"You're not making good choices, Phoebe!" A July 2015 Trip Report *completed 1/2/16*

[missangelalexis]

You can find full episodes of AYAOTD on Youtube as well

Mmm butterbeer..so good!

I could imagine how exciting it was for you to be there!!

 

[LizardQueen8]

1. Bread is the best. THE ABSOLUTE BEST.
2. Pick-a-Pearl is on my wish list for next year.
3. I will get to Universal to Harry Potter someday. SOMEDAY SO JEALOUS.
4. I LOVE IT'S A SMALL WORLD AND WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR IT EVER

 

[Anesthesia Fine]

Loving the Universal pics!

 

[acellison]

You are really making me want to take a day at Universal! It looks like so much fun an the details look amazing. Good idea getting the hotel room just for the perks since it was cheaper

 

[tabrizia]

Universal looks great, I want to go for Harry Potter, no one else in my family does though. Hopefully I can convince them when we go back in like 2019 or so, since I don't think they'll agree for either of the 2016 trips.

 

[tgpez21]

I love your Universal pictures! It makes me so excited to go in December!

 

[sara1215]

What a great trip report! I love reading about trips, especially those with families. Can't wait to see what happens next!

 

[bapritchett]

Great report. Thanks

 

[wdwgirl98]

Loving this report!

 

[Practically_Perfect]

Loving your updates. I'm heading to WDW soon (and tacking on a one-day visit to US/IOA mostly for HP...), and your TR has me excited!

Not sure if I missed it, but you were asking about SUV recommendations. Check out the Buick Enclave. Has great third-row seating, lots of "trunk" room (especially when third row is folded down completely flat), but doesn't feel too big and bulky. My parents drive one, and they love it.

 

[xlsm]

Great updates. So sorry your plans at Epcot got changed. It looks like everyone had a great day. Your pick a pearl necklace is beautiful. It is definitely something I want to do with my dd next time we visit.
Your dinner looks amazing at Artist Palette. What a great way to end the day!
I'm enjoying your posts about Universal. I've only been once, but that was a long time ago. I'd like to take the kids, but think they may be too young. Having to get a locker would drive me crazy and we would need a diaper bag. Can't wait to see what else you do.

I really liked the pick-a-pearl experience, and I definitely recommend it as something to do at least once!

The locker thing at Universal was a pain, I'm not going to lie. Especially because for a couple of rides, we were in line before we saw the signs saying our things would have to be stowed in one before riding. And in a couple of places, particularly before the Forbidden Journey, the locker rooms are a NIGHTMARE. I'll mention this in my next update, but a tip is to NOT try to get one in the first room. There is another large locker room there that was almost empty because everyone was crammed into the first tiny room. It was crazy.

So, your DH and I have very similar tastes when it comes to Artist's Point lol the only difference was my dessert! And your drink sounds so good and I'm kind of sad I got a glass of wine and not a cocktail now.

Gah I'm so jealous! We may be ("we" being my mother and I) to WWoHP if we have to go down to Florida in October but it's not set in stone yet. I've been to the original section at Islands of Adventure but not the newer Diagon Alley section yet and I'm dyiiiiiiiiing to go! Also: very proud of your son's choice in robes (I may have a Ravenclaw tie with my keys on them, also may call my car a Tardis because it's Tardis blue but it may secretly be named Rowena. Y'know, secretly.)

L officially thinks you are amazing. He says he now has to get a blue car when he's old enough to do the same thing!!

As for Artist Point, we really enjoyed our cocktails! I was surprised at how large they were, and they were pretty strong (but the best drinks we had by far were the ones at the pool bar!)

I hope you get to go see Diagon Alley soon! It's fabulous. We enjoyed Hogsmeade, but I felt it was night and day in terms of immersion into the wizarding world. Diagon Alley felt so REAL, and Hogsmeade felt more like a very cool themed area.

You can find full episodes of AYAOTD on Youtube as well

Mmm butterbeer..so good!

