Orlando Cray-cation - Part 3

Are you still with me?  Then you are obviously pretty bored.  Sorry.  But if I don't write it down I'll forget.

Anyway, we were in the home stretch now!  Only a couple of full days left.  Back to Universal we go - Islands of Adventure this time!  Let the adventure begin!

Where to go first...Harry Potter Land, duh.  Here we are entering Hogsmeade.  We are so early the Butterbeer cart isn't even open yet!  Don't worry kids, as sure as gators live in the swamp, there will be Butterbeer today.

Wait, stop and smile in front of this cute Gryffindor snowman!  

Our first ride was the Hogwarts ride (I can't remember the actual name of the ride).  Cora wasn't sure she wanted to ride on it since the Gringott's ride wasn't her favorite, but she wanted to go through the line anyway.  I actually like the line on this one better than the ride.

The line goes all through Hogwarts, through the Herbology greenhouse, by Dumbledore's office, through the portrait gallery, even by the picture of the Fat Lady.  All fun.  But the ride makes me so dizzy I have to close my eyes through most of it, and I'm still a little wobbly getting on the moving sidewalk at the end.  I guess I am just old.

After we rode that ride and the Hippogriff roller coaster, we finally headed to the place Daxton had been anticipating for a long time:

 Preston gallantly sacrificed his arm to this T-Rex to save the kids,  Run, kids!

 Then we went to visit a velociraptor.  He decided that he wanted to nibble on my ear:

 This is me right before I ran away.  Cora isn't too sure about the whole situation but Dax thought it was hilarious.

After Dax rode the Jurassic Park boat ride 3 or 4 times in a row and we waited while the kids played in the Jurassic Play land for a while and rode the sky ride, we ate lunch!  The kids got ice cream with their kids meals, and they were a little bit excited about it.  

After me, Dax, Preston and Grandpa got brave and rode the Hulk Rollercoaster (where they make you take EVERYTHING out of your pockets and even x-ray you to make sure you are free from keys or even chap stick.  I thought this was a little excessive until Cora found someone's earring on the ground that had apparently been flung out of someone's very ear by the force of this coaster), we headed over to Seuss Land.  Arden wanted to stand by the sign and get a picture because Dr. Seuss is one of her favorites, and they even share a birthday:

Look who we found!  The Grinch:

 Silly kids:

After we rode all the rides in Suess-land, we headed over to the new King Kong ride:

 It actually wasn't as scary as we thought it would be, which was good because Cora went on it and was pretty worried.  It actually made her brave enough to try the Harry Potter ride later that day:

I love the portrait gallery!

 They almost decided at the very last minute that Cora was too short for the ride, but they eventually let her on and she loved it.  We then took turns taking the kids on the Hippogriff coaster about 8 times in a row.  Finally, the promised Butterbeer made its appearance.  And we found the perfect bench to eat it on.

 Another great day!

The next day was our last full day, and we saved the Magic Kingdom for last.  Yay for castles!
 

We went to the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride.  They had fun stuff to do while we waited in the superlong line (no Fastpasses...boo!).  The ride itself was fun, but not as fun as I thought it should have been when we waited for about an hour.

That was by far the longest line we waited in.  We walked right on to the Little Mermaid:

And the train had no line either, so we decided to ride it over to the Haunted Mansion, which actually took longer than walking but oh well.

We hit all the highlights.  Pirates of the Carribbean.  Buzz Lightyear.  Even Splash Mountain!

We did wait in line for a while for the Jungle Jingle Cruise, but we got a really funny guide so it was okay.

When the sun started going down, I started getting a little sad.  But we still had time to go on Space Mountain, and Cora made sure we fit in the obligatory "It's a Small World."  

One more carousel ride:

And then our last ride...Space Mountain.  Are you sad this is your last ride?

 Actually, we had time to ride it twice, but then it was OVER.  They were starting up "Mickey's Christmas Party," which we hadn't paid the extra $90 for, so we were oh-so-sweetly shuffled towards the door.  But they can't stop me from taking pictures on the way out!  Here is the pretty wintery castle:

 And it was snowing like crazy on Main Street!  Dax tried catching some on his tongue and quickly discovered fake snow doesn't taste as good as the real stuff.

