"The Calm Before The Storm" Tour (Part 15)

[2BoysMum&Dad]

In my hand-written notes I made at the end of Friday 23rd July, I spookily gave the day’s report the heading “The Calm Before The Storm”, only because it was the day before we flew out to Florida and didn’t think at the time it was really a very good or apt title. I have decided to name all the parts of my trip report “The Calm Before The Storm Tour”, in honour of the climax of our trip - Hurricane Charley which gave us an extra day in Florida.

Friday 6th August

THE CAST

Sergeant Major Zoe “You WILL enjoy yourselves”
DH Trevor “I am NOT going to like this”
Birthday Boy Michael (aged 10 to 11)
“Why” to everything Piers (aged 8 and a bit)

We decided to have an early start today and go to Universal Studios for the last day of our 2 day/2 park ticket. On our first day at U.S. we didn’t visit Islands of Adventure at all and had heard that it’s mainly high thrill rides. As none of us are particularly keen on this sort of stuff, we really only wanted to spend half a day there. We had breakfast in the room as usual (except for Piers who had to be dragged out of bed and wasn’t hungry). The only thing packable for Piers to eat (if he was hungry on route) was a packet of crisps.

Unfortunately, we managed to turn off the I-4 too early. It wasn’t until we reached the bottom of the slip road that we decided it didn’t look right. We turned in one direction, looked a bit odd; tried going the other way, still looked a bit odd and decided we’d better get back on the I-4 again. Yup, definitely got off too early! Eventually made it into the park by 9.20am and headed of towards Shrek4D. Unfortunately, the queue was very long (even at 9.20am), and there definitely didn’t seem to be Express passes for this attraction. While we were looking at the machines on the other side of the road (by Jimmy Neutron), Michael said he saw some people we knew. Low and behold Earthbound and family were near the front of the queue for Shrek4D. I shouted across, but to no avail, walked across and ... too late they just got in for the show and the doors closed behind them.

We would just have to try Shrek4D later in the day. Next on our hit list was “Men In Black”, went straight for that and got Expresses passes for it – getting different return times on our four tickets! 9.55am to 10.55am and 10am to 11am. We decided to go back to “Back to the Future” while we waited for our MIB timeslot. Trevor and the boys did this while I turned a sort of “chicken” colour and sat outside doing a spot of people watching. When they emerged, we headed back to the MIB ride and put our stuff into a locker – it was advertised as a “no carry on bags” attraction. In some respects, MIB was a little like Buzz Lightyear in MK, but it was a little less obvious what you were supposed to be shooting at. This was scarier, but B.L. was not supposed to be a scary ride anyway. MIB had six seater cars – Trevor, Michael and Piers sat in the front row and I sat in the back with a single rider who gave me some advice as to what we were supposed to be doing. He had obviously done this before. I got a pretty lousy score and hadn’t really got the hang of precisely what we should have been aiming at. All the others got reasonably respectable scores. We tried getting another Express pass each for MIB but the machines were objecting. A Universal staff member was on hand to help with various people’s problems and we discovered that you cannot get Express passes twice for the same attraction on the same day. Sniff sniff, never mind! We wondered about a bit and I suddenly saw a building with the name “Ghiradelli” in large letters on the other side of the water! Got to go and investigate. Well, what a let down, it’s just part of a “set” and not a real building and definitely no ice cream! A bit more wondering about and then Piers spotted one of those vendors selling large pretzel thingies. As he still hadn’t eaten any breakfast, we bought him one and he was quite content with this. Thought he might not like it, but he did.

We then headed off towards the Earthquake ride. Trevor and Piers did this and Michael and I did our chicken impersonations again! Next stop – lunch at Louie’s Italian Restaurant which also housed a Starbucks. We had a large Pepperoni Pizza between the four of us and Trevor got a cold Latte with ice from Starbucks which I thought sounded very strange.

Next attraction – Extreme Ghostbusters. We didn’t really know what to expect. Didn’t know if it was a show inside the building or exactly what was going to happen. We stood at the roped off area and realised this was the scene of the show itself – the front steps of the “library”. It was very funny, very funny indeed (well, we thought so!). There was the Beetlejuice character getting the four Ghostbusters to impersonate famous pop singers including Michael Jackson, Village People, Madonna and many others.

We were “cream crackered” by this stage and headed off back to CBR for a rest. Trevor and Piers went for a swim in the pool and Michael and I had a rest on our beds. At 5.40pm we headed back of towards Universal Studios & IOA again. We arrived at the car park at around 5.55pm and I couldn’t find our car park ticket from earlier! So we stopped at the side of the road a little short of the barriers to look for it, luckily finding it in Michael’s backpack. We got back into the queuing line of cars again and then noticed that none of the cars in any of the queues were moving and the attendants weren’t particularly paying attention to any of the car drivers and not letting anyone through. We twigged then it was because at 6pm there is no charge for parking, so (in fact) they were being kind to people by making them wait a couple of minutes so they wouldn’t have to pay. It was still a little frustrating for us (and anyone else who actually had a ticket) because there was no way we could get through. It was only four minutes to wait, so not really a problem.

