Willard Family Weblog

Universal Trip - Fifth Day in the Parks!

Merry Christmas!

Waking up in a hotel on Christmas morning is a little odd, I will admit. Honestly, we have all commented throughout our visit that it just didn’t seem like Christmas. It doesn’t matter that there are Christmas decorations all over the amusement parks, the hotel, and all of the restaurants we visited on CityWalk. It doesn’t matter that Christmas tunes were playing throughout the property. It doesn’t matter that people are wandering around in Christmas shirts, wishing each other “Merry Christmas.” We have all been wandering around in a “vacation oblivion” for days. It has been rather comical because at some point during every day one of the girls would exclaim, “OH YEAH! It’s Christmas!” I think it is because our brains associate amusement parks with summer or fall, the times we normally attend. Thankfully, Santa doesn’t have that same brain constraint, because he was able to locate the girls at the hotel and left them a little something for Christmas morning.

Each girl received a super soft pillow case with “Hog Wild” embroidered in the white silk hem, an adorable golden snitch necklace, and a book off of their Christmas list – the second Hunger Games book for Kacy and the new Clementine book for Abby. As a side note, Abby has loved the Clementine books for years and was even able to meet the author, Sara Pennypacker, at her school a couple of years ago. So while she reads well above the Clementine level now, it is a sentimental favorite for her.

Once we were all packed, we turned our luggage over to the hotel to hold then stopped for a quick bite in little shop in our hotel. There were no seats around the little shop, so we headed out to sit near the pool while we ate.

Little did we know that we would soon become a party of five when a rogue squirrel tried to join us for breakfast. The little stinker just wouldn’t go away and wouldn’t let himself be scared off. We hollered, shoo’d, scooted lounge chairs, the whole bit. He just wouldn’t go away. The stinker only had one eye, but he sure kept that good eye on us the whole time. He would crawl up a nearby tree and watch, scurry back down under our chairs… watching the food the whole time. We made sure to not leave the little critter so much as a crumb when we were finished. 

After the squirrel situation, we headed over to Islands of Adventure. On the way we read the Christmas story aloud and remembered that the real reason for Christmas is not presents or riding rides… but the birth of our Lord and Savior. Christmas would be nothing without His birth.

When we arrived at the park we decided to ride The Forbidden Journey one more time before we left the property and decided that we should head over immediately because the line wasn’t going to get any lighter. We checked Marcus’s app, which listed the wait at 60 minutes. By the time we made it back to Hogwarts, the wait had jumped to 90 minutes. We went through zig-zags that we had not yet zigged or zagged through earlier in our visit.

When we finally made it up to the locker area at the front of the castle, the Universal employee directing traffic informed us that the single-rider line was 5 minutes. The remaining wait for us at this point would have been another 55-60 minutes. We decided to take our chances on the single rider line… I mean, really? 5 minutes? As it turned out Abby and I ended up on the same car. Marcus and Kacy were just a few cars behind us, although not together. We were happy to get our last ride completed so quickly, but Kacy was not a fan of riding without us. Still not sure why, but it wasn’t an issue for the remainder of the day, as we were able to use our Express pass.

After riding the Forbidden Journey ride, we wandered through a very quiet area of the park between the Harry Potter section and Jurassic Park. We took a few photos along the way…

We then found a nice quiet area to sit and rest for a few minutes. Abby’s tummy wasn’t 100% this morning, so we just took it easy for a little while before heading over to hit our favorite combination of Spidey & The Hulk. Today we also added the Dr. Doom ride (similar to the Scream ride at Fiesta Texas) to the mix. It was ok… nothing terribly great. It so pales in comparison to The Tower of Terror – which is my all time favorite amusement park ride evah! 

We took a lunch break at the NBA City restaurant. It was interesting, and my burger and fries were quite tasty. We had admired the big basketball player wearing a Santa hat all week. Here’s Abby posing for a picture…

We even met Santa on the way in to the restaurant...

We made one more run through Universal Studios, hitting Shrek, The Mummy, Jaws, Men in Black, and The Simpsons. Now, for the Jaws ride – this was going to be Abby’s last Jaw’s ride ever. And wouldn’t you know that it was totally messed up by the attendant loading us. She didn’t give Abby the outside seat on the side where the shark makes its most appearances. Nope. She gave it to an Asian couple who tried to crawl over me every time the shark jumped out of the water. It drove Abby nuts. I mean, she was just shooting looks to the poor couple the entire ride. I was totally cracking up!! That Abby – she’s serious about her sharks! We did manage a picture with the big Great White shark in front of the ride...

I took this picture whiel waiting on Marcus and the girls to ride The Simpsons...

