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Old 27 Sep 14, 11:53 AM  
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fleur_charms
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Join Date: May 09
The Year of the Mouse - Day 12 Wednesday 14th May - IoA, US and Shopping (oh god, not again!)

Day 12 – IoA, US and Shopping (oh god, not again!) – Wednesday 14th May

I took tons of pictures at the start of the day but none at the end, so the bottoms quite word heavy!

As I mentioned on yesterday’s report, we had decided not to go to early entry at HP. This meant we got a small lay in and a relax, and didn’t wake up until 8.30am. As usual we then commenced the morning sun creaming routine!

We packed all our stuff up careful not to forget anything and left the room at about 10.




Haha





We dumped everything in the boot of the car for the day and then we walked to the back of the hotel to grab a water taxi into Citywalk. This takes longer than walking, but it was nice and relaxing.









We headed straight into IoA first. It was A LOT busier than the day before so the passes really did come in handy today.





A man outside the entrance gate was giving out badges, I knew US did these now but I hadn’t sought one out for my birthday yet, so this was handy. He wrote my name for me, and some doodles. So off we want into the park with my birthday badge on.

Honestly, although I had celebrated my birthday two days before (we’ll call it my Disney birthday!) I felt terrible wearing the badge when it wasn’t actually my birthday. I felt so guilty. I have no idea how people can come to the parks months after or before their birthdays and wear these, I just felt awful! Like a complete liar.



We went straight to Croissant Moon Bakery to grab something as neither of us had and breakfast. I had an apple Danish and Liam had a croissant. To make my birthday guilt even worse we met some of the greatest members of staff ever! The lady at the till spotted my badge and said “Happy Birthday!” There was an older gentleman taking orders and plating everything up and she said to him, “Did you say happy birthday?” He exclaimed, “No, I didn’t notice I just saw two Things pop out at me! ” (we were wearing our matching Thing tops) and then he said, “Do you want a cookie?” And I got a free birthday cookie. Oh my gosh, he was the cutest older man I ever saw, he made our day. The cookie was as big as my head! We remembered the names of the two people and were really pleased later on when we bumped into someone working for Universal who was conducting surveys. At the bottom of the sheet of paper it asked if anyone went above and beyond to make your day, and we wrote their names down, and their location in the park. I hope they got rewarded!




And none for you Gretchen Wieners.

We sat and ate our wares while birds fluttered in and out of the restaurant! It was so tasty. We then headed to Marvel Superhero Island first, Spiderman had a 35 minute wait… No thanks, we flashed our Express Passes and in we were!



Due to the normal queue being quite long we did have to wait 10 minutes, but that’s nothing really! Then we went onto the Hulk together. We did our FOLP here too, but it’s not nearly as good here as you don’t join the normal queue that near the front. But it was way better than waiting in line as it was zig zagging all round the bottom floor. They really need some proper air con in that building!

I got thrashed about a fair bit and hit my ear quite hard during the last section . Liam wanted to ride a couple more times so I went into the Fantastic 4 café and grabbed a Powerade and sat down. I went on my phone for a bit and suddenly now the holiday was nearly over I got immensely paranoid about my job security. Ahhhh. I started to do a frantic job search on my phone to put my fears at ease that if I had to I’d be able to get another job, but that made it worse as I didn’t see many jobs I was interested in or that were suited to my skills! Oh nooo. Liam lectured me about it when he got back, of course! On the way out we spotted the Superheroes!





We made our way through Toon Lagoon but didn’t do any rides as we didn’t fancy getting wet today as we didn’t have a hotel to go back to! We just took our time having a walk around taking pictures.




My new life motto






Let's face it, we probably stopped to soak a few people again. I'm obsessed with these guns.



I was getting really crabby and tired at this point and it was so humid I just wanted to get inside so I could sit down in some air con! But Liam wanted to go on River Adventure. I was worried about getting wet again and I REALLY didn’t want to so Liam escorted me into the Discovery Centre. It was the longest walk of my life! I was dying of the heat haha. He then headed back to RA.



