Uternometer - 23rd Anniversary Adventure!

Be Aware - this post is very long...

Official Concert Poster

Last year, Hubby and I had a pretty good year, falling in love with each other all over again. I had been thinking of what we could do for our anniversary, when out of the blue, Weird Al Yankovic announced he was going on tour again. A year or so ago, he'd done a tour where he did a lot of deep cut, obscure songs, and I would have loved to go, but we couldn't afford it at the time...). This time, he would be playing all of his biggest hits, with a full orchestra. Oh, I was DOWN for this! I must get tickets for this one.

Oh, Al... you have no idea how many goosebumps!

Tickets were available for a few different venues in Florida, and I would have been okay with Tampa, Orlando, or Ft. Lauderdale, and it ended up that Orlando was the least expensive option. Fabulous! We can make it a week-long vacation and go to Disney too. An amazing plan was coming together.

I was online the day the tickets dropped and I got great seats - Floor seats, center section, row Q - at the Hard Rock at Universal CityWalk. These seats were only a few rows behind the extra expensive VIP section! I was so stoked.

The hard part? I was planning on surprising Hubby, so I had to sit on this epic plan for months!

At some point during this weird time frame (possibly even before I bought the tickets), Hubby and I were lying in bed, after Naked Time™, and he surprised the hell out of me by saying that I should go shopping on Amazon to buy some... well, you can probably fill in the blank. (I didn't even know Amazon sold stuff like that!).

So I did. (As an aside... wow... what an education THAT was! I'm not judging anyone, because someone probably thinks I am freaky, but... wow...).

Anyway... I had decided to buy something for me, something for him, and something for us. It was hard to buy something for him, because most things for dudes suck. Just sayin'... But I found some good options, and then had to hide them for months.

It became very hard to keep this secret (because I suck at hiding things), so I put the tickets inside his Valentine's Day card. He was shocked, but happy.

After... celebrating... we chitchatted, and I told him that if I was supposed to buy things from Amazon, he should do so as well. He looked me dead in the face and said, "Do what now?" After talking a few minutes, it seemed that the entire conversation took place within a dream. He swears to this day that we never had that original conversation, instead saying that I spoke with "Dream Hubby." But, to be a team player, he created an Amazon shopping list of stuff so he could surprise me. However, he's not generally that type of guy, so the majority of the stuff on the list was actually things I added.

Okay, so we're all caught up now, let's read on about the actual trip!

On Friday, Hubby was supposed to work, but he called out so we could leave earlier. We left around noon, and stopped at Wawa in Ocala (rather than hitting up the Circle K near the house). We also picked up both Wendy's and McDonald's for lunch on the drive down.

Once we got to Kissimmee, I screwed up and drove right by the entrance to the hotel, and we had to pull a U-Turn to get back there. Jokingly, I said we'll just have to add another U-Turn to the U-Turn meter (because we do them a lot). U-Turn Meter turned into Uternometer (pronounced Yoo-ter-naw-meh-ter), and we used it a lot this week!

After checking in at the hotel, we unpacked and admired the huge apartment. I can't even call it a hotel room - it had more square footage than our first apartment!

Floorplan of the hotel/apartment we stayed at

Clockwise: Patio (from bedroom), Master Bedroom, Bathtub (from shower), Master Closet, Shower

Clockwise: Looking towards door, Linen Closet, 2nd Bathroom, Laundry Room, Ironing Board, 2nd Bedroom

Baking supplies, baking dishes, utensils, fridge, under sink, knife block, view from living room patio

Various views of Living Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen

After relaxing a bit, we exchanged our Dream Hubby gifts, and enjoyed them immensely. Then we got dressed and headed over to Animal Kingdom.  

We got a great parking spot (I think it was "preferred" parking) since it was so late at night. We headed over to Kilimanjaro Safari to enjoy the Sunset Safari, but the ride was very boring, and it was too dark for photos. 

Yeah, it's already "night..." not really "sunset"

90% of my photos looked like this... I think this was the Hippo Pool

If you squint, you can see a giraffe up there

Waaaaay in the back, if you think about it, you'll see an Elephant or two

Under the tree, you might see a Lioness

Next, we headed over to Pandora and I took a LOT of photos... I'll spare you and just show you a few.

Oooh, pretty

Damn! This one's pretty freakin' good!

We debated hopping in line for Flight of Passage - the wait was only 105 minutes - but since we had FastPasses for Rivers of Light, we skipped it and made our way to the river.

We should have ridden Flight of Passage. 

Rivers of Light is a joke. I never saw the first or second iterations of this show, but some people have said that this is the best version, to which I just shake my head...

