"It's Because This Wand CHOSE Me!" Sept 2017 TR *COMPLETE* 3/1 x2

loving your report and pictures!

Thank you!!

How great is this!? Also...good tip... haha

He was one of our favorite boat captains, and we really had nothing but great ones the whole time!

Oh my goodness! This could have been bad! That's a little worrisome that she just really thought that was right and she was being helpful...good thing everything got straightened out and you knew better than to believe her!

I know, I just kept thinking how wrongly she could have steered someone who didn't know better!

Haha oh well! Good on him for trying it and doing okay even if he wasn't a fan. You win some, you lose some.

I was definitely proud of him for at least trying, even if he ended up not loving it.

Oh good little hack! Glad you didn't end up having to wait!

Buying at Ollivanders feels like the "real" experience, but when it's crowded as all get out in there, it's nice to have another option.

I'm going to have to remember this! We never did figure out how to cast spells properly and eventually we just gave up.

It took us awhile, but eventually we figured it out. There was a decent learning curve associated with it. lol The TMs were more than helpful when we asked too!

I always mean to watch some of these shows in the HP areas but I never do. I'll have to make an effort this next trip.

This is one of our favorites, but we have always skipped Celestina Warbeck, so we need to add her to our next trip. I hear she is really entertaining! The DIS Universal show is always raving about her talent.

That's so cute! And so in character for him!

It was super adorable! It happened so quickly, we were definitely walking by at just the right time.

Yay for DS! I distinctly remember being really freaked out before my first time riding this as a kid. I was about 10 years old and a big old wimp, and the line had stopped moving for a while to fix a ride issue. But I ended up loving it! Glad your DS gave it a thumbs up—it's a great ride.

I think watching ride videos before we went helped him a lot, especially on this one which is quite a bit scarier than any of the other things we tried with him for the first time. I rode this one for the first time as an adult so I don't really have a grasp on what the experience would be like for a kid the first time.

Well I am finally here! :wave2:

Glad all your travel went smoothly!

That was a great incentive for DS. I'm glad his behavior improved so much!

Even though you left early, it sounds like it was a successful MNSSHP! Great photos!

What a great first day at IoA and Universal! You guys really got a lot done. That's awesome that DS loved Forbidden Journey!

Those early morning pics at Universal are awesome! Man that TM was pretty misinformed about Early Entry that day!

DS is so cute with his wand!

Glad DS enjoyed the Mummy, one of my faves too!

Welcome!!

It was great to have an incentive for him that both worked, and made me super happy at the same time! I was pretty sad at the idea of being so close and skipping the Halloween party. In the end, although it was an expensive and exhausting night, and we cut it short, it was a great way to kick off our trip and get a taste of Disney Halloween on a Universal vacation.

Reading along :yay:

Thanks for commenting!
 
Day 3 Continued: Thursday September 21st

After Revenge of the Mummy, we hadn’t had any luck finding a stand with strawberry Icee but we got a lemonade one that we all liked, then went to Springfield for lunch at DS’s request. DH and I both got burgers from Krustyburger, and DS got the Krustyburger hot dog. By the end of our meal in there, I think we all had the cartoon clips of the Simpsons memorized. For a show that has 600+ episodes, it still boggles my mind that the loop of clips they show is only maybe 7 minutes long. Every time we eat there, I swear we watch the entire loop at least 3 times. By the end of the trip DS was quoting them all. He actually still does now months later at home, and both he and DD are obsessed with watching The Simpsons. I'm still not sure how I feel about that...

With our bellies full from lunch, we decided to jostle ourselves around on Transformers.


We were about ready to head out for a break, so we made our way to the front of the park, but decided to make one last stop at Minion Mayhem.


There was a cart next to the exit of the ride so we stopped for a popcorn and an Icee refill to take with us out of the park.


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DS and I waiting for DH


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We took the water taxi back to Royal Pacific since we were on the Universal side of City Walk.

When we got back to the room, DS did some of his reading/phonics homework and reviewing while we got ready for the pool. Then we headed down to the pool for a swim!


DS really enjoyed the boat with all of the water guns and sprayers while DH and I relaxed in the shallow end and watched him. We were down there for about an hour, but then the sun really went behind the clouds for a long time and it was actually starting to feel cold sitting there in the shaded water. Who would have thought we’d be cold in Florida in September?!