We happened to run into Doc Brown from Back to the Future while walking around Universal Studios...

Before we left the park, we stopped for one funnel cake. Oh how we love a good funnel cake!

This one was good, but I have to say that I just haven’t found a funnel cake anywhere that compares to Cakes and Dreams in Branson. They have the ultimate funnel cakes. We’re going to have to figure out how to get up to Branson someday… miss that place!

We took a few more pictures before heading out...

We made our way back to the hotel, caught a taxi, and made it over to a hotel near the airport. Our flight home leaves Orlando very early tomorrow morning… like at 6:20AM. Dear heavens. But it was sure a lot less expensive than flying out later tomorrow. As a bonus, we will be back in San Antonio before 10AM tomorrow morning. We are thinking about swinging through HEB on the way back to the house to pick up some milk and biscuits so that we can have our traditional chocolate gravy after we open presents.

So this post brings us to the end of our trip reports. We have had so much fun! We hit a huge number of attractions and loved it all. We have laughed and laughed, had such great conversations, and just enjoyed each other, uninterrupted, for a good week. I’m so thankful that we have had this family trip and will cherish these memories forever.

 

 

 

Universal Trip - Fourth Day in the Parks!

Today started out a little earlier than yesterday… well, for the girls, anyway. They were awake around 9AM, chatting, reading, texting, and playing on their iTouches. While they were chatting, Kacy informed Abby that she talks in her sleep. This was true, as she had managed to wake me up at least twice during the night with her chatter. It was never anything that made sense, just jibber-jabber. She totally gets this from me. I take all of the blame. I’ve been talking in my sleep for years. I remember spending the night with my childhood friend, Kerri, and her mom telling me that I had been talking in my sleep. She even said she came into Kerri’s room and listened to me for a good little while. And after sixteen years of marriage, Marcus has plenty of sleep-talking and sleep-laughing stories. So the fact that one of my girls is a sleep-talker is not terribly surprising. But when most people hear that they talk in their sleep, they may deny it or, at a minimum, act surprised by the news. Not Abby. Nope. She responded to the news with an exuberant “YES!” accompanied by a fist pump. She was thrilled with the news. Only Abby…

Once again, we took our time getting around this morning (see wrestling photo above) and made it over to Islands of Adventure around 11. We stopped and shared a couple of big Cinnabon cinnamon rolls, where we were visited by Woody Woodpecker…

then headed over to The Hulk – our “leadoff ride,” as Marcus labeled it today. Of course we couldn’t ride The Hulk without following it up immediately with Spiderman. The Hulk had a non-existent Express line wait today, but Spiderman gave us about a 15 minute wait. Not too bad when the regular wait time was 50 minutes.

From the Marvel Super Hero Island, we made our way over to Toon Lagoon. There are only two rides in this section, and they are both water rides. I ranted about my dislike for water rides in yesterday’s trip report, so I will spare any readers from a similar tirade today. However, the rest of the family decided that they wanted to ride Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls – which is your typical themed log ride. I sent them off and found a place to try and snap photos… but not until we snapped a “before” photo.

Here they are coming down the big shoot…

And our “after” photo. Kacy has decided that she loves water rides as much as her momma!

Because they were already wet, Marcus and Abby decided to continue on with Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges. This would be your Roaring River Rapids ride at Silver Dollar City or Rio Loco at Fiesta Texas. Kacy decided that she’s had enough water, so she and I found a little bridge to shoot photos. Here are Marcus and Abby coming around a corner…

And going under the typical waterfall. So glad I wasn’t on that stinkin’ raft!

After this ride, they sooooo wet. Abby seriously did not have a dry spot on her entire body!

We thought the best way to try and dry everyone off was to hit the Dragon Challenge in the Harry Potter section, so off we went. We all rode the Chinese Fireball together, then the girls and I decided on a repeat ride, while Marcus waited on us outside the ride.

We decided to head over to Universal Studios to ride the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, as the wait was only showing 25 minutes. Today’s music selections were as follows: Marcus – Motley Crue, Kacy – Dwight Yokam, Abby – Charlie Daniels, and Haley – Fergie. I’m really not much of a Fergie fan, but the song sounded good for the ride.

The hotel restaurant was our selection for lunch. Marcus and the girls had eaten there on our second night, and they were happy with the food. However, the biggest reason was that we wanted to get back to the hotel room so that the girls could put on dry clothes! We followed up lunch with a nice rest period in the room. The girls were very nice in letting us rest, but Abby finally hit her limit and sweet-talked her Daddy into taking her out to play on the beach volleyball court here at the hotel. They had lots of fun and came back totally sandy. Abby enjoyed playing with some “British dudes” with “awesome accents!” It sounded like she held her own with the big people. Marcus told Kacy that he really wished she had gone, as the other people needed some volleyball help. However, Kacy was still a little miffed about being so wet, so the sand probably wouldn’t have been a good mix.

