Julie's Epic WDW Ongoing Trip Report!

[ParkTrips]

Here is a photo for the coaster geek in all of us. This is where Fire is doing the flyover...love it! Airtime on inverted coasters isn't easy to come by, but this one has it!

 

Probably 10-15 rides later... I still don't "get it". I've never gotten anything, especially nothing to brag about. Just me though :-/

 

(oh yea, I like Fire better myself, as if thats not the oldest topic out there)

 

Cheeseburger in paradise.. yummm!!

 

We love the random things in Toon Lagoon too

 

I should do a retro TR from Universal since I may not make it down this winter...

[lapseofreason]

Oh, my God, I just repeated myself (a comment about Whataburger looking like Burger World)... and within three freaking days. How embarrassing.

 

Oh, and since I haven't said it yet, awesome TR, Julie!

 

 

-Amanda

[Homer]

You actually like Dr. Snooze!?

 

Anyways, a comment on that Bobcat picture, those stray cats are all around IOA. Heck, when I was at IOA two months ago, I saw a young kitten in a garden area near Bilge Rat Barges.

 

An odd site at a theme park to see cats wandering around.

 

Also, great photo TR! Glad your having a good time in Orlando.

[pianojohn]

Great TR! If anyone is going to be at PI on New Year's Eve, I will be playing the piano at Comedy Warehouse! Thanks for all the pics of the Ad Club. Hopefully it will be around for many more years to come!

[Hattuchili]

Julie, have I ever said, that I really like your photo TR´s!? Anyway, the food and the margaritas are looking good tasty! I´ll check it next year!

 

--Sören

[Erik Johnson]

Man this photo TR keeps going and going...Please make sure that it never has an end Julie because I have really been enjoying it. Yeah you do get some nice airtime on the fire dragon of Dueling Dragons. Dueling Dragons is my favorite roller coaster so far...as if you did not know that with my one million Photo TRs of IOA. Anyways, thanks for posting.

[coasterdude5]

^Agreed!

 

Great Photos!

[USRoadTripper]

Universal Studios Florida

And here is party host Charlotte with Donna. Jan and Charlotte gave everyone Mickey mardi gras beads also. I'm not sure what they did with all the leftover food, but I'm certain they didn't go hungry the next day!

Kevin and Jack show off the week's nice pictures to each other. We celebrated Erica's (Jack's daughter) birthday during the party, and also watched a DVD of Kevin's latest play from back home.

When I left, I headed to Old Key West, to a party thrown by Jan and Charlotte. They spent the whole day cooking and there was SO MUCH FOOD! We could have all come back the next day, eaten our fill and still had leftovers!

Yep, check me out...solo ride! This is why I love Orlando in December!

My score. PATHETIC for me (I'm usually well above 400K) but can still kick the ass of a lot of people. I got to see "the last suit I'll ever wear" because of my score.

Men in Black : Alien Attack is my favorite ride in Orlando. It's also the only ride I've had a full scale evac from.

Kim left at this point so she could pick up a cake for a party later in the evening, and I headed back over to Men in Black to see if I could catch a ride. It was open, so I hit the single rider line.

We tried to get on Men in Black, but it was closed temporarily, so we went over to ET instead. I love the smell of the ET building...I've never smelled anything like it anywhere!

When we entered the park, I stopped and bought a Coke. Thinking it would be fine, I wedged it between the seat and my back when we rode Mummy. Well, I hit the first drop and the Coke went flying. Rats.

Universal Studios...home to two of the best rides in Orlando. We only had about an hour to spend in the park, so we were gonna hit the best three rides, then head out.

[USRoadTripper]

Busch Gardens Tampa

December 7th, 2005

 

This was my first trip to Busch Gardens since the summer of 2002. I'd had a less than stellar visit last time due to oppressive heat, huge lines and a friend who obviously didn't want to be there with me. So I figured I'd give it another go with better company at a better time of year.

