A Quick Visit to Orlando TR

Welcome to…​

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A Quick Visit to Orlando​

Trip Report​

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STARRING​

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@NemoRocks (me)​

@Laura (my lovely girlfriend)​

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And other friends in supporting roles!​

There is probably no point in doing a trip report here, because it was as far from a normal Orlando vacation as you can get. We didn't stay on property, we didn't have ADRs, we didn't get to the parks until noon both days, etc. This stop was sandwiched between the real reason for our trip - for Laura and I to visit my hometown of West Palm Beach. I've been to her hometown of Mexico, New York multiple times, and we've both been to Orlando together, but she's never been to good ol' South Florida with me. Back in April I was able to find a good price on flights out of LAX to get us there, so we took 'em.​

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It was a bit of a hectic time getting there, and while we didn't immediately go to Orlando, I figured I'd share our travels getting there too. I'm bored, I took a lot of pictures, and there's a couple fun stories to share, so let's do this!​

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We'll start with a "bonus day" of sorts, at Universal Studios Hollywood. Just cuz. ​

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13TH
Getting out of Oceanside was a bit hectic, but we eventually did it. Laura's kids had to be dropped off with their dad and we had to grab a quick lunch at Wendy's (which, by the way, has already gotten rid of the sweet potato and mac & cheese sides - did they do that bad?) before getting on the road. I really wanted to leave by 1pm and I think we barely made it. Traffic up to the L.A. County area was nonexistent but it got pretty darn bad once we got there. I believe we pulled into the Jurassic Parking garage (see what they did there?) just after 3pm.

It seemed to be a tad busy once we got inside the park. Transformers had an hour wait, while Mummy and Jurassic were pushing 30 mins. We settled for the Special Effects Stage show on the Upper Lot, which was beginning soon. I have wanted to see this show since it opened a year or two ago but every time we've been to USH we never manage to be around it at the right time.

Laura hated it, but I thought it was OK. I was a fan of the Special Effects Stages on the Lower Lot, and was sad to see it go for Transformers. This had a couple neat effects and was a good way to get out of the heat in L.A. that day.

We then took the Starway escalator down to the Lower Lot for…

(about a 15 min. wait in the single rider line)

We stopped for some Ben & Jerry's after that, where I swear Michael Chiklis (of The Shield) was in front of us in the line, but I could never confirm it. We also rode Revenge of the Mummy, which was basically a walk-on by that time, and then Laura dragged me onto Jurassic Park. I told her we were gonna get soaked… and we did. I was mad, so she let us go on Transformers again (walk-on via SRL) to make me happy.

Coolest. "Foamheads." Ever!

By the time we went back up the Starway I realized that we'd missed the last Studio Tour of the day. That was disappointing, but we did go on it two weekends in a row last month so it's not like we were missing anything new. I suggested seeing Terminator or Shrek but Laura doesn't like them so we didn't have anything else to do. We then left the park in search of some other fun thing to do.

On our way out, we found Jay Leno filming in CityWalk! I've always wanted to catch him there. Very cool to see. We later remote DVR'd a couple episodes of The Tonight Show to see what they were filming, but it didn't air in any of them. Weird.

We had a difficult time figuring out something to do with not a whole lot happening on a Wednesday night in the Hollywood/L.A. area. I settled on a visit to the Beverly Center mall near Beverly Hills in attempt to do some shopping (fail). We then went in search of a Target and Best Buy once we left the mall so we could get some massive ShopKick (great freakin' app, if ya didn't know) points, so we drove all over town before finding one. Dinner was after that down south at a Red Robin in Redondo Beach (happy hour!), and then we checked into a lovely hotel for the night near the airport called the Crystal Inn. $65 total for a comfortable, clean, and safe room in Inglewood - hard to believe, but it happened.