 We wandered back over to Islands of Adventure around 6PM and headed straight for the Harry Potter area. When we arrived we were thrilled to find the wait time for the Forbidden Journey was down to 20 minutes! Marcus kept an eye on his phone and from the time we hit the line until we made it to the loading area – 14 minutes! Sweet! This ride is so much fun – even though it was our 4^th time!

 We looked around the shops in the area, trying to find a souvenir shirt for Kacy.  She finally decided on a pretty yellow Hufflepuff T. It was then time for our daily butterbeer! We went with the “fizzy” option tonight – yum! We were all enjoying it outside of the Owl Post when I ran across the way to visit the “convenience.” After a short visit with Moaning Myrtle, I arrived back to find that the butterbeer had been guzzled by my younger daughter… the stinker. So I went back and got a second cup! This stuff is YUMMY… but it will bloat you up in a hurry! Consider yourself warned!

On our way out tonight, the girls jumped on the Caro-Seuss-el (uh, carousel) in Seuss Landing, then we stopped to have a caricature done of the girls. They enjoyed it a lot and it was fun watching it develop as the artist drew it up.

Because of our late lunch and our post-butterbeer bloat, we elected to snack for dinner tonight. Well, I’m not even sure that “snacking” would describe going downstairs to the ice cream counter here at the hotel… but that’s what we did!

That’s our day in a nutshell, but again, there are so many little things that I have enjoyed on the trip. For example, I’ve noticed that as we exit a ride, Abby loves to run ahead of us down the zig-zag ramps and high-five us as we meet one another. Another funny thing… we learned earlier this week that the Jaws ride is scheduled to be permanently closed on January 2, 2012 – just a matter of days from now. This news, my friends, has her in a tizzy! She loves the ride and cannot understand why they are closing this ride. Since learning of the closing (thanks, Johnny!), not a day has gone by when she hasn’t questioned it or complained about it. So you can bet that Jaws is on our list of “must ride” rides tomorrow!

 One little funny exchange as I close out today’s trip. Here’s a little clip of the girls today as we walked from Islands of Adventure over to Universal Studios. This is a very typical exchange in our family…

 

 

 

Universal Trip - Third Day in the Parks!

It was obvious to us late last night that being “early birds” just really isn’t the best approach for our family. It was even more obvious when I woke up at 8 AM this morning to find the rest of the family still fast asleep. I decided to give them a little more time, managed to doze back off, and woke up at 10AM… to find the rest of the family still fast asleep. We slowly woke up and started to go through our morning routine. We took our time and enjoyed looking at the park map, discussing rides, and just chatting about our first two days. Abby spent a good amount of time this morning categorizing the map, identifying attractions that we had already visited with a “star” and used a “heart” to identify those attractions that we loved. It was totally precious. She enjoys managing our map and helping us navigate the parks. It helps a little that the parks aren’t that big.

We finally made our way over to Islands of Adventure a little before noon. We headed straight for The Hulk, used our Express Pass, and were stunned to find quite a little line waiting for us. We were a little nervous at the sight of the line, but it ended up not being that bad… no more than a 12-15 minute wait. We seriously couldn’t complain. And we are continually impressed with the speed in which Universal can turn around a ride. They are F.A.S.T. – no doubt!

After The Hulk, we hit “Spidey,” then made our way over to the Jurassic Park River Adventure. As you can probably tell from the name of the attraction, water was involved. For the record – I do not like water rides. I hate having wet socks and I hate having wet underwear. SERIOUSLY. I do not ride water rides. But today I conceded to my family and rode this dang ride… but not without some good negotiations on my part. I got the middle seat in the row of 5. And they all promised that we could go back to the hotel so I could change if I got too wet. Fortunately we were seated in the middle of the boat, so I thought that had to be good. The ride was cute – complete with plastic dinosaurs that made cute little dinosaur noises. Of course, you had to expect the appearance of the raptors and the T-Rex, which showed up at the end of the ride. And when we hit the final drop, down my head went. Didn’t matter. I was still wet. Thankfully my legs were protected, which kept my socks dry. And the lap bar was very big, so that protected the underwear from any drenching. But my hair and t-shirt were soaked. UGH. The important thing was that the rest of the family enjoyed it and I endured. That’s all that matters. However, I think Abby put a “heart” beside this ride, so I may be subjected to further water torture. Here are a couple of pics of the girls post-ride…

From the Jurassic Park area, we made our way over to the Harry Potter area. We rode both of the coasters at The Dragon’s Challenge – first the Chinese Fireball and then the Hungarian Horntail. We did confirm that Marcus and I were correct the other day, much to the frustration of the girls. Hehe. Don’t you remember just hating it when your parents were right? The wait time for these coasters was non-existent, even for non-Express users, so we managed to ride both in under 10 minutes. When we came off of the Horntail, Abby asked which one we liked best and we all agreed that we enjoyed the Chinese Fireball the most. Odd that we all four agreed on the same thing!