So let me say this...there was almost no one in the park! A few hundred at best is my guess. This was good because we didn't have to wait to get on the coasters, but it was bad because I got almost no coaster photos since they weren't running the trains empty! It was taking forever to see any dispatches because there was just no one there to ride the rides. There were tons of great pictures I wish I could have taken, but I wasn't about to stand and wait 10 minutes for the next train to be dispatched! I wish the park had had at least double the number of people there...there still would have been no lines, but there would have been enough people to run the coasters consistantly.

I'd missed the Gwazi Lion credit last time I was there. I wasn't looking forward to riding it, but did want to pick up the credit this time. More on that below.

And into the break run. Thank you for experiencing "Kevin's ride on the Scorpion." Please take small children by the hand and exit to the right of the forum.

Careening into the home stretch.

Kevin navigates this twisty bit with ease.

And into the vertical loop.

So I could get pictures of at least one coaster in action, Kevin rode Scorpion while I took photos of it. I am now pleased to present "Kevin's ride on the Scorpion." Here is the lift hill.

While Kevin ate, I played one of those "catch a ping pong ball in a net" games and won a stuffed duck. I won a large parrot playing the one at Universal the day before, but didn't have as good of luck this time.

We headed over to Timbuktu next, where Kevin decided to grab a corn dog.

I *heart* Kumba, the coaster and the cat (Yes, I named one of my cats after this ride). This is one absolutely awesome coaster...I wish Hulk was more like it. Kumba could really use a new coat of paint though. It was looking terrible.

On our way over to Kumba, we rode the Python. I can't tell you how long it took me to get this picture. They weren't cycling the train at all since there was no one there to ride it!

Kevin says "Where are all the people that should be rushing to Sheikra at park opening?" We got in two rides, and we didn't even have to undo our restraints for the second ride. Could have stayed on again if we'd wanted to.

Here is the obligatory "Hey guys, stop and lemme get a group picture!" picture.

And these were the people waiting to get in at park open. Yep, you can see them all in this pic! Park was completely dead.

This was our parking spot. My guess is that there weren't 20 other cars in the lot at park opening time.

[crispy]

We headed over to Timbuktu next, where Kevin decided to grab a corn dog.

 

 

LOL, very nice

 

 

GREAT tR USRT, thank you

[zaneymon]

And into the break run. Thank you for experiencing "Kevin's ride on the Scorpion." Please take small children by the hand and exit to the right of the forum

 

LOL bring on the rest of your TR unless you have Run out already Then ill be sad if you did

[USRoadTripper]

More BGT photos

And here's what it tasted like to me. Looks like six drug test cups. Psst! I don't think that far right one is gonna come back clean!

Here is what the beer sampling tasted like to most people.

For whatever reason, I really wanted to go to beer school. I actually did learn a little about beer, but it didn't give me enough appreciation to make me want to drink very much of it I did learn that I prefer ales to lagers though!

Last coaster stop for the day was to get my Gwazi Lion credit. *insert never ending stream of expletives here*

I needed a restroom break, so Kevin told me that he would be "waiting on that gorilla" for me when I was done. This is what I found when I came out of the bathroom!

He was very calm and let us pet him easily. Who needs horses when you could have a donkey instead?!

The donkey was the last animal you meet as you walk through the barns. He was so cute!

Next up was the Clydesdale barn. We were more interested in the Budweiser donkey than the horses though. Hey, thinking of you again Mike!

In fact, I love it so much that I wanna rub my ass all over the support too.

The last coaster of the day, and of my season, was Montu. *sigh* I love Montu. I love it so much that I wanna hug the support.

Busch Gardens Tampa is an Elissa-freindly park too (as if we didn't know that already!)

Uh...what inconvenience? Is this just a catch all apology for anything that may have gone wrong during your day? Like "Remember that thing earlier that you weren't happy about? Yeah, sorry 'bout that."

