Category: Vacations

We checked out at 10:30 this morning from the Comfort Suites we had been staying in for the past six nights and had over five hours to waste time before check-in at the next place, a Residence Inn by Marriott, so we drove around the area. It’s definitely more upscale where we are at now, but honestly I think I preferred where we were before because there was more to do and see.

We had lunch at the largest McDonald’s in the world. It offers bistro menu items such as paninis and burritos which was cool. I had the chicken burrito and it was good.

We were bored so I called the hotel to see whether early check-in was possible but they apologized and said no. Their reasoning was how booked they were last night. I asked whether we could take advantage of their laundry room before checking in and they said we could, so we headed to the hotel only to learn you needed a room key to get into the laundry room. :p

As we were passing through the lobby to leave, a woman working at the hotel got our attention and asked whether we’d be interested in checking out one of their vacation properties down the street called Horizons by Marriott. Normally we wouldn’t agree to a timeshare sell (or what they call a vacation club), but we had hours to kill and they offered us $100 off our stay here, so what the hell?

All the staff, including the agent trying to sell us the property, were very nice and the property itself is gorgeous, absolutely the best place I’ve ever seen, inside and out. The rooms are decorated in bright colors with full kitchens, a huge big screen tv and dvd player, and separate bathrooms for each bedroom. The screened-in porch is awesome too, plus there are three pools, a miniature golf course, two bars, and a few restaurants.

Definitely a great place, but the yearly fees ($600+) on top of the initial investment ($17k) are just too much in our opinion. I must admit, we were both tempted, but we don’t go on major vacations yearly or even every two years, so I don’t think it would be a wise investment for us. That being said, since you can still rent a villa just as you would a hotel room, we plan on booking a few nights at the resort in a few years when we take the kids to Disney World. They will love the pools and water park area and for $187/night, it’s not a bad deal.

Anyway, by the time we got back to the hotel it was check-in time. Our room is nice with central air/heat and a full kitchen, plus the desk is where I can still see the tv (unlike our previous hotel), and it smells better in the room (the previous one has a musty odor). I still liked the Comfort Suites better though because this place is smaller and feels more claustrophobic. The Comfort Suites had two huge sinks whereas this place only has one and the bedroom is so small you can barely walk around the bed.

I noticed that while the Marriott is a “better” name, you don’t get much more for the extra money. When we checked into the Comfort Suites, they gave us coupons for half price drinks at the bar and said they have free toothbrushes, combs, razors, etc. in case we had forgotten ours. At the Marriott you are expected to visit their sundry store for those items and there weren’t any coupons for the bar. I get the impression they assume that by staying at a Marriott you like to spend money freely. But I digress.

There’s a huge laundry room on the first floor so after checking in we did two loads. While waiting, we played a game of air hockey in the game room next door. Joe is really good at it and he almost beat me, but I won by one goal. I was so excited I was doing the happy dance. LOL!

For dinner we went to this place called Steak & Ale. It’s owned by Bennigans and we had a $25 gift card that I ordered from Discover via our cash back bonus. The first filet I got was covered in a seared charcoal flavor so I sent it back and got a new one. It was much better, but it didn’t compare to the filet I had at Longhorn which was cheaper. The dessert, French silk pie, was delicious, however.

I’m stuffed now! We are going to turn in early tonight so we can get to Discovery Cove early tomorrow. I hope we don’t freeze our butts off. The nice part is the hotel is a block away, so we’ll be able to get there bright and early with minimal effort.

We decided to give ourselves a theme park break today and sleep in. By the time we were up and ready to go it was around 10 am. We contemplated visiting Kennedy Space Center, but it’s rather pricey ($37 per person), so we decided to visit the Cocoa Beach area instead.

The directions we followed had us on two tollways and I swear there was a toll every two miles at first. It was really annoying! Finally the space between tolls widened. Once we made it to the coast, we started looking for this restaurant, Florida’s Seafood Bar & Grill, I had read about. It came highly recommended and it did not disappoint. Not only was the service exceptional, but the appetizer we ordered, rock shrimp, was delicious.

After lunch we went to the local Publix to grab some ice for the cooler for our lunch leftovers and a loaf of bread to feed the seagulls (though we never ended up using it as we only saw pelicans flying around but surprisingly, no seagulls). We visited Lori Wilson Park where we walked in the surf so that we could say we’ve been in the Atlantic Ocean and took some photos. We also tried to visit the Nature Center there but it was closed, so instead we headed north up the coast so we could visit the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, we hadn’t checked out the website before going and the main (and what we thought was the only) bridge was closed. Apparently it was damaged during the hurricane. By this time we were getting a bit irritated with everything being closed, so we decided to head back to the Orlando area. We took a different route home to avoid the tollway and on the way, Joe spotted a sign for the Orlando Wetlands Park in Christmas, FL, so we followed a few roads to the entrance only to realize they too were closed. Yeesh! The least they could have done was post the closure notice on the original sign instead of sending people on a wild goose chase. Since we had come across it by mistake, we had no access to the internet to check it out ahead of time.

