MONDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER
Apart from waking up with the tv being put off we all slept like logs again and slept till around 9am. One of the major joys of Universal is never having to clock watch or have to be somewhere at a set time......that is not a vacation for us.
So after showering we set of upstairs for breakfast, Stephen in the lounge informed us it was going to rain later today and quite heavy so we ate quickly and headed to IOA after our usual dousing of sun cream. We walked again this morning......I don`t think I ever tire of this walk, it is so beautiful and really doesn`t take long at all. The sun at this point couldn`t make up it`s mind if it was coming out or not, but when it did....boy was it hot!!
Got to IOA a bit later than usual this morning. It was busier than before but not busy. Hulk had a 25 min wait, Doom and Spiderman were both 40 minutes surprisingly. We did them all several times as EP queue was non existent especially on Doom. I wish we could have just sat on the seat and not got off as we did this about 10 times....not our record.....but we got fed up going around and then decided to go to JP.
On the way round we stopped off at Me Ship, The Olive. We only found out about this a few years ago (Thanks Todd)....we have some fun shooting the water jets up top at unsuspecting people on the barges
We spend a bit of time up here but there are some littler kids who want to have a go......so I drag those 2 away and head to Popeye where we spend a small fortune on the showers that soak people on this ride......the showers are much better than the jets on this one.........we howl with laughter as people just don`t expect it........bit sad I know. But around $25 lighter we head round the park
By this time the sun had come out and it was boiling hot......this was one of the few days we felt it a bit humid thankfully. Humidity really knocked us for 6 our first September visit a few years back, but not this year......it was pure heat. When we got to JP the wait time showed 5 minutes........as we approached to get our EP scanned it jumped to 45 minutes!!! Wow.......quick jump........we did walk past an awful long queue and got to the front where we were the only ones in the EP queue...but we looked behind us and there were more people......don`t know where they all came from all of a sudden. Anyway, we got on and loved it as usual.......came off bone dry...not even a drop.....went back around and Kyle came on with us........we did walk past a lot of the same people and we did hear people comment about us just having been on. Doesn`t bother me a bit hearing people grumble about that.
But we got on the boat and this time we got drenched..........lol.......Kyle believes its him.....we almost always come off dry when he`s not on. He didn`t want to go on again, and as we all felt a bit hungry decided to eat early at Thunder Falls Terrace..........we really like it in here.....food is good and it`s never usually busy.......but my goodness it`s cold in there when your clothes are wet!!
We ordered 2 meals between the 3 of us as portions are very good in here......we had the Chicken wrap and the Ribs/chicken platter....it was delicious. That wrap is the freshest tasting wrap I have ever eaten, even Kyle enjoyed the other half. And the ribs and chicken never let us down
Not quite sure what I was looking at there..........but we all felt quite filled up even though we couldn`t quite finish what we had ordered. I`m glad we hadn`t ordered 3 meals, it was more than enough to share.
We then headed around to HP area. It`s funny, we never ever get bored going around the parks......the amount of people that ask if we ever get bored and don`t quite believe us when we say no. Maybe it`s because we don`t spend every minute there , with 17 days we can spend a few hours then leave as we`ll be back the next day.....I don`t know....it suits us.
The bridge was mobbed with people taking pictures so we didn`t hang around especially as it was starting to dull down by now.......that lovely cooling breeze had appeared and that usually means the rain is close. We didn`t bother with FJ, just went on DD twice then I had wanted to try Pumpkin Fizz.....another thing I only heard about last year. We do like the frozen butterbeer better than the regular but it is very sweet and thought this might be less sweet.
It was, but still very sweet. I went into the Hog`s Head to get it on my own, boys were in the bathroom and I said to the girl I had never tried it....so she gave me a little sample........that was nice of her.....I did like it and was glad I got one but not sure I would get another one. Gave her an extra tip, she was so nice. I have to say at this point I have never understood the bad reports that Universal staff get. We have never had a bad experience in all our trips and find the TM to be fantastic. Anyway, they didn`t really like it. Kyle doesn`t like fizzy drinks anyway but Tom made a face like he head just drank a polyjuice spell!!! Maybe not then.
It had just started to rain by now so we headed out of the park and walked back to the hotel. Wasn`t too bad a walk but by the time we got to the hotel it was really coming down. We went up to our room and by this time it was monsoon like......couldn`t see the park rides at all. So Kyle wanted to spend some time on the iPad.....Tom had the tv on......so I fell asleep. It was lovely being in the room all cosy while it was torrential outside.
I slept for an hour or so, woke up and it was still raining. We decided to eat in the hotel tonight as the rain obviously wasn`t going off anytime soon. We all got showered and decided to go and sit in the lounge for a while and decide where we wanted to eat.
