You can take the Girl out of Disney, BUT.........

[jenseib]

We went slowly. It was hot, and we were tired already, and just taking in the scenes. I think we actually sat down for a bit….most likely for a smoking pit stop.

We also watched this ride from outside…..scary stuff….

 

[jenseib]

We headed into Universal Studios and the crowd level was once again much less than IoA. We had also decided that we wouldn’t spend much time here today. Everyone was feeling a bit tired. Skip said he was going to go back for a nap today, and we both knew Claire needed one too. I agreed it actually sounded good….Are you shocked? I almost shocked myself with that decision. And even more shocking, Skip said he would get a taxi for Claire and him so I could stay, but I said, no, I was fine going back as well.

So…..we had a couple of things we wanted to do before leaving. ET was on my list. I knew that Claire would find it fun, and it had been many years since I rode it as well, but I remembered liking it. With that on our agenda, that was where we headed.

We didn’t get too far into the park and look who we see!

Skip kept telling me to get a picture of gy, He just loved his look.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/jenseib/Universal%20trip%202012%20day%201/Universal%20Trip%202012%20day%202/Universal%20Trip%202012%20day%203/gy1.jpg

I tried to convince Claire to get her picture, but she refused. Finally Skip said he would, and then they told us they weren’t taking anyone else now as they had to leave for a little bit. Darn!

So onward we went.

We stopped and looked at the show time for the Terminator. I had seen it before….it was OK, and I wouldn’t be against seeing it again, but the timing was off right now, so we thought we would try to come back later. Claire didn’t like that idea at all for some reason. She has no clue what it is, but she was convinced it was something she wouldn’t like. We never did make it back, so I guess she won.

 

[jenseib]

Skips feet were also hurting a lot this day, so we were moving fairly slowly.

We spotted ET.

A potty break was needed before we rode though. I want to mention that I was not impressed with most of the Universal bathrooms on property. They were not super clean…….not filthy, but needed some major work. You could also tell the older bathrooms from the newer ones. It was almost like they just let the older ones completely go and only maintained the newer ones. This is one area where Universal could take some lessons from Disney.

After the potty break a show was starting.

 

[jenseib]

We sat and watched a few minutes of it….we now found out why gy and Scooby had to leave.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/jenseib/Universal%20trip%202012%20day%201/Universal%20Trip%202012%20day%202/Universal%20Trip%202012%20day%203/gyshow.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/jenseib/Universal%20trip%202012%20day%201/Universal%20Trip%202012%20day%202/Universal%20Trip%202012%20day%203/gyshow2.jpg

Claire kept making comments that she didn’t know the man in the yellow hat was a real character. It doesn’t take much to impress her sometimes. LOL

 

[Captain Chaos]

Curious George. Amazing he still has a presence in the park. Do kids even know who he is anymore?

 

[jenseib]

Curious George. Amazing he still has a presence in the park. Do kids even know who he is anymore?

My DD did know who he was. We have some of the books and I think stuffed George too. I do think PBS still runs the show. We actually wnet to one of her friends b-day party a couple of years ago and it's them was George.

 

[jenseib]

On to ET. Claire was a bit nervous about this because I mentioned that ET was an alien. I kept telling her he was a nice alien, but she didn’t want to believe me once again.

The queue is set up cute and the line was pretty much walk through and get on. Not much of a wait at all.

If I remember right there is a room for a preshow. (My memory is fading fast…I must be getting old)

We are each given a card and we have to tell a CM our name. At the end, ET will say good bye to you, but we couldn’t understand him. LOL.
Of course the people in front of us had names that were “strange” and the girl didn’t know what to type. I think she usually types them for sound, or just basic, spelling obviously doesn’t matter…..for instance you can spell Claire several different ways. But these names were probably NOT in the system.
Finally we got through and on our bikes…..The ride vehicle looks like a big bike and at times we have ET in our basket in the front.

We saved ET’s planet and all was good in the world again. I did try to listen for our good bye from ET. I think I heard Claire, but the rest we couldn’t tell. Claire declared that she loved it….Again Mom is right!

Our next destination was to be the Simpsons. We just loved that ride!
We took off and I knew we were going the wrong way, but Skip “swore” we could get through. I knew he was wrong, but I just let him lead and took pictures.