I could imagine how exciting it was for you to be there!!

Looks like I'm going to have to spend some time on YouTube!
And I'm going to have to create my own butterbeer at home because it is my new favorite thing!

1. Bread is the best. THE ABSOLUTE BEST.
2. Pick-a-Pearl is on my wish list for next year.
3. I will get to Universal to Harry Potter someday. SOMEDAY SO JEALOUS.
4. I LOVE IT'S A SMALL WORLD AND WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR IT EVER

1.Bread is life, and I don't even want to imagine not having it. Ever.
2.Pick a Pearl is one of my favorite things I've ever done at Epcot
3.The HP stuff at Uni/IOA is an absolute must for any fan. It's overwhelming and incredible. I hope you get to make a trip!!
4.Do not. Do not ever apologize for the small world love!! It makes my heart happy

Loving the Universal pics!

Thank you!!

You are really making me want to take a day at Universal! It looks like so much fun an the details look amazing. Good idea getting the hotel room just for the perks since it was cheaper

It was fun, but hectic! There is a lot of really cool stuff there, and I'll touch on it a little more in the next couple of updates. The experience was interesting for us, because we feel it was worth it, but there were some drawbacks as well.

Universal looks great, I want to go for Harry Potter, no one else in my family does though. Hopefully I can convince them when we go back in like 2019 or so, since I don't think they'll agree for either of the 2016 trips.

Oh, I hope you do get to make a trip to see HP at some point!! It's amazing!

I love your Universal pictures! It makes me so excited to go in December!

Hooray for a December trip!! I hope you have an awesome time!!

What a great trip report! I love reading about trips, especially those with families. Can't wait to see what happens next!

Thank you so much for following along!! I've got a lot left to share

Great report. Thanks

Thanks!! I'm glad you like it

Loving this report!

Thank you!! It's been a fun one to work on so far!!

Loving your updates. I'm heading to WDW soon (and tacking on a one-day visit to US/IOA mostly for HP...), and your TR has me excited!

Not sure if I missed it, but you were asking about SUV recommendations. Check out the Buick Enclave. Has great third-row seating, lots of "trunk" room (especially when third row is folded down completely flat), but doesn't feel too big and bulky. My parents drive one, and they love it.

Thank you for the SUV recommendation! The enclave hasn't been on my radar but I will look into it for sure!

I hope you have a fabulous time on your trip, and good luck on your US/IOA day! The HP stuff will blow your mind, it's just so perfectly done!

 

[xlsm]

Good morning!!

I have another busy day ahead of me, but I'll hopefully have a couple of updates ready for you all this weekend!

Thanks again for hanging out with me and following along!!

 

[Mousemommy1]

Just started reading. Awesome report so far! I am totally jealous of your Sully hug!!!

Your family is beautiful!

 

[disnita]

I love reading your trip report! I was just at Universal in April with DH for one full day before our cruise... I, like you, am a serious HP fan, and I agree, I pretty much teared up upon passing the brick wall for the first time. So much emotion, so much anticipation! Diagon Alley was my favorite of the two HP 'worlds'.

Can't wait to read more! We're going to Universal again in Sept while at WDW, so I'm gathering tips from your report (Uber - good idea!)

 

[coloredimage]

L officially thinks you are amazing. He says he now has to get a blue car when he's old enough to do the same thing!!

As for Artist Point, we really enjoyed our cocktails! I was surprised at how large they were, and they were pretty strong (but the best drinks we had by far were the ones at the pool bar!)

I hope you get to go see Diagon Alley soon! It's fabulous. We enjoyed Hogsmeade, but I felt it was night and day in terms of immersion into the wizarding world. Diagon Alley felt so REAL, and Hogsmeade felt more like a very cool themed area.

L's a kid after my own heart!

Next time I go to Artist's Point I'm going to have to try a cocktail! And I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that I get to go to Diagon Alley soon - the images are amazing and I'd love to go asap!