It was definitely more crowded in the parks today. This picture of the Hogsmeade area shows what kind of crowds we dealt with in the Harry Potter section...

We stopped for a butterbeer on our way out of Hogsmeade, then went to find some lunch. Kacy had expressed interest in eating at the Hard Rock Café, so we headed there. It was outside of their restroom that I spotted the gold “undies” worn by Rocky in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” This warranted a text to my sister. After all, she flew down to San Antonio back in October just to attend this movie with me! Alas, I didn’t take a photo, as I had left the camera on the table. Why I didn’t think to take it with me to the toilet, I’ll never know.

After lunch we headed into Universal Studios where we hit Terminator 2 in 3D. Marcus and I hit this attraction on our previous visit, but we didn’t recall much about it until we were actually in the queuing area. The girls have never seen the Terminator movies (obviously!), so we had to do a lot of explaining to keep them caught up. Kacy isn’t really a fan of 3D and kept her eyes closed quite a bit, but still managed to squeal here and there.

We next headed over to the coaster that was added since our last visit and has quite an intimidating appearance… the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. The coaster’s ascent to the top of the first drop is seriously straight up. This has had our eyes bugging out for over 48 hours! We had not yet hit this ride because it is not one that currently takes the Express Pass, and the wait has been a little long for us. We decided last night that we would ride it today. We would just keep an eye on Marcus’s Universal app that tracks wait time and head over there when we were comfortable with the time. We finally found it at 50 minutes and decided that we should go. Here's Marcus and the girls waiting in line...

The unique thing about this coaster is that you get to pick the  music that you listen to while riding. They provide video instruction on how to select it on your own touch screen once you are strapped in. Marcus, Abby, and I all selected the Dwight Yoakam selection on the Country music genre. Kacy, however, didn’t manage to make a selection, so she really isn’t sure what she listened to on the ride. The coaster itself is pretty good – no complaints. The first descent isn’t nearly as bad as it looks, and the ride has some neat features, like a roll at the top of a full loop and a quick jaunt through a building. It was fun and I am pretty sure that we will find ourselves in that line again soon.

Here’s a pic of the ascent – going straight up!

And coming down the first hill…

And coming out of a building…

Before we left Universal Studios, we hit The Mummy, which the girls have grown to enjoy quite a bit. Then we decided to take a break from the parks for a bit and head back to the hotel. Marcus and Abby went to the swimming pool while Kacy and I headed to the laundry room. And for the record, Kacy went to the laundry room of her own free will. We managed to get two loads of laundry done pretty quickly and Marcus and Abby had a great time in the large, heated pool. Abby really seemed to enjoy the sandy beach area, where she made a sand castle.

 We headed back over to Islands of Adventure around 7:30PM and were in line for The Forbidden Journey by 7:45PM. The stated wait was 45 minutes, but we managed to get on the ride in 35. Again – no complaints. This is yet another reason that we don’t feel compelled to be out for early entry again, especially given that the one morning we tried it, the ride broke down and we waited way longer than 45 minutes! We have found that the ride’s wait time drops drastically late in the evening, so I think we will keep the “sleep late, stay late” approach.

 At this point it was truly supper time, so we decided to grant one of Abby’s meal selections and headed to Moe’s Southwest Grill at City Walk. *sigh* I mean – who doesn't want to eat at Moe’s on vacation!?! Good heavens. Here’s the thing… until about 6 months ago, we had a Moe’s near our house. Abby loved this place and would ask to eat there at least once a week. It got to the point where Marcus or I would say, “Girls, we are going to eat out tonight. Do y’all have any preferences?” and would have to immediately follow it with, “AND DON’T SAY MOE’S!” Well, obviously we should have backed off of that statement, because the darn thing closed down and reopened as a barbeque restaurant. And ya’ know, if we have a shortage of any kind of restaurants in San Antonio, it is Mexican and barbeque. The funny thing is that Abby couldn’t have cared less about the plain cheese quesadilla that she ordered every time she went to Moe’s. Nope. She loved Moe’s because they gave out great chocolate chip cookies with their kids meals. Seriously. And she totally fesses up to that to this very day. So when we saw the Moe’s location at CityWalk on Wednesday, she almost flipped. Tonight we made her one happy little girl.