After a fun dip in the pool, we went back up to the room to rinse off and get dressed to go back to the parks. We grabbed the water taxi again to go back, and this time we got to sit up in the front.


It was a little after 4 pm when we got dropped off at City Walk and we decided to go to Islands of Adventure for the evening since Studios was closing in an hour for HHN.

According to these pictures, DS wanted to sit on everything that could be sat on as we walked into the park.


We were still on the hunt for a strawberry Icee, but stopped to get another Coke one because we still hadn’t found one. We caught the beginning of the Oh the Stories You’ll Hear show as we were walking through Seuss Landing, and DS wanted to stop to watch, so we did that. They were telling the story of the Lorax.

After the opening song and once they started to tell the story, some of the characters came to sit down in the audience and Thing 1 ended up right next to DH.

After the show all of the characters went to different spots for meet & greets but DS didn’t want to stick around to meet any.

UP NEXT: More Seuss Landing

 


For a show that has 600+ episodes, it still boggles my mind that the loop of clips they show is only maybe 7 minutes long.

:rotfl2:

both he and DD are obsessed with watching The Simpsons. I'm still not sure how I feel about that...

Haha I feel you there. I was never allowed to watch The Simpsons as a kid, but a lot of my friends did. They didn't seem to end up any worse for wear. And my husband loves The Simpsons. But I think I'd still be a little hesitant to let my kids watch it.


DS really enjoyed the boat with all of the water guns and sprayers while DH and I relaxed in the shallow end and watched him.

It's such a pretty pool! I don't typically swim all that much on vacation, especially in the winter, but I really liked this pool when we were there!

What a cute show in Seuss Landing!
 
Your DS is like my DD when it comes to rides. She's hesitant and worried, but usually loves them when she gets on them. Last year, if we would have let her she would have rode BTMRR continuously. And she loved the orange side of Mission Space. I'm hoping to get her on RnRC and Everest this next trip.
 


What a fun afternoon so far! I love that Thing 1 sat next to DH!

It was a great afternoon, for sure! It's a cute enough little show, and very interactive with the crowd. I didn't mind sitting behind them so Thing 1 could join in!

Haha I feel you there. I was never allowed to watch The Simpsons as a kid, but a lot of my friends did. They didn't seem to end up any worse for wear. And my husband loves The Simpsons. But I think I'd still be a little hesitant to let my kids watch it.

At this point, they at least don't really seem to understand it at all. lol I don't love that they watch it, so I definitely don't encourage it and they seem to have moved past it finally!! DH had recorded every Treehouse of Horror episode when FX played them all right before Halloween, so he is the one that really got them both addicted to watching one every single night!! DD still loves the characters but hasn't been asking for the show as often anymore. At least it was a quick phase!

It's such a pretty pool! I don't typically swim all that much on vacation, especially in the winter, but I really liked this pool when we were there!

The pool was super nice! It was my first time in it. DS absolutely loved the spray/splash area. We actually thought we would spend more afternoons in the pool with the heat, but it was so much more pleasant than we were expecting so we didn't feel like it was totally necessary. We are thinking we might do another September trip in 2018 before the passes expire and we might not be so lucky that time, so more pool time may end up happening!!

What a cute show in Seuss Landing!

It was very cute!

Your DS is like my DD when it comes to rides. She's hesitant and worried, but usually loves them when she gets on them. Last year, if we would have let her she would have rode BTMRR continuously. And she loved the orange side of Mission Space. I'm hoping to get her on RnRC and Everest this next trip.

I was so annoyed I still couldn't get DS to ride Big Thunder because I think he would really love it!! That's how DS was with Forbidden Journey on this trip though. He couldn't get enough of it! I wish it didn't mess my stomach up so much because I would love to keep riding it over and over with him too. My goals for the next WDW trip with DS are Big Thunder and Everest. Good luck with RnRC! I know we are a long way off from getting him on that one!!! lol Even if I could get him in line, the first time he saw one of the coasters launch, he would be tapping out! :rotfl2:

Your kiddo could not be any cuter. Enjoying reading along!

Thank you so much!! I'm glad you're enjoying it.
 
Day 3 Continued: Thursday September 21st

Since we were right there and we had skipped Seuss Landing entirely the day before, we decided to go on the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride.


Next we went on the Carou-Seuss-el, which ended up being a bit of a wait because we got there right as they had closed the gates so they still had to do their safety check, then run the attraction, then let everyone off before we could get on.