It was beautiful. But that was it. Anyone who sees this won't see it again. Anyone who uses a Fastpass should demand their Fastpass back. And Fastpasses are free. 

Oooh, pretty floaty things

Ooooh, movies on sprayed water

Ooooh, now there's boats!

Time to bring in the water pistols

Boats AND movies on water

Whoa! Boats AND water AND fire?

Big Finish! ALL the water, ALL the fire, ALL the movies, ALL the boats!

We closed down Animal Kingdom and decided on Subway for dinner. There was a family in front of us, and when they left, the Sandwich Artist asked that we lock the door after them - it was closing time, and he didn't want anyone else coming in... While he made our sandwiches he told us how much he hated his job, that he'd been robbed multiple times, and was going to quit as soon as we left... Poor guy! I really hope that 1) he quit his shitty job, and b) got a better job. 

We also picked up chips and sodas at Wawa, then ate dinner on the couch (because we fancy like that, in our apartment condo thing), and finally fell asleep around 2am.

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On Saturday, we slept in late, which felt so good because we didn't have anywhere to go. We had donuts, orange juice, and chocolate milk, feasting on real plates and glasses (because we fancy like that). Then I took a lovely bubble bath in the huge jetted tub.

Pictures don't do it justice, but my feet are so far away!

We went to Culver's for a late lunch. I ended up with the 2-piece Chicken Finger meal with mashed potatoes, and also tiny Custard Concretes for dessert.

And one stolen fry from Hubby

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon at Fantasia Gardens playing a round of golf. (Tip: Annual Passholders get 15% off). It was really busy, so there was a 20 minute wait. I, of course, wandered around taking random photos of ducks.

Quack

Whatever

When it was our turn, we had a lot of fun. Fantasia is one of my favorite Disney movies, mostly because I have a history with the music from The Nutcracker (the music is about half of the movie). The course was very easy, and featured characters from the movie.

Themes of various holes

After this fun, we headed back to our apartment and vegged out until it was time to head to the next awesome part of our adventure - H2O Glow Nights at Typhoon Lagoon. This was another surprise I'd originally planned, but then over the months before the trip, I got the idea that he didn't want to go (he's not a water park kind of guy). After I gave him the concert tickets, I brought up the idea of H20 one day in the car, and he was all for it, so I scored two tickets during our trip!

When we left the apartment, it looked like rain... uh, oh.

We got to Typhoon Lagoon around 6:10 or so. Lots of people were leaving while we were entering.

We look so cute

After we checked in and got our cool wristbands and light-up bracelets, we realized why everyone was leaving... everything was closed because there was lightning in the area.

Wristband and Light-Up Bracelet

We got our locker and parked all of our gear, then set off to wander around the park.

Yep, there's some rain comin' our way!

At one point, we headed back to the lockers so I could take out my contacts, and the sky just opened up! We were stuck, hanging out under the overhangs for a good chunk of time. (the irony that we were hiding from RAIN at a WATER park is not lost on me)

It's POURING but you can't see it

When the rain let up, we wandered some more.

Crushin' Gusher

Take that, lifeguards! I'm in the water!

Finally, around 7:30, about 90 minutes after we got there (but 30 minutes before the event officially began), everything was opened again. Hubby and I made our way to Miss Adventure Falls, which was a great ride. When we came to the end, we were able to stay in the raft to go again! after the second go-round, they asked us to roll out of the raft, and I am apparently an idiot who doesn't know how to roll out of a raft, because I slammed both knees into the gritty bottom of the water area. When I surfaced, the cast member looked at me like I was just fucking around, but I was really hurting!

 

We took a break and floated around the Lazy River for while while my knees stopped throbbing. Then I went over to the Storm Slides and rode Rudder Buster (I skipped Jib Jammer and Stern Burner, because they are very similar, I was told). Hubby's not a body slide kind of guy, so he stayed down at the bottom to wait for me.

#BodyGoals - Full Length Photo in a bathing suit

After that, we rode Gangplank Falls, Keelhaul Falls, and Mayday Falls. Gangplank was a multi-rider ride, while the other two were single-rider rides.

We hit up a PhotoPass stop (yes, boys and girls... I took a photo in nothing but a bathing suit), and then decided it was time for some snacks.

Hubby wanted the cool bathtub sundae, and I wanted something to settle my tummy. After waiting in line for 10 minutes, I discovered that if you aren't staying at a Disney Resort, you can't use your Magic Band to pay for things, even if you have a credit card attached to it. So I had to hoof it back to the lockers and come back.

