Claire had also watched youtube videos of this ride. It’s very much like Dumbo…..with a twist. There is a song that plays while you ride and tells you when to go up and down. If you don’t follow it, you have the chance at getting wet. YEP! They have fish along the sides that like to squirt you. This is exactly what Claire wanted. I, on the other hand wanted to stay dry.
The line wasn’t too long. We just had to wait a couple of cycles before it was our turn.
Soon it was our turn to board. The girl was trying to get the 3 of us to ride together and I kept telling her no. She said the seats were big and we would be fine, again, I told her no. She kept at it, and I just flat out said no over and over. I’m glad I stuck to that decision. There was NO WAY the 3 of us would’ve fit in one car.
Claire chose to ride with Skip…Yay! I could avoid getting wet!
Skip told me after, that it was tight with just the 2 of them in the car, he couldn’t see how I would’ve made it in with them.
Soon we were taking off and I tried to follow the song and take pictures at the same time.
I quickly found that following the songs directions was NOT working for me. I couldn’t go up or down fast enough…and got shot in the ear with water. UGH! I hate that feeling.
After playing around, I realized that staying up worked best for me. There were less sprays at the top and if you watched carefully you could dip under them just enough. I pretty much avoided most of the water squirts once I figured that out.
Here’s a couple more I took while riding.
We saw that The Cat in the Hat was out for autographs, but Claire had to go potty, so we dashed over there first and used the restroom. When we came back he was still out, along with a few other characters, one being the Grinch. We got in the short line for the Cat and met him. Claire calls him Dr. Seuss all the time. I try to tell her that Dr. Seuss is the guy who wrote the story, but she keeps forgetting. LOL
We pulled out our cute pillowcase for signatures and she went up and met with him.
As you can see, Claire and Skip got a little wetter than I did. Claire was aiming for the water. LOL
It was then announced that the characters were going in and would be out for a show shortly. That was OK by Claire, because the Grinch looked scary to her anyways. This became a theme with every character there.
Skip and Claire sat down for the show, and I walked away, but for the life of me I have no clue why or where. I took these pictures though.
BTW the two towers that bend away from each other near your hotel are a bungie ride. Two person and it shoots you up in the air a long ways, I've been on it before. That plant you liked is a century plant, Agave americana.
Thanks. I think we did figure that out eventually, but I don't know if we actually ever saw anyone doing it or not. Or maybe we just assumed that was what it was. It was a great landmark because we could always find our hotel easily buy just driving towards it. LOL
After the show was over the characters came down for autographs. Claire said no, but I insisted she meet up with the Things since she was wearing a “thing” outfit and bow. She reluctantly gave in and had a blast with them. I’ll warn you now. I took over 20 pictures of her with them. I cut it down a bit on what I am posting, but you know me, I like to post pictures.
Her outfit and hair bow was a big hit with them.
They both signed her pillowcase, but I wasn’t thinking and hadn’t moved the embroidery hoop after the Cat had signed, so all 3 signatures are smooshed in 1 small area.
That was fun, but she wouldn’t go visit with anyone else. The lines were not bad at all for the characters, a lot less than most Disney lines, but she didn’t want to wait and she wasn’t as familiar with most of these guys either.
We headed off towards the Cat in the Hat ride. The line was posted as being 10 minutes, not bad at all. I took a couple of pics while in the cue.
When we got towards the front they asked for a party of 3…That’s us! So we got to cut up and get right on. The TM’s fussed over Claire’s outfit too. She loves it when they do that.
You are not supposed to be taking pictures on this ride….but I did…till I got caught. I guess they have cameras watching you because a little ways in we heard an announcement. I couldn’t understand what it said, but Skip did and told me to put that camera away before we get kicked out. OOPS! It was just as well, because I took some really bad pictures anyways.
I must say, this is an awesome dark ride. I really liked the story inside and I think it’s better than many of the Disney dark rides. One thing to know…this ride spins every so often. And not just a small spin, a pretty wicked one. It was fun, but after one ride for me, I was done. Claire on the other hand was not. She wanted to go right back on, so Skip took her on and I told them I’d be in the area waiting. I checked out the gift shop and took a few pictures.