We found our way back to the main road and took a very long time getting back to the hotel due to heavy traffic. We should have just paid the damn tolls, I swear. What a waste of a day! Tomorrow we’re switching hotels so we have nothing planned. Sunday is our Discovery Cove adventure which I’m stressing out about since it’s only supposed to be 78 degrees! Maybe that is warm to some, but not for me to be wet all day. Hopefully we’ll get there early enough to snag a wetsuit; that should help a bit.

I’m glad we’re switching hotels too because there are some really loud people who checked in yesterday. I can hear them talking in their hotel room and they are across the hall. There are also two pre-teen boys who keep running through the stairwell which is next to our room as we’re at the end of the hall. I saw them run down the hall and go down the other stairwell so they think it’s some sort of game. God knows where their parents are; god forbid they look after their kids so they don’t disturb other people.

Yesterday we visited Universal Studios Florida. I wasn’t aware they have two parks there now, so we didn’t get the combo pass for Islands of Adventure. We got there right when they opened yet we were still directed to what turned out to be the farthest parking area from the park. All the parking is in garages and we were in Jaws section 214. Unlike Disney, Universal expects you to make it to the park by foot. The only saving grace was there were moving walkways like they have at most airports.

The way it’s set up, you go through Universal’s CityWalk before coming to a fork in the “road” which splits off to the two different parks. Right outside the Universal entrance we got three photos of us taken by one of the photographers before going into the park. Once inside we headed straight for the Revenge of the Mummy ride. Despite my thorough research, I wasn’t quite prepared for how intense this rollercoaster is even though it lacks inversions. I knew something was up, however, when we had to check my small camera bag in a free locker before being allowed on the ride! Now you must know that when I’m “scared” or feeling a little overwhelmed by a ride, I close my eyes. Needless to say, I missed out on a lot of the special effects on this ride. At the end you get to view a photo taken on the ride and sure enough, my eyes were closed during that part too!

After that ride, we decided to head to the Shrek 4D show, but first stopped off at the Twister attraction. Shrek 4D was cute, but after Magic Kingdom and Epcot, I’ve grown tired of the effects where you get lightly sprayed with water or your seat moves, so I wasn’t all that impressed. After that we quickly (thanks to the lack of lines) made our way through the rest of the must-see attractions such as Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast (lame), Earthquake – The Big One (okay), Back to The Future The Ride (so-so) and Men In Black Alien Attack (my favorite). We were disappointed to learn that Jaws was closed. Joe was really looking forward to it and it’s my favorite at Universal, so that really sucked.

We couldn’t believe how quickly we had gone through all the attractions we wanted to see, and it didn’t seem right to leave (it was only about 12:30), so we got our hands stamped and went through CityWalk looking for a place to eat lunch. We almost ate at the huge Hard Rock Cafe, but I didn’t want anything on the menu, so we went back into Universal to look for a place. All I wanted was a nice grilled chicken sandwich. Well, we went to this place called Richter’s Burger Co. where the chicken sandwiches were $7 each. I wouldn’t have minded if they weren’t almost tasteless. It was a huge waste of money, not to mention the fact that their menu board is misleading by not mentioning the sandwiches come with fries so we ordered fries we didn’t even end up eating. The whole meal was $20 for what would have been less than $10 at McDonald’s or Burger King. I don’t mind spending money on food when it is worth it, but I seldom find theme park food to fall within that category yet it is the most overpriced food you will find next to a movie theatre.

Turns out we ended up leaving the park after lunch anyway. Oh and before lunch we checked out our photos which were terrible. Apparently the people they hire aren’t professional photographers as they don’t know how to use exposure compensation or spot metering. I know I’m pale, but I’m not that ghostly! Both our faces were completely washed out in the photos. I can’t see how anyone would want to purchase one of those photos if they all come out that way.

Anyway, once we got back by the hotel we stopped at the A&W in Old Town and shared a root beer float. Then we came upstairs and took a two hour nap. After that we sat around for a bit watching tv, then went back to Old Town to browse the shops a little, then came back and watched more tv since both our stomachs have been giving us troubles. I think it’s all the crappy (no pun intended) food we’ve been eating. We found another cool show to add to our weekly schedule though – The First 48 on A&E.

I don’t mean to sound like such a complainer, and maybe it’s just burnout being the third theme park in as many days, but I didn’t like Universal that much at all. I don’t think I’d bother next time we come to Florida.

