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10 Sep 15, 08:59 PM |
#1
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Imagineer
Join Date: Apr 13
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We're Doing a Sequel! [May 2015] Day 10 *Universal/Islands of Adventure*
We're Doing a Sequel! Day 10 *Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure*
For the Index, click here. For the Pre Trip Report, click here. Another day, another Universal visit! We were up and ready by around twenty to ten this morning. We don’t really feel the need to rush about to get to Universal during the week in May, it’s never overly busy. I committed blasphemy today and wore a Disney t-shirt. Just like I did last year I did have a great Harry Potter (pyjama) top that I was going to bring with me, but totally forgot when I’d been packing my clothes! I think it had grown a bit big by the time the holiday came around, anyway. No big, I’ll just buy a nice one for our trip in October 2016! I thought about wearing my hair in a low side ponytail, but as I never like my hair up I quickly removed my bobble to let my hair fly free. We made our way to the lobby at French Quarter and hung about for five while we waited for our Uber driver, Mike, to pick us up. The total journey time to Universal was just over half an hour, and cost us $14.34. Mike was lovely too! He was telling us about how he’d grown up in Haiti and moved to Orlando, and how much he loved the parks. I don’t recall grabbing any breakfast this morning, I think we just snacked on what we’d bought from Walmart in the room. We decided to tackle Universal Studios first again, making Shrek our first stop. We have still yet to ride Minion Mayhem due to the queue size when we’ve been there, but not riding it has never bothered us really. I have an hour and a half time gap between photos here, so my memory is slightly fuzzy. I’m pretty sure we took on E.T. and had a few goes on Men in Black, before heading into Springfield with one thing on our mind - the Big Pink. Sweet, doughnutty heaven. It’s not a proper doughnut if it isn’t liberally coated with icing in my opinion, so these are ranked pretty high in my books. We only managed half between us so popped it back in it’s box to consume the rest a bit later. The Animal Actors on Location was starting soon, so like yesterday, my obsession with all animals cute and fluffy took us here. I got to pet more dogs at the end, yay! We paid Diagon Alley a visit next, after what was probably another go on Men in Black. We had a potter (hahahah) around, grabbing some photos of the dragon, before being total pigs and satisfying our sweet tooth again by popping into Florean Fortescue’s for some ice cream. Yes, a whole 90 minutes after our Big Pink. We both opted for cones, with me choosing salted caramel blondie and sticky toffee pudding as my ice cream flavours. Lewis had strawberry & peanut butter and apple crumble, with hundreds and thousands on top. The ice cream surpassed my expectations. It was packed full of flavour and the blondie bits in mine were to die for. It was genuinely good, and something I’d definitely consider getting again. Lewis wanted to ride Gringotts next. I was keen to see the inside but not so keen to ride, so we asked if I could pop inside to have a look while Lewis joined the single rider queue. They were more than happy to let me into the express pass queue to take some photos. Little did I know that I had to come out the same way I’d entered, and I ended up making my way to the front of the queue before I realised Off I scampered, back up the queue, looking like a complete tool (and a wimp as well). I had a bit of a browse in the air con while I waited for Lewis, which took a little while but wasn’t too painful. We then continued on to take a few selfies around various parts of Diagon Alley (I’ll just post the one haha). We planned to park hop over to Islands of Adventure next, so we boarded the Hogwarts Express with a 15 minute wait. It was great, I know it’s only a short ride but I love it. Disembarking, we headed straight to the Hogs Head for frozen Butterbeer and the rest of our doughnut. I am beginning to wonder how we weren’t in a total sugar coma on this day. It was 3pm and we had yet to eat something savoury! Lewis went on to ride Dragon Challenge afterwards. I waited on the exit path. And waited. And waited. Probably not as long as it felt, but it was hot and I was getting worried. I had his phone so there was no way of contacting him, but he eventually showed up. Turns out he’d forgotten to give me his sunglasses, and was told at the front of the queue that he needed to go put them and a plastic bag he had in his pocket into the lockers. So he had to queue again. Typical bloke We grabbed a photo in front of Hogwarts, before entering the Jurassic Park area. Totally avoiding River Adventure (too big a drop for a wimp like me) we decided to look inside the Discovery Centre, where we played a few bizarre games. Something along the lines of “what would you look like as a dinosaur?” as I recall. At this point we were really wanting to nip around to Toon Town and get a good soaking on Bluto’s Barges. Lewis thinks it’s hilarious that I actually like this ride, because I hate things that drop, hate getting my face wet and hate getting thrown around on rides. This one is different though, it’s so much fun! We were sat next to two girls on our raft who were staying at one of the All Star Resorts and they were really nice! In fact we ended up riding two further times with them, at the end of which we were all totally drenched. They went on to ride again We needed to leave time to dry off before getting into our Uber car later on so we were sensible and skipped it. I was looking fairly soggy and I don’t like the photo but here’s the one of Lewis *evil laugh* He had the idea of drying off whilst riding the Hulk, and since the only way I’d be getting on that is if someone dragged my lifeless body onto it, I waited in the sun, hoping my shorts would soon dry up. Wanting to avoid the queue of the Hogwarts Express in Hogsmeade that we experienced the prior day, we decided to walk the short journey back into Universal Studios instead. We only stayed for one last ride on Men in Black and for Lewis, a go on Rip Ride Rockit before making our exit. As we enjoyed Wolfgang Puck Express so much the night before, we asked our Uber driver to take us to Downtown Disney. His name was Freddy, and he didn’t speak a word of English, but he got us there in 40 minutes (I remember there was a bit of traffic) and the journey only cost us $12.43. Insane stuff, can’t believe it was so cheap! We