 

[NemoRocks78]

THURSDAY, JUNE 14TH​

Ah, yes. June 14th. The day I was anticipating for two months had finally arrived. We were finally going to Florida! Or so we thought.​

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I woke up at 5:45am, too excited for the rest of the day. I sat there until Laura got up 45 minutes later. We both quickly got ready, ate some breakfast, and got out the door to the airport. I found a nice off-site parking garage called WallyPark to leave the car in for the week and then we were on our way to LAX. The bus ride was a breeze and the check-in line didn't look bad at all once we made it into the terminal. Then I stopped to look at the departures board as I usually do to make sure everything in line for our flight and to see what other destinations are being flown to that day.​

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HOUSTON - UA265 - 10:10AM - CANCELLED ("AIRCRAFT SERVICING")​

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Well, there was a word I wasn't used to seeing on a departures board for my own flight. You never think something like that could ever happen to you until it does. We immediately went towards the "additional services" counter area which featured a giant queue that was spilling out into the walkway with super P.O.'d travelers. I had no idea what would happen to us. Would we be on the next flight to Houston? Could I get them to put us on a flight to a different city like West Palm Beach or Miami? Is this really happening? ​

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I pulled out Laura's iPad with 3G and immediately got to work to see what our options were. It looked like I would be able to get them to find us a flight on another carrier at the very least with all the info I found from their terms of service or whatever. I also read about calling the airline's customer service while you're in line, so I did just that. I talked to a nice guy who attempted to find anything he could. United had already confirmed us on a flight at 1:29am that night, with an arrival in Fort Lauderdale at 10:45am the following morning. I had no plans to do that, but he couldn't get us anything together outside of a flight that landed in Orlando at midnight. My parents wouldn't be able to make that kind of drive that late and it would be a crazy expensive taxi ride to our family's condo from the airport there. I told him thanks and that we'd try with the counter agents.​

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We waited nearly an hour and a half or so to talk to an agent. The first woman we talked to was a complete and total b&#@%. I came up to the counter and said something like "Hi, we were on the Houston flight that was cancelled and would like to see our options," in which I received a blank facial response from the woman in return like I was a complete idiot who just stood in line for nothing. Something happened (well, her need to yell at other customers) and she stepped away, which brought us a nice, older lady who was with us for the entire hour or so we were at the counter. She looked at every possible option - LAX to MCO, LAX to FLL, LAX to PBI, LAX to MIA, LAX to MLB, and even flights out of Orange County and San Diego. Not a single availability for two people. She called multiple airlines and I kept throwing her flight numbers from the Expedia searches I was doing on my iPhone right there. The other woman probably would've told us to eff off by now. In the end, we decided we had no choice but to keep this 1:29am flight out, but I wanted our return flight pushed back by a day since we missed our original arrival day. The lady was easily able to do that for us at no cost and even put us in Economy Plus seats for all but one flight on our trip. We were thankful for her help and then went on our way.​

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Obviously we didn't want to sit in the airport for 12 hours, so we had no choice but to get the car (eating the $17 parking charge for 4 stinkin' hours in return) and find something to do. Well, a few weeks before while I was looking for a hotel for our previous night's stay, I had stumbled upon a Travelodge by the airport that offered half-day rates ($49.95) for those who were stranded at LAX. We decided to give them a shot after grabbing some lunch at a nearby Subway so that we could have a place to nap, charge electronics, and relax while we waited.​

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It was an odd hotel. Multiple building spread out with courtyards full of blooming flowers, all connected to a small lobby building with an attached gift shop and Denny's. The room was comfortable and clean and it was definitely a good place to relax. I played around online on my iPad while Laura read books on her Kindle, and I also stepped out for a bit to visit a nearby Fry's Electronics and a fancy mall in Manhattan Beach. ​

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Before we knew it, check-out time was upon us (8pm) so we had to leave. Our original plan was to see The Avengers for the second time at a nearby theater, but I decided against that at the last second because we wouldn't have very much time for dinner afterwards. We settled on visiting a really cool mall in nearby Culver City (LED lighting, screens, plus they had a Best Buy and Target inside!) for some shopping and to get ShopKick points. Dinner was also found there at a BJ's Brewhouse that was actually bad… service sucked, my salad was swimming in dressing, and Laura's bread didn't come out until we were done with our meal. But whatever. We found parking at a Park 'N Fly lot soon after and then we sat at the airport until our flight time. That flight wound up leaving late because United cancelled another flight to Houston and they were trying to get a ton of people on via stand-by, even by offering a $500 travel credit for taking a flight that left at 5am. Ridiculous.​

