Mom & Dad’s Meetup Anniversary Getaway! June 2022 TR *COMPLETE* x2 2/3

[khertz]

Mom & Dad’s Meetup Anniversary Getaway!​

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my 6th Universal TR! As much as I have always enjoyed including Universal Orlando on my WDW trips, I don’t think if someone had told me 10 years ago that I would have made this many Universal-only trips, I would have believed them!

Maybe you have followed along with some of my other TRs and know who we are, but in case this is your first time, I’ll do a quick little intro. This trip, there was only two of us traveling, DH and myself.

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We have been married for 15 years this past September, and we wanted to do something fun to celebrate a milestone anniversary. Although our anniversary is in September, we wanted to plan during the summer so we wouldn’t have any issues with our kids having to miss any school since we don’t live close by family who could stay with them and bring them back and forth every day. At first, we were considering Las Vegas where we had spent our first anniversary. But then, Orlando Informer announced summer dates for their Meetup event!! I have always wanted to attend one, but they are pretty expensive and very late nights, so it was never really feasible for all 4 of us to go. Plus, we still had APs that were active until the end of the summer. While it was not DH’s first choice (or maybe even second choice?) for an anniversary vacation, eventually I got him on board.

Honorable mentions, though they did not join us this time and were not too upset with us for going without them, are DS and DD. They spent the week at my parents’ house getting to play with their baby cousin. This is a picture of them from our trip last summer.

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A quick rundown on the Meetups for anyone not familiar… Orlando Informer is a travel blog that covers mostly Universal Orlando but also WDW. A couple of times a year, they rent out both Universal parks for a ticketed after hours event that includes low crowds, plenty of food, beverages, and snacks, and they offer discounted rooms at the Universal resorts. For this particular Meetup weekend, the parties would be on Friday June 3rd and Saturday June 4th. You can purchase individual nights, or a slightly discounted 2-night ticket, and we decided to go for the 2 night.

Our dates for the trip were Thursday June 2nd-Tuesday June 7th. When the tickets and room discounts went live, we were on at the minute it was released to get a room at the Hard Rock Hotel because we heard the discounted rooms get booked up fast! We wanted one of the resorts with Unlimited Express included, and it wasn’t a whole lot more to go for HRH over Royal Pacific, and it’s our favorite of the 3 deluxe resorts so we were very happy to get our room there!

We had such a great time and ate SO many snacks, I hope you will join in as I share it with you!

 

[khertz]

Thursday June 2nd
Day 1 Part 1: A Superstar Welcome
Day 1 Part 2: A Tribute to the Movies
Day 1 Part 3: Hot & Cold

Friday June 3rd
Day 2 Part 1: A Rough Start
Day 2 Part 2: Snacks & Velociraptors!
Day 2 Part 3: Battle of the Butterbeer
Day 2 Part 4: Wrapping Up Meetup Night 1!

Saturday June 4th
Day 3 Part 1: Living on Islands Time
Day 3 Part 2: Double Rainbow!
Day 3 Part 3: Hot Butterbeer & Hogwarts
Day 3 Part 4: Wrapping Up Meetup Night 2!

Sunday June 5th
Day 4: Half Day Adventure

Monday June 6th
Day 5 Part 1: Early Entry Velocicoaster
Day 5 Part 2: One More Motorbike Adventure

Tuesday June 7th
Day 6 Part 1: Hitting the Highlights
Day 6 Part 2: Mischief Managed

​

 

[khertz]

Day 0: Wednesday June 1st

To start off our travel, since we had a morning flight on Thursday morning, we packed up after I got home from work that afternoon and drove to my parents’ house near New Orleans. Although my parents were still working on renovating their house after flooding during Hurricane Ida last year, they were gracious enough to not only keep the kids for us while we were gone, but also to make room for us to spend the night! We definitely didn’t hate getting to spend some time loving on and playing with my sister’s sweet baby. He loves kissing his big cousins!

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We got to bed as early as we could since we had to be up super early in the morning! Although our flight was not until midmorning, my dad was able to bring us to the airport before getting to work, so we just planned on spending a little extra time at the airport in exchange for the free ride.