I know that it seems like we are doing the same things day after day, but there is so much more to it. There are so many things happening that I can’t really capture here at the end of the day. But there are moments that I just want to freeze in my mind. Like watching Abby talk to her daddy today while playing with his hair. Or listening to the silly conversations that take place between Marcus and the girls. Or watching Kacy teach Marcus how to play “Double-Double-This-This Double-Double-That-That” while standing in the Green House at the Forbidden Journey. These moments are just so incredibly sweet and these are the reasons that Marcus and I wanted to take this trip. It wasn’t an easy decision to come to – being away from our extended families this Christmas season. But we just knew that there were so many memories to be made with a trip like this, and we just wanted to make those with our girls. Let’s be honest – Kacy starts high school next year. She’s going to be in 9^th grade and that really means that we don’t have many years left to do these kinds of things. So while it was a hard decision, it was also an easy decision. Our girls are growing up too fast. We have to stop and spend this time with them – no doubt!

 It’s now after 11 and we are all clean and curled up in bed. We will be taking a similar schedule tomorrow and enjoying a nice, leisurely morning before heading over to the parks. I’m wondering if I can talk the family into stopping at Cinnabon on the way… hmmm….

 

Universal Trip - Second Day in the Parks!

Yesterday was bright and early… Today it was dark and early when we left the hotel this morning. We were out of our hotel room before 7AM this morning in order to make the Early Entry for Islands of Adventure. We caught a water taxi and headed straight for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the fabulous Forbidden Journey ride… along with every other guest of the Universal properties!

Here are a few pics…

Waiting in the greenhouse before entering the castle...

Dumbledore greeting us as we make our way into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom...

When we arrived the wait time was 20 minutes and there was a long, steady stream of guests making their way into the castle. We were able to bypass many of the zig-zags that we were sent through last night, so we felt like we were going to cruise right through and maybe make it through a second time. And then the ride broke down. Ugh. We were just a couple of rooms away from the loading area – stranded in the room where Harry, Hermonie, and Ron were informing us that we were in danger of being stuck in Professor Binns’ History of Hogwarts lecture, and that they wanted to take us to a quidditch match instead. There are two versions of this little presentation. In one version Ron accidentally makes it snow on the queued guests. Let me just say that we were snowed on multiple times. *sigh* But thankfully the ride finally resumed and we enjoyed our ride on the Forbidden Journey… except for the stinkin’ spider part. I could do without that, for sure.

We made our way through the store at the end of the ride and found a souvenir T-shirt for Abby and a Hogwarts Christmas ornament. We like to collect different ornaments for our different vacations. We started this many years ago when we first started frequenting Disney World. We have an ornament from each of our cruises, our trips to Disney, and our trip to Washington DC. Here is a picture of the ornament once we got it home and on the tree (hence the Razorback ornament next to it!).

We had 9AM reservations at The Three Broomsticks, so we wandered around Hogsmeade, took in the sights, did some other shopping, and just enjoyed the morning. It was certainly busy, but nothing like the “busy” that hits around midmorning. We enjoyed a couple of butterbeers while waiting. Aimee Galbraith – I have to agree that the frozen is better than the ‘on the rocks’ version, but Marcus prefers the ‘on the rocks.’ It has been a great conversational debate in our family. 

Breakfast was very good – and, thankfully, included in our package. I truly do not enjoy paying $50 for a breakfast for four! That being said, the girls enjoyed a pancake breakfast and Marcus and I indulged in the American breakfast. We all left full and happy! We made one quick stop in Honey Dukes, then headed back to the hotel for a well deserved rest. Did I mention we were up before the sun this morning??

After our rest we headed back to Islands of Adventure where we rode The Hulk, Spiderman, The Cat in the Hat, and The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride. We headed out to City Walk for lunch and decided on Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. Kacy had the fried shrimp, Marcus had the Cheeseburger in Paradise, I had a chicken sandwich, and Abby had spaghetti and meatballs?? But she loved it!

After such a big late lunch, we decided that some of the attractions at Universal Studios might be more appealing to our tummies, so we made our way over to Twister, The Mummy, Disaster Studios, Jaws, Men in Black, the Animal Actors Show, and finally ET. You may recall that I noted that Kacy won yesterday’s visit to MIB… well, the girl went down today, courtesy of her momma! See, she made the mistake of telling Mommy and Daddy about the secret “red button” during the ride that gave her a 100,000 point bonus. So we were all listening for the queue to hit it and today, Haley received the 100,000 bonus. That gave me a total of 204,500 points. Marcus would have won, had he received the bonus, as he had 132,000 points at the end of the ride. Kacy was none too happy about this event, needless to say. I’m sure we’ll be back over there soon for another match up!