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[NemoRocks78]

FRIDAY, JUNE 15TH
Won't go into a whole lotta detail here, simply because it was a West Palm Beach day and I have no photos or stories to share, heh. We had a mostly sleepless flight to Houston and once there had to run across two terminals to get to our connecting flight to Fort Lauderdale. So ridiculous! We did arrive on time in Fort Lauderdale at 10:45, though, and my mom picked us up there. The rest of the day was spent seeing friends, going to the mall, hanging out at the house, and gavin dinner with the family at Ruby Tuesday, and more. We got home around midnight after all the shenanigans and went straight to bed.

SATURDAY, JUNE 16TH
I'd had about four hours sleep since I woke up on Thursday, so I definitely slept good until around 11am today. We got up and my mom took us to a giant electronics store called Brandsmart USA as I was in search of a smaller-sized travel bag for my iPad. We also stopped to see my dad at his animal hospital and played with some new kittens he has in for adoption, and then for lunch we all went down to Lake Worth and ate at a joint called Toojay's Gourmet Deli. I've been eating at this place since I was a kid… they have the best sandwiches and desserts. Usually I always get the grilled cheese, but today I felt like adding some ham on there. They loaded this thing!

We went back to my house after lunch to pack up and my good buddy Nick came by around 4pm to pick us up. Nick was driving us to Orlando and visiting the parks with us. His girlfriend just started a new job and couldn't come, so he was playing third wheel on this trip (I played third wheel with him and his girlfriend on countless trips to Orlando and Tennessee for 4 years, so it was only fair ) until his Orlando-based friend Amy could join us at Universal the next day.

The drive to Orlando was uneventful and we made it there in great time. Our first stop was at Orlando Premium Outlets - International Drive because I wanted to check out the Disney outlet store. They had absolutely nothing. That's a damn shame, because I used to shop there all the time when I lived in Orlando for my first year of college. We also visited a few other stores before heading off to dinner at Miller's Ale House on Kirkman Road.

Miller's is THE best. They can do no wrong with their food. We started off with the layered chicken nachos as usual, and for the main meals Laura and I shared a cheese pizza and Nick had a cheese fries and wings melt combination which is also awesome. Laura and Nick also had drinky-drinks but I stayed away for the night.

Our final stop today was at my dear Universal Orlando. I hadn't been here in nearly TWO YEARS after living five minutes away for an entire year. It was crazy, but good to be back. We stopped in because we wanted to play at the new Hollywood Drive-in Mini Golf!

(excuse the quality of some of the upcoming photos, and some of the others in the report that were taken with a crappy iPhone camera! )

I've been very excited to play here. They have two courses - one with a haunted theme, the other with a sci-fi one. We bought tickets for both courses but decided to only play one tonight - the haunted one. It was great fun. Nick and Laura were close in score but I was definitely at the back, heh. Hadn't played mini golf in some time.

We stopped by the Wal-Mart off Osceola Parkway on the way to my family's condo in Kissimmee for wine and milk. Laura and I were shocked at the amount of Disney merchandise they had there. They had everything from shirts to pajamas to kitchenware. Shockingly high quality stuff, too!

Once we got to the condo we unpacked and chilled. Passed out around 3am. Universal awaited our arrival the next day!

 

[NemoRocks78]

SUNDAY, JUNE 17TH​

I woke up just after 9:30 to the sound of the shower running. I was still dead tired but knew we needed to get a move on because it would probably be a busy day in the "Universe." Nick got up around an hour later and we were soon on our way out the door. The drive there was fine until we hit the Downtown Disney area on I-4. I had Nick get off there and take I-Drive the rest of the way. Took a while, but heading by SeaWorld was nice and we didn't sit in traffic.​

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Here's the development our condo is in. It's located in Kissimmee on the Kissimmee Oaks Golf Course. We've had it for about 6-7 years now. My parents go up every other weekend and stay there and go to the parks. It's about a 15 min. drive to WDW from here.​

