Pre-Trip Welcome to my life, theres no turning back...

Even while I sleep...
They will find me...
Acting on my best behavior!!!



Now, let's get to the good part! We are going on a trip! But not WDW...*gasp!!!

We are going to the land that the hard core pixie dusters won't mention or speak of. Kinda like saying Valdermorts name in a Harry Potter movie.

Ok, was that enough of a hint? If not, we are going to Universal Studios (Orlando)!

Who is going?

First up we have your favorite trip reporters favorite trip reporter, the prognosticator of prognosticators, the peoples champ, the white tee v neck president, your boy, 9000!

Joining me will be my perfectly well mannered wife, C!

Where: Loews Portifino Bay

When: that's proprietary, but I've stored the info on a document and placed it next to a sports car in a garage which is more secure than Fort Knox (I couldn't help myself).

More details to come.

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 4 continued

If you guessed Bar Riva....first off, you know me well. And B, well done!

We started with drinks. C got some mixed drink which was strong and I got what any red blooded American would order. A French beer! 1664!

I ordered the Italian sandwich. And let me assure you, the picutre doesn't do it justice. This baby has some soft bread, made in-house and the sauce is awesome. This sandwich is seriously good!

C ordered the grilled chicken sandwich which is an absolute must do if you visit. And the herb fries are best on property IMO

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 4 continued

Please pardon my delay in getting back to this TR. Life, work, family, seltzers, proper beer glass education, you know, the usual suspects have kept me busy the last two weeks.

More importantly, what's taken up most of my online Disney time has been our upcoming trip in just two weeks! Yes, we're going back to O-town within a month of just visiting. Who do I think am, @Tuvalu ??

I'll be starting a PTR for that soon, for now, back to this bad boy!

After a wonderful lunch at Bar Riva we hopped back on the riff Raff Express over to HS!

We had stacked a few LLs amd started with TSMM

C ALWAYS says "let's play as a team to get the high score" and then as soon as the game begins she goes off the rails and it's every man for himself. Then she gets the same score as always. And again I was blamed for trying to trick her somehow lol.

Shortly after we wwre back on good terms as we bonded through being captured by the First Order

We rode runaway route way next and as we exited C was extremely hot and not feeling her best so we decided to head back to the room.

We stopped at the lounge on the way back to get some waters and a bread check for my sister. They had moved the sunbeam bread to the fancy box for the afternoon.

Over the course of the trip my sister had been defending the club lounge at the resort because they had a much different experience than ours and much better food. I sent her this pic which was from the vegetabke offerings for the afternoon

Fesh!

After getting g back to the room.and showered up it was late enough to grab a quick burger at the bar and hit the sack. I didn't get a pic but the burger at Thirsty Fish at the resort was really good.

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 5

We were up early and hit the lounge just to grab some bottled waters but we were quite surprised to a good breakfast selection so we stayed for a quick bite.

We had a breakfast wrap that was very good and some fruit amd yogurt. This was a very good breakfast and more along the lines of what we expected in terms of quality.

The bread was still in the fancy box.

We started off the day at the Studios (Umiversal). First up was Escape from Gringotts. This is definitely in our top 3 attractions at USO. Great queue and very re-rideable as we've noticed new things each time.

Next was Men In Black and then over to The Simpsons ride. Apparently hair ties are tossed on the big top (part of the queue) similar to Expedition Everest. And fyi, we did not throw one. But we have on EE! Sorry not sorry.

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 5 continued

We both agreed Simpsons is our least favorite attraction. It's a hug screen with A LOT of stuff going on and it's nauseating. I closed my eyes several times. Amd the ride.just feels old and dirty IMO. Bring back Back to The Future (which is where Simpsons is located).

We went to one of our favorite rides next!

It was much more pleasant experience than The Simpsons.

Next it was time for a drink! We went to Finnegans.

We noticed this picture behind the bar and asked about it. It had a quite a cool story.

A service member of the armed forces was a local to Orlando and was a regular at Finnegans. When he was deployed, he took this picutre which eventually.made it's way back to Finnegans

For some context, Finnegans has street signs pointing towards cities with how many miles away the city is.