 

[jenseib]

I asked Claire if she wanted to go on the woody woodpecker roller coaster, but she frowned on that one.

You can see good ole Woody on the front of the train….cute!

We came to a dead end in front of the Barney area. I didn’t even get to get close enough to peek because Claire said Barney was for babies and she wasn’t going near it. Not too many years ago, she was a huge Barney fan….my how we change.

When we turned around Skip wanted to get a drink and I decided it was Churro time. Claire and I snacked on it…we even let Skip have a few bites, but I think I ate most of it. I think this one tasted better today.

The line for the Simpsons was longer today. I think it was about 40 minutes. Skip was actually kind of happy. Now we could watch all the little cartoons while waiting. Honestly, it doesn’t seem that long when you are watching the little segments. And some are pretty funny.

I also caught up on facebook through my phone while in line.

Soon we were in the preshow room. A couple asked me to take their picture and I did, then she took ours…and we got photo-bombed!

 

[jenseib]

She said “oh, it’s a bad picture, let me take another”. I think she must’ve noticed the extra family member. I think the 2nd picture was much worse. But photo-bomb guy is in the background laughing.

Again, we just loved watching the screens sit with the character waiting for his/her turn to talk.

Soon we were boarding our vehicle. We got the backseat this time. I noticed the motion much more in the back. So….if motion bothers you, try to get the front seat. I also hadn’t taken bonine either.
We enjoyed it again. Still a top ranking ride for us after round 2. Skip did say he noticed the motion this time too more, and it usually never bothers him.

When we got off the Simpsons I took some pictures of the area. It is just so cute.

 

[jenseib]

We then decided we were ready to head back to the hotel for a nap and swim and then would return to the parks later.

We ran across this guy break dancing and stopped to watch for a minute or 2.

I spotted Lucy walking up ahead and tried to get a shot, but she was too fast for us.

And there is Scooby and gy again…you can see Lucy too.

We all took a look in the Mystery Machine. It was basically all wood inside with a wooden bench. Skip asked me if it was wood in the cartoon, and I am pretty sure it was just a stripped out van and they sat on the ground…Does that sound right? I don’t remember it being luxurious, but not wood either.

We saw Marilynn walk by and she did a swirl for me…but I had the wrong settings on the camera and she was over exposed.

I did get a better one then.

 

[jenseib]

And then we headed out. I stopped to get the Thing 2 Tank top and told Skip and Claire to keep going and I would catch up to them.

I like the tank, but it’s not as stretchy as I like them to be. It also runs very small. I got an XL, and it fits more like a tight large.

I took this picture of one of the resorts in the distance…and off the top of my head, I can’t remember which one.

I caught up to Skip and Claire and we worked our way to the car. My Mom called and I talked to her a bit. She was surprised we were heading for a nap. I told her that Skip was tired and sore……and I guess that was the wrong thing to say because he was mad. He said “now your Mom is going to call everyone and tell them that I can’t hang…my hip is NOT bothering me, it’s these shoes!”

Seriously, who cares? Why get mad over this. So he pouted and we left.
He needed to buy cigarettes and I wanted some food. We stopped at a liquor store to get cigarettes. Why there I have no clue, but that is where he pulled in at. Claire and I waited in the car.

He came back with a different kind as they didn’t have a selection…..go figure.

I told him that I wanted something to eat, so we could take him back to the hotel and I would go get something, but he said no, he would just run through a drive thru since he might want a snack….which turned out to be a full meal. LOL

We spotted a burger king right around the corner and got in line. We went to pay and the girl yelled at us for coming to the window. She told us to back up and pull forward. So we did. And then she said,” NO! stay back till I tell you to, Oh just pull around and we’ll bring out your food.”
STRANGE.
So we did and we waited…and waited…and waited.

I finally said I was going in to complain, and then we saw a guy come out with a bag of food, and sure enough it was ours. We asked what the heck was going on and he said that our car didn’t trigger something right and they have to serve people in a certain amount of time and then they get a bonus pizza party. We were messing up her record with the way we triggered it. Of course as we pulled away, I grumbled about messing up her record some more, what poor service they had, and how slow they were…along with some choice words…..and they gave me the wrong Pop, which is a HUGE pet peeve. I drink diet with no ice. I am VERY picky about this.. I got regular….GAG…and it was FULL of ice.

