ACE Spring Conference '11 IOA & Unversal April 8-10th

This event actally started on Friday at Old Towne but I couldn't get off of work so was forced to wait until the weekend for IOA and US. No sweat!

Living 21.3 miles from Universal sure makes my drive there easier than any park back home for me. If I was willing to pay the tolls (I’m not) I could make it 18 miles. I will take the 35 minute drive any day over the hauls to the Ohio parks.

I made a dire mistake by stopping at McDonalds in Maitland and had the egg McMuffin from hell. I took 1 bite and I was done. I could barely finish the iced coffee. I was terrified that would come back to haunt me some time during the day :(

Met the ACE crowd in front of IOA. I ended up hanging out with one of my CP buds Tim. We had hung out at HW HN (when hubby couldn’t ride cause of his brain surgery) so I knew it would be fun. Our adventure began at Hulk at IOA at 7:30am. We were forewarned there would be no reriding but they were nice enough to let us go back through the Express line. Like this ride, always have. Reminds me of Dominator on steroids less the head banging but the length of the ride is long like Dominator. I do need to question the no reriding, I guess I don’t understand why it makes sense to send out empty trains. Even at that, I managed 8 rides, Tim 5.

We got an early walk to Spiderman for 1 of the 1 rides of the day. Its hard to get excited about this ride once you’ve ridden it once but it was still fun and it already was a relief to get into a/c.

We both decided to get something to eat before hitting the park (apparently my body was able to defend itself against the McMuffin from earlier, thank goodness) We enjoyed our breakfast at PastaMore eating outside with 3 pidgeons. Some of them were just strolling into the restaurant…classic.

It was Tim's 1st time on Harry Potter and since he didnt see any of the movies he was less impressed then he should have been. The dragon still freaked me out and the spiders....ewwwww

From there we managed to hit about everything on the IOA side before we headed for Universal.

Tim had never been there before so I got to play tour guide. We did Jaws, MIB, The Simpsons, Disaster, Woody Woodpeckers coaster, ET, and Rip Ride Rockit. He and I LOVED RRR (Id been on it last Sunday already) and since we had ERT on it the next morning decided 1 ride was good enough for us. We also skipped The Mummy due to having 1 rides after ERT the next morn.

After bearing the lines and heat Tim went back to his hotel and I decided against driving home for a nap (any of you who have ever had to contend with dIe-4 understand) Took a 3 hr nap in my car and headed back out to IOA. I rode fka Fire and Ice 4x each. The actual line wait was only 5 minutes but the walk through the castle takes forever! I have adored these 2 B&Ms since the 1 time I rode them in ‘03. The Gs are incredible (more on Ice then Fire) I managed to grey out more than once during my rides. LOVE them! :)
Hate the fact they don’t sell ANY shirts with the Dragon Challenge on it, the only thing they do have is a pin for each ride. Kinda lame considering how great these rides are.

At the hotel that evening was the all you can eat BBQ and pool party for ACEers .. I didn’t feel like waiting till 8pm ro eat and since I'm bathing suit intolerant it wouldn’t have been too much fun for me. I had my dinner at Bubba Gumps (cajon shrimp Im addicted) and then I headed home.　

Next morning we all met at US for some Rockit ERT. Just love this ride too (avoid rows 3 and 6) I always pick Crystal Method to listen to. No reriding but we were allowed to walk up the stairs behind the control booth to walk back to the line. Cake. As rides went on people were dropping like flies. I think there was only like 20 people (me included) still riding. I managed 13 ERT rides.

The ride itself is really so much fun-the 1 hill reminds me of a ride I used to ride when I was a kid (Tobaggan?) you literally go straight up before dropping down. Just so fun and so long a ride. Liked this ride so much I got a shirt! :)

Off to The Mummy for our early rides. The 1 ride I was the only one on the train. Talk about creepy! OMG it really was! Had to ride solo again on last ride. Cant say I was upset over it being last ride!
I noticed you could hear the propane (if that’s what they use) before the various fireballs. And although I will admit closing my eyes at the 1 part I will admit to being intrigued by watching the track switch over when we turned around.
I have to add here that this Mummy kicks the one in Hollywood to the curb. This one is a great ride with airtime and much more and better effects! I liked it though much better when I wasn’t the only "soul" on the train :)

I also have to mention here how clean these parks always are. I mean spotless. Tim and I noticed the lack of gum stuck anywhere (even in the never ending queues) considering the amount of guests these parks handle daily kudos to them for not allowing it to get dirty ANYWHERE! Even the bathrooms were spotless!

Tim and I took on the rest of the park and rerode several of the rides from the day before. We eventually ended up back at IOA where we hit the indoor rides again and by noon the Florida heat was killin (yea I know its Florida) so we both packed it in.

Spring Conference ‘11 was a blast! Even though I’m a US season pass holder, I still had so much fun with the ERT sessions and seeing coaster buds I hadn’t seen since last year. I also met a lot of new southern ACE friends.

It was officially my 1 coaster event of 2011 and I loved it :)
My thanks to US and IOA for a fun event and your great hospitality!

And to the Dragons….I will return soon!

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 3000 :)