Shannon and Family - April 2006

Hi all! Just returned from a trip to mostly Universal with some Disney for fun.

We flew Ted out of O'Hare non-stop both ways. Both flights were delayed. I have some other posts regarding Ted/United on this, so I don't want to beat a dead horse.

We stayed off-site at the Rodeway Inn International. I found it to be inadequate for the price, as it was shabby and worn. I wish I would have added the price of our rental car and compared it to Disney. But we did get "buy 2 days get 3 days free at Universal, plus free child with each adult ticket" for the same duration, so I don't know how it would have worked out.

Anyway . . .

Day One -- fly to Orlando via Ted, land; pick up rental car at Payless. Wish I had sprung for on-site (airport location) rental car. go to Universal. Priority seating at Margaritaville -- totally worth it. Our favorite restaurant on this trip. Go to T2 -- dd (age 7) HATES, HATES, HATES IT!!!! Will NOT put on 3-D glasses, refuses to even watch at points. This being said, ours is a pretty adventurous girl, wanted to ride Tower of Terror. Also ate at Bahama Breeze on I-Drive, huge portions, good value for our money.

Day Two -- go to Universal, arrive at 8:10 am, buy Express Pass Plus (not worth it unless you intend to ride every ride and partake of every show). Walk right into Shrek 4-D; walk right onto Revenge of the Mummy, walk right onto Earthquake, wait 5 mins. for Jimmy Neutron, wait 10 min. for Twister, wait 10 mins for Jaws, watch horror make-up show and find it hilarious; leave at approximately 2 pm because we are really lazy people. Go to Downtown Disney (first time) to exchange voucher for annual pass. Have a drink by the water and marvel at Lego Dragon. End day early.

Day Three -- arrive at Islands of Adventure at 7:50. Allowed to enter park on an "early entry" day at 8:00. Ride Spiderman twice with NO wait. Go to Suess Landing, ride Cat in the Hat twice with no wait, go to Jurassic Park, ride river ride with minimal wait. Wait over 20 mins for Pterodon Flyers, totally not worth it. Go to Popeye and Pluto's Bilge Rat Barges and get wetter than a dang fish, freeze our Hoosier buns off, and have to leave due to crybaby attitude. Eat at Margaritaville again, LOVE IT! Go to Magic Kingdom at approx. 6 pm, find it way too crowded. Only see Philharmagic, eat at Pecos Bill (huge portion, not good, probably even bad). Have to procure seats in Liberty Square at 8 pm for 9 pm Spectromagic. Find giant crush of people exiting down Main Street scary; wait no longer than 10 minutes for Monorail; wait no longer than 10 mins for parking lot tram; got lucky and parked in Minnie and was back at hotel on I-Drive by 10:30. Totally exhausted, but all agreed that Spectromagic was super cool and worth the hassle. Did I mention how lazy we are?

Day Four -- we're beat. We sleep in. We go to Islands of Adventure to poke around. Crowd is so unbearable that we have a snack and only see Sinbad stunt show. Start questioning sanity when I booked trip. Eat at Cafe Tu Tu Tango on I-Drive and find it a neat place. Surprisingly filling and a good value. Also a neat local artist art gallery, although everything is out of my price range except for the free postcard outside of the lady's room.

Day Five -- get up and get to Animal Kingdom at 7:15 am. We are instructed by parking lot attendants to park on the grass near the front enterance (seriously, by the pylons driven into the ground at the front sidewalk). we are second people at the turnstiles. We are allowed to the info board at the front. Get to see Mickey and Minnie, Goofy and Pluto open the park. Get a good, hard laugh out of watching lunies run for Everest (it doesn't move! It will be there when we get there). Ride Everest within first 15 minutes of park being open. LOVE IT! Ride Safari with 5 min wait. Watch 9:40 Festival of the Lion King. Ride Dinosaur with 5 minute wait. Heard park attendance expected to be 41,000 -- I didn't realize it was Good Friday until then. Watch park slowly fill up. Watch it's Tough to be a Bug -- finally, DD puts on 3-D glasses (dh had to make a deal with her -- I ride everest, you wear glasses), but waited like 20 minutes for a 5 to 7 minute movie. It was cool, though. Mosey back over to Dinoland. (We have some time to kill before we have to be back to the airport, so we're in no hurry) Sit in the shade for a while. DH and DD ride Tricerotop Spin (I don't do round- and-rounds). I watch live entertainment of painters with juggling and ladders. It's pretty amusing. Watch flights of fancy. Think about how these beautiful birds would happily scoop up my teacup chihauhau and poop out her collar. Still, I marvel at and appreciate their beauty. Leave park to find our car is the only one left up by the entrance and we look like jerks. Explain to other family walking out that they told us to park here, seriously, they did.

The 5:15 from Orlando to O'Hare left on time. The 7:37 was delayed due to maintenance (turned out to be nothing, but still glad the pilot had it checked) and severe storms over Indiana.

All in all, a good trip. We went to Downtown Disney for the first time. I don't think I am interested in staying off site again, though. We stayed on-site in Aug of 2005 and found Disney's internal transportation system to be quick and efficient and also we loved Magical Express and had no troubles or long waits.

We are going again in June, staying on-site and using Magical Express. We will be flying Airtran out of Chicago Midway.

I hope you find my report informative and interesting.