We headed back to the room, stuffed our faces, I complained about my pop and then got Claire ready for a nap. Skip had talked about going to the pirate show down the road, so I said I would walk to the lobby and get a flyer. He and Claire laid down, with Claire swearing she wasn’t tired, and would rather be swimming, to which I told her she couldn’t swim till she had really been truly asleep. I crept out into the hall and found Housekeeping. I told them they were napping, but grabbed some more towels and took them back to the room.
I went down and got the flyer and called my Mom again and told her about Mr. Grumpy. She laughed. I felt better venting and went back to the room to catch a nap myself.
Claire was snoring by the way…so I guess she was tired.

 

[JohnnyDollaz89]

Awesome! Love the pictures! Looking through all them has even more excited for my trip down there next week!

 

[jenseib]

Awesome! Love the pictures! Looking through all them has even more excited for my trip down there next week!

You will have a great time!!!

 

[jenseib]

I believe that Claire and I woke up about the same time, around 4:45. She was ready for a swim. We got her dressed, I grabbed my notebook and down to the pool we went.

I just sat at a table next to the pool and wrote notes while she swam.

There was a lot of “Mom, look at this!” And “Watch me do this”.

Also, she kept asking me where we were going to eat and when. I told her we had to talk to dad about that one. She said she wasn’t hungry, but as many times as she asked me about food, you would’ve thought she was starving.

After a while, Skip came down and joined her. Actually he went in the hot tub and she joined him for a few minutes and then back to the pool she went.

I had a little lizard friend next to me. I tried to get a good picture, but this was the best I could do. But his front side was really neat. He had this little red beard thing flickering; I swore he looked like a baby dinosaur.

Skip took a quick Swim and then headed back to the room.

 

[jenseib]

Soon he returned because he had no key. He took mine and went back once again.
Claire finished up her swim and we decided we should get showered and ready for the evening. I think she swam for more than an hour, which was heaven for her.

I didn’t let her use the excuse that she is clean from swimming today. She had a shower and a hair wash. I handed her the hair dryer and I took one. The whole time she kept coming in to ask about food again. I told her to tell Dad to call the pirate place. He hem hawed around on that for some reason. He felt we should be able to just walk in and get seated. I had to tell him that it doesn’t work like that. It’s a show and which means reservations, AND we had no clue what time it started anyways.
Finally he called and found out that the show was already going on and it was the only one for the night. He asked the price and couldn’t believe they would charge so much. I think it was like $60 is for adults. I told him that it was a pretty average price for a dinner show, and he didn’t believe me.

By this time I am working on getting dolled up. I knew the option of going back to the parks was out. It was getting later, and we just didn’t have the urge to go back tonight now.
Claire was having a fit about dinner at this point. I kept relaying messages to her to take to Skip who was lying on the bed watching TV.
I suggested Hoop Dee Doo, no that wasn’t good, Spirit of Aloha? .......no that wasn’t good. Cheesecake factory…never heard of it, no good. I just kept giving Claire options to tell him and all were a no.
There was NO WAY I was sitting in this room the rest of the night with a child “starving to death”, while he watch TV all night.
So I came out, put my shoes on and said “We are going to the cheesecake factory and then to Downtown Disney, You are welcomed to come, and we can drop you off after we eat if you don’t want to walk around DTD.” He had a look of shock on his face. He asked why he didn’t get to help make the decision….yes, I smiled ….but inside I was about to jump across the room and kill him. I told him we gave him choices and he didn’t like ANY of them, so we made a decision. He then says, check and see if we can go to Hoop Dee Doo.
Ok, now we are making progress. It was about 7:15 when I called. I asked if the 9:30 show had an opening and was told yes. Then the girl realized the time and said, “Wow, you are cutting it close, you better leave soon.” I told her we were on our way and we gathered our stuff and left.
We weren’t sure how long it would take us to get there and then ride the internal bus to the back so we wanted to be sure to allow plenty of time.
We got as far as MK and through the gates and told the guy we were heading to Fort Wilderness, and then go lost. I was looking for signs, but I just didn’t see one and soon we approached the Contemporary. I told Skip we should pull in and ask, because there was nowhere to go from here. We realized we should’ve turned immediately after going through the gate and turned around and got back on track.
I took this quickly with my phone.

I decided to play the “where are we” game again on facebook, and posted this picture next, which was horrid, but worked with the game, because it made it harder to tell where we were.