Once we were able to get our treats, however, we had a seat in a nearby picnic table area to enjoy our booty. Hubby go the Bathtub Sundae, which had ice cream, cake, whipped cream, sprinkles, crispy pearls, a glow cube, and white chocolate duckies. I got a Diet Coke, served in a (plastic, unfortunately) light-up pint glass.(I had buyer's remorse about the cup - it was TEN BUCKS - but as I write this blog, the cup is on my shelf holding my scissors, and it makes me smile, so... worth it?)

$35 worth of quirky food and drinks

As we sat there, and gorged on sweets, my legs started drying, and holy crap, my knees were itchy! I was smart enough before we left the lockers to tuck some lip balm in the top of my bathing suit, so I smeared some of that on my knees, and made them feel better for a while.

Disney and Dat-Knee... they both hurt

Full of way too much dairy (and we only conquered half of the monstrosity - it was a lot bigger than it looked), we rode Miss Adventure Falls one more time, then stayed on the Lazy River for the final hour, until we were forced to get out. That, for me, was the biggest selling point of the whole party. It was quiet (at times, we were the only ones there), it was peaceful, it wasn't hot out (since it was night). Hubby and I could talk about whatever we wanted. We could hold hands while we floated and not worry about blocking other people. And biggest bonus - there weren't any drunk people around us.

Goodbye, Typhoon Lagoon! I hope we can come back and do it again!

Sadly, we headed back to our lockers, wrapped ourselves in our big towels and made our way back to the apartment.  My knees were screaming at me; I'm definitely going to have to find some Band-Aids tomorrow to cover these up!

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Sunday was a lazy day, as the only thing we had planned was a fancy dinner to officially celebrate our 23rd anniversary. We slept in late again (at this point, my sleep schedule was all fucked up... waking up for work is gonna suck, when we get home!)

I took another bubble bath in the huge tub, then enjoyed donuts and orange juice for breakfast, and lounged around in bed for a few hours.  I wanted to get a sandwich - like a deli sandwich, like a freakin' club sandwich - for lunch, but those types of joints are hard to find, apparently, and we ended up at Denny's of all places. We shared a Pick-3 Sampler of chicken fingers and mozzarella sticks. We also stopped by Walgreen's for Band-Aids so I could take care of my knees. I got a few boxes to try out.

Left Knee - Band-Aid®          Right Knee - Nexcare®

Back at the hotel, it was time to change for dinner. Originally, I had specific lingerie I was going to wear to surprise him, but I decided instead to let him decide what I should wear. He chose one of the Dream Hubby purchases, and thoroughly enjoyed that decision, making the drive to dinner very... um... hard. To distract himself, he took some selfies for me to use as contact photos.

Spoiler: I haven't used any of these

Dinner was at The BOATHOUSE Orlando, at Disney Springs. We'd never eaten there, but it was a change from Via Napoli (our go-to celebration joint), but not as fancy as Yachtsman Steakhouse (where we celebrated our 15th anniversary). Hubby had the steak, while I had cod. The bread service was delicious, the entrees were off the chain phenomenal, and they leave the carafe of water on the table for you the entire meal (a big plus for me, since I drink a lot of water).

Panko Crusted Cod, water, bread service, NY Strip

After dinner, we wandered around until we found the PhotoPass Studio, and took some fun "dressed up" couple photos.

Oooh, they look so real!

Our last stop at Disney Springs was over to Chicken Guy for one of their Triple Mint Milkshakes for Hubby. I was still too full of cod to even think about dessert.

With grey skies above us, we popped over to Epcot, because I wanted to shoot Illuminations one more time before it retires in a few months. I had to stop at the potties to take off my stockings first... the cheap fabric was giving me blisters on the balls of my feet. Since the restrooms are not within the boundaries of the park itself (outside the tapstiles), it was very quiet and we chose to sit on a bench for a while, enjoying each others' company, and the breeze.

Eventually, we headed into Epcot, and rode Spaceship Earth. 

Like a grand and miraculous spaceship...

As we exited the ride to outside, there here a handful of people blocking the exterior exit, and soon we saw why... it was raining. People at Disney always hide from rain, even if it's just the tiniest bit of rain. If I wasn't dressed up in fancy clothes and heels, and carrying my tripod and DSLR, I would have been okay with it. But, with the circumstances, we decided to hang out with everyone else and see if the rain let up.

More heavy rain moving into #Tampa and #Orlando metro areas. Watch for localized flooding and ponding on roadways. #FLwx pic.twitter.com/D4JnKkpm9r

— Florida Storms (@FloridaStorms) June 10, 2019

No way, man, I can't believe this shit either!