I really loved these Thing tank tops. I debated and decided if I was to get one; it would be when we left so I didn’t have to carry it around all day.
After a roam around the gift shop I ventured outside.
I roamed a bit and took a few pictures.
And I had read about this spot. A spot where you could get a good shot of the Discovery center at Jurassic park across the River. So I took a picture, of course!
Then a couple started talking to me for a bit. We were talking cameras. They had recently bought an SLR and were asking questions. After a bit of talking, I found they had just gotten married on Sat. (this is now Tuesday) and they were on their honeymoon. Everyone say AWWWWW!
I realized I better get back and see if my crew was waiting for me. I took a few more pictures on the way.
No sign of them yet. I went and looked at the wait time and it had change to 30 minutes. I wasn’t sure how long they had been gone, but I figured I wouldn’t have to wait much longer.
More pictures.
I decided to just sit in front of the gift shop and wait….and wait…and wait. Still no sign, but there was a churro stand right there, so I decided it was time for a snack and purchased one. The carts don’t take the AAA card…I asked though, just to be sure.
It was good, but it wasn’t fresh. But it did its job. I ate about half and then tucked it in my bag to save for Claire. And then I waited some more. I had to go potty, and I debated on leaving. I knew as soon as I did, they would come out, but finally I gave in and left my post and headed towards the bathroom. I kid you not, as soon as I was in there I got the beep from Skip. (We have Nextel phones and use the two way talk feature, like a walkie talkie.)
I told him I was on my way and headed off towards Cat in the Hat. But they weren’t there! I beeped him back and asked where he was. He said he found a smoking section and was sitting there. His directions were terrible. He said he was under the trolley tracks behind a place with balls on top. Seriously? The tracks run all over, and as for a building with balls on top…no such thing. He elaborated by telling me he was sitting near tables with umbrellas…..no help at all. Finally I broke down and asked a TM where the nearest smoking section was and she pointed the way. It was actually very close to the bathrooms and not anywhere near Cat in the Hat. We had to of passed each other at some point.
Oh well, they were found (and not behind a building with balls on it either) and I pulled out the churro and gave it to Claire. It was a big hit with her.
And we pulled out Perry and took a picture of him too.
We now were going to make our way over to Jurassic Park. As we walked we noticed that the Poseidon’s Fury Show line wasn’t too long. It said 30 minutes, but hardly anyone was standing outside, so it couldn’t be too long of a wait, right? We followed a few people towards the line entrance and they asked what this was. The TM told them it was a walk through special effects show. That sounded OK and we decided to give it a shot, but evidently not fast enough, because the guy behind us asked me if we were going in. I said “ I think so” and kept moving. It kind of irked me , as we couldn’t move any faster than the people in front of us, but evidently this guy was special and needed to get in line a bit faster. We stood in line outside and waited till they let us in. I took a couple of pictures while waiting.
It soon became apparent that this line was going anywhere fast. And being outside was HOT! We got in line at 11:40 and the sun was doing its magic! The line was getting very long behind us too. And then the express people…I think I cursed them a few times this trip. They just kept pouring in, which meant we would be waiting longer. Go away express pass people!!!
You can tell Claire was getting a bit impatient.
Speaking of impatient….”Mr. Impatient” behind us was going nuts. He kept checking his watch and wiggling around. It was just he and his son, and I am not sure if they had to meet up with others or not, but he surely did not want to wait….Now he would be a perfect candidate for Express pass.
Finally we were let into the building, only to find that this is another line as well. At least it was cool in there. And dark! I took this picture and then put my camera away.
This line barely moved at all. Finally we got to move up a bit and the railing split away from the wall a bit. Mr. Impatient took this as there were now 2 lines and dashed past me to go in the other line. It clearly wasn’t another line as the railing only was about a foot away from the wall and got narrower as it went on….and Mr. Impatient quickly found that out. Plus he was the only guy going that way. So he came back and clawed his way back through to get back in the same spot he was in before. Luckily the people behind him were nice enough to let him back in.
