Today our alarm went at 6.30 and unlike most other people we struggled to get up! We left the room at 7.15 after eating pizza leftovers and got a taxi to the hard rock. We checked in our bags and printed the front of the line passes, and headed straight to the park via boat.
Wearing our harry potter Ts!





The park seemed empty although it was probably only just gone 8!


We saw doc who we saw later as well...


We headed straight for gringotts expecting it to be busy but we didn't queue for more than 15 mins. I loved the ride, definitely preferred it to forbidden journey. There are a lot of photos from today




As soon as we came out we went for a butterbeer. We'd already tried a normal butterbeer in the Studios tour in watford so we opted for a frozen one. 100 times better in my opinion


We stopped at the bus and I had my photo taken, the head struggled to say my name though We found the bus conductor sooooo awkward!


We planned to work our way around so went to men in black next to find it wasn't open yet, so we went straight to the simpsons area. We stopped at the freestyle stand on the way and bought a cup, I can't remember the price but I loved being able to try different flavours of normal drinks... orange coca cola really is surprsingly nice!
The simpsons area is so cool! We went straight on the ride and then had a look around. After having a quick look and taking a few photos and headed to the ET ride and saw the characters from hop doing a mini parade on the way. I remembered this ride from my first visit, even if I was only 4- it's strange the things you remember!
After this we went straight on to transformers which was ok, neither of us are really fans so we didn't really know the theme.
It was only about 11 at this point but we were starving so walked back to the simpsons area to try the food court. We had planned on eating here ever since booking the holiday. We both had a krusty burger...

I'm having trouble with the internet so I've posted half the day before I lose it! Will repost the rest later x

Ooh cliffhanger. Thanks for posting. 😃

... and here is our krusty burgers!

The secret sauce is delicious, we loved it!

As we came out we headed down to the minion mayhem ride and spotted the simpsons on the way so queued up to meet them, it was only a tiny line.



...who doesn't love minions! That was my favourite ride of the holiday, we went on it 3 times in total, more than any other ride.
The whole day was made perfect by having the front of the line passes, even though it was a quiet day anyway it was made so much better being able to walk straight onto a ride.

After minion mayhem we did shrek 4d and started to walk towards the mummy, realising the parade was just starting so we stood on a corner to watch. The parade has not much content but the people that were in it were fantastic! Especially agnes as you can see...


also haha at the minions in the parade they looked ridiculous! so funny.



After this we were so hot, so we decided to try twister as we knew it would be shaded in there... what a mistake, I'm sure this used to be good but we were annoyed we had wasted our time! I felt like it wasn't over at the end, it was such a disappointment.
When we came out the Mummy was down so we carried on walking towards Men in Black and then had a giant pink doughnut
There was a woman stood near us as we ate it who was making her husband pose behind us just so she could take a photo of our doughnut... talk about sly, was not happy!


We were burned out by this time, and sitting and eating something so stodgy made us even worse so we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. We stopped on the way out for our photos with the simpsons again... different line up this time! and shaggy and scooby- shaggy had the most annoying voice in history!





We got the water taxi back to the hard rock and checked in, joining the long long queue at the desk. When we got to the room we realised we were sort of overlooking the pool which was cool. The room was so big and so amazing, Lewis loves rock music and loved looking around at all the memorabilia.

In the room the mirror had the heights of famous musicians and I was the same height as beyonce who has been my favourite for years... I love her! It was meant to be



More room photos...



We headed straight down to the pool and tested out our waterproof camera which worked really well this holiday.





And Lewis wanted to use it going down the water slide... LOL my favourite photos ever,



The pool was so nice it felt like a beach, and there was music underwater which we didn't know about, so clever!

We quickly got out and washed though as we had a long night at HHN ahead of us!
We had leftover doughnut so we chose to eat this as a snack and grab dinner a lot later at city walk.
Not sure what time but we arrived at horror nights via water taxi (how else!) and went straight to the halloween house, which said 20 mins but ended up being 40. I had prepared myself for long queues and this one was totally worth it. I got Lewis the halloween boxset for his bday earlier in the year so we had watched most of them before the holiday, it was so scary! Just when we thought we were through with it, michael myers jumped out as we were walking out of the house... don't assume daylight means you're safe! I screamed and ran



We then went to the clown house (Think it was giggles and something?) which was creepy, and the same thing happened again! A clown ran after us when we left the house with a CHAINSAW! horrible.

We then had a wonder around and decided no more houses as we had the frequent fear pass and would come back another night.




We rode the mummy and rip ride rockit with hardly a queue, then walked onto minion mayhem again

Grabbed dinner on the way out in Bubba Gumps which had been the plan for tomorrow but we hadn't fancied the hard rock cafe earlier in the day like we had planned.
I had a mango lemonade and Lewis a coke.

I didn't write down the prices for some reason, obviously money wasn't an object!
We had garlic bread to start, Lewis had the shrimp trio which is probably his favourite food, and I had scampi pasta, I wasn't too keen as I'm not a big shrimp lover.




Then went back to the hotel to sleep in luxury ready for another long and hot day at IOA!

Ahhh great first day! You are much braver than me, I couldn't handle the horror nights haha.

I'm staying at HRH in September for 3 nights before we move to Disney, so your photos have got me really excited can't wait to see what else you got up to x

A great first day. What type of room did you have at HRH? Those water photos made me laugh, especially the slide ones. Would you recommend the water camera you used? I need to get one for august

Sounds like a fab day (except the scary bit Lol)

The scary bit was the most fun! We had the Panasonic lumix camera which was really good, we used it everywhere including discovery cove in the ray pool and it was fantastic. I really recommend it. Our room at the hard rock was the cheapest lol not sure what type but the most basic. We are staying again in November it was amazing x

Ooo fab, thanks. I'm trying to decide on what type of room to go for. I fancy the club level but I'm not sure whether we would really get the benefit over a standard room, but the other half of me thinks we will probably only do it the once so why not? lol.

Great day staying at HRH fir a night in July can't wait,

Sounds like a great day. I think your report is swaying me towards HHN with a night in a Universal hotel!

Looking forward to reading the rest of your trippy!