stacktester 78 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Well like all trips you plan for them and then knowing damned good and well something won't go right is bound to happen. My daughter really likes roller coasters and theme parks. She's been going since she was 2 to Disney.Annie's real birthday is today and like last year she wanted to go to US/IOA for her special day. One thing I will say is this is the best weekend for crowds. The lines are small even at Harry Potter. The original plan was to take the camper and stay at Turkey Lake but some work stuff came up and I had a lot to do all the way up to late Friday so we decided to stay at All Star Sports. Annie's mom and I get along pretty well and we're still both single so she came this year as she did last which was good for Annie. They came over early Saturday and we headed down to Orlando. We arrived around 1030 and got into the studios around 11. One thing that really ticks me off is Universal does nothing like Disney. They took forever getting you thru the toll lanes and then once we got to a parking spot somebody had to ask a million questions before pulling in the spot.Last year Annie's mom got an annual pass which was great because it expires tomorrow so no ticket expense for her. Bad part is she lost the ticket and we had to get a replacement. We had to go to the guest relations and there was at least 100 people in line. They only had a few people working. Once we got to the window I expressed my displeasure and told them we wouldn't be buying anymore annual ap's. The lady behind the counter gave us enough express passes for 3 rides each. Whoopy doo. Once we finally got in we headed to rip ride rockit. It wasn't that bad and only had a 15 minute wait. I'm not much of a park planner so we pretty much get off a ride and go to the next. Next up was Twister and it was a walk on as well. Twister is a good attraction and I don't mind it's not been discontinued. Next was The Mummy. This ride is probably my favorite at US/IOA. It's not one to throw you and roll you. It reminds me of R N R Coaster but it doesn't go upside down. Next up was Disaster and Jaws. Both walk ons and probably the 2 most outdated rides in the whole park. We decided after Jaws we'd get some lunch at Mels Diner. I remember a time Mels was pretty good food and now it pretty much sucks. To be honest there's really not much food at either park I'm crazy for. After lunch we did E.T. and backtracked back to MIB. MIB is pretty fun. Kinda like Buzz Lightyear on steroids. Annie wanted a pic in Jaws mouth. If you're not familiar, there is a big shark hanging from it's tail and you can get a pic where it looks like you're being eaten alive. We also decided to do beetlejuices Graveyard Revue. Not bad. Kinda like a monster rock concert.We decided we did enough and headed for the hotel. I called my buddy Dan (vwdano) on ff.net. He was at House of Blues with some mutual friends so we met them there for a couple drinks. They had a guy playing guitar and after hearing some good oldies we headed for the hotel to check in. Our room was simple. 2 beds, 1 bathroom overlooking the pool on the 3rd floor. We had a Chinese college student check us in and she was having a hard time communicating. I let out loud that I wish Disney would quit hiring people to deal with guests directly unless they speak fluent english. Once we got to the room we didn't have much time before our ADR's at Boma. Boma has always been high on our list and remains there. The food is good and we enjoyed it. Afterwards, we decided to go meet up with Dan and our other friends in the 100 loop at the fort. The fort looked pretty full but I didn't see many carts or people. We did pass ff.net member Starbuc71. I yelled something at him but he was going the other way so we missed each other. After hanging out we were tired and decided to call it a night. On the way back to the ASS we saw quite a few runners still going strong. I yelled run Olivia run for our own Livluvsdisney. I hope she did well. I think she's still out there on the course. I'm going to leave Islands of Adventure for the morning and my thoughts on the park overall. I realize there is some ownership changes going on but we saw a lot of broken stuff today and things needing a coat of paint. It will probably be a while before I consider these parks again for a while. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo..Karla 77 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Yeah! Another TR!!!Sounds like you're having fun!Where's the pictures??? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LONE-STAR 370 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Love the pics. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Momoffive aka Loretta 34 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 :popcorn: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stefa70 205 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Sounds like you had a good time. I was hoping that you'd get lucky and get into 1900 Park Fare for dinner, but sounds like you enjoyed Boma. You're welcome! Enjoy these times with Annie, they grow up too fast. :heart: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stacktester 78 Posted October 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 We are not big picture takers. I have a few that I will get from her mom. Ok so Sunday was going to be Islands of Adventure. We slept in til 8 and then went down to the food court for breakfast. I had the platter whuch was pretty good. The eggs were a little chewy lol. They were still using the mug chip devices. There were several machines with them but when I put my cup under one it worked. We finally got on the road around 10 and got over to the park. I was a little worried getting in so late because of crowds but once again no problem. Like I've said before, we're not planners at all when it comes to a ride plan. We figured Harry Potter would be packed as the day went on so we went there to find a 15 minute wait. I don't think it was that long. If you've never done the ride the que along is pretty cool. I have never read or watched HP but liked the scenery. Once we got done there we decided to hit Dueling Dragons. The que's in these rides are huge and they still make you go through them which stinks. Once we got to the line there were maybe 50 people there. Got right on fire and took off and then we asked if we could do ice without exiting and the person directed us to a short cut where we walked right on to the coaster. After 3 coasters we wanted something slow so we decided to do the Sinbad show which happened to be starting right then. There are some pretty cool stunts there but it was boring and we ended up leaving it as did quite a few others. This is where I guess I should begin on my park thoughts. US/IOA has been around for quite some time. The only 2 major changes I can recall is King Kong going to Mummy and Back to the future going to The Simpsons. I like both changes. The parks IMO are outdated and not well cared for. After we ditched Sinbad we headed to Thunder Falls Terrace for lunch. This is the place with ribs, rotisserie chicken and smoked turkey legs. We all decided on the chicken since we just had ribs the night before and we were quite surprised the amount of food we got for about 9 bucks each. Also if you're not familiar with US/IOA they have a mug refill program. You buy a mug that contains a drink and afterwards it becomes a 79 cent refill. We take ours on each trip and they will refill them at the counter for you. After lunch we did Ripsaw falls and the Popeye water ride. Both are very fun and you get soaked on both. We should've done them last so we could go to the truck. We still had Hulk and Spiderman to do and we froze on both because that's where we headed to after the water rides. Once we finished Hulk it was getting time to go and we had done all the major rides. I'll be back later with my final thoughts on what I didn't like. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
