May 2016 trip to Disney and Universal Studios!

[Jessicavoet]

So it's been a while since my last post.... We've started homeschooling, my husband got a promotion in the Air Force, and time has just been slipping away! I'm going to try and finish this up today!!

We've planned another trip for February! My sister is moving in the next few months, and I found out that we're looking at orders to Minot after September of next year so I knew we needed to have a last Disney trip before I have to move to the snowy tundra and she has to move away too. So we're in the planning stages of a trip in February! The boys are so excited, and my sister and I can't wait!!!

 

[Jessicavoet]

Picking up where we left off, we had just had a great visit with a friendly raptor, and everyone wanted to head back to Harry Potter stuff.

So we decided to make our way around riding things along the way. That's when we started walking through the Toon Town area, or whatever it's called. This is also when the absolutely terrible, worst possible water ride, ever, ever, ever happened.

The boys saw it, it was a water raft type ride, you all sit in a big round tube, strap yourselves in, and go down the rapids. It seemed GREAT because we were hot, it would be a nice way to cool off, etc. My mom said she didn't want to go, so she sat it out and waited for us, so me, my brother, my nephew, and son walked off for what would become the dreaded, soaking wet, stupid raft ride.

It was fun. It really was. I love rides like this. But Universal was bound and determined to get EVERYONE COMPLETELY SOAKING WET on this ride. There were parts where it's just a wall of water and everyone goes under it. Just sheets of water. Everywhere. At one point the raft stopped moving and my brother's face was stuck with a water gun thing spraying right at him for several minutes. We laughed until our insides hurt, it really was fun, but when we got off the ride we were ringing our clothes out and sloshing in our shoes over to my mom.

Who we all hugged of course. Because mom's/nana's need hugs with their kids and grandkids are completely soaking wet.

Thankfully there was a place to sit near by, we went to Cinnabon and we all took off our shoes and tried to let things dry out a little.



My shoes were seriously dripping with every step I took. It was miserably uncomfortable.

I left them out in the sun for a while, hoping they would dry out.



This thing existed too, but you have to pay for it and none of us wanted to.



After taking a break, we continued on our journey and made it to Suess Landing. This was the cutest thing ever! I promptly bought a giant soft pretzel and sat out a ride while everyone else got on, then we rode the little roller coaster there.

My mom and Noah met the Lorax! There were other characters too, but we didn't really want to wait in line.



I was really noticing at this point that it wasn't that hot. I mean, it was hot, it's Florida in May, but I wasn't stifling hot like I was dying. I don't know if it's that they had such well placed shaded spots, if we just had a lucky day with the weather, or what but we were totally ok being outside for a really long time today. Now we were definitely tired, I was totally on board with taking a nap somewhere, but we still felt really good about being outside. We were sweating so bad at Disney that I had expected it to be the same at Universal, and I was pleasantly surprised when we weren't.

We made it to Hogsmeade and rode the amazing, amazing, Harry Potter ride inside the castle. It's hands down one of the best rides I've EVER been on. I really thought Jacob would hate it but he liked it! We left Hogsmeade, got on the Hogwartz Express, and went back to Diagon Alley.

It was very, very shaded in there and we walked around for a while, taking it all in!





At one point, my brother started walking towards a bathroom sign. I thought ok, now would be a good time to use the bathroom because we're not really doing anything. Turns out it's an alley that's themed for the "dark magic wizards" and everyone in this area is wearing different clothing, it's all enclosed so it's permanently night time, the shops are "shady." It's really, really well done. I wouldn't have ever even seen it had my brother not walked back there.

 

[buzzrelly]

Just started reading you TR and love it! I'm caught up to your DHS day, but have to leave for work Can't wait to read more when I get home!

 

[Jessicavoet]

Leaving the "shady wizard area," we went to the wand shop. My brother wanted to see the wand show, so we went into the wand shop and hung out there for a little while. We had a good 10-15 minutes before the show started so we passed the time by counting the millions of boxes on the walls.





The show is just like the movie, the wizard picks someone from the crowd and has them select wands, and different things happen in the room to show that the person has selected the "correct" wand.

We made our way out of Diagon Alley and started looking for other things to do.

We went to where The Mummy ride was, my mom didn't want to go and neither did the boys. THIS IS THE BEST ROLLER COASTER I HAVE EVER BEEN ON. It tops everything. Ever.