 

[ariane37]

The locker thing at Universal was a pain, I'm not going to lie.

This is really the only thing I'm not looking forward to at Universal But I'll wait and see what you have to say!

 

[xlsm]

Just started reading. Awesome report so far! I am totally jealous of your Sully hug!!!

Your family is beautiful!

thank you!! The hug from Sully was a highlight of the trip!! He was so cute

I love reading your trip report! I was just at Universal in April with DH for one full day before our cruise... I, like you, am a serious HP fan, and I agree, I pretty much teared up upon passing the brick wall for the first time. So much emotion, so much anticipation! Diagon Alley was my favorite of the two HP 'worlds'.

Can't wait to read more! We're going to Universal again in Sept while at WDW, so I'm gathering tips from your report (Uber - good idea!)

I'm glad you understand the feeling I was talking about! It was incredible.
Uber worked REALLY well for us, and I was especially pleased that it was so easy to get a car that early in the morning. We used Uber XL, so we had enough room, and our fares each way were around $30-$35, I forget exactly, but it's about half the cost of a cab and you aren't expected to tip (although we did tip our return driver.), just provide a good rating. We would definitely use it again in Orlando.

L's a kid after my own heart!

Next time I go to Artist's Point I'm going to have to try a cocktail! And I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that I get to go to Diagon Alley soon - the images are amazing and I'd love to go asap!

I know my goal for next time is the Raspberry Rapids. It's all I can think about, and i'm kicking myself for not getting it.

This is really the only thing I'm not looking forward to at Universal But I'll wait and see what you have to say!

I really hated the locker situation. I won't even sugar coat it, LOL, it was just so inconvenient after being able to take everything on the disney rides with you. Now, if I hadn't been used to the ease of Disney, I don't think I would have minded as much. If we return, I will be going bagless for sure, and making sure I have a safe pocket for my phone.

 

[xlsm]

You want to hear a funny story?

Funny as in, I'm experiencing so many feelings of rage my eyes feel like popping out of my head?

My phone screen shattered this morning.
And not even in a cool way. I was not involved in a car chase, I didn't save an innocent bystander from a gunshot by tossing my phone up to block the bullet, I didn't survive being ran over by a truck.

Nope.

The toilet paper roll holder fell on it.

Not kidding. It is totally unusable. The impact spot doesn't even have any glass there, it cracked and chipped off right down to whatever is under the glass.

Oh, and then one of my dogs threw up on the carpet.

Happy Sunday.

Moving on...

I think we're up to

Chapter Five Part Three

I had to scroll back and see where I'd left you last time! It looks like we had boarded the Hogwarts Express and were just pulling into the Hogsmeade Station.

We exited the train and walked out to see this:



Please Respect the Spell Limits.



Snow? In FLORIDA?? IN JULY??

No, snow in Hogsmeade. Come on, now.

We saw the photo-op Hogwarts Express



and made our way into the village.



We visited Honeydukes, and were disappointed that Zonko's is nothing more than a facade (Honeyduke's continues throughout that whole building).
The Weasley Twins. Responsible for skiving snackboxes, and running competitors out of business.




Next on the left was the Three Broomsticks and The Hog's Head. We didn't stop in either, since we weren't ready for food and we'd just had a butterbeer, we kept on walking.

We listened to the chorus for a second



I was so busy looking around at everything that I was shocked when I realized where we were



OH. MY. GOSH.

Hogwarts Castle. It was RIGHT THERE.



DH and X sat this one out again, so L and I experienced the absolute hellacious nightmare that was the locker room, then got in line (which was only posted at 20 minutes, but I don't think it took that long at all). The line wasn't bad, so we cruised through to the greenhouses, where we waited for a few minutes, but it really wasn't a long wait at all. Then we moved into the castle. I loved the talking portraits, and the entrance to Dumbledore's office, and the Trio talking in the classroom. There were a LOT of cool things to see, but it wasn't anything like I'd expected. There wasn't much to it!
I had read reports of everyone loving being in the castle, and taking the castle only tour, but you're barely even in the castle part at all before it's time to load the ride vehicle. Did I miss something?? I mean, I liked it, but I wasn't nearly as impressed as I was prepared to be. I guess I had built it up so much in my mind that it was a disappointment.
To be very honest, Hogsmeade itself was very disappointing after visiting Diagon Alley.