Day 1: Thursday June 2nd

My dad got us to the airport Thursday morning at 7:30 am, and it took us about 30 minutes to drop off our one checked bag and get through security. We had time to get a Chick Fil A breakfast also before it was time to board our flight a little before 10 am to take off for 10:20. We landed with no issues around 1 pm and met our driver from Orlando Airport Towncar Service at baggage claim. We used this service on our Universal trip with the kids last year, and it was a great experience and affordable for private car transport. Although we knew Uber would possibly be cheaper, we had heard so many horror stories of surge pricing and low availability that we just didn’t want to deal with that kind of hassle on arriving. We’d rather know how much we were going to spend and that our ride would be there when we arrived.

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The ride includes a 30 minute grocery stop for no additional cost. Our driver brought us to the Publix near UOR property to pick up a case of water and some breakfast items and snacks to keep in the room. Then our next stop was Hard Rock Hotel!

We checked in and got our room keys, but our room was not ready yet. We were getting pretty hungry by this point, so we left our luggage with bell services and made our way to CityWalk to see where we could get a bite. NBC Sports Grill & Brew said it would be about 15 minutes for a table, and we were willing to wait.

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We both chose the Extra Cheesy Wisconsin burgers with fries, and while we were waiting for our food to arrive, we got the text that our room was ready.

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While we ate, we discussed whether we should go to the room first and then to the parks, or hit the parks first and then just call it a night when we were done and go to the room. But we ultimately decided to go to the room first so we’d be able to get to bed sooner because we’d be unpacked by the time we decided to head back for the night.

We stopped for a couple of photos on the way back to the walking path.

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In just a few short minutes, we had walked back to the Hard Rock and made it up to our room.

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We unpacked everything and rested for a little bit, then decided to wait until around 5 to head back out to the parks, hoping that maybe the heat would not be as bad for as long. Just as we were entering the park, the Universal Superstar Parade was coming down the street.

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After the parade, we went to ride Transformers.

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[macraven]

Your trip reports are so detailed
I just them!

 

[Jeepdisney]

Can’t wait to hear all about your trip!

 

[khertz]

Your trip reports are so detailed
I just them!

Thank you so much!! I do try to take LOTS of notes

Can’t wait to hear all about your trip!

Thanks for joining in!

 

[khertz]

Day 1 Continued: Thursday June 2nd

Then, we decided to go check out the amazing Tribute Store! Over the summer, it was themed to Back to the Future, E.T., and Jaws. The level of detail in each of the rooms was absolutely amazing! We really enjoyed taking our time to look over each one.

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The first room was the E.T. room. I was so obsessed with some of the adorable merchandise they had, but I couldn’t stomach the pricetag on some of the Loungefly stuff knowing I wouldn’t use it that often.

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Then it was time to transition into the Jaws room! Mini DJ and Pikachu got in on the fun as we explored this room.

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The hallway into the next room had some fun 80’s movie posters, and I had to pose with one of my favorites!

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Save the Clock Tower…we must be heading into Back to the Future territory!

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The final room where you pay was themed to a movie theater, and smelled like hot & fresh popcorn. They had a case with some delicious looking treats, and there was a huge King Kong for a photo opportunity.

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After beating the heat in the amazing store, we decided to head to Diagon Alley and ride Escape From Gringotts!

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[khertz]

Day 1 Continued: Thursday June 2nd

When we came off of the ride, The Tales of Beedle the Bard was just starting, and it was our favorite story, The Three Brothers!

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DD had requested some photos of Mini DJ in the WWoHP, so we went in search of Pygmy Puffs! She bought one of the small ones with her souvenir money last trip. We popped into Magical Menagerie, and since we were in there, we also got a picture of DS’s Pikachu with the other horned owls since that was his souvenir last trip.

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Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

We were starting to get a little hungry, and one of the places on my list to check out had been the Summer Food Trucks. We ended up at the one across from Fast & Furious where we decided to split the Nashville Hot Chicken Mac & Cheese. There were some seats in the shade over by Richter’s, so we went over there to eat.

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Well, it was definitely HOT!!! It was good, but it was very spicy and we only had one small bottle of water to share between us. However, I was able to go inside Richter’s to see about getting some water and was able to refill our bottle with cold water from the Coke Freestyle machine for no cost. That was something we kept in mind for the future.

After eating most of the mac and cheese (it was a large portion and that much spiciness in the Florida heat was too much at once so we didn’t finish it all), we headed over to KidZone to ride something nice and cool…E.T.!

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That was the end of our picture taking, but not the end of our night! It was about 8:20 by then, and we didn’t feel the need to try to squeeze in another ride before the Cinematic Celebration began at 9 pm, so we went over to the viewing area in Central Park to rest our feet until the show started. DH decided not to take any photos and just enjoy it since we have seen it several times and he has taken lots of photos of it before!