Next it was time for a lovely sleigh ride pulled by a zebra that we named Flank (the woman on the train kept talking about how you can distinguish certain animals by the markings on their flanks, and we thought it was funny).

It had stopped raining by the time the train ride was over. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a hippo head appears and bites my butt!

It was starting to rain a bit at this point, so we went on a round trip train ride. I can't decide which is more beautiful, the giraffe or the B&M. Eh, I'll go with the B&M!!

Nope, we just got out of a freakin' 4D movie! I'd never been this soaked leaving a movie in my life! We decided that the 4th D must stand for "drenched"!

Geez Kevin, you're all wet. Did you just get off of the log flume?

After Scorpion, we both got our Cheetah Chase credit, then I grabbed a bite to eat. You are now looking at three of my four favorite foods. If I'd washed this all down with chocolate milk, it would have been a perfect meal.

[zaneymon]

Anymore Julie of will that do

[Hattuchili]

LOL, great update, again! Good to see the park was so empty. However, it looks like ther is only one beer sort for you, that is funny! I´ll check the beer there next year!

 

--Sören

[CoasterJunkie]

LOL, good to see someone else besides myself has the same opinion of beer school. I go just to kill time. I cant stand beer and hate the taste...They used to taste test Bacardi...wonder what happened to it.

 

 

Great report.

[disneygurlz2s]

Since I knew you TR would be, in fact, massive, I put off reading it until I had time to sit down and enjoy it. I am stuck here at home today (Sammi is sick) and so I sat down and we looked through it together. All I can say is AWE-SOME!!

 

First of all, I love Adventures Club, too..... one of my favorite places at WDW outside of the parks. Love the bar stools!!!

 

What's up with no character pics, or are those on your website?

 

Margaritaville! I am a Parrothead so you know I was impressed with your visit there!!

 

Great TR as usual. Thanks for sharing with all of us!

 

Shari

[stingrock23]

This trip report has been fantastic.

 

I miss Kumba.

[USRoadTripper]

Ohana and Adventurer's Club

 

We left Busch Gardens relatively early since we'd done everything, and we both grabbed a snack at KFC on the way back to Orlando. Our friend Susan was arriving that night, and we had plans with her, Tony and Kim at Ohana. Kevin headed off to Magic Kingdom for an hour or so while I stayed at the hotel, showered and met up with Susan.

Dinner was at 8:00, and we arrived just in time to watch Wishes from the restaurant. We were told we had "the best seat in the house" which was great! But it was the fantastic service during this meal that absolutely floored me and the rest of the group!

After Wishes, the waiter came by to explain the menu changes. They used to have grilled skewered shrimp as part of the entree, but that had been replaced by a shrimp dish that I believe was now boiled, tossed with pineapple and some other stuff. I mentioned that I am allergic to the pineapple, and was hoping to get just a bowl of plain shrimp instead. The waiter said he'd see what he could do, and asked if I had any other allergies. Since he asked, I mentioned my aspartame allergy also, and asked if he could be extra careful in making sure I get regular soda (everyone else had ordered diet). He said no problem, but that he would send out the chef to speak with us and tell me about all the dishes that had pineapple.

So a few minutes later the chef comes out, which wasn't necessary I didn't think. But he told me about the shrimp having pineapple in it, and the sausage having a pineapple glaze, and the bread pudding with vanilla ice cream for dessert having pineapple in it. To me, had I been able to get a bowl of plain shrimp, and a bowl of vanilla ice cream for dessert, that would have been a more than reasonable accomodation, and I would have been very happy. But the chef suggested that he could make a special shrimp dish for me with other ingredients, so I wouldn't have to eat it plain. Great! Then he offered me some type of banana dessert from the Kona Cafe menu, and I said I didn't care for bananas and that plain ice cream would be fine. He said something about that not being good enough, and offered me a molten chocolate torte for dessert. Wow! And completely at no extra charge!