At about 12:15 a TM was walking up and down the express pass line and Mr. Impatient asked her how long it would be. She was foreign and very hard to understand, but from what I could gather they were running behind and it would be about 30 minutes from this point, also depending on how many express pass people came into line between now and then. She did tell us that the line would get much longer after the Sinbad show let out, which would be shortly. Oh Man! I was becoming Mrs. Impatient then. Mr. Impatient talked to his son and they got out of line. I guess they had more important things to do.
We stuck it out though. We could see the next door and we had already wasted 30 minutes here, why not another 30. Luckily the wait wasn’t quite that long and soon we made it to through the next door. We let out a sigh of relief as they were counting people going through and we made it. We are famous for being stopped right before we can enter. We had to wait a little longer in this next room, but it wasn’t too bad and where we standing at, we could actually sit on a ledge and take a load off our feet.
Finally it was our turn. The show is neat, not great, and not worth a long wait, but if you can do it with a short wait, I recommend it. You go from room to room with different scenes of special effects and a story about Poseidon. We have a guide that takes you through each scene and interacts with the show. The last room there is a fight with Poseidon and his rival. Whose name totally escapes me? But I had to laugh, because he looked like a Power Ranger. I didn’t know there were Power Rangers back in the time of the Gods, but maybe I’m wrong? LOL! As we exited Skip told Claire that Poseidon was Ariel’s father. I quickly said no, King Triton is. So we figure he must be her grandfather then. No clue if any of this being true, but Claire accepted it and said if she saw Ariel she would ask.
It had been 1 hour and 10 minutes from the time we got in line till we walked out of the show. Like I said, it was neat, but I would never wait that long for it.
I shot one picture as we headed out.
We were still on a mission to get to Jurassic Park. That means you have to go through the WWoHP to get there. And once again, I was clicking away with my camera.
I tried to get some pictures of the windows….not a very easy task with the glare.
Nope, not so good, let’s get closer and see if that works.
No, not at all, but it’s a nice picture of the reflection of the buildings behind me.
And because you can never have enough castle pictures, I took a few more of those as well….except it was crowded and I got Mr. Baseball Caps head in it.
Somewhere along the way we lost Skip. It was very crowded and really hard to stay together. I kept looking back for his green shirt, but I couldn’t see him.
A side not on his green shirt… Skip doesn’t have a lot of nice clothes. He’s a dairy farmer and he wears cruddy clothes everyday pretty much. And then when he does dress up, he tends to wear the same few things over and over. I actually will rotate clothes on his closet rack so he can’t find some things that he wears over and over so we can have some variety. But he still seems to find them. LOL! Last year when we were planning our cruise, and at that point, Skip was planning to come with us; I had been out shopping and scored 3 T-shirts for $1 each on clearance at JC Pennys. I got him a green, a yellow, and a turquoise blue one. I then put them into hiding. T-shirts suffer a not so nice fate at our house. He will put a nice one on for tractor pulling and by the end of the night it has grease and crud all over it. I didn’t want these shirts to suffer the same fate. When he pulled this shirt out that morning to wear, he was clueless. “Hey, where did these t-shirts come from?” LOL! “Oh, I got them last year on clearance and have had them packed away for our next vacation”. LOL!
So back to our Trip Report…..We lost Skip, but we kept going. I beeped him and I think he said he stopped off in the bathroom. So we told him to make his way out of Hogsmeade and we would be waiting there. I decided to take a picture of Claire while we waited. It’s a hard thing to do because EVERYONE there had the same thought and it was crowded.
I even took a picture of another couple while we waited.
And then I took some more pictures.
We spotted this boat. It appears that someone must’ve been cleaning the river, though we never spotted the human doing so.
We walked across the bridge because it was just too busy waiting there and spotted the arch!
And the Jurassic Park music was playing….just to get you in the right mood.
No Claire, don’t go in there, there are dinosaurs that will eat you as a snack! Evidently she didn’t care!
We waited a little longer and soon we spotted a speck of green coming our way.