It was a great way to cap off our arrival day. After the show, the park was closing so we made the walk back to the Hard Rock to wind down and get to bed. We had some late nights coming up, and we wanted to take full advantage, so we knew we needed the rest!

 

[khertz]

Day 2: Friday June 3rd

Unfortunately, our first full day started off rough…and it was all my fault! First of all, I totally forgot to turn off my daily alarm, so at 6:45 am it started going off. Somehow I was able to go back to sleep but DH wasn’t. And we had been really counting on sleeping in so we could stay out for the whole first Meetup night.

When I eventually got up around 10 am (man, DH was so irritated with me lol), he was already dressed, ready, and bored. He decided to go walk the resort and take photos while I got dressed and had a muffin for breakfast.

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He came back to the room so we could leave for the parks, and unfortunately, our bad morning just kept getting worse. We were halfway to the exit of the resort when I realized we had planned to stop and check in for the Meetup before taking our break for the afternoon/evening, and I needed my ID to be able to do so. I looked quickly in my bag but didn’t see my wallet, so I told DH I would go back to the room and meet up with him. I got into the room and started tearing it apart but I couldn’t find my wallet anywhere. I called him a little panicked asking if he knew where it was, so he ended up coming back towards the room just as I dumped out my park bag and found it had been in there all along. UGH. I then hurried out of the room so quickly I left my phone on the bed. But by that point, I thought DH might throttle me if I said I needed to go back to the room AGAIN, so I just left it. I really hated being without a phone in case we were separated for some reason or since my parents had the kids, but I decided I’d just have to make do and texted my parents to let them know to contact DH if they needed anything for the kids.

We took the walking path from HR over to Studios.

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It took a little time to shake off the irritations that such a morning brought, but eventually we managed. We got into Studios around 11 am, and the first thing I was hoping to do was activate our cup for the week. Usually, the AP discount on the reactivation price can only be done at indoor locations and not at the kiosks, so we stopped inside Schwab’s Pharmacy and were able to get 4 days of activation with the AP discount in just a few minutes. And shortly after that, we were taking a picture of Mini DJ and Pikachu sharing our first Icee of the trip.

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Our first ride of the day ended up being Men In Black…twice!!

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We grabbed a second Coke Icee after our second ride.

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Since we had spent the afternoon/evening in Studios the night before, we were ready to switch over to Islands of Adventure after that, so we started making our way up to the front of the park, thinking maybe we could hit Minions before leaving, and we needed a refill.

There were some Minions construction walls up, so we stopped for a photo op for the kids.

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Minion Mayhem was quite a bit backed up though, so even with Express we were not willing to wait. Maybe if we had been with the kids it would have been a different scenario.

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As we were walking across CityWalk to get to IOA, we spotted the place where we’d need to come back to check in for our Meetup credentials. It definitely amped up the excitement for the night!

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But, it was still not time for that, so we kept walking!

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One of the attractions we really really love but don’t do as often when we visit with the kids is The Incredible Hulk coaster, so we were super excited to head over there first and get to ride together for the first time in a very long time!

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I was looking forward to being out of the sun for a little bit in this queue, but there was absolutely NO a/c in there, and the few little fans they had were not doing much either in the way of airflow. Thank goodness we were in Express and not the 80 minute standby line, because I can’t even imagine how hot and sweaty those people were.

We grabbed another Icee on the way over to do Spider-Man.

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After Spider-Man, DH convinced me to go do Dr. Doom’s Fear Fall. I am relatively certain I’ve done this before, but I honestly could not remember. Even going on it this time didn’t trigger any memories for me, so it could have actually been my first time on it ever.

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It was fun, but a little scary being out in the open air like that! I really love drop rides like ToT, but being outside for this one added a whole new layer to the experience!

 

[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Friday June 3rd

We wanted to go over and do Velocicoaster but in the time it took to get over there, the wait time had gone up since we had last looked and we were hoping it would be shorter during the event, so we pivoted.

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We ended up crossing the bridge over into Lost Continent and realized we had not done Poseidon’s Fury in years, and it had recently reopened again. We had nothing else we felt like we needed to be doing, so we decided to do that.

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This ended up being a nice enjoyable respite from the heat! By this time, we could check in for the Meetup and we were ready to head back for our break. We grabbed one more Icee on the way out before going to the check in location in CityWalk.