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We had to stop by Guest Services at Islands of Adventure because Nick was buying his friend Amy's ticket as a birthday gift and I had a FL resident ticket voucher from AAA to exchange (my FL driver's license is expired but no one said anything, LOL). And after we got inside the park we all picked up 1-day/2-park Express Passes to combat all the lines we were expecting.​

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From there we went straight towards Hogsmeade Village! ​

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Our first stop was at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The wait time was posted at 45 mins., and we were just killing time until Amy got to the park, so we took two spins through the single rider line without a wait. Laura and I even got to ride with each other the first time and I was paired with Nick on the second one. We then made a loop through the park to meet Amy in the Port of Entry. Laura's feet were hurting a bit, though, so we sat down in Cafe 4 while Nick went to meet her at the gate.​

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Everyone was starving when we met back up so lunch was decided upon. Captain America Diner was the winner. Nick and Laura had cheeseburgers and fries, I had chicken nuggets and fries, and Amy had some fries. Captain America Diner was super cool with all the Avengers-associated superheroes all around. I loved the place. And the food was OK - just your basic theme park fare.​

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It was time to start hitting rides after lunch. First stop? The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man in glorious high definition. This thing looked amazing! And BTW… yeah, Transformers would NOT work in this space without a brand new ride film. Ugh.​

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Then we did Dr. Doom's FearFall…​

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… and closed out our time in Marvel Super Hero Island with the Incredible Hulk.​

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Everyone dragged me on Popeye and Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges after this. I HATE getting wet on water rides, so I bought a poncho at Wal-Mart the night before for this very reason. I stayed nice and dry on that ride with the exception of my backside, which got soaked for some strange reason, heh. ​

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Jurassic Park River Adventure was next, followed by Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey again! The wait was down to 30 mins., so we went stand-by for the queue experience.​

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Nick wanted a Hog's Head beer so we stopped by the Pub after the ride for one. Laura had wine.​

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Looking into The Three Broomsticks:​

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[NemoRocks78]

We checked out the shops after stopping there, which I didn't get to do on my one previous visit to the Wizarding World in 2010. We saw Honeydukes, Zonko's, and a very mobbed Dervish & Banges. Super neat stuff!​

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We decided not to do anything in Seuss Landing so that we could have more time in the Studios, so we left the park and made our way over there.​

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If you're ever hopping between Studios and Islands, be sure to use the side gate next to Blue Man Group. No lines, you skip the photo people, and it puts you out at Despicable Me!​

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Laura REALLY wanted to go on E.T. Adventure, so that was our first ride to hit in the park. We stopped by the new Spongebob Storepants on the way over there, though. I loved it! Fun and clever theming and EVERY single thing was Spongebob related. If this was Disney, 50% of the store would've been Disney Parks merch, I think.​

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[NemoRocks78]

We quickly rode E.T. and went back towards Hollywood in order to grab a spot for the new Superstar Parade. I was excited to see this as I've been wanting them to do a themed parade for the longest time. I'm happy to say they pulled this one off! It's short, but fun and well themed.

We stopped by the nearby Boulangerie after the parade for a snack, drink, and A/C. I had a big, yummy chocolate chip cookie and a Diet Coke.

Despicable Me's wait was down to a 1/2 hour after we left the Boulangerie, so there was no better time to hit it up!

The first pre-show room:

There's a post-show dance party with the minions:

And here's the typical gift shop at the exit:

I thought the ride was very well done. Great theming, great story, and I loved how they actually ADDED a second pre-show. You don't see pre-shows very much these days.​

 

[NemoRocks78]

Next up was Revenge of the Mummy. Always better in Florida!

Here's what the barges look like in the daytime for Universal's World of… er, Cinematic Spectacular.

Big Jaws got moved into the San Francisco portion of the park, thankfully.

We decided to hit up Disaster while we were in San Francisco. I would pay big money to have this painting in my living room!

Then we walked through Wall Land…

… to get to MIB Alien Attack.

It was getting late and we wanted to do Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit still, so we decided to forget about riding The Simpsons in order to get back to the front of the park to hop on Rockit.