We got off the ride and immediately told my mom she had to ride it. She didn't want to at first, but ended up going on it with my brother and agreed that it was the best thing she'd ever been on either. After The Mummy, we hung out and watched the firework show, Disney definitely has them beat by a long shot in this area......

We started walking towards the exit because the park was closing. We walked through City Walk, which is like Downtown Disney, and just continued to take it all in. My brother and I kept saying how much we wanted to come back and we were hoping to plan a trip there soon for us and my sister as a siblings trip. But that trip may be pushed back until he graduates from college now....



We got another Uber back to Art of Animation, our driver was so much fun! He told us about the local area, his family, everything.

Our first visit to Universal was so much fun, and I enjoyed it 1,000 times better than I thought I would. I would go back in a heart beat!

Back at the resort it was late, probably 10pm or so, and we were hungry. We all grabbed some food from the food court, bacon angus cheese burger for me! Chowed down, and then passed out.

 

[Jessicavoet]

May 24th! It was Animal Kingdom day!

I LOVE ANIMAL KINGDOM!!

And it made it even better that we got to sleep in a little bit on this morning!

We didn't have an early breakfast to get to, we didn't feel the need to make rope drop, so we slept in a little bit. After our late night at Universal the night before, we needed it.

So we started with the usual breakfast at Landscape's of Flavors, the food court at Art of Animation.
I got my usual blueberry muffin and toaster sandwich.

After breakfast we made our way to the buses, if I remember correctly we didn't wait very long! We hopped on the bus, had a quick trip to Animal Kingdom, and before I knew it we were at bag check.
Mom got randomly selected, again..... 4 out of 4 parks in a row now..... She must look really scary....lol.

We used the handy dandy trick of using the turn stiles on the other side of the Rain Forest Care instead of using the main gate because, as always, there was no one back there. Usually the main gate has a crowd of people, but if you walk through the gift shop at Rain Forest Cafe there's no one back there and you can get in much faster.

So, through the gates we went!

On to Memory Maker time!

Jacob seems so uncomfortable.... I swear he was having a good time.




We were walking towards, wherever.... We didn't really have a plan. We knew we wanted to get on Everest but we were so tired, and our legs hurt so bad that we were really just moseying along.

Then we saw Dug! The boys, all 3 of them, including the adult, wanted pictures so we hopped in line.




We all loved it! The characters were so much fun! Dug licked everyone.

Then we were back on our way towards Everest.

I love Animal Kingdom so much! I rate it as my favorite park because it's so immersive. I feel like I'm not in Florida anymore, except for the heat. The heat was KILLER today. Even at 9:30am we were chugging through our water and sweating. But we finally made it to Asia and my brother kept commenting on how the park was beautiful, and so detailed.

 

[Jessicavoet]

The wait time was 20 minutes, but the line looked even shorter so we hopped in without fastpasses. We had it fastpassed for later in the day, so we planned on being able to ride twice, at least.

The entire time through the line my brother kept saying how well done everything was. All the details, it was so perfect. He was telling me how he'd read about the prayer flags being an actual thing at the real Mt. Everest, the bells, everything.




Total wait time ended up being maybe 15 minutes.
Here are the faces. I only have one hand up because Jacob was holding the other.




Despite the faces. They both asked to ride again.

But when we circled back around the wait had jumped considerably up to 40 minutes, so we said we'll come back later for our fastpass times, and headed to Dinoland.

We had a fastpass for Dinosaur! And my dinosaur loving son was so anxious to get on it. He rated it as the best ride EVER!



Then we went on Primeval whirl.

WORST RIDE EVER. I ended up with a giant bruise on my elbow from slamming into the side of the ride. My brother and mom were in a separate car and they hated it too. The younger boys, loved it of course and wanted to ride again. We told them they could go ride by themselves, we'd wait for them at the end of the ride, but neither wanted to do that. So we wandered around Dinoland for a few minutes, dying in the heat, our legs crumpling underneath us.

After Dinoland, we were hungry. We REALLY moseyed around a lot today. It was after 11:00am at this point and we had only accomplished 3 rides, but that was fine! We were 100% ok with wandering around aimlessly because were exhausted.

So it was lunch time, and we went to the only possible eatery.

Flame Tree BBQ.

Nothing else matters inside of Animal Kingdom.

Nothing.

The line will often look intimidating, but trust me, it moves very quickly and doesn't take near as long as you might think it's going to. We were through it in no time and making our order.