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We thought there probably wouldn’t be too many people there that early to check in and that most people would come later as it got closer to the event time, but boy were we wrong. The line moved in small spurts and took at least 30 minutes which was brutal just standing in the sun.

This is a picture of the line doubling back.

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Eventually we got our credentials which included tickets, wristbands, and a $15 food gift card for each of us. They split everyone up between the two parks for which you will enter to start the night, and we were on the Islands side.

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Since we had APs, we could have just gone straight back into the parks at that point, but we were more than ready for our break so we took the path back to Hard Rock.

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We stopped at the pool bar and ordered some kids meals to eat because from our past experiences they are plenty enough food and cheaper of course than the full sized adult meals. DD absolutely loves fruit, so we had to show her Mini DJ is also a fan.

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It was around 4 when we got back to the room, and we stayed in there soaking up the air conditioning and resting our feet until about 6:30 when we decided to head out and be inside the parks once the event began after official closing time. DH had gotten a couple of themed button up shirts on sale before the trip, and he changed into his Jurassic Park one for this evening.

We stopped in Seuss Landing immediately after entering for a Coke Icee.

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The first thing we went to after that was Hogsmeade to ride Forbidden Journey.

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I had also gotten a couple of new tank tops and had decided to wear my Deathly Hallows one that day, so I had to make sure I got a photo in front of Hogwarts!

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Islands of Adventure was closing at 8 pm, and it was just a few minutes till when we came out of there and decided to hop into one more line where we could use Express, so we ended up at Skull Island Reign of Kong, where there was a BEAUTIFUL rainbow!! We were the very last people let into the Express line for the night!

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We stopped at the cart near Kong for a strawberry Icee, and there was a TM outside of the line in addition to the one working the register, and he saw our event wristbands and asked if we wanted anything else. All of the information from Orlando Informer prior to the event said that the free food and beverage service wouldn’t begin until 1 hour after park closing, but we even asked to make sure it was starting already and the TM said absolutely! So we grabbed a churro to go with it! Other people without wristbands were trying to come up and purchase something on the way out of the park, and we saw them being turned away. I am guessing because they have to switch the register over to keep track of all of the free items that were given away because later on in the night we noticed that the running sale numbers were just climbing at all of the food locations, so once they started keeping track of event transactions they couldn’t do a regular transaction for day guests.

Getting our first free snack much earlier than expected was a really nice surprise! We weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere as day guests were still filtering out, so we walked around slowly while DH took some sunset photos.

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We got another ride in on Incredible Hulk Coaster before heading to get one of the snacks that had been high on our list of things to try, the Center of the Roll from Cinnabon! Most of the places that were not carts with just popcorn/pretzels/churros, etc. would only have a few of their items available and not the full menu. In that case, they would typically have the items already out and ready to go if they could to make it move quicker.

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They had several Center of the Roll cups already made along with some CinnaSweeties so we got some of each.

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We both said we would have enjoyed the Center of the Roll more warm, but it was still very good! The CinnaSweeties were also a nice surprise bite to enjoy. After our sweet treat, we made our way through Seuss Landing because we were tired of waiting, we wanted to ride Velocicoaster!!

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It was by no means empty, but definitely looked less crowded than it had during the day. And this ride and Hagrid’s were our two biggest things we wanted to do since we were there without kids, so it was the focus of our event nights (along with the SNACKS!).

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[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Friday June 3rd

This ride is so fun, but it was INCREDIBLE riding at night!!! And the wait wasn’t bad at all, so we got off and right back on again!

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We took the bridge between Jurassic Park and Hogsmeade and stopped at the first Butterbeer cart we came to and grabbed one each. However, we thought they were frozen but they ended up being just regular/cold. We had actually never tried that one before, and I was always hesitant to over getting a frozen one because I was worried I wouldn't like it, and I was right! It was not good. I’m glad I got to try it though, and even more glad I didn’t have to pay for it only to find out I didn’t like it. We found a second cart with Frozen right across from Hagrid’s.

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Hagrid’s was hovering around 45-60 minutes all night, so we figured if we wanted to ride it, we’d just have to suck it up and wait. It was not appealing having to invest so much of an exclusive and expensive event to one ride, but it was a priority so we did it. We got in with a 40 minute posted wait, but it stopped a couple of times while we were in line so in total it ended up being around 50 minutes of actual wait time.