Here are some more fun pictures from our boat tour at Amity Island (the Jaws ride)...

After we wrapped our rides, we decided that we were ready to call it a night. We made our way back to the hotel, where I immediately hit the shower while Marcus and the girls went downstairs to the restaurant. Kacy had macaroni and cheese with bacon and could not have been happier! She was kind enough to bring a little bit back up to me, and I have to say that it was quite tasty.

We are now all clean and laying around enjoying National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on ABC Family – which makes it a little cleaner than the regular version. It will be interesting to see how they handle Cousin Eddie and his sewage disposal scene. Hehe.

We have elected to sleep in a bit tomorrow and take our time making our way through the parks tomorrow. We have gone hard the last two days! And with our Express Pass option, we walk onto virtually all of the rides. We have yet to hit one roller coaster over at Universal Studios – we want to make that a priority tomorrow. And we didn’t hit the Dragon’s Challenge today, just due to our eating schedule. I’m sure we’ll make our way back over to that tomorrow. We may hit a couple of shows and see how those are. After all, it is a vacation…

Until tomorrow…

 

Universal Trip - First Day in the Parks!

Bright and early – that’s when I woke up this morning. I actually woke up at my normal “time to get the girls out of bed” time, which is rather frustrating when on vacation. But it was also helpful because we were able to get around, have our “free” Hampton Inn breakfast, and then grab a taxi over to Hard Rock Hotel. Oh – and a quick “shout out” to the sweet taxi driver who kindly stopped at Walgreens and let me run in to get a 12 pack of my cherished Diet Dr Pepper to keep in the hotel room this week. You seriously rock, Dude. And the rest of the family agrees… they know what I’m like without my Diet Dr Pepper in the mornings. It was worth the short wait for all parties.

I have to say that I was very happy with the check in process here at the Hard Rock. We went from room check-in to the ticket kiosk to luggage services within 10 minutes and were on our way to the parks. Most importantly, we had our room keys in hand. These are oh-so-very important when touring the parks because they serve as our pass to the front of the line. Guests who stay at one of the three Universal Hotels simply show their room keys and are allowed to use the Universal Express line. And let me just say that this feature is just plain AWESOME.

Our first stop could be nothing less than the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Here’s our first glimpse of Hogwarts…

We hightailed it to Islands of Adventures and made our way through Seuss Landing, where we saw some Whoville residents…

through the Lost Continent, were detoured over to Jurassic Park, and finally weaved our way back to Hogwart’s Castle.

The big attraction in this section is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. However, it is SO big that guests are not allowed to use the Express line feature. *sigh* Upon arrival, the wait time was no less than 120 minutes… so we opted to PASS on that one for the time being. Instead, we made our way over to Flight of the Hippogriff for our very first ride. The wait time on the ride was 60 minutes, so Marcus whipped out the room keys and we were whisked through the Express line, past all of the waiting “regular people” who were just standing there, waiting and waiting. After we had passed several hundred guests, all four of us were totally lovin’ this feature. And when we hopped off of the Flight of the Hippogriff within 5 minutes of getting in line (of which only 45 seconds were spent on the actual ride!), we were VERY happy to have access to this feature. Because if we had seriously stood in line for an hour for a 45 second ride, we would have been quite cranky. But since it was only 5 minutes lost, it was no big deal. So thank you, Universal Express, for saving our sanity and attitudes on Day 1!

We wandered around the Hogwart/Hogsmeade area for a while, and to say that this place was crowded would be a sore understatement! Holy cow! But no matter – we were there and we were thrilled to be taking it all in. I have to say that Universal really did this up well. The details were followed very well… up to all of the wands being stacked up into the upper windows inside Ollivander’s.

We also sampled the Pumpkin Juice and were very happy with it. It was a tad bit pricey ($6.25!), and it had a lot of sugar in it… Marcus sampled it and Kacy wanted nothing to do with it. Abby and I, however, drank it right up.

The Express feature allowed us to ride so many attractions today. We hit:

• One side of the Dragon’s Challenge – although we can’t agree on which side we rode. Marcus and I think it was the Horntail side, but the girls swear we were on the Fireball side. We’ll try and get that straight tomorrow when we ride again.
• Poseidon’s Fury – not the greatest attraction… grew tired of standing, but Abby enjoyed it and the actor was pretty funny.
• Hulk – which the girls LOVED!
• Spiderman – continues to be a favorite ride of mine. It’s a great mix of many different elements.