Today happened to be the day that Disney was changing something in their payment systems, and it went down right as we were processing payment.
My mom ran her card through the machine, and at that moment everything froze up. So we stood there waiting for a few minutes while the manager came over to see if he could fix it. He apologized profusely and explained to us that they were switching the systems over today and they were having some technical difficulties. My mom's card ended up never going through, he gave us the trays of food, over $80 worth, and told us that it was on him and to have a magical day. We just stood there in disbelief. What?? He laughed, told us to not worry about it, and that we could take it.

We all shook his hand, thank you Robert at Flame Tree BBQ! Then we went and found a table. We tried very hard to find something in the shade, but all those tables had been taken. So we settled for something halfway in the shade and had the boys sit in the shaded part of the table. We chowed down and discussed what we would do after this.

We all mutually agreed that we were done.

Bryan was leaving today to go back home and had a plane to catch, and the rest of us were so exhausted that we didn't want to be in the park anymore. Which makes me really sad because Animal Kingdom is my favorite.

But, we were done.

I asked Jacob specifically what he wanted to do because the safari has always been one of his favorite things. He said he would ride the safari next time, he was tired of walking.

Back to Art of Animation it was!

Except, there wasn't a bus for a good 15 minutes.... The total opposite of how it had been all week. 15 minutes is not a long time. Unless you have two 10 year old boys who are hot, tired, and have been around each other 24/7 for the last week. Then 15 minutes is a life time because they're having sword fights with the fans and hitting each other, bragging about how one is so much better than the other, making Pokemon noises over and over......
When that bus pulled up..... it was amazing.

In the air conditioning of the bus, we were all back to better moods.

I honestly fell asleep. That's a first. I've never fallen asleep on the Disney bus, ever. It was a nice nap.

My brother left around 2:00pm to get on the bus that took him back to the airport, and we made it mandatory nap time. We all fell asleep for about an hour or so, and when we woke up we walked to the pool. We slathered the boys in sun screen and my mom and I picked out some chairs to relax in. I curled up in my chair in the shade and we just chatted while watching the boys swim and play.

The pool at Art of Animation is outstanding. I can't say enough about it! There were life guards walking all over the place, water play areas, it was zero entry on one end, and you could see the entire pool from wherever you were sitting. The boys had an amazing time swimming all over the place, and I knew they would sleep extra well tonight!

Mom and I had an adult drink and settled in again just as a huge cloud was rolling over. I was under an umbrella, and kept giggling at my mom as she was getting sprinkled on. It didn't last long though, the cloud passed over really quickly and the sun was back out. Typical Florida!

This is the only picture I took of the pool. It doesn't do it justice.



When pool time was over, we grabbed a snack from Landscapes of Flavors, and went to the room to change. I can't even remember what we ate to be honest.

After snacking in the room and packing some of our things away, we were leaving the next day, we went for a leisurely walk to the other side of Hourglass Lake. That's the lake that separates Art of Animation and Pop Century. There's a bridge that connects the two, and you can rent bikes if you wanted to. But it's not a long walk at all, only a few minutes.





Our flight left the next day so when we got back to the room we finished packing up what we needed to, watched a little tv, and called it a night.

 

[Jessicavoet]

May 25th - Traveling home day

This day is always the worst.

It's the day that you sit there and wonder:

"What did I not do, that I wanted to do?"

"What do I put on the list for our next trip?"

"Is there anything I didn't get to eat, that I wanted to eat?"

"I can't wait to come back....."

The good thing was that our flight wasn't early. We had to be out of the hotel room around 9:00am-ish.

We brought all of our luggage down the food court and grabbed our last breakfast at Disney World.

Sad faces.



And then we went out to the area where you wait for the Tragical Express to take us back to the dreaded airport.

That's when I realized I had thrown away the letter we needed to get on the bus.

They print a letter that shows your Magical Express reservations, and you HAVE to bring that letter with you to the bus, or you can't get on. My mom said she thought she had it in her bag, but couldn't find it and the bus was there already. So I frantically ran back into the building and up to the front desk, apologized a lot to the lady and told her I had thrown away the letter.

She smiled and said it happens all the time, and reprinted it for me.

I rushed back outside, and the bus driver was still checking people onto the bus so I wasn't late or anything!

The boys waiting on us to be able to get on board.



Before we knew it we were on the bus, and on our way to the airport.

Jacob spent the majority of the ride asking when we were going to be able to come back, and saying that he wanted to spend more time at Animal Kingdom.