I had a little sit down in the bottom bit but Liam took forever so I started playing the games on my own. I had a little go on the one where you scan an egg and I found I had a baby Triceratops. I then made myself into a dino on the DNA machine. Liam came and met me just as I was finishing up on these so he saw my hideous little dino face! Wish I had a pic! We had a little wander outside at the back of the Centre and took some pictures.









Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was next, it was posted as a 20 minute wait time but was out the door! I’m not sure what happened but for some reason we managed to bypass the outdoor queue? We walking straight in up a separate path to the queue?! We decided there was no way we would wait in a queue tailed back that far so headed straight into the Single Rider queue. It gets you to the front in about 2 mins as you bypass the castle. As we were waiting in the queue the cast members usher people on so quickly! There was a 2 in the normal queue and I think he panicked as he didn’t know how many people were behind them so he sent 2 from the single rider queue and it just so happened it was us! We got to sit together! As a note, this has happened twice to us now, so if you go in the single rider queue there’s a good chance you’ll be on together anyway! I spose it’s because they need to keep the queue moving so quickly and people don’t tell them quickly enough how many are in their party and they don’t have time to shout and ask for parties of two like they normally would so they just send tons of single riders together. They did it to us and 2 others before us.

Liam wanted to go on Dragons after that but I didn’t feel like it as it made me feel a little sicky yesterday so I thought I’d wait until we came back later. I went and had a look round Honeydukes and grabbed myself a Butterbeer and had a nice sit down near the Hogwarts Express.



Liam came and found me and I proclaimed I was hungry. Again Liam suggested the Irish bar in US but he wasn’t that hungry so I said there wasn’t much point walking over there now if he wasn’t hungry, so I would grab some lunch here. We went into the 3 Broomsticks and I went for the Soup and Salad Platter. I was VERY pleased to see the soup was Potato and Leek because I was still absolutely obsessed with it after having it at both BOG and the France pavilion.



It was nice and filling. We sat down in the far side of the restaurant near an open door and just after we sat it started POURING DOWN!



The first rain of the holiday! We’d been so lucky. People outside were taking shelter near the door and Liam popped over to take a picture, but the man in the restaurant wouldn’t let him back in! Haha. He got shouted at. So he had to run through the rain to get back to the main entrance. Once I’ve finished eating the rain had more or less died so we walked straight into it. I did notice most of the people out walking in it were British haha. We’re used to it!

We planned to head to US now but the rain kept coming and going so we stopped for shelter now and then. I didn’t particularly fancy getting caught in a huge rainstorm so I made us go on Poseidon’s Fury. Liam wasn’t happy. We got in the Express Queue but were waiting AGES! The queue was big behind us but there was no sign of any cast members, it was asif we were in the wrong place. Opposite us in the normal queue we had a big party of school kids who were just constantly shouting to eachother rather than talking. Seriously, if they weren’t there, the room would have been silent. It was that loud we had to shout over them to talk to eachother. It did make me laugh though, because just before we got in an announcement came over the tannoy and you could hear them all still talking loudly and then all of a sudden a man shouted “QUIET!” and it went silent and the announcement carried on. I spose you had to be there but it made me laugh so much!

Of course, Poseidon’s Fury was awful! The start of it goes on for soo long and there’s no action. It’s that boring loads of people were leaving out the back entrances of each room and the crown was getting smaller and smaller. Liam wanted to leave but I wouldn’t let him, now we were in we had to stick it out! We saw it through to the end and vowed to never in our lives do it again unless they refurb it. How long before they knock this area down and put in some more Harry Potter stuff?

We then walked over to US and first thing as we walked in we were collared by a photographer! I’ve got to say, I did really, really miss not being able to get ride photos in Universal compared to Disney but I don’t think I would ever buy one of those star cards as I don’t think there’s that many photographers around for photo ops outside the rides. But this one was keen! He collared us and started shouting at Liam! He demanded he sit on the front of this car, and then said I would sit on his lap. So awkward to see Liam with a big fat girl on his lap (aka me) haha! I must have been red. And he kept screaming and shouting about how Liam had to treat me good because it was my birthday! It was pretty embarrassing, but funny! We never did look at the photo though. It really was a bit of a hard sell.

