the gift shops - to top it off nothing fit me so now I have some of the most expensive huge ass ugly shorts on the planet that don't even fit me!! If you must go on this ride take spare clothes or a poncho, don't go on it if you are wearing denim like I was, it gets really heavy and does not dry quickly in the sun.
The one and only thing that I did enjoy at BG was Katonga, I thought this show was fantastic, if only the rest of the park was the same :( I'll never go back again any time soon.
Seaworld
Like I said before my sister loves animals and having been to Seaworld here in Australia and also Seaworld in San Diego we knew that we were going to enjoy Seaworld Orlando! We did so much that we spent almost 3 full days here and still didn't get bored.
We saw every single show and loved them all, although if you have been to other Seaworld parks the in jokes are the same so we knew what others didn't at the Dolphin show (you know with the "mum" that "falls" into the water!)
I love how clean Seaworld is and just how fresh everything looks, the staff were super friendly and one woman actually remembered us throughout the day and even 5 days later she came up to us again, I was impressed by this as she must have spoken to hundreds of people that day.
We did two of the behind the scenes tours, The Predators tour and the Polar tour. Both were amazing, especially the Predators tour, we got within meters of all the killer whales and spent almost an hour with them, it was breathtaking! After that we got to go above the shark tank and pat a shark which was cool (it was only a very little one in a fish tank, but still...) I learned a lot of interesting things and for only $12 it was great value (we got a bit of a discount because we bought two tickets for two tours) The Polar tour took us behind the scenes of the Polar Bears (Klondike and Snow) and also the walrus and beluga whales, it was great fun and very interesting to see where they are kept when not on show.
The food at Seaworld was the same at all the parks but the surroundings are so much more relaxing, I felt like I was at home by the beach. I also thought that the souvenirs were reasonably priced for a theme park.
Overall Seaworld would have been my favourite park out of our off-site parks.
Wet N Wild
We loved Wet N Wild, and it was definitely better here than Blizzard Beach (Trip Report 2 to come) The slides were amazing and the park was very uncrowded and clean. The staff were great, but some of the guards putting people onto the slides were a bit rude at times, ignoring people and talking amongst themselves a lot which annoyed me because I saw a few kids being silly and they missed it. I thought the park had just enough rides and slides and the wave pool was a lot of fun, the waves were just the right height.
Even though it was a quieter time of year all the food shops were open and we had a nice lunch, got some gifts, including some nice surf T-shirts and took the I-Ride Trolley back to the hotel. A Great park that I think gets overlooked a lot.
Discovery Cove
After converting our very sad dollar! This day cost me almost AU$700 but it was worth every cent!! For anyone who is considering this but is worried about how much it costs, it really is worth it. Food and everything you can think of is included with the price, the staff are the friendliest I have ever come across and the park is so beautiful.
The dolphin interaction went for longer than I first though, I'd read a lot of reviews before booking and everyone said it was too short, of course it would have been nice to be in the water with them all day, but it was a long enough interaction for me to be happy. I can not stress enough though not to buy the video!!! I have sent an email to DC about it and am hoping to get my money back (doubtful) because it was so poor, we couldn't hear our trainer talking because all we could hear was the group next to us or wind blowing into the microphone. The photos were really nice and I bought a package of those, but they too are really expensive, but of course you need something to show you did it!
I am really glad that we did this and it will always be my fondest memory of my trip to Orlando.
Transport and final thoughts
We didn't have a car during our stay because I wanted it to be a real holiday by not doing anything much myself :) so while off-site I deliberately picked a hotel that had an I-Ride Trolley stop out the front and had shuttles to ALL the theme parks - which was hard to get most hotels don't offer shuttles to all the parks. We only used the hotel shuttles to get us to Universal/IOA and took the trolley to Seaworld and Wet N Wild. I found the trolley's to be running constantly late and way too packed, to the point of being very dangerous!!! I am actually going to write a letter to the company about it.