P.S. Later in the evening we learned that a British man on vacation with his wife and two teenage daughters was hit by a car outside Universal last night by a young woman who may have run a red light. He died at the scene. I feel so bad for him and his family. It’s bad enough when something like that happens at any time, but I can only imagine being in a foreign country and on vacation no less. :(

We got to Epcot bright and early this morning. A little too early, in fact. Unlike the Magic Kingdom, we parked in the fourth row from the actual entrance so there was no time taken up getting to the park. Since they are very vigilant about not letting anyone in early, we waited around for 45 minutes while the cast members proceeded to tease us by first letting us in via the ticket and bag check only to make us wait at a roped off area for another 15 minutes.

When they finally let us in, everyone headed to Soarin’ since a cast member advised that the lines could sometimes get up to 3 hours long. It’s been a long time since I’ve visited Epcot and I forgot how much you have to “work” just to get to an attraction. It was like a stampede of people, some even running, to get to The Land where the ride is located. Once inside the building we had to go down to the concourse before navigating all the twists and turns before arriving at the actual ride. We got the third row on the ride which I read wasn’t as great as being in the first row, and now I know why: you see the feet of the people in front of you dangling and the bottom curvature of the screen which ruins the effect. The cast member who highly recommended the ride said that 95% of visitors love it, so I guess I fall into that other 5%. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t impressed at all and would probably never bother going on it again.

After Soarin’, we went on Test Track which I did enjoy, especially the high speeds the car got up to outside the facility which unfortunately didn’t last long enough. That’s one thing I’ve always hated about all amusement parks – you spend far more time waiting in lines than enjoying the rides.

After Test Track we made a fatal mistake: Joe went on Mission Space. I read enough about the ride to know I wasn’t having any part of it, but I didn’t want Joe to miss out because of me, so I waited outside while he went on. Let’s just say they put barf bags on the ride for a reason. No, Joe didn’t throw up, but he’s been ill ever since and I feel horrible because I urged him to go on so I feel like I’m partly to blame. Neither one of us would have guessed it would make him sick, but he said as the ride was “blasting off” he thought to himself that it was a good thing I chose not to go.

We spent the next hour or two just walking around hoping Joe’s nausea would go away. We ended up in Innovations East (I think) where you can make your own robot to take home. I didn’t realize when I signed up that we first had to participate in a virtual robot race using a foot pad like Dance Dance Revolution. I had to do it since Joe was still sick and out of 10 racers my robot came in third place! Not too shabby. :)

Since Joe didn’t want to go on anything that could make him feel sicker, we went on Spaceship Earth next. I knew it was lame, but man, I don’t remember it sucking as much as it does. We headed to World Showcase afterwards so we could avoid going on anymore rides. I sampled the kielbasa and potato pierogies in Poland and we bought some chocolates from Germany and Switzerland. Joe was starting to feel a little better so we went on Maelstrom in Norway which I think they may have changed since I last went on. Either that or it was just scarier before because I was younger.

In fact, all the rides I thought I remembered didn’t seem quite the same. I know they changed the Journey to Imagination with Figment more than once now since it was different the last time I was there and my brother (the older of the two) was disappointed because he loves Figment and kept complaining how much it sucked. I wasn’t planning on getting him a souvenier, but I had to get him a little Figment stuffed toy that has magnets in his hands and feet since he loves him so much.

We got a Fastpass for Honey I Shrunk the Audience which was rather stupid since the Fastpass line wasn’t any shorter than standby. They tie up far too much of your time with that attraction too. First you stand in line, then you stand in this huge room and watch this monster of a Kodak commercial, then you finally make it into the theatre for a short show where the 3D doesn’t seem to work 100% correctly. Maybe it was my glasses but I could see the outlines of the different colors around everything. In all, it was a huge disappointment and waste of time.

I was also disappointed that The Living Seas was closed since it was my favorite with the dolphins and manatees. Plus people kept talking about the animated show with Crush from Finding Nemo and how cool it was but that was closed too since all of Living Seas is being revamped. Another thing I wanted to see but was also closed was Body Wars. I’m not sure why it’s considered a seasonal attraction, but that’s what the guide says.

So Epcot, while fun, wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I honestly don’t understand how people can go every year. I think what salvaged it was the newer attractions, otherwise we probably would have gotten bored even sooner. On the flip side, it was cool to see that some things don’t change, or at least not completely. I was happy that the jumping water was still there, but I swear it used to be where you could walk on it. Epcot still has that early 80’s feel to it (it opened in 1982) with the monorail running through it and the huge sphere, so that was nice, but it was a lot of walking for little payoff. Oh well, you can’t win them all right?

Tomorrow’s adventure: Universal Studios. I’ve been there before, so we’ll see how my memory held up with this one too.