Then we hit up the Cat in the Hat. The TM at the load point spotted DS’s birthday button and asked his name so she could announce his birthday over the speakers with a cute little rhyme!


We were ready to head to the Wizarding World after that, and we stopped for a lemonade Icee for DS.

DS was asking for another ride on Forbidden Journey, so off we went.


After another fun ride, we were ready for some dinner, so we went over to our favorite eatery, the Three Broomsticks! There was a bit of a line to get in and order, but not terrible.

DH got the fish and chips, I got the shepherd’s pie but substituted the salad for chips, and DS got the kids chicken tenders. We decided to go sit outside on the back patio to eat since it felt so nice outside. One of my favorite places to eat between both parks!



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I realized DS was all decked out in his Spider-Man t-shirt, hat, lanyard, and room key, but we hadn’t met him yet and he if was ever going to, this would be the perfect time! I was able to hop on the Universal app and see that he would still be out at his meet and greet spot for awhile, so once we finished eating, that was our next stop. There is a small set of switchbacks set up outside of the building where he meets, and at the entrance is a sign that says Meet Spider-Man Here! As we were waiting in line, Spider-Man comes up behind us, reads the sign and says, “Oh, I’m supposed to meet right here? It says to meet me right here.”


So he stood there a second, then crossed his arms and asks us, “How am I doing so far?”

It was a funny little pre-meet interaction! Then he went inside to take his spot in front of the big green screen and we waited for the few families ahead of us before it was DS’s turn to go meet him. Epic mom fail here: They were having a super cute talk before taking photos and I thought I was videoing, but realized halfway through that I wasn’t recording!! Such a bummer because Spider-Man was super chatty.


Spider-Man asked DS if it was a long drive for us to get there, and DS said, “No, we flew.” Spider-Man very animatedly asked him, “You can FLY?! Can you teach me how to fly?” Then went into a semi-long tangent about how he has to keep slinging his webs to kind of fly, but he has to keep doing it or he’ll hit the ground…SPLAT. It was really cute and funny! Then they posed for a few photos.

Continued in next post...
 
Day 3 Continued: Thursday September 21st

High off of meeting his favorite superhero, DS wanted to go ride his attraction, so over to Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man we went!


We wanted to head over to do Kong before the park closed, so we made our way through Superhero Island and Toon Lagoon.


We made it over to Kong, but the TMs outside were telling everyone they were having some technical difficulties and that we could get in line if we wanted to, but both lines may be backed up a bit. Since it was the last thing we were doing, we decided to chance it and entered the express line.


However, we ended up standing there for about 20-25 minutes without making any progress, so we decided to bail. As we were walking out and towards the entrance, we FINALLY found a cart with plain strawberry Icee!! We stopped to see if we could get one but they were already closed for the night, but we were just happy to have found a place we could get one the next day for DS. Everywhere we had thought we had spotted a strawberry one would end up being strawberry kiwi or watermelon or something whenever we would get up close.

Going back through Toon Lagoon, DS wanted to try out the Marmaduke photo spot.


As tired as our feet were, it just didn’t make sense to walk halfway across City Walk to get to the boat when the walking path is right there at the exit of IOA, so we walked back to Royal Pacific, which DS did much better with at the end of a long day than I would have guessed. It was kind of nice with the 8 pm closing time and being so close to our resort that we could stay until park closing but still be in bed by 9 pm so we were ready to go the next day!

UP NEXT: Getting Soaked!
 
All caught up on a bunch of updates. Looks like a really fun time. I think this is the first TR I've read where Universal looks appealing to me - and I think a lot of that is that you are able to bring DS on the rides instead of endless child swaps. It's on my radar more for future trips now. Oh, and that chocolate place and your shake look amazing!!
 
I have been staring at the Marmaduke picture and I can NOT figure out how your son posed for that. I'm sure it is head-slappingly simple, but do share!

Suess Land is clearly a photographers' dream with those colors. I love it!
 
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Cute! This is such a cute little trolley ride.

After another fun ride, we were ready for some dinner, so we went over to our favorite eatery, the Three Broomsticks! There was a bit of a line to get in and order, but not terrible.

I'm a big fan of Three Broomsticks! Sounds like a nice meal.