Pretty cool picture and story. And we did ask of the man returned home safely and he did. He has since moved out of Florida.

 

[Zipadeelady]

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 5 continued

We strolled around the streets and soaked in the atmosphere while we enjoyed our drinks.

The street performances at US are very fun and entertaining. Be careful tho, if you're close, they'll pull you in to dance or be a part of the show!

There's so much to see and explore. It's a very well themed area IMO

C wanted an Auntie Annes Pretzel.

She had told me how good they were. I had never tried one. She assured me they were superior to a Mickey Pretzel. And I gotta say...it was!!

After our stroll and Pretzel, we got another round at Finnegans

And then over to Kings Crossing!

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 5 continued

We arrived at Hogwarts and rode FJ. Our main goal of going over to IOA was to ride Velocicoaster but C had gotten a slight headache so we decided to do Kong Skull Island instead.

We arrived and it was down, smh. We weren't that bummed because it's far from one of our favorites. We just wanted something that was indoors as it was getting hot out.

With Kong down amd we were hot, the next best option was the Jurassic Park boat ride (I can't remember the name).

We had ridden it on our prior trip to USO and we got soaked. We decided if it happened again, we'd head back to the room for a lunch break and clean up.

Well, did we get wet???

Oh ya! We got drenched! Lol

It was a great ride and we really like it.

We headed out and stopped at the Margaritaville outdoor bar for a refreshment!

 

[Loco_driver]

More importantly, what's taken up most of my online Disney time has been our upcoming trip in just two weeks!

Two weeks from now seems like a fine time to visit!

 

[wdisney9000]

Two weeks from now seems like a fine time to visit!

We know it will be hot but hopefully crowds will be low with Memorial Day over and summer hasn't started yet.

 

[Loco_driver]

We know it will be hot but hopefully crowds will be low with Memorial Day over and summer hasn't started yet.

Here’s hoping!

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 5 continued


Our clothes had mostly dried off on the walk out of the park. We were hungry and I walked into Toothsome Emporium to check if they had a table. They were on a 45 minute wait but the hostess said there was a bar upstairs that was seat yourself.

We walked up and there were not two seats next to each other. There were opene seats but people.were spread out and of course there were children sitting at the bar, smh.

We had watched several videos of Toothsome and had really hoped we would be able to try it, but no luck. As we hung our heads low and walked away, a waiter stopped us and asked if we were looking for seats. I said yes, but the bar was full. He pointed to a smaller table on the side and told us it was in his section and he would take care of us. Yay!!!

We thanked him kindly and took our seats.

Drinks first. C got burboun (shocker) and I went with a @Darstarr favorite

The server recommended the Brussel sprouts as an appetizer. We went for it and we were not disappointed.

They were roasted and dripping with cheese.
We also tried the Philly eggrols. Another winner.

We split the rueben sandwich

It was a large sandwich and it was DELICIOUS. And ya, this was like our 9th rueben sandwich of the trip. I'm not sure how we had so many ruebens as we didn't plan it nor do we eat them often at home. Ot just happened.

As amazing as their sweet treats are, we were full and tired. It was time for a break at the room.

 

[wdisney9000]

Day 5 continued.

We took a boat back to the room and showered up and felt a million times better.

We went down to the gift shop to pick up a gift for a friend back home who is a big Potter fan and Slytherin is her house.

The skies had become very cloudy and the weather was absolutely wonderful with a nice breeze coming in. We decided to take a nice stroll around the resort and check out some of the areas we had not seen yet.

We had circled around the resort and ended up back in the lobby and we threw our water bottle away in the trash and noticed something peculiar...

C said to me (with a chcuckle), Is that what I think it is?

I leaned over the trash can to get a better view and used the water bottle to open the bag up a bit more and lo and behold we had solved a mystery!

It was a discarded bag of Wonder Bread!

This must be the fancy bread that they were using in the club lounge and hiding the bag out here, lest the gentle folk of club level discover their rouse!!

We had a good laugh and immediately texted my sister to update her on our discovery.

