Are We There Yet????

[t-and-a]

This is my first TR, so please bear with me and forgive me if it's a little rough.
Cast:
DH: Tim
Me: Alison (Tim and Alison- that's where we get the t-and-a from- what were YOU thinking?)
DS 14: Zack
DS 11: Jacob

Date: Thursday June 19, 2008 (road trip)

We left our home in Arkansas around 7:20 AM and started driving. It's close to 1000 miles from our house in Hope, AR to Orlando. I had my trusty laptop with my much beloved Delorme Street Atlas 2009 PLUS software and Earthmate GPS thingy (we can't get lost with that!) Here are the boys in the car Jacob is on the left and Zack is on the right on the morning we left home.

Our original plans were to leave on Friday the 20th, but decided to make a stop in to visit my grandmother in Louisiana on the way. We could not have done this with our original plan because we had planned on leaving at 2 or 3 in the morning and this would have brought us by my grandmother's house way too early. We got to my grandmother's house around 10:00 and left there at about 11:30. The kids had gameboys & a DVD player to keep some of their time occupied. Our ice chest was in the trunk with drinks and deli spirals in it, so we didn't have to stop for food until we were almost to Mobile. Here's Tim right as we were crossing Mobile Bay:

The USS Alabama:

It was rush hour and traffic was terrible. It took nearly an hour just to get through Mobile on I-10. We drove until we got to Tallahassee and got a room for the night. The moon was beautiful that night. This photo does not do it justice:

Up Next: more road trip and arrive in Orlando

 

[loribell]

I'm first! Great start Alison.

 

[t-and-a]

I'm first! Great start Alison.

Thanks Lori! It's my first time doing a trippie, so I don't know how good it's gonna be....

 

[t-and-a]

Date: Friday June 20, 2008

Up and on the road by 9:30 EST. We live in the Central Time Zone, so we had to change our watches.
Here are the boys:
Zack playing the gameboy

and Jacob- CRASHED

We finally made it to Orlando around 12:30 PM and were going to eat at the biggest entertainment McDonalds in the world on Sand Lake Road, so we found a McDonalds on Sand Lake Road that was big and had a Bistro. I was wondering what all the hype was with it because there just wasn't that much room in there......well we got finished eating and drove further on Sand Lake Road and found the one that we were supposed to go to......(duh!). We checked into the Baymont Inn on Canada Ave.(don't worry, there's some on-site later) and then we went to Festival Bay Mall. I had seen something about this mall having a Universal Outlet store, so I looked it up on the internet. I saw that it had a Vans Skatepark and thought that the boys might enjoy that. We didn't mention anything to them about the skatepark before we left, so it was going to be kind of a surprise for the boys. Zack did not want to skate because he doesn't skate that much and is really not so much into it anymore and he didn't want to risk getting hurt. He's really a pretty smart kid. Jacob, on the other hand wanted to, but we said he better not without his big brother. We did get them each a new pair of Vans shoes each though. We ate dinner at the largest Checkers in the world, which is directly across the street from the largest entertainment McDonalds. The largest Checkers is not that big and actually kind of rinky dink. We were tired, so we went back to the room and got some rest in anticipation for the next day.
Next installment: First day UO/IOA

 

[loribell]

Thanks Lori! It's my first time doing a trippie, so I don't know how good it's gonna be....

It's gonna be great!

 

[t-and-a]

Saturday June 21, 2008
We're HERE!!

It's Saturday and Universal Studios seems quite empty:

 

[t-and-a]

Next installment will be:
First ride of the day- there are too many people on this ride! And it's raining, it's pouring!

 

[macraven]

um, why did you stop here.......


i'm so ready to hear more about your trippie and see the pics of you all having fun...

 

[jillybeene71]

subbing great job on the report

 

[t-and-a]

um, why did you stop here.......


i'm so ready to hear more about your trippie and see the pics of you all having fun...

It was late and I went to bed. I did get another installment finished and I will put it here before I go to work.

 

[t-and-a]

First Ride of the day:

The Simpsons!!!!