Spider-Man very animatedly asked him, “You can FLY?! Can you teach me how to fly?” Then went into a semi-long tangent about how he has to keep slinging his webs to kind of fly, but he has to keep doing it or he’ll hit the ground…SPLAT. It was really cute and funny!

How awesome! Great character interaction here! Too bad you ended up missing out on the video, but the pictures are great :)
 
All caught up on a bunch of updates. Looks like a really fun time. I think this is the first TR I've read where Universal looks appealing to me - and I think a lot of that is that you are able to bring DS on the rides instead of endless child swaps. It's on my radar more for future trips now. Oh, and that chocolate place and your shake look amazing!!

It is absolutely a more enjoyable destination without the constant child swapping. We really loved being able to ride everything together for a change, and get to experience DS's reactions together instead of having to tell each other about them. I am looking forward to being able to enjoy it with all 4 of us one day!!

The shake was really good! If we are able to swing another trip before the APs expire, we would definitely stop in again and try a different flavor!

I have been staring at the Marmaduke picture and I can NOT figure out how your son posed for that. I'm sure it is head-slappingly simple, but do share!

Suess Land is clearly a photographers' dream with those colors. I love it!

lol the Marmaduke photo is super simple! Everything is actually above you with the rope hanging down, so he just pulled on it. Then you take the photo and rotate it. So when we took the photo it actually looked like this.

Seuss Landing is a lot of fun to just wander around and look! So many interesting little details and pretty colors.

Cute! This is such a cute little trolley ride.

I'm a big fan of Three Broomsticks! Sounds like a nice meal.

How awesome! Great character interaction here! Too bad you ended up missing out on the video, but the pictures are great :)

The train ride is one of our favorites in Seuss Landing!!

We all love Three Broomsticks too. It's one of our must-do meals in the park, and we love eating out on that back patio. It's usually so nice and breezy out there, and not very crowded because I don't think a lot of people know it is there.

We didn't do much in the way of characters...In fact, I think Spider-Man was the only one this trip! DS just wasn't focused on them, though if we are able to go back, I'm going to try to do more with him. I like getting pictures with the Transformers, and meeting the Shrek characters or Simpsons characters would be fun too! I was super bummed when I realized I wasn't recording because it was such a cute meet! I definitely need to pay more attention next time. lol
 
I love the Trolley ride!

Love the pics of DS with Spiderman, sounds like it was a great meet!

Cute pics with all the photo ops at the end of the night. Bummer about Kong being down!
 
I love the Trolley ride!

Love the pics of DS with Spiderman, sounds like it was a great meet!

Cute pics with all the photo ops at the end of the night. Bummer about Kong being down!

I love the train too! I loved The Sneetches as a kid (and still read it with DS & DD) so it's super nostalgic for me.

For being our one and only character meet of the trip, it was definitely a good one!!

It was really nice having time to slowly exit the park at the end of the night without being dead tired like we are at Disney. lol I wouldn't have minded the parks being open a little later, but it was also kind of nice not feeling super exhausted the whole time from early mornings and late nights.

Ooooh!!! I see! Thank you for sharing that.. I was going a bit nuts trying to figure it out!

No problem!! It is hard to explain it to a 6 year old in the moment too, so we had a lot of outtakes trying to get that photo! lol
 
Day 4: Friday September 22nd

Today, we were doing something a little different and heading to IOA first to ride some water rides! Since the park didn’t open until 9, we were up at 7:50 and got dressed in our swim suits (me with clothes over it!), had some breakfast, and headed down to the water taxi.


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Our view of the pool while waiting for the elevator


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We caught the next water taxi over to City Walk, and headed in the direction of Islands of Adventure. We got Captain Brad again, so we got to hear his new batch of Brad’s Jokes of the Day, and got to hear him sing his “We Love You, You Love Us” song!

We made a left once we were inside the park to go through Marvel Superhero Island to Toon Lagoon.


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As you can see, most people were headed in the opposite direction


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Our original plan of attack had been to do Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges first, then Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls, then Jurassic Park River Adventure, then heading out of the park to go back to our room and change. But once we got over there, we saw that the walkway to Popeye’s was roped off and it wouldn’t open until 10 am, so we changed up our plan and went over to Ripsaw Falls instead.