Love this old logo plate!

Stage 44 is coming down or being modified. I still wish the rumored Saturday Night Live attraction had happened there!

Rockit was a walk-on when we got there, which was awesome because the wait had been as high as 75 mins. earlier in the day. We took advantage and rode twice. The first time I listened to "Intergalactic" and then "Gimme All Your Lovin" (the ZZ Top track, not the lame Madonna one!) on the second ride. I love this thing!

We went to find a spot for the Cinematic Spectacular after we were done at Rockit, and we found a good one right across from the Stage 44 building about 30 mins. before showtime. I went to the nearby Starbucks while we waited for hot chocolate for Laura and water bottles for Nick and I.

The show was wonderful - a huge improvement from Universal 360. Morgan Freeman's narration was so good, and I was very impressed with the amount of pyro they used. I didn't think they were allowed to do so much every night with all the surrounding neighborhoods and all!

We were starving by the end of the show, so dinner had to be decided upon. We thought about going off-site, but then settled on NASCAR Sports Grille. I'd actually never eaten there since it was NASCAR Cafe, so I was happy to try it. It was pretty good. We had an outdoor table and got to watch the Miami/Oklahoma City Finals game from nearby TVs. I had a turkey wrap and mashed potatoes, Laura had a cheese dog, Nick had a chili burger, and Amy had the fish & chips. Everyone was happy with their food.

Amy departed after dinner and the three of us went back to do mini golf at the sci-fi course. It was super fun, although we were getting really angry with the group in front of us that would take FOREVER at each hole. We wound up skipping past them and zoomed through it after that.

It was definitely another fun, well-themed course. Universal has a huge hit on their hands with this thing! I only wish they'd built it when I was living there.

We left Universal sometime after midnight and stopped by a CVS on the way home for beer and breakfast food. We chilled at the condo once we got back and went to bed around 3am again. That was another poor decision while wanting to be at WDW at park opening, but we needed sleep, heh.​

 

[NemoRocks78]

MONDAY, JUNE 18TH
Twas our Disney day today! Woohoo! I've been looking forward to this day for a while. Laura and I haven't been to WDW since November, but we do get to visit Disneyland a couple times each month. Originally we weren't going to go to WDW on this trip at all - just Universal. But Laura really wanted to get some use out of her Premier Passport and Tables in Wonderland one more time and I was feeling up to some EPCOT, so I said what the heck and we decided to go.

We got up around the same time as the day before, with a similar prep time before heading out the door. The drive took us up John Young Parkway to Osceola Parkway, which we took straight in to the World.

Got to drive by the entrance to Art of Animation. I have to say, I really want to stay here soon. It looks so neat from the pictures!

Our first stop of the day was at Disney's HollyHell Studios! Man, I seriously dislike this place. How they get off charging a full day's admission to this place is beyond me, heh.

We had to run over to Guest Services before we could enter the park… Laura had to get her Premier Passport activated for WDW (because she, well I , lost her pass at DL a few months ago, and when you get a new one on one coast you have to get it activated at the other as well) and Nick and I needed to get our FL Resident ticket certificates exchanged for actual park tickets.

Heh… we have the real thing out here at California Adventure!

And look at this teeny, tiny Carthay Circle! Isn't it just the cutest thing?

We made our way to the end of Sunset Blvd. for the one-two punch of Coaster and Tower. Tower had a 40 min. wait, Coaster had an hour one, so we decided to FP Tower and do Coaster through the single rider line. That took about 15 mins. or so. Laura rode alone with a stranger but Nick and I got to ride together. Some idiot at the front of the train kept taking flash pictures of the people behind him so the flash went off in our faces the entire time… not fun!

We still had time to kill before our Tower FP, so we went over to the wait times board to decide between Star Tours and The Great Movie Ride. Star Tours had a 40 min. wait, while GMR was only 10, so that won!

I was happy to find us being put in the lead car, which meant we'd get the western scene! Woohoo!

It was time for Tower once we got out of GMR, so we went back that way.

We're at the top left (evidence of us all being together on this trip… we seriously forgot to take pictures of each other, LOL). Surprisingly enough, Nick doing the shocker did not make our photo disappear. Usually that always happens when I do it!