We stuck it out for about a half hour, as we kept getting more and more squished into a corner by people seeking coverage from the rain, until we gave up. We put on our cheap Dollar Tree ponchos (thank God we had the forethought to stuff two of them in Hubby's back pocket), I took off my shoes (also, thank God I'd already taken off my stockings), and walked the entire way, barefoot, back to the car.

As you can imagine, Dollar Tree ponchos are not the best ponchos, and by the time we got to the car, we were soaked from the knees down. 

And what does one do after they walk through a theme park in the rain and get soaked from the knees down? You go to Wawa, of course! I wanted to put my stockings back on so Hubby could get the full effect later, and I wanted a soda. We got our snacks and headed back to the apartment. 

To round out the night, we did a lot of things about which I will not go into detail, but I will simply say that it was a hell of a night.  

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On Monday, our last full day of vacation, we slept in... again. And I took a bubble bath... again. I'm getting spoiled!

We headed to lunch at the Wendy's in Clermont, on State Road 27, which was actually closer to the apartment than was the Wendy's on US-192. It was also much quieter, which I enjoyed. We got small lunches, since we were going to go out to dinner before the concert.

Back at the apartment we relaxed and prepared for tonight. We debated what to do for dinner, and thought it would be better to eat dinner closer to Universal. Hey, what about Fuddrucker's? I remember them from when I was a kid... I always thought they had a fun name, but I'd never been there. The menu looked good, so we decided to head that way. 

When we got there, we were a little taken aback. It was in some sort of mall, but not a mall, but not a strip mall, kind of area? Like it was under construction, maybe? We parked and headed towards the door, behind another couple also headed to the same place.  However, they went in and came right back out. We overheard them as they left saying, "I don't never go to a place that ain't got no customers." 

Hmm.... Curious and curiouser...

When we got inside, she was in fact correct; there were no customers. Not even one. Literally, NO customers. We assumed it was because it was still early (hindsight being what it is... it still should have been busy at a 5pm on a Monday, because International Drive is a tourist-heavy area!)

Absolutely NO customers in this joint

Hubby got chicken fingers and I got a basic burger. 

Chicken Fingers and wedges

Bacon Cheeseburger and wedges

I'd say it was okay, at best. The bun was way too light and squishy for the burger, and it got very soggy from the burger juices. I was upset that we got wedge fries instead of actual fries, especially because they had Electric Cheese™ (melted cheese) at the condiment bar. I only ate half of my meal, as did Hubby.

(No surprise at all... a few weeks later, when I went to Google to write my reviews, it showed that this place was permanently closed... we probably were there on one of their very last opening days.)

After our disappointing dinner, we drove over to Universal Studios.

There was not as much traffic as I was expecting, and it was easy to find our way to the parking garage. Even though I budgeted $25 for parking, I was happy to see that parking was free after 6pm. We were directed to park on the top floor, in Spider-Man parking.




We followed all the signs, and ended up at this huge hub that they use for bag check (take a lesson here, Disney, this is a smart idea). They have bag scanners and metal detectors; all you have to do is put your bag on the belt and run it though (like at courthouses), and walk through the detector, and bam, you're good to go. Very easy!

We made our way to CityWalk and down towards the water to get to Hard Rock Cafe.

Hard Rock Live, from across the bay

The doors weren't open yet, so we had to wait in line, which was fine. But, man, it was HOT!  Luckily, it was only a 15 minute wait or so, and then we were in. I hit the potty before we took our seats, and man, what great seats they were!

Horrible, horrible cell-phone selfie from our seats

The show opened with the Orlando Symphony Orchestra playing three great soundtracks: Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, and Superman. (ETA: I have to add here that I didn't record this simply because I wanted to record it... I thought something, well... weird was gonna happen to open the show. At one point, Hubby gave me The Look and wanted to know why I was recording... After 20 minutes, nothing happened, and I kind of felt ripped off...)

I'd add the videos here, but Blogger sucks

and won't let me upload any bigger than 100mb...

But if you clink on the links above, you can go to my spankin' new YouTube page! 

Anyway, after a great 20 minute symphony, we got a 20 minute intermission... wha?

After intermission, Weird Al started with Fun Zone. Two interesting things about this song... 1) He uses this song as his "walk out" song for every concert since 1989, and B) it is now my personalized ring tone for Hubby.