 Arden one more time:

 We did get one more ride...the ferry back to the parking lot (have I ever mentioned that I dislike the ferry?  I do.  Not as much on the way back as on the way in though.).  I had forgotten that it was the supermoon this week until just then, so I made Cora hold up the moon for me as we chugged across the lake:

 Goodbye Disneyworld!  I'm exhausted!

 We spent our last morning swimming and soaking up the sunshine.  And packing of course.  Yuck.

Goodbye pool!  Goodbye house with palm trees and neighborhood I took boring laps around all week instead of running through the swamp!

It was a super fun trip, but I think we were all a lot more tired when we got home than we were when we left!  Now I need another week off to recover from my vacation :).  But I still wish we could go back and do it all again.

Orlando Cray-cation - part 2

The next day was Saturday and we headed to Epcot.  When we got to the parking lot, they had us park on some grass?  That should have been a signal to us that some weird stuff was going on.  We were just glad that we were parked so close.  We eventually got through the bag check line (HATE the bag check line) and made it in:  

 The first ride we wanted to go on was the new "Frozen" ride.  They were out of fast passes online, so we were doomed to the stand-by line.

The line (once we got inside) was really cute, like being in Arrendale, complete with Oaken's sauna and everything.  The ride was super adorable too (here is Olaf and Sven!)

After that ride, we headed to the Test Track, which is always fun, but I decided I liked the "Cars" land version from Disneyland better.  We eventually wandered over to the Nemo ride/aquarium, which is always fun.

 Somewhere in here we discovered that it was ridiculously crowded.  Seems like a number of promotions were going on simultaneously, in addition to it being a Saturday.  It was "Dapper Day" (where you dress up fancy and come to Epcot), Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (a swing band) was appearing, it was the "Food and Wine Festival" (where you come to Epcot and eat a bunch of fancy food, AND, it was apparently "Drink Your Way Around the World Day" (I am not kidding), where you get a little passport, and each time you purchase a beer or cocktail in a country in the world showcase, you can get a stamp on your passport.  The lines for the food carts (which also sold drinks) were INSANE.  There were people just everywhere.  Lucky for us, we had reservations at the restaurant in China, but it took us quite a while to fight our way over there.

After lunch, we rode Mission Space a couple of times, and it is always fun to mess with the kids by pushing their switches and buttons.  We also listened to some singers in the America section which was nice.   We wanted to ride on Soarin', but the line was something like 80 minutes long, and I am not that patient of a person.  We walked around and sampled the soda pop from around the world (if you are ever in Italy and someone offers you a drink called "Beverly," DO NOT DRINK IT.

It was so crowded that we decided to call it an early night and head home.  I made Cora pose for a picture on the way out:

 And then we ate cheap dinner at the house and SWAM!

The next day (yes, we are getting a little tired by now) was Disney Hollywood Studios!  This place felt more Christmas-y than Epcot did.

The first thing I wanted to do was go on the Tower of Terror!  They are closing this ride at Disneyland to change it into some sort of Guardians of the Galaxy ride or some other such nonsense that I oppose wholeheartedly.  But at least this one is still here.

 Hooray for the Tower of Terror!  I love the atmosphere of this ride.

Here is Preston, getting ready to go on the service elevator.  The girls skipped this one, but Daxton ride it and belly-laughed the whole time we were going up and down.  It was awesome.

We had Fastpasses for Star Tours, which Cora was very excited about.  Dax was hoping he would be the rebel spy, but no such luck.  He decided he would be okay if he got to pose on this speeder:

 Preston wanted in on the action and made a line of little children wait while he climbed on and struck a pose.

We watched the Indiana Jones stunt show, we watched the Little Mermaid Show, we went to Muppet Vision, we did some shopping and we rode on the Toy Story ride (yay for FastPasses!)

After that, Arden said she wasn't feeling very well.  We went to the Frozen Sing Along show, (which was pretty entertaining and funner than I thought it would be) and watched the Beauty and the Beast show, avoiding the rollercoaster to hopefully let Arden's tummy recover from lunch.  She still wasn't feeling great, so we decided not to try to stick it out until Fantasmic.  We headed home a little early again, but no one seemed to mind too much.  We still had two days to go, and you have to pace yourself!