I don't want to bring anyone down, it is VERY cool and I was beyond thrilled to be there, but it just wasn't what I expected after starting the morning in London. If we return, I feel like I'd want to START in Hogsmeade so maybe I'd appreciate it a little more. Does that make sense?

Anyway, soon it was time to board. The ride vehicle on The Forbidden Journey is very different from the majority of rides most people are used to. In fact, the entire ride is almost indescribable because it is just so unique (or at least it felt that way at the time). It was really fun, and is an absolute must do, BUT...

I have never, ever, EVER, in my entire life felt so sick on a ride as I did that one. I very rarely get motion sick on rides, and if I do, it's a quick woozy feeling that quickly passes. This ride really took it out of me. My progression of feelings was:

Beginning - OMG, this is awesome! *huge smile*
Middle - Ugh, wow. I'm not feeling so great *no more smile* surely it's about over.
End - OMG, this is awful, please God no more swooping and spinning, I am dying. This is the longest ride, when will it end??? *trying not to gag*

But it's so cool!! And I would ride it again!! But I WILL NOT ride it again without mega doses of some kind of anti-nausea pill and about half a bottle of ibuprofen.

I was feeling so icky that I didn't even ride Flight of the Hippogriff. But the kids did, twice in a row



They loved it! I was sad when I realized I had missed my chance to see Hagrid's hut. But this ride was great for showing us the worth of those Express Passes. They were on and off, and back on and off again in no time.

While we were riding, I just barely caught a glimpse of the Beauxbatons girls and one of the Durmstrang boys



Somewhere between the boys scanning their EPs the second time, and DH and I walking to the Flight of the Hippogriff exit, which is not very far apart, something terrible happened.

I looked down and the pouch had fallen off my lanyard.

My pouch with my room key, my park ticket, and my express pass.

I backtracked, looked all over the ground, asked everyone if they'd noticed it and could not find it. How had it disappeared so quickly? Literally within the span of about 2 minutes. To say i was freaking out is probably the biggest understatement of the year. Maybe the decade.

I. was. freaking. out.

I went into the Forbidden Journey dump shop and asked a TM what to do. He told me he had no idea, ask someone else (not kidding). I got in line at the check out counter, and told the girl what had happened. She said she would check with lost and found, got on her walkie talkie, and said she'd tell me if she got a response. I stood over to the side of the store while she continued working.

DH is outside somewhere with the kids.

I waited about 10 minutes, and decided to go ask her if she'd heard anything. Apparently I had glanced away for a second, and she was gone. Someone else was there. I asked her where the other girl had gone and she said she was off shift. I told her what had happened, and she said, "Oh, I don't know anything about that. Sorry." and turned away.

I was about to cry. No one was offering me any solution, I really thought I was just screwed and our whole day was ruined because I had lost all of my stuff.

DH sent me a text asking where I was, I told him, and we found each other.

He said he had talked to a TM, and all we had to do was go to the guest services tent in the Jurassic Park area and they'd issue me all new stuff.

Really?

It was that simple??

So why had none of the people I'D talked to told me that was all I needed to do? I would have stopped panicking and carried on living my life.

I was incredibly frustrated at this point, so upset at all the wasted time, and not in a very good mood.

After waiting so long to visit these parks and see the Wizarding World, all I wanted to do was get far, far, away from the horrorshow that was Hogsmeade. It was not the way I wanted to leave that area, but you can't always get what you want.

Would I get new credentials? Would the day improve??

More coming soon!!

 

[tgpez21]

So sorry that you lost your pouch off your lanyard. I would have been freaking out too! Good to know that you can get new copies though!