Overall our first week and a bit in Orlando was fantastic, we had an awesome time, the hotel was super clean and for the price (around $50 a night) really great value. I recommend it especially if you aren't going to be in it very often. Even though we didn't enjoy Busch Gardens or IOA I'm glad we went to both and think that the flex tickets are great value, we saved heaps by having them.
I'll be writing my Disney TP next, and it will probably be longer!!!
wendy
This is the same trip report that I gave out to my Disney obsessed friends, and I just didn't have time to write a seperate one to post here, so it may be a little long for some people so you are excused for not reading it :) Also us Disney folk use a lot of abbreviations, so if you don't understand some of it, sorry.
I just got back from my very first trip to Orlando, being from Australia it was a very long flight, all up with layovers, flights and bus trips the time from my house to the hotel was almost 32 hours, so when we arrived at the Best Western Plaza International on I-Drive we went to sleep almost immediately.
We were picked up at the airport by Carlos who works with Quicksilver Tours and Transportation - a town car service, he was really nice and the trip to the hotel was nice. We arrived at around 8pm on the 8th of September.
The first thing we noticed was how damn hot it was! I couldn't believe it, we have hot summers here but this was a totally different heat, I thought I was going to die! Thank goodness for air conditioning :) But it only took about a week and we were used to it and it didn't really bother us as much.
Our first 9 nights we were spending at the Best Western on I-Drive, I had purchased 5 park orlando flex tickets from ticket mania before we left and decided that we would only do these parks while on I-Drive and leave Disney to our 9 nights on-site (next trip report)
We went to most parks more than once, some like Seaworld we visited 3 times, so I'll just put each one into its own heading and sum up what we thought of each instead of saying what we did each day.
Universal Studios
Upon arriving to Universal Orlando I noticed how much like Universal Hollywood it was from the outside, they have the same gates etc, but once we got inside it was a completely different park and I wouldn't compare them to one another at all except for the name.
I noticed how clean the park was and also it was really easy to get around and not feel lost. We didn't need the guide map much because we knew that what we didn't see that day we would see when we came back for another day.
Our first attractions that we did were the ones closest to the entrance: Jimmy Neutron and Shrek 3D, both we walked on to, the park was really empty. We then decided that we wanted to do some more thrilling rides so we went to Twister and Earthquake and enjoyed both of them. I really wanted to use my new camcorder and tape Twister but never got around to doing it - I would have needed a plastic bag to protect it from the rain and just forgot about it in the end.
We were going to go on the Mummy but the line was HUGE by lunch time so did Jaws and Men In Black - MIB was my sisters favourite ride at the park and we went on it over 10 times during our 2 days.
We decided to brave the line for The Mummy, they weren't giving out express passes so the wait was around 30 mins, I was really really impressed by the line waiting area! It didn't even feel like we were in line for 30 mins because there was so much to look at, it was almost like an attraction in itself! We loved the ride, my sister has nightmares from scary movies and doesn't like the Mummy movies so I had to really make sure she wanted to go on it, but she did and we ended up doing it again on our next visit with only a 10 min wait this time. I can not express enough how much we really did love this roller coaster!!
ET is exactly the same as the ride at Universal Hollywood except when he went to say our names at the end he broke and didn't say them :( also Back to the Future was the same as well, but we did them both because we had the time to and didn't want to leave without going on every single ride the parks had to offer. I think that Back to the Future either needs to be completely re-done or made into another attraction, it just feels really out of date and almost embarrassing. I love BTTF so it was disappointing to feel that way after a ride.
One thing we loved the most about the park was the Hollywood Horror Make-up Show! It was fantastic, and so damn funny, the two guys who did it were great and I am glad that I taped it so I can watch it over and over again. I would definitely tell people not to miss this show if going to Universal Studios.
Another thing that made the Orlando park different from the Hollywood park were the characters, I noticed there were hardly any in Orlando! When we were in Hollywood they were everywhere and it was great, Beetlejuice, The Nutty Professor, and the Nickelodeon characters were all there, and the whole time at Orlando I think we saw Curious George and Chucky! That was it!!! I was really quite disappointed about that.