Orlando Cray-cation 2016 - part 1

Sometime in mid-October, Preston texted me while I was at work.  He has been having a stressful time at work lately, and had been hinting that it was time for a vacation.  He has also been hinting that it was time for a new car, and I wasn't sure which hints were more important.  But he texted me something like "book a vacation NOW," so I dutifully jumped online and checked on some airline prices.  I found a deal from Jet Blue for flights to Orlando for $160 round trip for early/mid-November, so I booked them.  My mom and dad offered to tag along and help wrangle kids. So, about three weeks later, off we headed!  We quickly figured out that despite cheap airfare and a reasonably priced house rental, a vacation to Orlando that included Disney World and Universal was not going to be cheap.  But hey, we probably have a limited number of years when all the kids will want to hang out with us at Disney, so we bit the bullet.

One of the conditions for this cheap airfare was that the flight to Orlando left at...11:59 p.m.  Yup, one minute to midnight.  We put the kids to bed around 8, but woke them up around 10 I(which was about 15 minutes after Cora finally went to sleep) to head to the airport.  The flight went okay.  I was between Arden and Cora.  Arden slept quite a bit, but Cora didn't get much sleep.  I don't think I put together more than 5 minutes at a time, since I was the pillow for both girls and my legs kept falling painfully asleep.  We made it to Florida a pretty bleary-eyed and exhausted bunch.  

We rented a house not far from WDW (Walt Disney World), which had a POOL in the backyard.  The kids wanted to jump right in, even though it was like 8:00 a.m.  We talked them into heading to IHOP for breakfast instead, so as not to wake up the neighbors.  After breakfast, though, the kids headed for the pool, and I headed for bed.  I had just donated blood the day before we left and I'm not sure if that was making me more tired, but I needed a nap in a BIG way.  

I woke up around lunchtime and took my turn at the pool with the kids while Preston took a nap.  We took it pretty easy that day since we knew that we would be running all over for the rest of the week. None of the kids took a nap, but didn't protest much when we put them to bed at 6:30 :)

Unfortunately, that night Arden got sick and started throwing up around 1 a.m.  Preston and I were up for a couple of hours dealing with that.  In the morning we were hoping to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom.  Arden really wanted to go and got all the way to the car before she decided she didn't feel up to it.  Me and my mom argued about who would stay at the house with her, and my mom ended up winning (or losing?).  So, the rest of us headed out to the parks and Arden and Grandma took it easy at the house for another day.  

Lucky for us, my dad figured out that we were supposed to book our fast passes online ahead of time, so we had a little schedule going.  First stop, Expedition Everest!  It took a lot of convincing to get Cora on the ride, but she was brave and rode it.  It was scarier than I remembered (backwards in the dark), but we survived!  Cora decided she didn't want to ride it again though.  

We also rode the safari ride.  It is always fun.  Smile, boys!

We saw lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, and all sorts of stuff.  We also saw a bunch of these cows with the crazy big horns:

Cora was very confused about why there were these "ruins" at Disney World.  "Why don't they fix up the statue?" she asked.  

We also liked looking at the animals, of course.  These apes were making all sorts of noise, and I for one was worried they were going to fall off these ropes.  Of course, they didn't, but it was fun to watch them.  

The kids had got "Wilderness Explorer" books at the entrance, and liked to run around the park and earn different "badges" for their books.  Here are the littles by some fish:

 My kids didn't care much about getting their picture taken with any characters, but when we walked by Chip and Dale and there was only one family in front of us, we decided to stop and smile:

We got texts from Grandma during the day.  Arden swam in the pool for a while, but also threw up one more time and took a long nap.   So, I guess it was best that she stayed at home, but we missed her and Grandma.  Here is a picture of Arden's day:

Here is Cora, posing with the big giant tree in the background.

One of Cora's favorite animals was the tiger:

It wasn't too crowded, which was nice and gave us hope that we picked a good week for our vacation. Here is Grandpa and Cora with Everest in the background.  