I won't cover the entire concert - WHICH WAS AWESOME - but here are some photos:

Top Row: Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota, Word Crimes, One More Minute, Jurassic Park

2nd Row: Don't Download This Song, Weasel Stomping Day, Tacky, Harvey the Wonder Hamster

3rd Row: Smells Like Nirvana, Dare to Be Stupid, White & Nerdy, Amish Paradise

Bottom Row: The Saga Begins, Yoda (and 2 extra photos of Yoda/Finale of concert)

I only missed out on photos of Fun Zone, Like a Surgeon, and I Lost on Jeopardy.

At the end of the concert, confetti exploded all over the audience, and I was immediately up on my feet, as was everyone in the venue.

Go check out Nathan W. Pyle's twitter for more Strange Planet Cartoons

It seemed like it was such a short concert, but when I looked at my watch, it was already 10pm, so we did get a good 90 minute concert. There was no second encore; we all just got up and left. Leaving the venue was really easy, and as we walked out, we debated heading across the way to pick up donuts at Voodoo Donut, but once we got over there, the line was at least 20 minutes long... yeah, I didn't want a Name Brand Donut that badly!

After getting slightly lost on I-Drive (and adding a tick to the Uternometer), we got back on I-4, hit up Wawa and Krispy Kreme for drinks and donuts (yeah, I really wanted a donut), before heading back to the apartment for our last night.  We thought ahead and did a lot of packing before going to bed so we wouldn't have to rush in the morning; especially because check-out was at 10am.

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On Tuesday, our last day in town, we ignored the 8am alarm we set and reset it for 9am. We finally got up around 9:30, thankful that we packed a lot last night. The front desk gave us a courtesy call at 9:45 to remind us to basically GTFO, and we were able to check out via the phone; they simply asked that we leave our key cards on the dining room table.

Sounds great, right? Yeah... except once we had the entire car packed up, Hubby realized he left his gear bag on the table. In the apartment. Next to the key cards. I had to walk up to the Front Desk to have them call a maid to let him back in. 

Gear bag in hand, we made our way to Animal Kingdom. He asked before we even left if I took some Dramamine (which I had). When we got to AK, he asked again if I took Dramamine. I said, again, that I had. What the heck, man? As we entered AK, we hit up lots of PhotoPass people, as we made our way towards the back of the park. 

The gorgeous, Devine

Random photopass (ignore that strange Pirates ride photo over there...)

I figured that he was going to drag my ass on Primeval Whirl (which I don't like), but instead, he got in line for Expedition Everest! WHAT?!?!

We're so cute! And kind of matchy-matchy...

He said that after we were here a few days ago, he wondered if he could actually ride it, especially in the dark, so he couldn't see how high up he was, but he kind of chickened out. After that, he basically psyched himself up all weekend so he could do it.

I think the wait was about an hour, but he never freaked out, he rode it fine, and he even kind of liked it! I'm so proud of him for conquering his fear (and now this means I get to ride it more!)

Put your hands in the air like you don't care!

After exiting the ride, I walked off some queasiness and hit up some more PhotoPass folks. We even found Kevin posing for photos with some newlyweds.

Kevin is a great addition to Animal Kingdom

Over in Pandora, we hopped in line for Flight of Passage, with about a 2-hour wait. Man, I love this ride!

We left Animal Kingdom and drove over to Magic Kingdom and took the Monorail to the park. Inside our cabin, part of the door mechanics were broken! It was fun to see a maintenance guy come fix it though. 

#ShutItDown

Hello, Gorgeous!

While we were in the car, we placed a Mobile Order for Columbia Harbor House and it was ready for us when we got there (we so fancy).

After lunch, we rode Pirates, the PeopleMover, and the Carousel of Progress.

My dream kitchen

We hit up a few more PhotoPass spots, but as we left it was too late for us to enjoy a Peanut Butter Brownie Sundae at the Plaza.

When we got back to the car, however, we still wanted ice cream, so we ended up at Cold Stone! After ice cream, we got drinks at Wawa and headed home.

So, if anyone is interested, here's a budget breakdown:

• Pre-Vacation Purchases (Tickets, Concert, Hotel, Dream Hubby, Clothing, etc) - $990
• Total Estimated Vaca Budget (Parking, Food, Souvenirs, Mini-Golf, etc)  - $1200
• Actual Total Spent (doesn't include PVP) $335
• Entire Vacation Spent $ 1,325
• Which included 4-Night hotel stay, concert tickets, special event tickets, mini-golf, anniversary dinner, and everything else listed in the blog above

I saved over $850 on this trip! Granted, I am a huge over-estimator for budgeting, but I'd rather have too much money left over than run out of money halfway through a trip.

I'm so stoked with how awesome this trip was, even with how little we actually spent!!! How are we going to top this for our 24th or 25th anniversary?!?