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 Traffic was not too
bad, and fairly soon we were at Universal Studios. Gotta love
that free parking for Preferred AP holders, but it was about as FAR
from the park as you can possibly be. We made our way through
City Walk and decided that we would go to Islands of Adventure
first. It was about 11am, so we were later than I thought we
would be. It was NOT crowded at ALL. I walked right
on the Hulk while the girls TRIED to do the Super Hero version of the
teacups. The Hulk was awesome, but when I found the girls they
were waiting for a tea cup to be cleaned after the previous occupant
did a bit too much spinning! Yuck! Kristen and I changed
places and I waited with the girls, but it was not meant to
be. Kristen was back from her turn on the hulk and we STILL
didn’t go. Guess it was a BIG mess.... SO glad that isn’t
my job! :-P
 So
we left and headed onward to SpiderMan. There were several
superheroes posing around the entrance, but we couldn’t get the girls
interested in a picture with them. "Those are BOY
superheroes!" ;-) Geeeeezzzzzz.... They DID like
seeing Spiderman last trip though! Guess he is OK - they saw his
movie! :-D
 On into Spiderman. It was
almost a walk-on and I think the FIRST time I’ve been through the
standby queue! The pre-show video actually EXPLAINS some of the
background story that I never knew before! It all makes so much
more sense now! ;-)
 Soon we were off
and had a great ride. The girls will NOT wear the 3D glasses on
this one, but enjoy being tossed around. Kristen has ALWAYS
screamed during the final fall, and was no disappointment today!
:-) We love this ride!
 After that we just wandered back
through Toon Lagoon and then Jurassic Park area. With the super
low crowds we even wandered into the Prehistoric Playground to ride the
Pterodactyl Flyers (is that right?) ride. This was by far
the LONGEST wait of the day, but it was NOT hot, and now we can say we
have done it. Its got to be the slowest loading and shortest ride
for the wait EVER! But it was OK, and the girls liked it.
Whoever designed THAT one needs a good reality slap! Four people
a minute loading means that only 240 per hour and under 2000 for an 8
hour day!!! NOT a good idea in a busy park!!!
 ON to the Lost
Continent. Here we broke up again. The girls headed for the
flying Unicorn coaster and I went off to Fire and Ice Coaster.
They just rode and rode (no line) while I waited on both the Fire and
Ice sides. (also short lines, but only ONE car running on each
side. So SLOOOOWWWW. I love this coaster and if they were
running more trains I would have waited for the front seat. Back
I went to the Flying Unicorn and the girls had ridded about 6 or 7
times! And they were disappointed to stop! :-)
 It was time for a
late lunch, so we decided on eating at Mythos again. We had
originally planned on hitting both parks, but seeing as we were a bit
late arriving, and the fact that we missed the Holiday extras by 4 days
- No Grinchmas or Macy’s parade until 12/9! Bummer - that was why
we came today... Guess I should have looked this up beforehand!
;-) Anyway, we decided to JUST do Islands of Adventure, and then
head to the airport. That gave us time for a nice later
lunch at Mythos. Everything was very good and it was
actually pretty busy in there.
 After eating we headed towards Seussland. The
girls LOVE Seussland, so we saved it for last. THIS is where they
put ALL the decorations. It was heavily decorated EVERYWHERE and
very festive. They were still setting up the large centerpiece
tree and it was cool that even the tree wasn’t ‘straight’, but warped
in a seussian manner. :-) We saw several characters
immediately including Sam-I-Am and the guy that won’t eat the green
eyes and ham (what’s his name?), The Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing
2 and we SAW the old-style Grinch, but he got away before we could get
a picture. That’s OK - we saw him in August!
Then it was off for a few rides. The girls did One-Fish, Two-Fish
which was also pretty slow to load. Then off to Cat in the Hat -
always a favorite. We did some shopping, and then exited back
toward the main entrance. It was about time to head out for the
airport, but we had time to enjoy some ice cream before we
left. It was another perfect day, and we enjoyed people
watching for a bit and then headed back through City walk to the
car. Kristen and I changed into long pants to prepare for
those freezing NY temperatures and then we drove to the airport after
filling the rental car gas tank.
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Today
is our last day in Orlando. We woke up pretty well to get ready
for an 8:30p reservation at 1900 Park Fare. This is Kristen’s
absolute FAVORITE place for breakfast in WDW and she did NOT want to
give it up for more sleep - which says MORE than you can imagine!
;-)
After we got
dressed and did our final packing we called Bell Services and the valet
to have the car pulled around. 
Bell Services was there in NO
time, and almost had the car fully packed by the time I did a final
room check and got down there myself! They make it clear that the
Bellman and the Valet are different so I made sure to tip both
separately. And then we were off.
We said our
goodbyes to the Wilderness Lodge, and made the short drive over to the
Grand Floridian. We arrived in plenty of time for breakfast, and
spent a bit of time with Mary Poppins in the lobby area of the
restaurant. She was wonderful, and the girls enjoyed seeing
her. After that they took us right in to our table, and soon our
waitress brought juice and other drinks and explained the buffet a
bit. 
The food today was
wonderful as always. And the characters in attendance were Pooh
and Tigger as well as Alice and the Mad Hatter. We had a great
time, and really enjoyed both the characters and the meal. The
buffet choices were excellent, and the made to order omelets
delicious. We told Brinn this was her Birthday celebration day so
they brought out placemats for both girls (since Maddy’s birthday was
just a couple days previous) and then a server ANNOUNCED Brinn’s
Birthday as everyone sang! They also brought her out a Birthday
crown (Had a boy’s at first because they thought she was a ‘Brian’!)
which was really nice. She loved it and wore it the rest of the
day I think!
Light traffic, and
no delays had us there right on time. We returned the car and a
great porter helped us with the bags. He was DEFINITELY worth the
tip! He took us directly to the Southwest desk, had our bags
tagged and over to security in a flash! Very professional and
quick without rushing us. After that Brinn made a quick
stop at the Seaworld store and then it was off through security and out
to our gate. We plopped the girls down in the ‘B’ line (I forgot
to login right at 24 hours, and had only pre-boarded this morning
before leaving the room.) One nice thing is that you can register
online, and then REPRINT your boarding passes at the bag check
kiosk. Just a hit for those with a computer, but no printer.
We relaxed until it was time for the flight to load, and
then we were off. We didn’t have any trouble getting seats
together, but it was toward the back of the plane. No problem
though - Albany has both a front and back ramp! So, we were off
the plane quickly upon landing! :-) Two thumbs up for
Southwest this trip and they even had our bags out quickly and we
walked over to the parking garage, the FREEZING parking garage that is,
and finally found our car. Brrrrrrrr.... I wanna go back to
Florida!!!! But I had to get in, fire up the heater and drive 3
hours to get home. At least it was not snowing, and the girls
fell asleep so it was nice and quite on the drive back.