We did not have FOTL on Saturday, so we got in line first thing and didn't have a terribly long wait. I think it may have been 30 minutes. We stepped into the "briefing" room and there were already 5 people in there. I said to Tim, "Maybe you can seat 10 in this one...."
Well, anyway, whenever the door opened to board the ride, my party boarded in the back - 4 seats to a row. There was an extra in there. The dad in the other group told the "extra" guy that he must have been in the wrong room. The other guy swore that the TM directed him to this room and he would not get up. I told them that a ride attendant would be in and straighten everything up soon. Well, the ride attendent did come in and the other guy was put with HIS party and everything was good then......After we got off the ride, I snapped a few more pics:

We rode the Mummy 3 times.

The third time we rode, since we do not have FOTL at this point in our trip, the wait was long, so we decided to go single rider. I went first, then Jacob, then Zack, and Tim. Jacob and I ended up in the same car, but different rows. When we got to the room with the breaking glass and the flaming ceiling, the ride stopped. For Zack it stopped in the room with the scarab beetles. Zack said that they had a few "bugs" in the ride....He's so witty!

Then the rain came down really hard. We left and went back to the room. At this point, we were tired and were ready to call it a day, but......

Tim and I took a nap and got up around 6:30 and got in the car and went back to this parks. We parked on the very top of the parking deck.

We found that it's a good idea to take a picture of the aisle that you are in when you park in the parking deck. That way, you don't forget where you parked.

View from the top of the parking deck:

This time we went to IOA. We ended staying until closing time, which was 9 PM. We rode Dueling Dragons and Hulk a few times.

Here are a couple shots from the top of the parking deck at night:

Next Installment: Day Two at US/IOA without FOTL

 

[t-and-a]

subbing great job on the report

Thanks Jilly! I'll be working on some more hopefully tonight....
I see you leave very soon and you're staying at PBH. That's where we stayed for 4 nights at the end. Hopefully, I will get to some of that before you leave.

 

[tlinus]

Awesome report Al

Cannot wait for more

 

[RVGal]

Love the pic of Jacob crashed in the car!

I can't believe the guy on the Simpsons was arguing with two groups of four people that he wasn't in the wrong spot. Hello? Only single rider in the group?

 

[loribell]

You take such great pics Alison! Can't wait to hear more.

 

[Sharon G]

Hi Alison - I'm lovin your trip report! Can't wait for more.

 

[jillybeene71]

Thanks Jilly! I'll be working on some more hopefully tonight....
I see you leave very soon and you're staying at PBH. That's where we stayed for 4 nights at the end. Hopefully, I will get to some of that before you leave.

yes...but actually we are staying at Royal Pac. My whole objective of this trip is to do things that we have NEVER done the past 4 times we went, and staying at the PBH was top on the list. I had to change my resort when the AP rates came out, though. From 204.00 at PB to 155.00 first 2 nights then 146.00 the last 5, at RP. With the difference between the rates I can stay 2 ex nights. anyhoo...i just forgot to change the ticker.
Keep it coming, just reading the tr's to pass the time till I leave.

 

[macraven]

call into work sick so you can stay home and show more pics about your trip


come on.........where's the homies' priority here...

 

[t-and-a]

I almost forgot about this. We took a pic of Jacob by the height thing at IOA. We did it in 2005 and 2006 also. In 2005, he and I rode Hulk together twice, but they wouldn't let him on again, he was just a hair short.
Here he is in 2005:

in 2006:

and 2008:

 

[t-and-a]

Sunday June 22, 2008
We went to IOA first and headed to the lockers for Dueling Dragons. Tim has a pocket camera that he carries in a case on his belt, so we decided that the best way to remember our locker number was to snap a picture:

The line for Dueling Dragons was not long; I think the wait time may have been 5 minutes. Tim snapped a few pics in the queue:

First we rode Fire. After we got off Fire, we decided to try front row on Fire. After that, we did front row on Ice and I must have blinked when we nearly hit the wall and I didn’t see it, so we had to do Ice on front row again. This time I saw the wall. We rode about 5 times total and when we got back to our locker, we had to pay to get our stuff out.
Next installment: Enchanted Oak, and more Sunday adventures