Me too kid, me too.

We got to the airport waaaaaay before our flight time and we felt like we would be waiting forever before our flight. So we went through security and the people at the Orlando airport were severely lacking the kindness that the people at DFW had. Here they were yelling at the top of their lungs over and over the rules for how to go through the lines, and were down right stern and mean when you talked to them. They scared me.

I got selected to go through the body scan so my mom took the boys through the regular metal detectors while I stood in the scanner. We met up on the other side of security and had SO MUCH TIME still.

We went into a gift shop and found these ear plugs that are supposed to make it easier for people with sensitive ears to fly, it stabilizes the pressure in their ears so they don't hurt.

Bought those in a heart beat.

We grabbed some food to snack on, and settled in by our gate.

Finally it was time to get on the plane. On the left side of the seats it was Noah in the window seat, then me in the middle, and Jacob on the aisle. On the right side of the plane was my mom in the aisle seat.

Except, the other two seats never had anyone in them. So my mom asked the flight attendant if she could move over to the window seat and he said "Sure!"

So my mom had the entire side of the seats to herself.



Jacob did end up moving over with her after take off and we could walk around the cabin. We put his ear plugs in, you're supposed to put them in after take off when you're in the air, and he actually laid down across the seats and watched his iPad, and eventually fell asleep for a little bit.



Noah and I passed the time playing games on his iPad, I read my book for a little while, and also took a nap.




We landed in DFW, got our bags, and went to what we THOUGHT was our parking garage.

See, when we arrived in DFW they were doing construction and there are two parking garages. But when we got there, there was one way in and out of the garage and into the terminal. But when we landed, all the doors and entrances were open so we just went where we thought we were supposed to go.

We got in the elevator, went to the right floor, and walked around, and around.... and around.....

And then realized. The parking garage we parked in, didn't have an elevator.

We were in the wrong one.

We had to leave the garage, and walk down the street to the next garage where we found our car right where we left it.

Got everything in the car, exited the garage, paid the enormous $120 something parking fee (next time we won't park at the airport), and started towards the closest On The Border we could find.

I LOVE On The Border. We used to have one here at home and I almost cried when it closed. So now every time I go somewhere that has an On The Border, I insist on eating there.

After eating delicious Mexican food, and convincing 2 10 year olds that they can, in fact, get through a meal without an iPad, we went to a Walmart and my mom bought several cases of Squirt and Mr. Pibb, we don't have them here in Louisiana so she always buys a lot of them. Then we were on our way home.

The ride home was uneventful, a quick 3 hours or so and we were pulling up in our drive way.

I got to kiss my husband, pet our dogs, and I immediately put on PJ pants and refused to unpack any of our clothes.

That could wait.....

At that moment I wanted to sit on my couch....

I love Disney World, but it was nice to be home!

So another successful Disney trip in the bag! I learned a lot this trip including:

1. Jacob LOVES the big thrill rides, which means we can ride more in the future!

2. After about 2 days of open to closing a park, my feet and brain start to die a little bit. We won't ever do that again. Breaks are important. Very important.

3. If we take another trip when it's warm outside, I want to spend more time at the pool. The pools at Disney are absolutely amazing, and we never take enough time to go there.

4. My food budget could probably be cut in half because we don't eat near as much as I ever think we're going to.

5. We'll probably be driving to Disney from now on. Yes, it takes a full day to drive there, sometimes two if we split it up, but it ends up being so much cheaper and Jacob hates flying so it's easier.

6. I can never, ever say that a trip is our "last trip for a while" because it always ends up being untrue.

So that's it. May 2016 Disney World trip.

Thank you for reading!

 

[buzzrelly]

Great report! I loved it! But, I have to ask the obvious…no Magic Kingdom? Not that I don't LOVE the other parks, but I personally could't imagine being so close and NOT going to MK

We loved Universal as well…Diagon Alley is amazing! And I love the Forbidden Journey ride, as well!

Also, weird question, but where did you get your shorts you were wearing in EPCOT and the ones inDHS? They were both really cute

 

[PinkyBean]

I thoroughly enjoyed your trip report and let me just say you and your Mom are awesome for taking not 1 but 2 ten year olds with you. Don't get me wrong I love my kids a lot but when they were much younger than they are now they could try the patience of a saint. Okay, if I'm being totally honest they can still wear me out and they're adults . Anyway, thanks for taking the time to write this and I hope you get to go back soon.