Got parked, through CityWalk and into Islands of Adventure. Grabbed a map and a had quick peruse to see what looked interesting. We veered to the left and after admiring the loonatics riding the Hulk and watching that for a few minutes, we discovered “Storm Force Accelatron” which is virtually identical to the spinning spider ride at Legoland. I know you rollercoaster die-hards are going to slate me, but we are really mostly a family of chickens! Off further down the path and Trevor spotted Dr Doom’s Fearfall. Trevor (being the bravest chicken) decided he wanted to give this a go. Both the kids were an inch or two too short for this and there was less chance of getting me on it than Tower of Terror! Trevor was actually happy doing it alone because it meant he could go through as a single rider. We watched the torture devices going up and down the two towers and wondered why anyone would inflict this sort of thing on themselves. Saw Trevor walking out along the gangway up on our left and he indicated to us that he was going back in again! So off he went, through the exit (which is where single riders board). Have now come to the conclusion that Trevor is mad (should have realised that years ago! Well, he did marry me after all!).

We’d previously spotted the “Confisco Grill” as a possible good eating spot so headed back there. Nice atmosphere and slightly unusual menu but nothing weird and the prices were OK. The service was attentive but very sloppy (waiter was rather accident prone, dropping pens and bits of paper all the time) and several errors were made in our order. Trevor’s food was luke warm and my starter didn’t turn up, he thought I wanted it with our main courses and he failed to record my main course altogether! We gave a 15% tip which I think was more than they deserved, but he was very pleasant. I volunteered to pay this evening using my credit card, the first time I had paid for a meal since arriving in Florida (I know how to avoid paying for things ).

We dashed off to do one more ride before going to Universal Studios for Shrek4D. I wanted to do Cat in the Hat, which was aimed at a young age group but still great fun. When we were all queuing for this, Michael decided he needed the toilet (again) so Trevor took him off and said he’d wait for Piers and me at the exit of the CITH ride as they wouldn’t have time to do it after visiting the restrooms. This ride is one of those where you sit in a “car” which goes along tracks and you are taken through Dr Seuss scenery and your “car” spins in different directions to look at different stuff and characters. These vehicles can take up to six people. Off through the obligatory associated gift shop to exit the attraction, met up with Trevor and Michael and headed quickly off towards Universal Studios.

I didn’t remember ‘til later that there was supposed to be some sort of transport between the two parks. It might have been that we were quicker walking anyway. Got into the park and then I got very worried as I couldn’t find one of our tickets. This didn’t technically matter as we were not going to be visiting US or IOA again, just would have been nice to keep the set of four as a souvenir! . There was a 45 minute wait for Shrek4D and we debated for a while whether we should go off and do something else in the hope the queue would diminish slightly or just join it anyway. The big problem was that we’d miss the fireworks if we queued up for this now. We decided to forego the pleasures of seeing the fireworks as we had seen a few already (although not the U.S. ones) and we had really been desperate to see this attraction. So long queue here we come! The quoted queuing length was quite accurate (noticed that the quoted queuing times at various Disney Parks were often way out). In the front queuing area there are several tv screens to keep people entertained, showing clips from the latest Shrek film. When we got to the front of the building, not far from the door, the fireworks started. It took me a while to work out where they were being set off from and unfortunately we couldn’t see any from where we were standing, but could hear them well! The warm-up woman inside was quite amusing along with the three little pigs trapped in cages, Pinocchio and the Magic Mirror. Got into the show and didn’t get near enough into the middle as we would have liked, never mind. I don’t want to give too much away, but I would just like to say beware of what’s under your seat near the beginning and I’m glad I was wearing long trousers!

Time to exit and go back to CBR. One more toilet break in U.S. and then headed back to the car park via CityWalk. When we were in the multi-storey car park, Trevor came up with the brilliant idea that we’d get a wonderful view of the U.S. fireworks from here and as it would be after 6pm, we wouldn’t have to pay for parking. We would also get access to CityWalk too, of course, without needing to pay an entrance fee so could have a meal or ice cream after watching the fireworks.

The kids fell asleep in the car on the way back to CBR and had to wake them up to get them into our room. This is unusual for them. There’s no way we would carry them! Another eventful and tiring but brilliant day ..... definitely time for bed! ZzZzZzZzZzZzZz