weren’t quite starving, so we wandered in and out of the various new shops before heading to WPE. Erin Mckenna’s Bakery looked like it had some fab stuff, but after all of the sugar we’d consumed today, we weren’t really in a position to consume yet more cakes or doughnuts. I bought my sister an Avenger’s t-shirt from Superhero Headquarters for her birthday, along with a Vinylmation. She ended up with Hawkeye. Lewis also picked up a “Welcome to Asgard” t-shirt and a couple of Vinylmations, resulting in Iron Man and Captain America. He already had Kronk and Sleepy from last year’s visit, and I bought him one over here after we got back, resulting in Baloo from the Jungle Book. My mam was after a Lady soft toy for her bed at home (much to my dad’s dismay) and so I bought her a really cute one from Once Upon a Toy, along with some tsum tsums for myself. I now have 26 of them, is that sad? I bought armoured Baymax and Duffy from WDW. We ordered our food at Wolfgang Puck Express shortly after, and we both opted for pizzas. I had the four cheese after enjoying it so much last year, and Lewis the barbecue chicken. I don’t have any photos of dessert unfortunately, so I can’t remember what we had there. Something we needed to tick off of our “to do” list was make our own rice krispie treats at Goofy’s Candy Co, so we headed in after and did just that. White chocolate, coconut and milk chocolate drizzle on mine and white chocolate, walnuts and milk chocolate on Lewis’. The cast member advised that these would be perfect for breakfast, so we kept them for the next day. Before making our way back to French Quarter, we popped into the Art of Disney store. I had really wanted one of the custom drawings last year, but for some bizarre reason never bought one. There was still an artist, Monica Willis, sitting drawing Mickey playing baseball at her desk, so I went over and asked if she would take a custom order. I spent a good while going backwards and forwards between 101 Dalmatians (puppies or Pongo & Perdita?!) and Cinderella (Gus & Jaq), settling on Pongo and Perdita in the end. She asked if I’d like any specific colours, so I went with pink and black, and she advised that she would work on it tomorrow and it would be ready to collect from my resort on Friday. I was super excited and couldn’t wait to frame it when I got home! It was nearing 11pm by the time we left, and we got back to the room at 11:15. Once again we filled our mugs up with iced water at Sassagoula Floatworks and headed to the land of nod. Tomorrow: Hollywood Studios and Flying Fish Cafe!
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Edited at 09:11 PM. |
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10 Sep 15, 09:10 PM |
#2
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Imagineer
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How exciting, a commissioned picture. Hope you post a photo of it. Would love to see it
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10 Sep 15, 09:23 PM |
#3
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
Join Date: Apr 13
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I have a photo of it here Was going to wait until day 11 to post a proper photo but there's a sneak peek
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10 Sep 15, 09:28 PM |
#4
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Very Serious Dibber
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That is some seriously impressive sugar consumption!
Seems like you got a lot done in your day. I only skimmed the Diagon Alley bit cos want to see it with my own eyes when we go soon, but it's so hard! Haha
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We've come a long way from where we began - Florida Sept/Oct 2015 trip report Charlotte's Very Merry First Trip to WDW - December 2017 Here we go Again! Charlotte's 2nd WDW trip - January 2019 Edited at 09:30 PM. |
10 Sep 15, 10:16 PM |
#5
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Imagineer
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Another great day, that donut looks amazing! I NEED to try one when we go .
Its nice to hear about Downtown Disney with some pics, I don't really remember it and I'm looking forward to going. Did you use the boat from POFQ at all? Looking forward to seeing your custom artwork |
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10 Sep 15, 10:52 PM |
#6
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Imagineer
Join Date: Oct 11
Location: Dundee
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Dying at the cuteness of that Lady. I have a Lady and the Tramp and a Lady pillow pet but your mum's is way cuter.
Sounds like you had a lovely evening, very chilled out. |
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11 Sep 15, 08:43 AM |
#7
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Disney Dreaming :)
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Another fab day! Great effort on all the sweet stuff
I did NOT know you could make our own Mickey crispie! That will be happening, thanks for the tip! Can't wait to see your drawing! x |
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11 Sep 15, 09:57 AM |
#8
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Imagineer
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Great day
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Sarah Las Vegas & California - 2014 Orlando - 2000/2001/2002/2003/2004/2005/2006/2007/2010/2013/2014/2017 |
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14 Sep 15, 09:10 PM |
#9
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Thread Starter
Imagineer
Join Date: Apr 13
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Haha to be honest I did the same before I went, only skimmed the DA parts! Hope you enjoy it
Definitely get the big pink, they're amazing! We did use the POFQ boats, they were great and a big draw when we decided to book SSR for next year! I wish I'd gotten one myself! I also have a Lady pillow pet but this one's much softer! I didn't know when we went last year either, definitely a must do for us now! x Thank you!
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16 Oct 15, 07:43 PM |
#10
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Imagineer
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Just read all your posts in one go and would like to say a big thank you for cheering me up
Off work with a very nasty chest infection and you posts of blue skies, Disney Magic, happy days is just what the doctor ordered. You are having a fab trip and I can't wait to read the rest of your days
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