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

[khertz]

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[khertz]

Day 4: Sunday June 5th

After a second late night in a row, we slept in until about 11:15 am. I can’t even remember the last time I was able to sleep in this late! We shared our Big Pink donut for breakfast. It had held up decently over night, but the frosting had melted a little from carrying it around all night in the humidity.

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We livestreamed Mass from our church back home, then got dressed for the day and ready to head out to the Studios around 1:30 pm. First order of business was an Icee. We went with the Blue Raspberry first.

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If you’ve followed my previous UOR TRs, you might know that for some inexplicable reason, my kids are absolutely obsessed with Jimmy Fallon! We have been known to quote this ride, especially Sara’s lines from the pre-show, in our house frequently. So we took their Pikachu & Mini DJ to the gift shop for some photos.

One of the lines we quote all of the time is, “Ew Gary! Take me to the gift shop! I want a mug, I want a t-shirt, I want a Hashtag the Panda doll, I want a BASKET OF PUPPIES!” Well, we looked for the basket of puppies but it’s no longer there. We did manage to find all of the other three items to get in one photo though!

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There was a 2:15 pm Horror Makeup Show, so we decided to head over that way.

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Since we had gotten such a late start with our Icees, we needed to get a second one ASAP so we stopped for a Blue Raspberry/Lemonade. This TM didn’t mix them as well as some of the others where it came out like more of a swirl, just filled half with one and then the other. The good ones will go back & forth to layer the flavors!

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As usual, the show was very funny! DH always makes fun of me for laughing so much, especially because I give him a hard time about seeing this show every time he suggests it.

We grabbed a Coke Icee after the show, then decided it was just too hot to be outside, so we went over for the 3 pm Bourne Stuntacular.

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This show is really well done! And though it does take a large chunk of time with the queueing, pre-show, and actual show, that is not a terrible thing when you’re trying to escape the heat. We did miss out on being able to use our Express Pass because they had shut that line down before we got to the entrance. I’m not sure if it would be necessary or how much time it would actually save anyway.

After the show, it was time for another Coke Icee before making our way into Kid Zone.

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We went on E.T. next, but since DH had decided not to carry his DSLR camera around today, he didn’t take any photos inside. I was really obsessed with this E.T. Loungefly, it was just SO cute!! But because I didn’t want to spend $$$ on a bag I probably wouldn’t use much, I just had DH take my photo with it instead. I think I touched one of them every time I saw one in a gift shop because I just loved it so much.

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Finally, we stopped at Men In Black.

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On our way out of the park to City Walk, we got a Lemonade Icee to take with us to Red Oven Pizza Bakery for a late lunch/early dinner. We shared a pepperoni pizza and it was so good! I love their pizzas.

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After our meal, we walked over to Islands of Adventure. It started raining just as we got into the park, but it looked like it was supposed to pass quickly, so we took cover by the bathrooms just before Seuss Landing. There is a little cave-like space between the restrooms that was probably once a home for a pay phone or something, so we just stood in there for about 10 minutes or so until the rain passed. Then we headed into Seuss Landing.

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We decided to go to Cat in the Hat, however in the words of Julie Chen, “But first…”

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As we came out of the ride, ANOTHER gorgeous rainbow! I couldn’t believe how many rainbows we saw this trip!

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Hagrid’s was posted at 60 minutes, so we decided to go over to Hogsmeade and get in line for that.

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I always tried to time our wait in this line, and we were on in exactly 40 minutes! It is well worth that kind of wait time! Going in the evenings usually paid off, and even with a posted wait time that was the shortest it had been all day, we’d usually wait even less than that.

We decided to make Velocicoaster our last ride of the night. It was posted at 40 minutes, which we found to be another worth-the-wait time, and it actually ended up only being 30.

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We got a Strawberry/Lemonade Icee mix in the Jurassic Park area.

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Not as good as the Blue Raspberry/Lemonade mix, but still pretty good!

As we slowly made our way out of the park, we managed to mostly finish that one so we had to get a Coke Icee before actually leaving. DH wanted to be SURE we got our money’s worth!

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I think 8 Icees in a half day is pretty good!

We left IOA around 8 pm, and went back to the room where we watched some Stranger Things before calling it a night and going to sleep.

 

[macraven]

Absolutely loved this trip report!
All your pictures were fantastic and details of each day were fabulous!

 

[khertz]

Absolutely loved this trip report!
All your pictures were fantastic and details of each day were fabulous!

Thank you, I always take a LOT of notes!! Lol

 

[musika]

Tell me about your icee hack. What's the deal on using the cup you have?

 

[khertz]

Tell me about your icee hack. What's the deal on using the cup you have?

When you use the refillable cups, it includes icees as well as soda refills! So we almost always just get Icees in our cups. It also works at the Freestyle machines. You can reactivate the cup each day and use it for unlimited refills & icees!