 

[xlsm]

Chapter Five Part Four

Finally past the point of tears, we left Hogsmeade, and traveled to what was one of our very favorite sections of the park

Welcome to.....



Jurassic Park! (with Hogwarts in the background)

The plan was to cruise through pretty quickly to get my new tickets/passes, then go back through again to see everything, but it didn't quite work out that way. Mainly because the guest services tent was WAY WAY farther away than any of the TMs said. They made it sound like it was just around the corner. It was not.

We found a lot of fun photo ops:

Spinosaurus from Jurassic Part III



the infamous T-Rex



and a supercool triceratops fossil



We sped up and found the guest services tent, and I got a new park ticket and new express pass. It took about 5 minutes. *sigh*
If only I'd known how easy it would be back in Hogsmeade. I was not happy at all with my experience there. The TMs that I spoke to were not helpful in the least. (but, we would also meet some really great ones this day, too!).

At this point, I just wanted to put all that mess behind me. We were hungry to the point we didn't care WHERE we ate, but not many places were open yet for lunch (it was just before 11), and we were getting frustrated. Luckily, we saw that the burger place inside the Discovery Center had just opened up, so we decided that was the place for us!
We all had cheeseburgers, and used the small toppings bar to fix them up the way we wanted.

The food was not special at all, and I have no pictures, but it perked us up enough that our moods were instantly lifted. Thank goodness.

This was our view:




We stopped quickly in the shop, and Xavier found this hat



( I have a picture of L from last year wearing the same, or at least a similar, hat in the shop after Dinosaur in AK )

We were all ready to go downstairs and check out the Discovery Center, and were just in time to witness an egg hatching




L was picked to answer a couple of questions by the scientists, and they told everyone around that it was his birthday. He was even picked to name the new baby velociraptor



He named it Pancakes, and he and the scientist signed the birth certificate, and L got to take it home!

Both boys played around with some of the exhibits, and then combined their own dna with that of a dinosaur to create a NEW species:




Behold, the results...

The Xosaurus



and the Losaurus



Weird looking, right? Yeah, their cameras aren't the best I guess! They had a lot of fun with this though.

We wandered around in there for a little while longer, but we wanted to go ride some things!

Goodbye Discovery Center



I love the light fixtures here!



and the view across the water



Our plan was to go ride the Jurassic Park River Adventure, but we detoured to meet a raptor



This was pretty neat! The dinosaur wrangler was VERY into character, and it was a great interaction. Our wait in line was maybe 10 or 15 minutes. It was quite hot, so it wasn't the most pleasant wait, but not terrible.

We didn't get torn apart by the vicious carnivore, thank goodness, so we went on to ride the River Adventure. The Express Pass line was nonexistant, so we basically walked right on. The standby line was around 45 minutes, so we were loving the EPs.

There were no lockers required for this ride, so that was good. X was wearing a poncho for the ride because he hates getting wet, so he just held my purse under his poncho for me.

We left the Jurassic World (a little sadly, we loved it!), and went on to Toon Lagoon





No one wanted to ride the water rides with me, so we skipped them and kept moving. This area is really fun to look at, especially if you understand the theme! I'm a fan of old newspaper comics, and I understand the majority of the references, so I loved it!
One negative is, everything is starting to fade a little, and is just not quite as bright and eye-catching as it probably once was. We noticed that about a lot of things at Universal/IOA.

We got to the Marvel area, and DH was looking everywhere for a new hat. He'd left his in the room at the Lodge that morning, and his head was starting to burn. We didn't find anything there, but it would be our quest for the next hour or so.

We used our EPs for Spiderman



We all really enjoyed this ride, but I was still not quite 100% after the Forbidden Journey, so I was maybe less enthusiastic than everyone else!

I wanted to ride the Hulk, but again, no one wanted to ride with me, so we skipped it too. I briefly considered riding alone, but decided I wasn't up to it at the moment.

What was on our agenda next??

Stay Tuned!