We got parked and headed to the bus stop. This system confuses the heck out of me. There are a ton of buses and I have no clue where to go. I got to talking to a nice lady and she gave some directions of how to get there and how to get back later….thank you nice lady….

A bus came (I believe we had to take a bus that said settlement), and the lady told us that this was a good one as it didn’t make as many stops on the way. YAY!

We finally got back there and we had over an hour to kill. Who would’ve guessed we would make such good time.

 

[jenseib]

I took Claire to the bathroom.

And then went to the counter to get our tickets…which caused a bit of confusion. They couldn’t find us, and then I told her we had just called about an hour ago, and it was all settled then.

After getting checked in we still had quite a bit of time to waste. Skip and Claire started walking, so I went on my own and tried to get a few pictures. Being that it was so dark, it really was hard to get anything good….that didn’t stop me from trying though.

I spotted the Trading Post, something I really hadn’t paid much attention to in the past.

 

[jenseib]

I decided to mosey on over there and take a look. I also was hoping to spot what the 2012 zip up sweatshirt looks like. If you have followed me in the past, you know I have an obsession with sweatshirts, and I try to get one with the year on it each year.

I didn’t find a sweatshirt, but there was quite a few other cute items.

I had only been in the store for about a minute and guess who found me? …. Claire. She said she saw me walk in and Skip said she could join me, and she ran! LOL! She was worried I would be buying something without her probably. I was just browsing though.

We looked at the Mickey Gnomes. Claire likes gnomes right now because she recently learned about the Travelocity gnome. How he came about….. because originally someone had stolen someone’s gnome out of their yard and took him on travels all over. I think they had him for a year or 2, but anyways, they returned the gnome after his travels with all the photos of where he had been.
I can remember when this story was on the today show and I thought it was hilarious. I’m sure Travelocity paid someone good money to have the rights to using the Gnome…..Anyways, Claire didn’t know much about gnomes till one day she asked about the commercial and I told her the story. And being that I had taken Phineas and Ferb along for my August trip and taken photos of them, she really liked that story quite a bit.

Back out to the porch we went.

I then sent this picture to facebook for the where am I game. I was getting some guesses, some were right, but then people would second guess themselves. I believe my fellow TA Mindy was really working hard to figure it out and eventually she did.

 

[jenseib]

We headed over by the boat dock.

And took a seat.

Another picture for the where are we game.

Which threw people for a loop a bit.

Skip talked on the phone and Claire took her shoes off and played in the sand. It was a nice evening. One of those nights where you would need a sweatshirt, but at times it was warm enough to take it off, so we did a lot of putting it on and taking it off.

While sitting there, I tried to get a picture of the life jacket bins.

 

[jenseib]

We pulled out Perry for a couple of shots.

He needed to check his facebook messages too.

Claire was very worried we would miss the show sitting at the beach area. We kept telling her we had plenty of time, but she still thought we should be next to the building…waiting.
We finally decided it was time to head over that way. We went ahead of Skip and were going to use the bathroom before getting in line to check in.

I took this on the way over….the lawnmower tree. I really don’t “get it”. But I have seen it in other TR’s before.

I tried to get a shot of the carriage…not so great…but I tried.

The line for check in was pretty long and Claire thought we should skip using the bathroom and get in it. I told her no, why wait in a long line when we could just go to the bathroom and come back out…and hopefully it would be shorter.

When we did get back out to the line, Skip was in it and it was much shorter. We trades spots with him and he went off to the bathroom too.

We got checked in and then waited some more.

This was my last “where are we” picture I posted.

We just kind of sat around and waited. Many people were lining up by the stairs, and Claire thought we would miss it. Again, we told her that we could see the doors and when they opened we would head that way.

When the doors opened we walked slowly that way and easily got in. There were a few others like us who didn’t need to rush in and be first. We have seen this show 2 other times, so we knew we didn’t have to be the first in. Your table has already been assigned.

We had a decent table on the first floor. In fact the 2nd floor wasn’t even used. We had food waiting on the table for us and we dug right in.

 

[jenseib]

Drink orders were taken. Beer is included with the price and I went for that this night.

Soon the show started. The Pioneer Players come in from the rear. They are always so much fun and they do mingle in the crowd too.

The guy in the plaid pants has been in every show we have seen.