 

[khertz]

Day 5: Monday June 6th

After two days of late nights and sleeping in, we wanted to take advantage of one of the other perks of staying onsite and experience Early Entry. So on Monday morning, we got up around 7:00 am got ready pretty quickly. It’s amazing how much less time we need to get ready in the morning without two kids to wrangle! It was about 7:30 am when we were walking through security and into CityWalk.

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Early Entry was at IOA that week starting at 8 am, and even though it was still about 25 minutes before the park would open, the line for the turnstiles was all the way down the bridge towards Margaritaville. However, they had two turnstyles way over to the left of the main entrance that was for AP holders and had a shorter line, so we went over there and hoped it actually would get us in a little quicker. Although there were only two and there were a couple of hangups, it probably still got us into the park faster than if we had been waiting on the bridge instead.

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This is a look back towards the regular lines.

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Since it was just the two of us though, we of course moved quite a bit faster once we were inside the park than if the kids had been with us. And most people were heading to get into line for Hagrid’s, which was not even always opening during Early Entry, so people were just getting in line to wait until park opening when it did start running. We headed for Velocicoaster instead.

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We walking on to this ride twice in a row by 8:30 am, only halfway into Early Entry! By that time, the line was up to 40 minutes, and people were still streaming into the park in huge numbers. Velocicoaster had been our main goal of EE, so feeling satisfied, we were ready to eat some breakfast and were planning to have Voodoo Doughnuts so we exited IOA and made our way over there.

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DH went for the ODB, and I had the Diablos Rex and the Chocolate Coconut Cake.

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After breakfast, we went over to Studios and by now it was around 9:20 am. First order of business was to get an Icee.

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We wanted to do Transformers, but it was delayed first thing in the morning, so we did Jimmy Fallon instead.

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Our kids love quoting the Jimmy Fallon ride, especially the Sara character who says “Ew!” all the time. We spotted this hat that was a perfect photo op for Mini DJ and Pikachu.

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Transformers was up by then, so we went over and did that, but I could tell DH was not himself. He said he wasn’t feeling well, probably just run down from the few days we had been in the parks and the heat. He resisted the idea, but eventually I got him to agree to go back to the room and rest a bit so that the rest of the day wouldn’t be ruined with him trying to push himself. Even just a short little rest had him feeling quite a bit better so eventually we made it back over to Studios.

DD is a fan of Hello Kitty, so we took Mini DJ there for a few photos.

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Then we grabbed another Icee, another Blue Raspberry/Lemonade swirl. Why didn’t we know about this mix sooner??

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One food item on my want-to-try list, and that was a jacket potato from London. We walked over there, but the stand was not open so we kept walking to Men in Black and did that first.

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By that time, the stand was open! I got the broccoli and cheese potato while DH mobile ordered lunch from Richter’s.

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We went into Diagon Alley after lunch and did Gringotts. We were a little hesitant to get stuck in a long Express line because the standby wait was 70 minutes, but we only waited 15!

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After escaping from Gringotts, we were ready to escape from those crowds! We left Diagon Alley and made our way around to Men In Black.

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One of the food items we had really wanted before taking this trip was the Brain Freezin’ D-Oh-nut Sundae in Springfield. It’s basically a huge ice cream sandwich made with one of the Big Pink Donuts. It wasn’t available during the Meetup, but we still wanted to get one. We headed over to Springfield and waited in line to find out they didn’t have any ice cream at the moment. So we grabbed another Icee and went back to the Tribute Store so I could get the E.T. long sleeved t-shirt I had been eyeing all weekend.

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[khertz]

Day 5 Continued: Monday June 6th

After picking up the shirt, we decided to head back to the resort for a break. In addition to the respite from the sun and humidity, we also had to check in for our flight home the next day so we did that while back in the room too. We also got a head start on some of our packing.

Around 5:30, we decided to head back into the Studios. The first stop was to get another Icee.

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Then we went to Springfield to get some dinner at Fast Food Boulevard. DH got the chicken & waffle sandwich, and I had the Krustyburger.

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We tried again for the Sundae, but still no ice cream. It just wasn’t meant to be!

After getting another Icee, we went over to do E.T.

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We were ready to head out of Studios for the night and walk over to IOA to finish up our evening.

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We headed to the left into Superhero Island so that we could do Spider-Man first.

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Our night capped off with a stop in Hogsmeade. First we took a few photos for the kids with their characters and the Hogwarts Express.

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The line for Hagrid’s was posted at 75 minutes, and we figured this was the last time we’d have an opportunity to ride because we only had a few hours the next day before our departure and we knew we wouldn’t want to spend a big chunk of it in line.

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Despite the posted wait time, we were through the line and on and off the ride within an hour! Not a bad wait for that attraction at all, AND we got the front row! That was a really cool ride in the front just after the sun had set and it was getting dark.

We grabbed one more Icee for the walk out of the park and back to the resort.

