Walt Disney World ICP - Day 51 - My last day off...(kind of) - 23rd July 2013
So today was my last day off before my parents arrive. When they are here I'll pretty much be spending all my time with them and I've even scheduled what I'm doing on each day, so it was the last real free day out. It was also a chance to have a day off with my uni mate, Joe and my roommate Dan. Where's the perfect place to go? Universal of course.
We all got the i-ride trolley instead of a cab because it's so cheap. Just 25 cents for cast members ($1.50 for the public) versus $8 each for a cab. It does take about an hour total instead of 20 minutes, but we left early. I thought we were getting there for park opening at 9am but it turned out the park was open for 8am which was a bit disappointing.
We rode Hulk to begin the day at Islands of Adventure - it was a 35 minute wait and the single rider line was closed which was annoying. Then it was Spider-Man which I still love - it was a walk-on as we single-ridered it instead of waiting another 35 minutes. These single rider lines are a godsend!
I said we should do the water rides before they got busy and it was due to rain in about an hour. Surprisingly all the water rides had a 15 minute queue or less. However, we soon found out that the lockers are NOT free for water rides - the place where you need them most. Being cheapskates and not wanting to pay $4 for a locker there was a simple solution - we trekked across to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and put our bags in the lockers where we had 1h 10m minutes of free locker time which we though would have been enough.
We rode Jurassic Park first with the aim of doing rides in ever-increasing wetness. We got pretty wet on Jurassic but it was nice in the heat. Surprisingly, we got on in just 5 minutes which was great. Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls was next. If you've never seen this ride, it’s like Splash Mountain on steroids - it has a huge drop and you get soaked.
It was a 15 minute wait...we thought. After walking around a line that must have been over a mile long, 15 minutes later we got to where the queue of people was and then queued for another half an hour or so - the total queue time was closer to 45 minutes. The ride was fun and we did get soaked. I thought I wasn't wet after the big drop but then as I begun to laugh at the others water jets next to us soaked us to the core. It felt great, until it started to rain torrentially seconds later. We were now late for our lockers and drenched - the locker attendant was hardly going to believe us when we said we had waited in line too long if we were that wet - especially considering the Harry Potter queue is covered.
Joe went ahead to get our things from the locker as I and Dan got the on-ride photo added to my photo connect card (I highly recommend this!). He managed to sweet talk his way into getting the locker unlocked for free which I hugely appreciated and we had our stuff! Result!
Joe didn't have the 2-park annual pass as he had bought the power pass so he went off for the rest of his day as I and Dan ate near the Jurassic Park ride and then moved over to Universal Studios. Well that was what we were going to do but we were still soaked through so had to find a way to dry off. We did the Caro-seuss-el first hoping it would act as a tumble dryer with the spinning. It didn't. But whilst in line I got to hear this hilarious line from a little kid: "Mom, be careful that water is wet."
We then rode the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride and single-rider from the top of the steps to the front took 30 minutes which we were prepared to do considering the regular line was 90 minutes. We then did the Castle Tour so I could get some good photos. Then to continue to dry us off we did Dragon Challenge - first the blue dragon and then used the shorter re-ride queue to ride the red dragon in 20 minutes. Both are cool; the blue one has cooler inversions but the red version felt faster.
We went over to Universal Studios as there were still a few rides I had never done, but we had to hit the headliners first - Rip Ride Rockit claimed to be a 60 minute single-rider queue and even though the ride was down for 10 minutes, we still got on in half an hour. Mummy single-rider was 20 minutes versus 30 minutes in regular so next time I would just wait in the regular line as it moves faster. Terminator was a very cool show and the Horror Make Up Show was fun though I was glad I wasn’t picked to participate.
We saw the parade which, like the fireworks I had seen last time, wasn't great. We only waited a couple of minutes and I wouldn't do the same again personally. The Simpsons Ride was next and we got on in 30 minutes. The queue is actually quite fun as you just watch clips from episodes of the Simpsons plus I'm a big fan of their humour. I really enjoyed the ride and the screen is huge!
We checked the wait time for Men in Black: Alien Attack and it was a shocking 45 minutes so we skipped it with the possibility of coming back later. The park was packed with tour groups which didn't help things. I hope they aren't here when my family is over.