Liam was hungry now so we popped into Mel’s Diner but he didn’t see anything that took his fancy. I noticed the Horror Make-up Show was about to start so we literally ran over and made it in. I love this! It was funny as ever! The volunteer was a lady that couldn’t speak any English so she was confused by everything which made some of the unscripted comedy great! Thoroughly enjoyed, as ever, it would be great if they revamped and updated this though. As far I remember, you exit through the same gift shop as the one you come out of Terminator? Well, once we got there, we realised it had started pouring down again. We took shelter inside this shop for a while before Liam made us run outside in the pouring rain and brave it.

Luckily it stopped shortly after we started heading to the Simpsons food court. Liam had decided he was just going to have some pizza there – as ever, he hated it and his commentary was: “It was the worst thing I’ve ever eaten. It was too salty and tasted like pure salt.” I’m sensing a theme here.



I grabbed myself a peanut butter and jelly cupcake and once I got to the till the lady noticed my birthday badge and wished me a happy birthday. The guy on the till next to her goes, “Did you charge for the cupcake?” And she did, so they asked if I would like to pick another cupcake for free for my birthday. Of course I said yes! I got a pink donut one for Liam. Overall I got a lot more attention and goodies in US for it being my birthday, than I did in Disney, though both made a fuss for me hehe. They seem to acknowledge that it’s your birthday a bit more in Universal that Disney though, I guess maybe Disney make more of a fuss if you’re a kid? I don’t know?

We sat down and as Liam went to put the tray down he knocked my peanut butter cupcake over . The icing went all over the tray and I only managed to salvage a bit of it. I got really niggled about this and had a big go at Liam and he had a go back. It ended up being a big argument, I spose with the heat and being tired and stuff it was worse. But we didn’t talk for ages after that. Eventually after he finished his pizza we made friends. I ate what was left of the cupcake and it was amazing! We shared the pink donut one since Liam had knocked mine over and that wasn’t so great but at least it was free!



Men in Black was next up and the queue was absolutely huge! We walked straight in and got on with our FOLPs. It was still drizzling a bit now so I guess people were trying to get out of the rain. It was great how in the Express Pass line you can skip all the pre-show bit! It’s pretty boring! Next was The Mummy but it was broken down! We decided we’d just go back to IoA instead.

Once back in IoA we had an hour and a half to go and we just needed to mop up everything Liam wanted to do. We did the Hulk, Spiderman and Duelling Dragons. We did Spidey first and then the Hulk together. We didn’t have much time so Liam didn’t go on it again. We decided we’d walk round the lagoon to HP as for some reason it seemed like it would be quicker but it took about 25 minutes and we decided in future we need to turn round and walk through Suess as its ten times quicker!

It was very, very nearly closing time now so we said we’d do Dragons first then FJ. I want on it twice, once Fire, once Ice and Liam being Liam couldn’t just settle for that, he had to go on again. I went and got my bag and sat at the top ready to get on FJ, Liam said he’d meet me up there. Unfortunately a couple of minutes before 6 they started winding the wait time down on the ride to 0 minutes and they roped the queue off. Liam didn’t meet me until 6.05pm so we didn’t get to do it one last time and it was all his fault! Waaah!

US still had one more hour being open so we headed straight back there. We went on the Mummy twice. But when we got off, disaster stuck as we did the thing we loathed beyond anything else, the thing we’d been moaning about since we arrived… we forgot where our locker was hehe. Very luckily it was quiet and no one else was there and we just stood in front of two of the booths, swapping between them, trying to find out locker. Eventually just as Liam had gone to look for an attendant I managed to find which locker it was, thank god! We still can’t work out why you don’t just put your finger print down and it opens, rather than having to remember the number too. 90% of the time, yes, you’ll remember your number, but there’s that 10% when you’re in a hurry and you just throw your stuff in. We didn’t even remember which station it was in!