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As we made the walk, we texted guest services at the hotel to see if we could get a late checkout the next day since our flight wasn’t until later in the afternoon and our ride wasn’t picking us up to bring us to the airport until around 1 pm. They were able to give us the room until 12:00 pm which was great! That extra hour in the room really ended up making a difference.

But for today, we were exhausted and ready to get to bed so we could hit the ground running in the morning and make the most of our last day!

 

[khertz]

Day 6: Tuesday June 7th

Departure day was upon us! We’d had such a wonderful trip, and we missed the kids so we weren’t totally sad to be leaving today, but there is a little bit of a damper on the morning when you know it’s your last one on vacation. We had some time before we’d be getting picked up for the airport, so we had a little more time to spend in the parks. We got up early and walked across City Walk to IOA for early entry at 8 am.

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Our goal for the morning was at least one ride on Velocicoaster! So when the park opened, we headed there first.

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As with our other Early Entry morning, we got to ride twice in a row with no wait! By the time we came out from the second ride, the wait was up to about 30 minutes. It was time to say farewell to our new favorite ride at UOR and maybe even all of Orlando! We will be able to be more confident in our answer once we get to ride Cosmic Rewind in January!

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We wanted another ride on Forbidden Journey, so we took the bridge over to Lost Continent, then to Hogsmeade.

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Early Entry was over by this time. I think it actually ended while we were in line because people started coming in through the Express Pass line. So we probably ended up waiting longer than we needed to, but we don’t often get to experience the full queue, so I wasn’t disappointed in getting to do that at least. I don’t know if we ever get to be in the classroom with Harry, Ron & Hermione more than just walking through when using Express.

We passed through Jurassic Park to stop in Skull Island for a last ride on Reign of Kong.

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Then on to Marvel Superhero Island to ride the Incredible Hulk Coaster.

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The wait time was already posted at 80 minutes, but with Express we literally walked on with no wait at all straight to the loading platform!

By now, it was about 10 am, and we had done the things we had wanted to do again before leaving Islands for this trip, so we decided to say goodbye and head over to Studios.

 

[khertz]

Day 6 Continued: Tuesday June 7th

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There was only one more thing I really wanted to to, and that was Escape From Gringotts! So we walked over to Studios and straight back to Diagon Alley.

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Mischief Managed!

On our way out of the park, Megatron was meeting. I think he’s probably the only Transformer we haven’t met yet, and he is still elusive to us as we decided not to stop on the way out.

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We walked back to Hard Rock and made it there for about 11 am. We went straight to the pool bar to order some lunch to bring back to the room with us. Once back in the room, we ate, then took very quick showers to freshen up before heading to the airport. I’d hate to be the sweaty smelly person on the plane! Lol Thank goodness for that late checkout.

At 12, we left the room to go down to the lobby to wait for our towncar to pick us up for our return to the airport. At Hard Rock, they will cut your room keys into guitar picks, and it’s something we would always forget about before staying there. This time since we had plenty of time before our ride would get there, DH took his to get cut. They also had a box of loose picks already cut, so they gave him a Spiderman one to bring back for the kids.

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Our driver got there at 1 pm, and we had the same driver who had picked us up at the beginning of our trip. He got us there at 1:15, but dropped us off at the wrong side of the airport so we had a bunch of walking through the airport to get to the Southwest counter. I was a little worried about this because I can remember showing up at the Southwest counter previous trips and encountering enormous lines to check bags, but it has been awhile since we have flown through MCO so I was happily surprised to see they have added a TON of kiosks to self-tag your bags! So we were able to do that in no time at all, and security only took about 10 minutes. I had tried and tried to set up one of the security reservations through Clear that is now offered, but I figured I was doing something wrong because the only Southwest flight that ever showed up as an option for me to choose was an early morning one. I found out later through Facebook groups that it is only available for early morning flights anyway.

After an uneventful flight, we landed in New Orleans at 4:05 and my mom was able to come pick us up. We grabbed the kids, and made the 2 hour drive home!

Overall, we had a fantastic time, and while we missed the kids, it was nice to be just the two of us! It made it feasible to do more late nights and sleep-in mornings, which would not have been possible with how early our kids like to get up, no matter what time they went to bed the night before. Getting to experience the Orlando Informer Meetup event was pretty awesome, and worth the experience of doing it once! Hopefully we will be able to swing doing one in the future, and I'd love to do one during the winter with not so hot weather, but it was still fun getting the exclusive late night access to the parks and of course, the SNACKS!!!

Thanks all who joined in for this adventure. We just got back last weekend from a pretty perfect trip to WDW after 3 years away from those parks, so I am excited to share that one as well!

 

[Robo56]

Great trip report and your pictures were fantastic.

It is always fun to see pictures of the park through someone else’s eyes.

 

[khertz]

Great trip report and your pictures were fantastic.

It is always fun to see pictures of the park through someone else’s eyes.

Thanks so much!! It's fun to share the memories, it makes the post-trip blues a little more bearable.