We did get to see the preshow for the first time ever! Every other time we had ever ridden, there was either nothing happening on the screen or just Fang walking around.

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Man, this ride is just SO fun! It’s frustrating that it always has such a long wait time, but it is really worth all of the hype! By the time we go back, DD will finally be tall enough, so I am really excited to get her onto it the first time. I think she will love it!

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There is a walkway between the two parks that is usually not open, but it was open for this event to make park hopping easier. The Islands of Adventure location was in Seuss Landing, so after Hagrid’s we started heading that way, stopping for another frozen Butterbeer, popcorn and a pretzel.

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We also thought there was a potential to get hungry on the walkway over, so just to be safe, we ice cream from Hop on Pop’s Ice Cream Shop!

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The walkway let out on the Studios side near Minions, and there was literally NO wait!

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I think there was maybe 2 or 3 other people in there, and it was so awkward when the ride ended and it was just…silent. Lol

 

[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Friday June 3rd

We grabbed another Icee and a pair of churros.

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It was cool to see so many of the areas all lit up, and they even had some Orlando Informer projections on the Men In Black building.

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We were mostly enjoying just walking around and taking in the atmosphere by this point, because we had ridden our two must-dos and we knew we still had several days (plus a second Meetup night) to ride things, so we just strolled, snacked, and took photos for a bit.

Eventually we meandered over to Diagon Alley hoping to be able to get some ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s, but the line there was just insane.

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After we came out of Diagon Alley, we felt like we hadn’t eaten enough so we got another pretzel.

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The arcades in each park were set to Free Play, and DH really wanted to check them out, so we went inside the one next to The Mummy.

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It actually was not that exciting because barely any machines were set to Free Play in actuality, so there wasn’t much to do.

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Such a bummer that The Mummy was not open!

We couldn’t resist another walk through The Tribute Store.

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We saw one of the 3D molds that had appeared to go horribly wrong.

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The last attraction of the night we ended up doing was Jimmy Fallon.

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It was about 1 am by this point, and we enjoyed the ambiance as we made our way out.

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Some of our pictures got totally out of order because the time on DH’s DSLR camera was still in Central time, and our phones were in Eastern, so that was a total pain to try to organize these photos by time taken. I mention that to say I have no idea when DH took this photo or where we were when he took it, but it was a nice picture so I didn’t want to skip posting it.

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There had been some bad tropical weather brewing that we had been watching anxiously for days, hoping it would stay to the south of us, and it did! We had really thought looking at the radar and weather apps that this whole night was going to be a washout, and there was not one drop of rain! It had been a great first night of the Meetup, and we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, which made it even more exciting to know we had a second night to enjoy it coming up! We finally got ourselves to bed that night at 2 am.

 

[khertz]

Day 3: Saturday June 4th

Unfortunately, our morning started off earlier than expected AGAIN, not because of an alarm this time but because I had the Kids Messenger app on my phone and it was logged in as DS, so when he started getting a video chat request on his tablet, it also started buzzing on my phone. After this second unexpected wakeup too early in the morning, I ended up putting my phone on Do Not Disturb until like noon. Lol

But we were both so tired from our 2 am bedtime that we had no trouble getting back to sleep this time. We didn’t end up getting up until 11 am, and we took our time getting ready around the room, so it wasn’t until 1 pm that we ended up leaving Hard Rock and walking to Islands of Adventure.

One of the things DS had loved about walking from the Hard Rock was taking the “shortcut” through the butterfly garden, so we stopped for some photos to send back to them.

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Once we were in Islands, we stopped for some more photos of Mini DJ and Pikachu in one of the kids’ favorite spots, the animal and instrument statues at the entrance. They can’t pass this area up without sitting on something so we thought they’d get a kick out of their toys doing the same thing.

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Something we buy on a lot of our vacations is Christmas ornaments, but it occurred to us that we had never bought a Universal one in all of our trips there! So we decided to see if we could remedy that by visiting the Port of Entry Christmas Shoppe.

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We did end up finding one we liked, so we purchased it and had them send it back to our resort room so we didn’t break it carrying it around all day. With getting into the park so late in the day, we knew we needed to get a move on in our Icee procuration. We headed left into Marvel Superhero Island and got a Coke Icee to start.

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We walked on to Dr. Doom’s first, then over to Spider-Man.