Well, my shrimp was FANTASTIC! I'm not sure what was on it, but it was incredible, and I got a big bowl of it (which I ended up sharing since there was so much of it)! The new cheesy potatoes were incredible also...I could have eaten an entire dish of them had there not been so much other food paraded by us! When the skewers came by, to my surprise, the chef had had a skewer of turkey cooked on it's own, without the sausage next to it. That could have been because I mentioned that I don't eat pork, could have been to avoid the pineapple glaze touching the turkey, I dunno, but either way, I appreciated it!

Kim had mentioned to the chef when he was at our table that she wished that they still made the grilled shrimp, as that was her favorite item in the dinner. She wasn't even asking him to make her grilled shrimp, but the chef offered that too! So she was very happy that she got to have her favorite item for dinner also! He brough out two huge skewers of it for her, and left both of them for our table (I guess so the other tables wouldn't start going "But they got grilled shrimp! I want grilled shrimp!"). So at this point we had three different shrimp dishes, plus pork-free turkey!

When dessert arrived, the other four people dove into the bread pudding, and I got a special foo foo chocolate dessert *and* a bowl of ice cream! I swear, we all ate so much, and it was all so fabulous!

When dinner was done, we asked our waiter Blas to bring out his manager so we could thank him for the extra attention everyone had given us. The manager was very happy to hear that we'd enjoyed the meal so much, and we ended up talking to him for quite a while about the restuarant. We found out that the menu changes had been made because someone high up in Disney had come in for dinner and not been happy with the quality of the food. Turns out that the quality had gone down because of budget cut after budget cut. So Disney decided to take a little bit of profit loss and give them more money so they could buy better ingredients, and make a better overall meal. I don't think that profit loss will be very much though, because he told us that Ohana makes around 30 MILLION DOLLARS IN PROFIT ever year!!! And that they work at 18-20% food cost (18-20% of what you pay goes to pay for the ingredients). The manager even joked about breakfast, saying "I can't believe how much we charge for bacon and eggs, and people pay it!" hahaha

So overall, dinner was one of the best I've had, and probably the best example I have personally expeirenced of how Disney will go out of their way to make their guests happy. I never expected that I would get a specially cooked shrimp dish, turkey cooked by itsself, and a foo-foo dessert! And Kim certainly didn't expect to get grilled shirmp! And the next time I go, I won't expect that much either. But it was very nice to get!

After dinner, Kim went home, Tony went back to his hotel, and Kevin, Susan and I finished out our last evening at the Adventurer's Club. It was also pouring down rain the entire time!

During the Hoopla (Hoopla!) at the Adventurer's Club, they had people act out The Twelve Days of Christmas. Kevin was chosen to be the partridge in a pear tree.

Here was our little dinner group. Susan teaches college Biology and wasn't able to make it for the whole week, but at least we got to hang with her for a day! Left to right, we've got Susan, Tony, Kim, Kevin and yours truly.

Here is my foo foo chocolate dessert. *drooling* OMG it was fantastic. Unfortunately after stuffing myself silly with shrimp, turkey and potatoes, Susan and I combined couldn't finish it off!

Here is some of dinner...turkey in the front, potatoes at 10:00, and my special shrimp at 2:00. See that plate in the center at the top? That's a whole plate of shrimp shells from the shrimp I'd eaten before the turkey came!

The Ohana fire pit. This is what makes the entire restaurant, nay, the entire lobby smell incredible.

[USRoadTripper]

*sniff* This is my last entry for this trip report!

 

December 8th

Whispering Canyon Cafe breakfast, and going home

 

On my and Kevin's last morning in Florida, we'd decided to have a nice breakfast at Whispering Canyon Cafe. We all decided on the Canyon Skillet all you can eat breakfast, which came with eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, potatoes and waffles. It was fantastic, and we all left almost as stuffed as the night before!