Bags retrieved, we ran to Transformers, which we’d tried to get on first but had been broken down. We both thought it wouldn’t be fixed as they surely wouldn’t bother reopening so close to closing time but lo and behold it was fixed! We got to go on! Liam said it gets better and better every time, I think it was both of our favs this holiday. When we got out it was 6:56pm and I ran round as I wanted my pic taken with the Transformer, but we got there just as he was saying goodbye and the shutters were going down . I had really wanted the pic to scare my mom, she’s scared of Transformers haha!



On the way out I picked up a mug my dad had asked for and we went on got on the water taxi back to RPR and the car. We got in and drove back to the Enclave, which we’d missed, hehe! It was a huge mess there of course. I really needed to start packing but I didn’t have time as we only popped in for 30 minutes, got changed, got money, sorted some bits and went straight out shopping… again. I was pretty sick of shopping to be honest and I think I mentioned before I will NEVER EVER bring gifts home again. Everyone can settle for chocolate!

We drove to the Best Buy at the Mall at Millennia so I could get a fitness band as despite Liam’s protests I really wanted once. Partly so I could track our steps for the next two days to see how far we really did walk in the parks! I came away with a teal FitBit. It’s ok. I wish I’d gotten a heart rate monitor instead. We spotted a huge Super Target over the road and wanted to go there as we thought we’d be bound to get gifts and didn’t have a Target near us here. In 2012 in the villa with my parents we had a Target down the road so went several times. I like Target! Anyway, I programmed the Sat Nav for it but it got confused and sent us back on the I4! Silly thing. Liam had a strop and got in a giant angry mood, I’ve written. He was still getting a little stressed when he had to drive in the dark as the lighting isn’t great over there, and we had both really wanted to go in Target.

Instead we went back down to the Premium Outlets at the top of I Drive AGAIN. We walked in through a bit we’d obviously skipped since the time we came here on the first day so we saw lots of ‘new’ shops. We walked past Quicksilver and Liam realised it had been here that he’d seen a really nice top on the first day but they’d not had it in his size. He’d even asked at the Quicksilver at the Florida Mall to see if they had it. So in we went. They had restocked so Liam managed to get it, yippee! He got 2 for $30. While there I decided this would be a good present for my dad so I got him 2 for $30 also, both of these tops said Florida hehe.

The queue was a nightmare. The shop was full of French people, who were infuriatingly ignorant about till etiquette. It was so big because when people got to the front of the till it turned out they hadn’t actually decided on what they wanted to buy, or got what they wanted in the right size. It was because they were doing a deal - $129 for 2 shorts, 3 tops, a flip flop, a hat, a bag and a hoody or something. But people were going in to do the offer but they hadn’t decided what they wanted as part of it when they got to the till. There were 2 tills. The guy on the left hand side had got there and they didn’t have a pair of shorts he wanted in his size so he’d basically come to the till hoping they would have but they said no. They went to get in a whole rack of other shorts but he spent ages looking through them. He wasn’t done still by the time we left, and we took forever to leave. The guy on the right till, god knows what happened there, he went to pay and I don’t think he had ID or something? He walked away, I looked around, and he wasn’t even in the shop anymore! Then followed an excruciating minute where there was no customers at the tills but the guys behind them were just standing like spare parts looking at the huge queue growing. Eventually right hand till guy said he’d take the next customer and Liam paid up. We got out quickly!

We went to the Character Warehouse now as Liam had seen a bag for his mom before but lo and behold they had now sold out. He should have got it when he saw it! We got back in the car and for some reason went to Walmart. God only knows, we may aswell have paid rent to Walmart. Liam got some presents for his family and I got some sweets to take to work, and to use in baking. Once at the till I paid with a TC and for the first time it went smoothly and the guy knew what he was doing, yippee!

Back at the room we wanted some food. I put some potatoes on the hob but they never boiled . We had to throw them away, what a waste, especially as I’m a mash fiend! Liam had beans on toast and I ended up with a sandwich and some crisps before bed. I set up my new fitness band ready for the day ahead and we went to sleep.

Tomorrow… Sea World, Aquatica and Magic Kingdom!

Edited at 12:21 PM.
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