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Our family is big MCU fans, and we had recently watched all of the movies from the very beginning with DD for the first time. She had seen bits and pieces of movies as we had them on TV in the background or something, but she didn’t know who was who, who did what, etc. To our surprise, she got VERY into it! So we stopped in the store after for some more photos to send to the kids. DS’s favorite is Spider-Man, and DD’s is Thor.

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After getting another Icee in Marvel, we headed over to ride Kong.

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We got another icee, this time a Blue Raspberry/Lemonade mix.

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We went over to take a peek at Velocicoaster, but the line was backed up quite a bit.

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There were empty ride vehicles going out, so we figured the ride must have gone down recently so it wasn’t a good time to get in line.

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Instead, we walked over to Seuss Landing and decided to do the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride.

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Once off the ride, we wanted to get something to eat and of course we needed a refill on our Icees. I went to get a Coke Icee and DH went to get in line at Green Eggs and Ham for some pizza tots to share.

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[khertz]

Day 3 Continued: Saturday June 4th

It was close enough to 3 that we thought we could head over to check in for our second night of the Meetup, so we headed for the exit of the park. I just loved this ET stuffed animal so much, I made DH take my picture with it.

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Seriously! How adorable is he??

We went to get in line for the check in, and we could not believe how much quicker it went this time compared to the day before! It only took 20 minutes from the time we got in line, and we never stopped moving. It was funny because when we got up to the person checking us in, she apologized for the wait because they had been having trouble with their computer system, and we laughed and said, “We couldn’t tell y’all were having problems because this went WAY faster than yesterday!”

With our second set of credentials in hand, including another $15 food gift card for each of us, we headed back to the hotel for a break. Again, we hung out until about 6:30 before heading back out for the night. Although we had IOA entrance again, since it was before party time, we could use our APs to enter and we decided to start out at Studios tonight since it closed to the public an hour earlier than IOA.

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We grabbed a lemonade Icee on the way to Fast & Furious.

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DH would have been perfectly happy to skip this one entirely, but I convinced him to ride. It’s so bad, it’s good!

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We walked over to Diagon Alley, but ended up just walking around and walking through the shops because Gringotts was a 95 minute wait. Although we could still use our Express, we didn’t want to possibly spend up to half that time waiting for that ride knowing we had seen the wait times much lower.

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DH wanted to do Men In Black, so we started walking that way and spotted a rainbow. Then I realized, it was a DOUBLE rainbow!

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It was stretching right across the top of the Simpsons area. So many people were just stopping right there on that bridge to take photos, us included!

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So crazy how full of rainbows this trip was! I think we saw one almost every day!

Eventually we continued on to Men In Black.

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Over the past couple of days, people had been posting on social media that they had seen Jimmy Fallon and Jacob Batalon (Ned from the Spider-Man movies) in the parks, so we had been on the lookout. Well, we never saw either of them, but while getting on MiB, I spotted a guy that looked super familiar and finally placed him as Caleb from Big Brother 16 and Survivor 32. I wasn’t totally sure it was him until I looked him up on his Instagram and compared tattoos. I told DH who it was, and he was less than impressed. He said, “Why couldn’t you have spotted Ned or Jimmy Fallon instead?” lmao

We got right back on MiB for a second ride, then stopped for a Coke Icee.

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As we started walking through Springfield, we saw that the Lard Lad stand was giving out the big pink donuts to the Meetup guests! Again, it was earlier than we had thought the food service would start, and we also had not been sure the donuts would be included. DH had really wanted one! After a short wait, we got a donut that we ended up saving, and some swirl cones to eat.

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We had a bit of luck again when we realized that the Bumblebee Man’s Taco Truck had also started the event food service, and there was hardly anyone in line! Like Florean Fortescue’s we’d read and heard that this one get busy quickly and stays busy for most of the night, so we had kind of written it off because it wasn’t that important to us to spend a lot of time waiting in line for it. But word had not quite gotten out that they had started yet, so the line was short, but it quickly started building behind us.

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A cute little family of ducks went hurrying by us while we waited.

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The orders they were giving out were in sets of 2 tacos, either grilled chicken or carne asada. So we ordered one of each to share, and took them over to the Springfield outdoor seating to eat. They were really good, but we surprisingly both enjoyed the beef more than the chicken!

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These were the lines as we sat down to eat, more than double what we had waited in!

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[khertz]

Day 3 Continued: Saturday June 4th

After enjoying our delicious tacos, we wanted to go back and try again to get on Gringotts, so we walked towards Diagon Alley, picking up some pretzels on the way over there.