doodlebug....Cherie 461 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Great report, Donnie. We haven't been to US?IOA for years. With the exception of Harry Potter it doesn't sound like much has changed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheLug 10 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Other than Halloween Horror Night I do not attend these parks. I really don't care much for them and they don't really cater to LARGE people. Also they have no care for guest and the fellow guest company is not ideal if you have been you will understand. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LORNADUCK 261 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Forgot to tell u yesterday to tell Annie happy birthday from us Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stacktester 78 Posted October 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 OK so I'm going to finish by saying some things I'm not so happy about. The Lug is absolutely correct with what he said on both counts. I'm a big boy too and the seats in all coasters and rides aren't big friendly. The other is they really have no customer appreciation going on.The studios seem to have management that at least cares about the park being clean. IOA not so much. The rides at IOA have a lot of faded paint and broken props. Example, Ripsaw falls was very faded and several props that I've seen do actions are now broken and when that many are broken it's no coincidence. They just aren't fixing stuff. We did happen to find good food at IOA but there's only that one place that I've really ever enjoyed. You very seldom saw a castmember or whatever they call employees there. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rate IOA at a 4.5 and US at about a 6. It's ashamed they have a great potential to compete with other parks but choose not to boost up the experience. The employees don't seem to be too overjoyed either. When I spoke to a lady in guest relations she nodded and said sir, we're all aware the problems going on but we can't do anything. Hopefully something can be done and the place can get better. For the time being we will be looking elsewhere for our buck. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stefa70 205 Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 I'm a big boy too and the seats in all coasters and rides aren't big friendly.You're a big boy? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023 Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Gotta agree with your observations on these parks, Donnie. We don't go every year, but last year we went for the first time in a couple of years because of WWoHP. We found that little else had changed and everything just generally felt a little run down.WWoHP is another topic entirely.The potential there was clearly HUGE and what they built was pretty impressive in terms of the level of detail, but it's just TOO DARNED SMALL! Even on slow days it's too crowded to really enjoy and take it all in without battling the masses. I mean seriously... waiting 20-30 minutes to get into a shop where you have to shuffle around with the other salmon just to make your way around so you can.... buy stuff?!?Totally agree about the queue for the castle. It's pretty impressive on it's own, and if you have read the books or seen the movies it's really over the top good. Better than the actual ride, IMO.I just can't help think how different this would have been had it been an actual PARK and not just a small piece of a fairly small park.Food at Universal is pretty much abysmal. The BBQ place is the only decent counter service we've ever found there. The only saving grace otherwise that we've found is the Irish pub on the UO side. The same bartender has been there every year for at least the last 5 or 6 and they make a mean scotch egg. :)Mythos still gets pretty stellar reviews but it's also super pricey and just kind of seems out of place.On the lighter side... we do love the thrill rides here and totally agree that The Mummy is one of the best ones there. On a slow day we'll just ride it over and over and over.We did buy APs last year - mostly because we felt we'd spend at least a couple of days checking out WWoHP (turns out you only need about 4 hours) and it wasn't a whole lot more for the APs. We'll probably head over for a day this year, but I doubt it'll be more than that.We do enjoy City Walk - although were bummed last year that most of the chairs outside Margaritaville were gone. We used to love to grab some beverages and just relax and people watch there. I think I took a nap there once. Oh! One find last year at City Walk... there's a new sushi place upstairs that has a take out window. Their sushi menu is pretty diverse (especially for a walk up window) and was very fresh and delicious, if a wee bit pricey. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stacktester 78 Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Monique thanks for making me feel like I wasn't just being too picky. You are so point on it's not funny. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LONE-STAR 370 Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Never been there and doubt we ever will. Nice report Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tri-Circle-D 2,059 Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Donnie-Thanks for the report.My girls used to go to Universal every year for a school trip, so it's been a while since I have been.We will eventually get there to see the HP stuff, since none of us have seen it yet. So far, we haven't been in a hurry to get there.I do like Margaritaville, and the rest of City Walk better than Downtown Disney.The important thing is that it sounds like Annie has a great birthday. It is nice to hear that you and your ex put aside your differences for the sake of Annie. More people need to do that!See you at the Fort!TCD Quote Link to post Share on other sites
stacktester 78 Posted October 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 Donnie-Thanks for the report.My girls used to go to Universal every year for a school trip, so it's been a while since I have been.We will eventually get there to see the HP stuff, since none of us have seen it yet. So far, we haven't been in a hurry to get there.I do like Margaritaville, and the rest of City Walk better than Downtown Disney.The important thing is that it sounds like Annie has a great birthday. It is nice to hear that you and your ex put aside your differences for the sake of Annie. More people need to do that!See you at the Fort!TCDThanks Andrew. It took a while to get there but it's worth it. Annie feels very comfortable with it and that's what makes it great. It's funny how we didn't get along married but enjoy doing these things together. Even though the parks were run down somewhat I made the best of it. I know we all had fun and these memories will last forever. I just wish I could nudge the clock back a few years lol. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kampfirekim 260 Posted October 5, 2011 Report Share Posted October 5, 2011 I'm so glad Annie had such a special birthday! Kudos to you and her mom for being able to get along like that! :) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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