It was really quiet as they were not serving anything yet so it was nice to sit and relax and chat with some of the staff members who we had gotten so friendly with by now. I said I quite fancied going back to Tchoup Chop.......but we had a not very good experience there a few years back and those 2 didn`t want to go back. The food was very under seasoned for us...if they say something will be spicy......I expect it to be spicy.......we had a drip coming from the roof onto our food, they moved us but weren`t going to change the food till we asked them too.....then we had another drip.....the manager explained it was normal for August? So all in all we didn`t enjoy it, but I wanted to try again. So I persuaded them it would be ok this time.....what could go wrong twice. Famous last words.
We had a look at the menu for there that was in the lounge, and there was a few things we would have chosen, even Kyle so Melissa said she would book it for us......we thanked her and she booked it for 8pm. So as it was still raining we sat in the lounge and waited to go down for dinner. We were hungry by then. We passed the time chatting with each other and the staff members who were just the nicest people.
So went down and it was 7.50 when we went in. They said they were running more or less to time so would we care to sit at the bar while we waited, so we did. We ordered a white wine each and Kyle had water and we sat. I commented I wish I had one of those bars in my house
So after a while we wondered what the delay was.....we were really hungry by now........the lovely girl behind the bar asked if we would like to see a menu while we waited and she would find out how long we were going to wait....it was now 8.40pm. Well, we looked at the menu and it was totally different to the one we had seen upstairs. There wasn`t as many courses and nothing that any of us fancied eating. So we asked the girl if this was the only menu, she said yes it was. We explained we had seen a totally different menu upstairs and as we had not waited nearly 45 minutes could we just pay for our drinks and we would eat somewhere else. We were very nice about it as it was not her fault we were still waiting....anyway she very kindly said there would be no charge for the drinks and apologised for the wait we had. We said no problem and still gave her a tip as she had been so lovely. The man on the desk looked at us when we left but didn`t ask why....we should have maybe told him.....but at this point we were so hungry we just wanted some food.......so headed to Jakes Bar.
I was so glad we did as we had a gorgeous meal here. It was quite busy but we got a table within 5 minutes.....we had "Wheels" serve us again, really cool guy who is a lot of fun. We asked about 2 of our favourite guys who worked there...Oscar and Lucky......they had both just left and we were sorry we had missed them as they were guys who had been there for quite a while. Anyway we ordered Kyle a cheese pizza and we shared the meat pizza and some wings. We forgot how big the pizzas are in here. We had asked for chicken on ours instead of the sausage and jalapenos on it........no problem at all.
It was all delicious. The wings came with a Blue cheese dip......now I hate blue cheese with a passion........but I thought I would try it and surprisingly it was delicious.......wouldn`t order it deliberately or eat it on its own but that one was nice. I was told there that under no circumstances was I to mention ever gong back to Tchoup Chop.........well I suppose after 2 bad experiences I couldn`t blame them. We had a lovely evening in Jake`s.........Bart and Homer came in and we all got our pictures taken with them, but I didn`t upload them to this account.
We decided to have some dessert, Wheels told us they were quite small, so Kyle had Flourless Chocolate cake, Tom and I had Strawberry cheesecake.....they were both delicious and Kyle said it was one of the nicest choc cakes he had ever eaten. Praise indeed.
Now we were full........finally. We sat for a while then went up to our room as it was late at this point......no idea of the real time, but late. So we watched a bit of tv and fell asleep. It was supposed to be raining again tomorrow, so not sure at that point what we would do.
..........lol.......yes a long commercial break......good description.........
so we got up, showered changed and headed for breakfast instead. We would find out later who got pole for tomorrows race.
However he just sat in the car and drank some water!!! By this time I was starting to see the funny side of my panic.......told Tom he could drive to Millenia Mall.
Now, all the time he said he was looking for him......he was really trying to see what was the best one for me. I felt quite annoyed at myself for being annoyed at the amount of time he wanted to look at them now. I gave him a massive hug and felt the tears prickling in my eyes......but that is not unusual for me......I can cry at the opening of an envelope.........but I had already gotten enough and just wasn`t expecting it. Tom said he is going to have my laptop and I was to choose whatever I wanted..........I looked to Kyle and asked him what he thought as I really had no idea what was the best one to get........so after a while and with some help from a staff member we left with a brand new iPad...........I was verrry happy. I kept saying thank you as I really was so surprised........So I asked what was he up to in Wal-Mart with the disappearing bag.......he laughed and said as I was getting an ipad I wouldn`t be needing a mouse.......and he wasn`t going to have a purple one....so he was returning it but knew I would wonder why he was taking back my lovely new purple mouse if I saw him.......so he was trying to be sneaky...lol......bless him he really is the best!!!