The food at the park I found to be good, my sister and I are quite fussy eaters so it is mainly pizza and fries for me and either burgers or hotdogs and fries for her, but we had a really nice meal at The Monster Cafe, I liked the decor in the building and it was fun to see all of the "old" monsters on the TV's.
Overall we had a fantastic time at Universal Orlando, which was why we went back for a second day, I think you can do the park in 1 day but to appreciate it more definitely 2 days is better.
Islands of Adventure
We were really looking forward to IOA because we like rides and roller-coasters and from what I had read and seen it looked like a really fun park, we were disappointed. I didn't like this park much at all. We spent almost a full day here but managed to do all of the rides except go into the Jurassic Park Discovery Centre. The sections of the park especially Jurassic Park seemed way too small, there was only one ride there!!! We didn't go to any of the shows in the park, so I can't comment on those.
We went on the Jurassic Park river adventure 3 times and really enjoyed it, Dinosaurs are Racheal's favourite and she loves the movies so it was a lot of fun, we got soaked once but the other two times not so much! If you sit in the front and the back you're going to get much wetter than sitting in the middle. Twice we were by ourselves and walked right on and the other time we were with another 2 people. In fact I don't remember waiting in line for more than 5 mins on any ride in IOA which could explain why we finished the park so soon.
Even though I do like roller-coasters I hated Duelling Dragons, I can't remember if we went on Fire or Ice, I'm sure Racheal would know but this ride just felt too jerky to me and I got thrown around a lot, maybe if I had of done it twice it would have been better but I didn't enjoy the ride at all.
The Hulk coaster I LOVED!!! We rode it 3 times in a row, the ride was so smooth it was great, I also loved how the lockers were free! Not something we saw at Disney once.
If anyone is planning on going on the Bilge Rat Barge's (Popeye themed raft ride) PLEASE bring spare clothes, we did (only after what happened to us at Busch Gardens - read on, you'll see!) you will be glad you did because this ride gets you so wet it is ridiculous! I am all for getting wet, but do they really have to have walls of water!?!
The food situation at IOA seemed almost non existent, we couldn't find anywhere to eat so had ice-cream instead! Which was nice but still very expensive just for ice cream.
All in all, I didn't enjoy IOA with the exception of The Hulk and Jurassic Park River Adventure, if they had these rides at Universal I'd just go there and save a few bucks :)
Busch Gardens
My sister was really looking forward to Busch Gardens, anything with animals is a big plus with her - she is a major animal freak. Because we had the 5 park flex-tickets we got the free bus to BG from Seaworld, the drive there was great, we watched Freaky Friday and on the way back Finding Nemo, the bus driver was really nice and the trip was quicker than I first thought. Upon arriving I liked the look of the park but after walking around for about an hour I began to really hate the place. I didn't like the themed areas and thought in some cases they were really tacky, they should just stick to animal trails and rides, not stupid themes like Egypt that don't seem to fit in properly.
I knew before going that the Safari was around $30 and couldn't afford it because I knew we could see animals at AK for free, and also knew about Rhino Rally. So we headed over there only to come across a really rude staff member who told us there was some flooding and the ride wouldn't be open that day - we were disappointed. We did get to see quite a few animals on the train ride though, but it was really noisy and most of the animals weren't close enough to see properly.
I can not stress enough how much I hated the River Rapids at this park!!! I got so wet that I had to buy new super UGLY clothes at one of the gift shops - to top it off nothing fit me so now I have some of the most expensive huge ass ugly shorts on the planet that don't even fit me!! If you must go on this ride take spare clothes or a poncho, don't go on it if you are wearing denim like I was, it gets really heavy and does not dry quickly in the sun.
The one and only thing that I did enjoy at BG was Katonga, I thought this show was fantastic, if only the rest of the park was the same :( I'll never go back again any time soon.