We took a quick break from rides and hit Pastamore at City Walk for lunch, then ran back over to the hotel as we had received our text that our room was ready.

We claimed our luggage, unpacked, and then freshened up a bit before heading back to see…

• Shrek in 4D – We jumped over to Universal Studios to see our favorite ogre and friends, plus a few minutes to SIT!
• The Mummy – a great ride, and the Express feature was wonderful on this ride. Marcus and I waited for an hour on this ride on our only other Universal visit back on New Years 2007.
• Jaws – Holy cow, Abby couldn’t wait to get on this ride. She is our shark lover and ran to get the side seat on the boat. Every time that the shark showed up, she was giggling! 

Kacy, however, wasn’t such a fan… she swears she was trying to “protect her mascara” when she kept covering her face…

• Men in Black – it should be noted that Kacy won this shoot-out! Her first shoot-out victory, ever! WTG, Kacy!
• The Simpsons – about as funny as The Simpsons can be. Of course the girls thought it was funny because they are not allowed to watch it at home. And that rule has not changed just because we rode their ride…

 After all of this we saw that the wait at The Forbidden Journey was down to 65 minutes, so we decided to make our way back over to Islands of Adventure. When we arrived at the castle we were super excited to see that the wait was down to 45 minutes! Sign us UP! We hit the line and were so happy with the attraction! It was amazing! Walking through the castle was so neat! And the ride – just amazing! Can’t wait to ride it again tomorrow! Here's a very poor shot of Hogwarts at night...

It should be noted that my photos for this trip were not taken with my good Nikon. Unlike Disney, Universal is not as accommodating when it comes to bags or large cameras. Any bag must be stored in a locker next to each ride. This is not only bothersome, but can become an extra expense! So instead of taking the Nikon to the park, I elected to take my pocket sized Fuji waterproof point and shoot. I've tried to edit these photos as best as possible, and will continue to work with them, so please disregard the poor quality and the unavoidable noise!

After our ride we let the girls do their wand shopping. Kacy ended up with Luna Lovegood’s wand, while Abby chose Ginny Weasley’s wand. They are both quite pretty wands and they are very happy with their choices. I’m not really sure what they will ever do with these things… but hey, they have them!

We also sampled butterbeer for the first time… holy smokes! A friend suggested that we try the frozen instead of the regular option… but we just ordered “butterbeer” and received the “regular” stuff. So if the frozen is so much better than the “on the rocks” version – we are going to be full-fledged butterbeer addicts by the end of our visit. This is not a good thing, given that we are Southern Baptists. We may be called before the deacons when we return… *sigh* (please note that butterbeer is non-alcoholic!)

After a quick bite at Captain America's Diner, we made our way back to the hotel room. We are now all showered and sleepy, but we are still having a great time laying around chatting about the day, working on crossword puzzles, and playing games on our different electronic devices. We will be going to sleep shortly, as tomorrow will be an early morning for us. Universal opens an hour early for on property guests, but due to the extended Christmas hours, that has the “extra hour” starting at 7AM! And if you have ever traveled with us or even read our other trip reports, you know that we are not early risers! I have, however, set my alarm clock for 6:15 in the morning so that we can make our way over for a quick ride on The Forbidden Journey, maybe a spin on the red side of the Dragon Challenge, and then some Harry Potter shopping before all of the crazy crowd hits the area. Plus, at 9AM we have reservations for a “traditional English breakfast” at The Three Broomsticks! Yum!

So until tomorrow… ‘night! 

 

Let's go to Universal!

Hi, my name is Haley and I'm a control freak. There is truly no experience to make this more blatantly obvious to myself than being at the mercy of an airline. I am also beginning to think that it just can’t be a Willard vacation without some airport drama!

We elected to fly southwest to Orlando for several obvious reasons: 1) price, 2) free bags, 3) their relatively good history with Willard family trips. We had a 5:35 flight out of San Antonio and made it to the airport within 30 minutes of picking up Kacy from school, and that included stopping for gas and navigating through a nice backup on 281 South due to a wreck. Easy peasy! Check-in and security were even a non-event. We breezed right through!

Our flight was scheduled for 5:35 PM, but had already been delayed 10 minutes when we arrived at the airport. Our flights took us through Houston Hobby for the first time, so we weren't sure what to expect there. On top of that, we had a pretty tight layover for our connection to Orlando. However, the Houston to Orlando flight also had a 5-10 minute delay, so we were hopeful that we wouldn’t have any issues.