Since we usually skip the water rides, we weren’t sure what the locker situation would be for the water rides. We asked the TM at the entrance to Ripsaw Falls and he pointed out the bank of lockers to us, but told us we would be charged to use them, or we could take our bags on to the ride with us. DH had brought his nice camera, so of course, over to the lockers we went! We hadn’t brought much, but we had brought flip flops for DH and DS and we didn’t want their tennis shoes getting wet either. The locker was $4 for 90 minutes, so DH set a timer on his phone for 80 minutes to give us time to get over there and retrieve our items so we wouldn’t be stuck paying another $3 for 30 more minutes of time. After storing the shoes and camera, and letting DS have a little fun with the photo ops, we were ready for some water rides!

No pictures from Ripsaw Falls, but we walked right on, and DS was a little nervous. He asked every time we went up if it was time for the big drop! We had watched the ride video for this one before going to prepare him, but he was still nervous in the moment. In the end, he thought it was a lot of fun and we got completely DRENCHED.

After that, we shuffled over towards Jurassic Park, since our wet feet were sliding around on our wet flip flops. This one was another walk on, and a lady waiting to board next to us commented how wet we were and asked if it was from the River Adventure. Lol We ended up in the first row!


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We didn’t get too wet on this one, but it was just adding insult to injury at that point because we were still soaked from Ripsaw Falls! It still wasn’t quite 10 am, so since we knew there were strawberry Icees nearby, we stopped to get one for DS while we waited and tried to dry off in the sun a bit. At the cart in JP, I’ll just mention that they weren’t able to give us the AP discount on reactivation of our cup for the day. Not a big deal, since we still made out ahead on Icees for the day, but worth mentioning.


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Hard to tell, but I was saturated. You can kind of see it in the hem of the shorts.


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We got over to Popeye & Bluto’s but it was still roped off. We found another spot in the sun around the Popeye statue and sat to wait for it to open.


10 am came and went and we were still waiting.


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They dropped the rope at 1005 and let us go through to the front of the ride where we had to wait some more for them to let us enter the line.


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Once we had walked through the line and made it to the loading point, we had to wait some more. I don’t know exactly what was going on, but we did watch them send a raft through with a TM on it (covered head to toe in rain gear!) and had to wait for the TM to return after doing a full ride through before they started letting anyone on.

We got on a raft with 2 different groups of non-English speakers who didn’t listen to the instructions of moving all the way inside the raft. One group went in to the left side and took the seats closest to the door, the other group moved in from the right and left two seats empty in the middle instead of moving all the way to where the first group ended. So DH and DS ended up in those two middle seats and I had to take the last seat available across the raft from them.

All that drying in the sun we had done waiting for the ride to open was totally pointless as we got completely soaked yet again on this one! It was kind of crazy to see how many people were riding this in full length denim jeans or denim shorts. I can’t imagine it’s very comfortable walking around in wet denim for hours until it dries!

We gave DS the option of riding one of the rides a second time, and he wanted to do Popeye’s again. I didn’t feel the need to do it a second time, and our time on the locker was almost up, so DH took him back on while I went to retrieve the stuff from the locker. The good thing about these was that it worked with a pin number instead of a fingerprint so either one of us could go back and get the stuff out of it. After I had retrieved our items, I rinsed our cup out so we could get another Icee, then ended up getting another strawberry one anyway since we had been looking for them everywhere and had finally found a spot that had them.

We enjoyed the Icee on the way out of the park and made the walk back to Royal Pacific.

Once up in the room, we changed out of our soaking wet clothes and bathing suits, dried off, and put on some fresh clothes before heading back down to take the water taxi over to the City Walk.

We had Captain Brad again over to City Walk, so this time we sat up front to take some videos.


Captain Brad would always wait at the end of the dock to high 5 everyone as they came off the boat, so I made sure to tell him how much we enjoyed riding with him!

UP NEXT: Afternoon Magic
 
Captain Brad is fun!
Watching the videos was a hoot

Brought back memories when I rode the water taxi with him in charge

Absolutely love your pictures and reporting
Never got to post this in your studios section, but cat in the hat section of your report was fantastic

Loved the pics you shared with us on the cat in the hat ride
One of my favorite sections in the park

Hope you will share more pics on the picture thread!
 
Sounds like a great time at Islands of Adventure. We've done the same thing before. There are some great water rides in that park, but they all get your really wet, so the best way to handle it is by just wearing your swimsuit! Too bad you didn't get on Kong though.
 

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