We watched the Nemo show, the Lion King show, petted some goats, saw the gorillas, and rode all but one or two of the rides.  I was sad there were no hippos swimming, but overall it was a fun day and before we knew it, the park was closing. We rode the safari in the dark for our last ride (the lions were awake!) and then headed for the exit.

Dax had spotted a dinosaur toy before lunchtime that was HUGE.  He really wanted it for his souvenir for the trip, but I didn't want to cart it around all day, so we made him wait until later in the day to get it (and he asked Preston about every five minutes if it was time yet).  Here we are on the way out, next to the big Christmas tree at the entrance, and Dax is holding his new best friend.  Who we had to shove into the overhead bin on the way home since he wouldn't fit in a suitcase...but I digress.

The next morning I set off for a run early in the morning.  I had looked around for a place to run that was off the main highway, but not just circles around our little neighborhood (boring!).  I had found a nearby road that looked nice and long and not too busy.  It was called "Green Swamp Road." I ran along the highway until I reached it, but it turns out that it was more of a dirt trail through an ACTUAL swamp (The "Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve").  It was just getting light, and there was fog all along the ground.  I stood staring at it for a while, but decided that the risk of getting my leg bit off by a gator was just too high to risk.  I should have taken a picture of the road, but I didn't think about it until I was almost back to the highway...anyway, here is the fog and a swampy looking tree to give you an idea:

 I ran back to our neighborhood and ran boring but gator-free laps to get my miles in.

I was really hoping that Arden would feel well enough to enjoy this day because we were headed to Universal Studios Orlando, home of Harry Potter Land (Okay, so it is actually called something like "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter," but you get the idea.)  Arden has been reading Harry Potter a lot lately, and her classroom is Harry Potter themed this year.  She was feeling pretty good, so off we went!

Here is Preston!  We are actually IN the park after our drive and long journey from the parking lot.  I love palm trees!

We headed straight for Diagon Alley...but missed it!  We saw King's Cross train station, and even Grimmauld Place:

Turns out that you have to find the secret entrance to Diagon Alley!  Since we are all muggles it took us a minute, but eventually we made it!

Obviously, we weren't the only ones that had discovered the way in.  It was really impressive though!
 

 We wandered around with our mouths open for a while, then headed over to Gringott's Bank, home of the "Escape from Gringott's ride"  (This dragon breathes fire every once in a while, but I never got a picture, sorry):

The line was half the fun of this ride.  Here we are, queuing through the lobby of Gringotts, complete with animatronic goblins: 

The ride itself was pretty good too, but made me a little dizzy.  After the the ride we visited Ollivander's and watched the little show where someone finds their wand.  Dax really wanted one, but they were ridiculously expensive and he had already chosen his dinosaur, so no dice.  Lots to choose from though:

Each store was so detailed, and had something fun to look at in the window or inside.  They had little plays in one corner, which were fun to watch:

We sampled a pumpkin juice (not bad) and we even had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron!  Cora had shepherds pie, Arden and I had fish and chips and Preston had bangers and mash.  Dax was no fun and had macaroni and cheese.  We all had some Butterbeer, of course.

After lunch we wandered around again, and discovered creepy Knockturn Alley, where it is nighttime even in the afternoon.  I seriously could wander around in here for days!

Eventually we wandered back out into the rest of the park.  We rode the Minions ride, the Mummy ride, the Men in Black Ride, etc. etc. etc.  There were some long lines, but we passed the time by playing "Heads Up" on Grandpa's phone:

We even rode the E.T. ride, which was just as lame, of not lamer, than I remembered it as a kid.  But before the day was over we went back over to Diagon Alley and rode the Gringott's ride again.  I was hoping to explore a little more after the ride, but since the park was officially closed by the time we got off, all the stores were closed, the dragon wasn't breathing fire anymore, and all the muggles were being shooed out.  Oh well.  

We stopped and got a picture with the Knight Bus, complete with snoring shrunken head (he talks to you during the day, but he was sleeping after the park officially closed):

 Arden held up like a champ, and it was a pretty fun day!