We booked the heck out of that lame park as soon as we got off the ride. I couldn't take another minute there. We got in touch with our good friend Kate (@SweetMagic) on the way out, and she was gonna meet us at BoardWalk for lunch at Big River Grille! I was very excited… we've been trying to hit that place together for the longest time. She's the one who introduced me to the heaven that is their Hickory Bacon Burger/'.

We got to BoardWalk a bit early so we browsed the nearby gift shop before going to get a table at the semi-dead Big River. Kate arrived a few mins. later and we all sat down to a fabulous meal!

Laura had the plain cheeseburger… lame!

Nick had the chicken nachos. I love the chicken nachos at Miller's Ale House, because they're plain with just cheese and chicken. These would've been a bit too much for me!

We found some strange old lady riding this bike up and down the empty boardwalk, and there was a camera crew filming her as she did it. We had absolutely NO clue as to what this was about. It was VERY strange, to say the least, LOL.

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[NemoRocks78]

After a great lunch, the four of us grabbed a Friendship over to EPCOT! Once inside, we went right to France. I wanted a Grand Mariner & Grey Goose orange slush, and I got just that. It was great!

We stood and watched these chair people while we enjoyed our drinks. I'd never seen this show before. It was cool.

We walked completely around the rest of World Showcase after that. We wanted to ride Maelstrom, but the line was out the door. We did get to stop in Mexico to go on Gran Fiesta Tour, though. From there we went into Future World and ended up in Mouse Gear for a little bit.

Definitely missed my Test Track on this trip! Can't wait to try the new one, though.

As much as I didn't want to, we wound up on Mission: SPACE next. Green side was walk-on, Orange was 30, so we went Green. Inside, though, there wasn't a soul in the queue (sounds familiar to the superior attraction that once stood in its place). We asked to switch to Orange and they made us read a book with warning information before we could go into the pre-show. Weird.

Kate didn't ride M:S, so we met her in Innoventions once we got off. We all decided we were hungry for ice cream so we went off in search of that. We wound up at Fountain View but the line was out the door there. Nick's pal Amy had just gotten off work and was on her way here when we were there, so we stood around for a bit and waited for her to get here.

LOOK AT THIS CART OF DOLAN MERCHANDISE! Amazeballs! Gooby pls!

Once Amy arrived, we went towards The Land and found an ODV cart stocked full with everyone's favorite cold treats. Laura had an ice cream sandwich and I had a good old-fashioned Mickey Premium. Can't go wrong with these bad boys!

We went into The Land after that pit stop and hopped on Living with the Land. Always a good, relaxing time. This is one of my favorites in the park.

Kate's boyfriend, Jackie (@brkgnews), met us at the exit of the ride. He had just gotten off work, too! It was good to see him. We chatted for a bit and then went towards Imagination. As much as this ride sucks, it's always good to see Figment around.

From there we went to The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Our good pal Rain (@rainfully) met us in front of there! We had a giant group by this time, LOL. Me, Laura, Nick, Amy, Jackie, Kate, and Rain. It was a good time. We hit up Nemo after another nice chat and then went in the direction of Spaceship Earth.

SSE was a walk-on. It was so, so good to be back on this thing. Shame the finale is still in shambles, though!

We were basically done with EPCOT after that. I could spend all day in there, but we were short on time and everyone wanted to go to Magic Kingdom. Jackie and Kate had to leave, though, so we stopped to chat outside the exit for a bit before saying our sad goodbyes and departing. Rain and Amy's cars were parked here, so Rain drove Laura and I and Nick rode with Amy to our next stop - the Polynesian!

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[NemoRocks78]

We hopped on a monorail there to the park. I was sad that it wasn't the Avengers-themed one, BUT I still got to see it at MK! It was amazing!

The park was MOBBED with people lined up for the Main Street Electrical Parade. We had no desire to see it, though, so we battled our way through the crowds to get to the back of the park. I wanted to see Storybook Circus in person while the sun was still somewhat out.