I was dropping Kevin off at the airport, and we still had a bit of time to kill before leaving, so we all went to Downtown Disney and shopped in World of Disney for a bit. I think we all got a couple of little things, then it was time to say goodbye. I never know if I'm gonna get to see any of my friends throughout the year, so any time I say goodbye it's usually a "See ya next December!"

I dropped Kevin off at the airport, then started the drive back home. It seems to take only minutes to get from home to Florida, but seems to take years to get from Florida to home!

When I got home, my cats had thoroughly trashed my apartment! Probably had one of those cat parties like in the cat litter commercials. Thanks a lot guys, just what I love coming home to.

 

Well, thanks to everyone for reading my trip report! Any and all comments are welcome! And I will make sure to post again in this thread when I have my text trip reports done.

This was dinner. CiCis makes the best spinach pizza! And am I the only person that finds it strange that I have filled up a frequent diner card to a restaurant that, the only reason I go to that one, is that it's on the way home from Disney?

At about 7:00, I stopped in McDonough, GA at this CiCis for dinner. I eat at this CiCis almost every time I drive home, and on this trip, I managed to fill up the last spot on my frequent diner card! Next trip, my dinner is free!

Round about lunch time, I decided I should eat again, so I could have dinner at the CiCis I normally eat in. I had a grilled stuft burrito from Taco Bell, and almost didn't finish it because I was still so full from breakfast.

Me with Susan and Tony after breakfast. If I had the money, I'd stay at Wilderness Lodge on every trip. It's my favorite of the Disney hotels.

Mmm...who wouldn't want to find this under their tree on Christmas morning?

Here is what is left of our skillet after four ravenous RADPers attacked it.

Susan contructs a beautiful log cabin from Lincoln Logs. She also told us how she always asked for Lincoln Logs when she was a kid, but didn't get them until she was a teenager!

Whispering Canyon Cafe. At least this year we decided to have a nice "last meal" before going home.

[kevings]

I wanted to wait until you had posted the whole thing before I replied. Thanks for making this year's RADP trip one of my best ever. It was so much fun I didn't want it to end. And with your FANTASTIC trip report, it was like I got to experience all over again from the beginning.

 

As much as I love Walt Disney World vacations, I love them THAT MUCH MORE when they are shared with great friends. Can't wait to do it all again real soon!

 

Kevin

[USRoadTripper]

I wanted to wait until you had posted the whole thing before I replied. Thanks for making this year's RADP trip one of my best ever. It was so much fun I didn't want it to end. And with your FANTASTIC trip report, it was like I got to experience all over again from the beginning.

 

As much as I love Walt Disney World vacations, I love them THAT MUCH MORE when they are shared with great friends. Can't wait to do it all again real soon!

 

Kevin

 

Completely agreed Kev! I've been to Disney World dozens of times and I hazard to say that this was my favorite trip out of all of them! The company makes all the difference, and I had fantastic company on this trip. Thank *you* for making it one of my favorites too! I think Robb and Elissa will be very lucky if they get out of TPR what we have gotten out of RADP.

 

-Julie

[Erik Johnson]

Thanks for posting Julie!! The October TPR meet was our favorite park visit(s) of the year. You are right, the parks can be so much more fun when you with people who really know how to enjoy themselves. Plus its a real bonus hearing Derek yell vertical loop one every ride on Montu, Kumba, and many many more.

[Jose Eber]

The fun thing about reading a trip report (especially by someone seasoned) is you find out something new.

 

No idea that Whispering Canyon had an all you can eat skillet for breakfast (and we are at that hotel eating at least half a dozen times a year!).

 

Sounds interesting!

 

P.

[SharkTums]

Where's the picture of the Cat Trashed Apartment!!!!??? I was really looking forward to that one!

 

Thanks again for your great TR!

[Hattuchili]

Hey Julie,

I really liked your Ongoing Trip Report! I am sure you had a good time! The pictures were awesome! I can´t wait to go to Orlando! Thanks again, for posting!

 

--Sören