Seaworld
Like I said before my sister loves animals and having been to Seaworld here in Australia and also Seaworld in San Diego we knew that we were going to enjoy Seaworld Orlando! We did so much that we spent almost 3 full days here and still didn't get bored.
We saw every single show and loved them all, although if you have been to other Seaworld parks the in jokes are the same so we knew what others didn't at the Dolphin show (you know with the "mum" that "falls" into the water!)
I love how clean Seaworld is and just how fresh everything looks, the staff were super friendly and one woman actually remembered us throughout the day and even 5 days later she came up to us again, I was impressed by this as she must have spoken to hundreds of people that day.
We did two of the behind the scenes tours, The Predators tour and the Polar tour. Both were amazing, especially the Predators tour, we got within meters of all the killer whales and spent almost an hour with them, it was breathtaking! After that we got to go above the shark tank and pat a shark which was cool (it was only a very little one in a fish tank, but still...) I learned a lot of interesting things and for only $12 it was great value (we got a bit of a discount because we bought two tickets for two tours) The Polar tour took us behind the scenes of the Polar Bears (Klondike and Snow) and also the walrus and beluga whales, it was great fun and very interesting to see where they are kept when not on show.
The food at Seaworld was the same at all the parks but the surroundings are so much more relaxing, I felt like I was at home by the beach. I also thought that the souvenirs were reasonably priced for a theme park.
Overall Seaworld would have been my favourite park out of our off-site parks.
Wet N Wild
We loved Wet N Wild, and it was definitely better here than Blizzard Beach (Trip Report 2 to come) The slides were amazing and the park was very uncrowded and clean. The staff were great, but some of the guards putting people onto the slides were a bit rude at times, ignoring people and talking amongst themselves a lot which annoyed me because I saw a few kids being silly and they missed it. I thought the park had just enough rides and slides and the wave pool was a lot of fun, the waves were just the right height.
Even though it was a quieter time of year all the food shops were open and we had a nice lunch, got some gifts, including some nice surf T-shirts and took the I-Ride Trolley back to the hotel. A Great park that I think gets overlooked a lot.
Discovery Cove
After converting our very sad dollar! This day cost me almost AU$700 but it was worth every cent!! For anyone who is considering this but is worried about how much it costs, it really is worth it. Food and everything you can think of is included with the price, the staff are the friendliest I have ever come across and the park is so beautiful.
The dolphin interaction went for longer than I first though, I'd read a lot of reviews before booking and everyone said it was too short, of course it would have been nice to be in the water with them all day, but it was a long enough interaction for me to be happy. I can not stress enough though not to buy the video!!! I have sent an email to DC about it and am hoping to get my money back (doubtful) because it was so poor, we couldn't hear our trainer talking because all we could hear was the group next to us or wind blowing into the microphone. The photos were really nice and I bought a package of those, but they too are really expensive, but of course you need something to show you did it!
I am really glad that we did this and it will always be my fondest memory of my trip to Orlando.
Transport and final thoughts
We didn't have a car during our stay because I wanted it to be a real holiday by not doing anything much myself :) so while off-site I deliberately picked a hotel that had an I-Ride Trolley stop out the front and had shuttles to ALL the theme parks - which was hard to get most hotels don't offer shuttles to all the parks. We only used the hotel shuttles to get us to Universal/IOA and took the trolley to Seaworld and Wet N Wild. I found the trolley's to be running constantly late and way too packed, to the point of being very dangerous!!! I am actually going to write a letter to the company about it.
Overall our first week and a bit in Orlando was fantastic, we had an awesome time, the hotel was super clean and for the price (around $50 a night) really great value. I recommend it especially if you aren't going to be in it very often. Even though we didn't enjoy Busch Gardens or IOA I'm glad we went to both and think that the flex tickets are great value, we saved heaps by having them.
I'll be writing my Disney TP next, and it will probably be longer!!!
wendy