The whole area looked really good. I was pleasantly surprised with how Dumbo turned out, as much as I dislike the concept of the McDonald's playground inside.

Casey Jr. looked nice, but I find these types of wet play areas nasty, so I have no desire to ever walk down the steps up to it (heh). I also didn't like how much water was actually coming out of there… we were getting sprinkled on due to the wind. It's like a mini water park in there.

Dinner was at Cosmic Ray's after roaming around Storybook Circus. Nick and Amy went to Bay 1 but Laura, Rain, and I went to Bay 3. It took them FOREVER to bring out Laura and I's turkey sandwiches - I mean, like 15 mins. standing at the counter forever. It was ridiculous, but we eventually got our food and sat down on the patio overlooking Cindy's Castle. The sandwich was pretty good… I got mine basically plain 'cept for cheese and lettuce and just added mustard at the fixin's bar.

After dinner, we went into Tomorrowland to knock a few rides off the list. Our first stop was at Buzz to pick up a FP, and then we went on the always fun TTA. We had a few mins. to kill after that before our Buzz FP was good, so we went on Stitch's Great Escape. Ugh. I'm surprised they're still so harsh about filming in that second pre-show - seriously, it's crazy.

Buzz was up next. I had the highest score of the five of us, but just fell short of my usual 999,999. Something was weird with my car, I swear!

Everyone was feeling up for some Haunted Mansion by this time, so we walked through Fantasyland and over to Liberty Square to get on it. Just a wait to get into the stretching room - no big.

We walked to Thunder after that, but the dang thing was down. I was sad, as I'm always up for a Thunder run here. Thunder at DL is cool but not like it is here. So we went towards Adventureland after a quick disappointment.

It was 11:01pm when we walked up to Sunshine Tree Terrace. I really wanted a citrus swirl and a Orange Bird cup like all the other little fanboys and fangirls. The people just standing around said they were closed, though. They were just standing around, not doing any kind of closing things or anything! Couldn't they have just sold me a darn Orange Bird cup? They told me to go to Aloha Isle for a citrus swirl. Man, it just ain't the same!

We rode Jungle Cruise and then stopped by Aloha Isle. Nick and Amy got Dole Whips and Rain picked up a soda.

I did my usual wait time change at Swiss Family.

While Nick and Amy waited for their Dole Whips, Laura, Rain, and I decided to venture into the Adventureland Veranda in attempt to meet Tinker Bell. There was no wait, so I figured "why not?" Tink wasn't there, but some other random Asian fairy was. My encounter was… strange.

It was something I'll never do again, LOL. She was very flirtatious and the whole thing was very weird. Or maybe it was just me. I haven't had any face character interaction in the longest time.

Anyways… after that debacle, we decided to head back to Tomorrowland for an attempt to get on Space Mountain as our last ride of the night. The second MSEP was rolling through, though, so we got to catch the tail end of it on the way over.

We waited about 15-20 mins. for Space. It was good. Always nice to go on a different layout after riding Disneyland's version a thousand times!

We got off of Space around 11:57 and attempted to run to TTA for one more ride, but got there just as the trash can was being placed in front of the entrance. Oh well. We made our way out of the park and back to Poly after that, and Rain was kind enough to drive us back to our car at DHS. We said goodbye and went home, with a stop at CVS on 192 for beer, drinks, and breakfast food once again. After chilling at home for a bit we passed out sometime after 3am.​

 

[NemoRocks78]

TUESDAY, JUNE 19TH/WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20TH
Much sadness abound as today was the day to leave Orlando. We'd had such a good time. Everyone was up, the bags were packed, and the car was loaded by 11am. We got home to West Palm Beach two hours later and had a pretty fun day with friends and family after that. Our flight home on Wednesday didn't leave Fort Lauderdale until 6:36pm, so we had a good amount of time that day to spend around town as well. Both flights were uneventful and we got into LAX around 11pm that day and had a fun hour and a half drive south to Oceanside afterwards.

It was a great trip with some craziness mixed in thanks to United. We did get a little more time out of it, though, which was nice. Can't wait to do it again.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Parrain]

Thanks for sharing your trip, it sounded like a wonderful time!