We went to watch the Beetlejuice show next which was alright but wildly out of date and that's how we ended the day after walking around and seeing how busy it was.
For reference of course the two busiest rides (which we skipped) were Transformers with a 100 minute wait and Despicable Me with a 120 minute wait. ET had a shocking 30 minute wait instead of the walk-on it usually is. The Seuss Train was 45 minutes and the One Fish, Two Fish ride was 35 minutes. It was a busy day but we did a lot. We left around an hour before park close. Now, 9 days of work in a row to look forward to!
Next Post: Walt Disney World ICP - Day 52 to 54 - 3 days of work - 24th-26th July 2013
We all got the i-ride trolley instead of a cab because it's so cheap. Just 25 cents for cast members ($1.50 for the public) versus $8 each for a cab. It does take about an hour total instead of 20 minutes, but we left early. I thought we were getting there for park opening at 9am but it turned out the park was open for 8am which was a bit disappointing.
 |
| On the i-ride Trolley |
We rode Hulk to begin the day at Islands of Adventure - it was a 35 minute wait and the single rider line was closed which was annoying. Then it was Spider-Man which I still love - it was a walk-on as we single-ridered it instead of waiting another 35 minutes. These single rider lines are a godsend!
I said we should do the water rides before they got busy and it was due to rain in about an hour. Surprisingly all the water rides had a 15 minute queue or less. However, we soon found out that the lockers are NOT free for water rides - the place where you need them most. Being cheapskates and not wanting to pay $4 for a locker there was a simple solution - we trekked across to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and put our bags in the lockers where we had 1h 10m minutes of free locker time which we though would have been enough.
We rode Jurassic Park first with the aim of doing rides in ever-increasing wetness. We got pretty wet on Jurassic but it was nice in the heat. Surprisingly, we got on in just 5 minutes which was great. Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls was next. If you've never seen this ride, it’s like Splash Mountain on steroids - it has a huge drop and you get soaked.
 |
| The Dudley water ride - great times! |
Joe went ahead to get our things from the locker as I and Dan got the on-ride photo added to my photo connect card (I highly recommend this!). He managed to sweet talk his way into getting the locker unlocked for free which I hugely appreciated and we had our stuff! Result!
Joe didn't have the 2-park annual pass as he had bought the power pass so he went off for the rest of his day as I and Dan ate near the Jurassic Park ride and then moved over to Universal Studios. Well that was what we were going to do but we were still soaked through so had to find a way to dry off. We did the Caro-seuss-el first hoping it would act as a tumble dryer with the spinning. It didn't. But whilst in line I got to hear this hilarious line from a little kid: "Mom, be careful that water is wet."
We went over to Universal Studios as there were still a few rides I had never done, but we had to hit the headliners first - Rip Ride Rockit claimed to be a 60 minute single-rider queue and even though the ride was down for 10 minutes, we still got on in half an hour. Mummy single-rider was 20 minutes versus 30 minutes in regular so next time I would just wait in the regular line as it moves faster. Terminator was a very cool show and the Horror Make Up Show was fun though I was glad I wasn’t picked to participate.
 |
| Me quite clearly loving life on the front row of Revenge of The Mummy |
We saw the parade which, like the fireworks I had seen last time, wasn't great. We only waited a couple of minutes and I wouldn't do the same again personally. The Simpsons Ride was next and we got on in 30 minutes. The queue is actually quite fun as you just watch clips from episodes of the Simpsons plus I'm a big fan of their humour. I really enjoyed the ride and the screen is huge!
We checked the wait time for Men in Black: Alien Attack and it was a shocking 45 minutes so we skipped it with the possibility of coming back later. The park was packed with tour groups which didn't help things. I hope they aren't here when my family is over.
We went to watch the Beetlejuice show next which was alright but wildly out of date and that's how we ended the day after walking around and seeing how busy it was.
For reference of course the two busiest rides (which we skipped) were Transformers with a 100 minute wait and Despicable Me with a 120 minute wait. ET had a shocking 30 minute wait instead of the walk-on it usually is. The Seuss Train was 45 minutes and the One Fish, Two Fish ride was 35 minutes. It was a busy day but we did a lot. We left around an hour before park close. Now, 9 days of work in a row to look forward to!
Next Post: Walt Disney World ICP - Day 52 to 54 - 3 days of work - 24th-26th July 2013
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