And that was actually the last photo we took of the trip. The rain clouds moved in and showers began and as much as we wanted to go back to the parks to pick up a few items we had seen we did not want to ris getting caught in the rain.

I picked up a cheeseburger from thirsty fish and we shared it back at the room for dinner and got a good night's sleep which allowed us to head out at around 5 AM the next morning.

And fret not, For I had brought our 2 large suitcases down to The valet and had them put them in the car earlier in the day so when we left there was only 2 small bags and no one saw us make the walk of shame.

We had a pleasant ride home with lots to discuss as we had learned so many wonderful things about universal studios and lots of comparisons to make with Disney world.

I'll be posting a more in depth review of our trip in my next post

 

[Tuvalu]

 

[fractal]

 

[Laurenciaa]

Day 5 continued


Our clothes had mostly dried off on the walk out of the park. We were hungry and I walked into Toothsome Emporium to check if they had a table. They were on a 45 minute wait but the hostess said there was a bar upstairs that was seat yourself.

We walked up and there were not two seats next to each other. There were opene seats but people.were spread out and of course there were children sitting at the bar, smh.

We had watched several videos of Toothsome and had really hoped we would be able to try it, but no luck. As we hung our heads low and walked away, a waiter stopped us and asked if we were looking for seats. I said yes, but the bar was full. He pointed to a smaller table on the side and told us it was in his section and he would take care of us. Yay!!!

We thanked him kindly and took our seats.

Drinks first. C got burboun (shocker) and I went with a @Darstarr favorite

View attachment 716724

The server recommended the Brussel sprouts as an appetizer. We went for it and we were not disappointed.

View attachment 716725

View attachment 716727

They were roasted and dripping with cheese.
We also tried the Philly eggrols. Another winner.

View attachment 716726

We split the rueben sandwich

View attachment 716728

It was a large sandwich and it was DELICIOUS. And ya, this was like our 9th rueben sandwich of the trip. I'm not sure how we had so many ruebens as we didn't plan it nor do we eat them often at home. Ot just happened.

As amazing as their sweet treats are, we were full and tired. It was time for a break at the room.

I was starting to wonder where the "N°1" references from C were but in this photo session she made up for it! Houraaayy!

 

[Laurenciaa]

 

[rshell68]

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[luvinthemajik]

Day 5 continued.

We took a boat back to the room and showered up and felt a million times better.

We went down to the gift shop to pick up a gift for a friend back home who is a big Potter fan and Slytherin is her house.

View attachment 716729

View attachment 716730

The skies had become very cloudy and the weather was absolutely wonderful with a nice breeze coming in. We decided to take a nice stroll around the resort and check out some of the areas we had not seen yet.

We had circled around the resort and ended up back in the lobby and we threw our water bottle away in the trash and noticed something peculiar...

View attachment 716732

C said to me (with a chcuckle), Is that what I think it is?

I leaned over the trash can to get a better view and used the water bottle to open the bag up a bit more and lo and behold we had solved a mystery!

It was a discarded bag of Wonder Bread!

View attachment 716731

This must be the fancy bread that they were using in the club lounge and hiding the bag out here, lest the gentle folk of club level discover their rouse!!

We had a good laugh and immediately texted my sister to update her on our discovery.

And that was actually the last photo we took of the trip. The rain clouds moved in and showers began and as much as we wanted to go back to the parks to pick up a few items we had seen we did not want to ris getting caught in the rain.

I picked up a cheeseburger from thirsty fish and we shared it back at the room for dinner and got a good night's sleep which allowed us to head out at around 5 AM the next morning.

And fret not, For I had brought our 2 large suitcases down to The valet and had them put them in the car earlier in the day so when we left there was only 2 small bags and no one saw us make the walk of shame.

We had a pleasant ride home with lots to discuss as we had learned so many wonderful things about universal studios and lots of comparisons to make with Disney world.

I'll be posting a more in depth review of our trip in my next post

You finished!!! Congratulations, that's my boy!!!!

 

[senor_jorge]

I find myself somewhat saddened that it appears this TR will be completed. Nobody believes in traditions any longer…

 

[amjt660]

When you consider this TR and his recent solo TR I have to admit that Keith is on a roll

Max