When you enter Jurassic park, you can see Hogwarts from a different angle….and you can never have enough castle shots, right?
We are now venturing into Jurassic Park. And the first scary thing we see!
The Coke Watering Hole. LOL
We did actually see some dinosaurs on the dinosaur tour though! (if you’ve seen the movie, you might get that line)
Claire was hesitant about standing near this jeep, after all there was a T-Rex popping out behind it…but basically I forced her to do it.
On towards the Discovery Center.
I told Skip we were going in here……Why? What’s in there? Is there a ride?....
I just want to go in…OK?
I have to say this was a bit disappointing to me. I had read it looked very much like the one in the movie…but to me, it had similarities, but not the same.
I told Skip and Claire to stay at the top and I would run down and take their picture. And now that I think about it, I have no clue what was on the top floor. It must’ve not been too interesting if we didn’t browse it.
I must also mention that at this point I was getting hungry. I tend to get grumpy when I am hungry, but my goal was to eat at City Walk somewhere, so I wanted to get Jurassic Park off my list and then we planned to head out and eat…..but in the meantime, I was a little grouchy.
These dinosaurs would’ve met their match if they approached me when I was hungry.
Notice this guys name is Beasaur….I think that is because you would BE sore if you got bit by him.
This area was cute with a couple of dinosaurs set up.
They had these little devices that you could look through and tilt the heads back and forth or up and down. I think only this guys device actually worked. We tried the other two and saw nothing and could barely get the head to move at all.
There was also an area with interactive things to do. Like picking out an egg and then it would do some sort of ultrasound and you could see what type of dinosaur was in there. Sadly this area was crowded and I didn’t have the patience to wait long. We watched one girl do it and the device didn’t work. We watched another person do it and again it wasn’t working properly, so we gave up.
Claire really wanted to play with this stuff and looking back, I really feel bad we didn’t spend much time there. I said we would come back and we never did make it. I rushed us around because of the rumbly in my tumbly. I took a couple more pictures of the area behind the glass where the “Dr.’s” were working.
We then made our way up a hill around the building to get back to the front.
Another Jeep………which Claire again refused to stand by.
Hey look! There’s Hogwarts again.
We moved on and I took a few pictures. We were looking for the River Adventure.
And we found it, but to our disappointment the line was about an hour long. At this point Claire said she would NOT be riding that ride at all. I never did find out if they had a single riders line, but if they had, we probably would’ve done it that way later on. Claire had watched the Youtube video before going and remarked about how fake everything was. But NOW she was telling Skip that this ride has dinosaurs that pop out at you and it’s really scary. LOL. With the line being so long, my hungry tummy, the extremely hot weather, and Claire’s desire NOT to ride it, we skipped it. This is one ride I regret never getting to ride.
And once again, we started walking and taking pictures.
We found the Pteranodon Riders and Camp Jurassic. The Riders had a 50 minute wait…no thanks (and you must have a child with you to be able to ride it as an adult), and I wasn’t about to spend time in a playground…no matter how neat it might be.
Off we go! My mission now is food.
As we entered Toon Lagoon, Skip suggested we just stop and get a quick service something or other. The dino in me roared! “NO! I want something REAL, like nachos, and I want to sit out of the sun!”
He didn’t ask that question again……
We stopped and watched this for a few minutes. Claire loved it.
I thought this area was very colorful as well and I did keep taking pictures, but the sun was really shining hard, so half the time I just clicked and hoped I got something.
Claire was starting to do a little whining herself. She wanted to get wet. We came upon this…..Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge-Rats Barges.
They decided to take the plunge. I declined and went and sat down. As soon as I did, I realized that Skip still had the backsack and it would probably come back soaking wet, along with his phone. Oh Well, I couldn’t see them and I knew they weren’t about to get back out of line.
I took a quick sit down and took a few pictures of the Olive (a water play area).
That got boring quickly, so I went off to take some pictures elsewhere.
This is not my family, but this is the ride they were on.
I took quite a few pictures of this area, but sadly never went into any of the buildings. I would like to explore here a little more in the future as well.
It was like walking right through the Sunday Papers Comic section.