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Untitled by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

It was still a little too long, so I took a rest while DH took some nighttime photos.

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After his photo break, and some churros and an Icee, the Gringotts line had finally gone down a little so we went to ride that next.

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The Hopping Pot didn’t look busy at all, so we went over to get a frozen Butterbeer and we noticed people were kind of hanging around. We eventually overheard that they were about to bring out a tray of hot Butterbeer, which is what everyone was waiting for. It actually was pleasant outside, so I figured this was the best chance to try hot for the first time! I had always wanted to try it, and it was always either unavailable when it was still seasonal, or too hot when it was available.

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I was SO excited to try this, and it was worth the wait!!! It tasted like a really creamy and delicious butterscotch version of hot chocolate. Really really good, and I am so glad I got to try it finally! DH tried it, but he is still more of a fan of the frozen.

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Just before the Meetup, Monsters Cafe had closed to the public, but they hadn’t started demolishing it yet. It was actually still available during the event! Having never really been inside, it was something DH really wanted to do, so we went over there to check it out.

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I was perfectly content just to go inside and look around, but DH was determined to get his money’s worth in included food, so he went through the line and got the brisket mac & cheese, and an apple cobbler dessert.

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Both were just okay, and we didn’t end up finishing either one. DH really wanted to ride Rip Ride Rockit this time since the kids weren’t with us and we could ride together. I have had no desire to ride this again since the very first time we had ridden it in 2009. I was a bit annoyed because it took me so long to get through the song menu that I ended up not being able to choose my own song after spending over 90 minutes in line! Shortly after that, I remember seeing a time people had gotten stuck on the ride for hours on the lift and both of those things just gave me NO interest in riding again. But since it was just the two of us, and there was no wait, I agreed to go ahead and ride it with him and just prayed we didn’t get stuck

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We didn’t end up on Minion Mayhem again, but since we were right there, we did decide to take the backstage pathway and finish out the second event night at IOA. We picked up a popcorn for the walk over at around 10:30 pm.

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We entered IOA in Seuss Landing, and while I made a stop in the restroom, DH got another pretzel to bring back to the room for later. This didn’t end up working out well as it didn’t keep well but it was a nice thought.

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We went over to Velocicoaster and walked right on to that one really quickly!

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We took the bridge over into Hogsmeade, and the castle looked so pretty all lit up.

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[khertz]

Day 3 Continued: Saturday June 4th

Hagrid’s was posted at 65 minutes, but we decided to get into line anyway.

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I timed our wait, and we got in line at 11:09 and were boarding at 11:46, so less than 40 minutes! That’s a great wait time for that ride, so we felt like it was definitely time well spent.

We decided to just walk after that, I don’t think we even went on any more rides. DH picked up a Butterbeer for us to share.

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Going through Jurassic Park, we grabbed some churros.

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One of the other places I had really wanted to go was Wimpy’s for a Dole Whip, so we passed through Toon Lagoon to get there.

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Ask me why we got curly fries too?! We were so full, but they just looked so good we couldn’t help ourselves.

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Then we walked through Superhero Island for DH to take some night photos, and he wanted to check out the other arcade. There was a little more worth playing, but still not as much as we would have hoped in Free Play mode.

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By then, we were pretty tired and felt like we had accomplished everything we wanted to, and that our two Meetup nights had been a success, so we decided to head back to the room. Instead of walking through CityWalk, we picked up a popcorn in Seuss Landing, then took the backstage path back to Studios and exited there to the Hard Rock Hotel walking path.

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We were back in the room for 1:20 am, and again, asleep by 2 am!

 

[macraven]

I totally enjoy all the pictures you are sharing with us!

 

[khertz]

I totally enjoy all the pictures you are sharing with us!

Thanks so much!

 

[Mabel67]

I’m really enjoying following your TR! You seem like such a lovely, fun-loving couple! And your pics are fabulous! I really like the way you frame your shots and the colours are so vibrant and true. Thank you for taking the time to share. Really makes me look forward to our next visit!

 

[khertz]

I’m really enjoying following your TR! You seem like such a lovely, fun-loving couple! And your pics are fabulous! I really like the way you frame your shots and the colours are so vibrant and true. Thank you for taking the time to share. Really makes me look forward to our next visit!

Thank you so much! The photos are almost all thanks to my husband, I definitely benefit from his photography hobby. Thank you for reading!