Our plane arrived from Love Field and was very quickly turned around for boarding. That process was rather painless for us, but it seemed that people just kept slowly tricking onto the plane. And I mean slllooooowwwwwlllyyy. When they finally closed the gate, we were already at our 10 minute delay, so it surely meant we were close to pulling away from the gate, right? Uh... No. We sat and sat... And then I happened to look out of the window only to see the baggage guys were still loading bags! Come on! And I don't mean loading bags like you normally see bags being loaded - by throwing them around like sacks of taters... No, no. These bags were apparently receiving the white glove treatment. Delicately lifted from the baggage cart, lovingly carried to the belly of the plane, softly handed to the baggage handler inside... I mean - really? I quickly looked over the cart and didn't see any blue, purple, or green suitcases, which meant that there were no Willard bags on there, and I found myself wanting to yell, "THROW THAT BAG, BIG BOY!" (And as a side note, YES, we do have suitcases in the colors of Mardi Gras) I couldn't understand why the delay... Why were they taking so long to get the bags in the plane? Why was the baggage guy just standing there waiting? If the guy inside the plane isn't watching, just peg him with a bag. He will learn. I distinctly remember my 8^th grade basketball coach, Kent Davis, pegging me in the nose with a basketball one day in practice when I wasn't paying attention. I learned to not turn my back on that booger again. Point being - peg Bag Boy and maybe he will get a move on!!

We finally left SAT heading to Houston. We landed and were off the plane with only 10 minutes to our next departure. So off we went - running through the terminal! It was déjà vu all over again! Thankfully our next gate wasn't too terribly far, so we made it. They had just lined up group A when we made it to the gate, so we jumped in our place in line and loaded. The run was NOTHING like our run through DFW back in June! Abby even commented that this run was "so much easier!" Marcus informed her that the run back in June was our training run to prepare us for today. Whatever. :)

Our flight to Orlando was just under two hours… two very bumpy hours. The seatbelt light was never turned off, which made for a long flight since I didn't have time to stop in the ladies room in Houston. And the screaming child on the row behind us didn’t help much, either... God bless her tired parents!!

We landed, found our bags on the wrong carousel, caught a taxi and made it to our hotel without any problems. We are staying at a Hampton Inn across the street from Universal.  We check into the Hard Rock Hotel tomorrow. We just couldn't justify the expense of a night at the HRH if we weren't going to be here in time to enjoy the added park benefits. We are thrifty that way.. Haha.

Tomorrow will be our first day in the parks! We will be heading straight to the Harry Potter section! So I think I better “nox” the lights and get to sleep. (For all Muggles, “nox” is the counter spell to “lumos.” It removes or turns off light from wands.) 

 

Merry Christmas!

We surprised the girls last night with the announcement that we will be traveling to Universal Studios Orlando TODAY! Our entire family absolutely loves Harry Potter. We have all read the books, watched all of the movies, and dreamed of going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. And now it's happening! 

Marcus and I started planning this trip back in late September, and it slowly came together over the next month. We told the girls that we were going to need to work more at Christmas this year because of regulatory issues that had to be in production by the end of the year. We were "able" to take off at Thanksgiving, so we used that week to visit friends and family in Arkansas. 

The last few weeks have been VERY difficult. I've had to tell so many lies to the kids to keep them oblivious to our plans. And I've worried about not being here at the house on Christmas morning. But the girls seem to be a-OK with the trade off. *whew* 

We have gone back and forth on when to tell the girls... we had discussed anything from a few days ahead of the trip up until when we pick them up from school this afternoon. Yesterday we finally decided that the night before was best. This way the girls knew why we were picking them up from school, they could make sure that everything they wanted for the trip was packed, and they could help clean the house before the cleaners visit later this week. (the last reason was the biggest!) 

We typed up a little note, folded it, put a bow on it, and set it on the tree. We called the girls downstairs to chat and before we could even point out the note, Abby spotted it. She walked over, picked it up and asked, "What's this?" We had them set down and open it together, and here is the result...

 

Now, I realize that my baby girl is doing nothing short of an ugly cry there - but I PROMISE that she was happy! She was just really overwhelmed there for a few minutes. We had family and friends calling after the video went on Facebook just to check on Abby. She truly is thrilled and very excited about the trip... pinky swear!

And the little question there at the end - about pajamas... well, today is Pajama Day at Abby's school... so that was a big concern for her. She can't very well fly in her PJs!! 

So that's how the girls learned about their big Christmas present this year. We fly out later today and couldn't be more excited or any less ready! But we'll make it. Please pray for safe travels for our family, as we will be flying across a system moving through the south today. 

Trip reports will begin when we return, as we have no free internet at the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando. And we just won't pay $10 per day per device when we can browse for free on our phones. Photos will be uploaded on Facebook throughout the week. 

Until next week - Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Cards ordered!

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.