Oh dear - how embarrassing I never did finish this
I had made such a promise to myself that I would as well!! But don't despair - I have finished it all and will post the rest of the trip now (and managed to do it all in under a year
!!).
I tried to remember as much as I could from pictures etc, but it might be a bit vague, but I hope you enjoy it anyway
It really was the most fabulous trip - of course getting engaged made it even more special!!
Anyway...without further adieu...
Day 10 - Monday 3 October 2011 - Universal Studios / Islands of Adventures / City Walk
After a great, but late night at the duelling piano bar the night before, we knew we would need to sleep in a bit later today. So we had booked the shuttle to pick us up to go to Universal Studios for about 10.30am.
Before we were picked up we had breakfast at The Artists Palette at our hotel. I had a ham and cheese omelette and Scott had a Breakfast Croissant Sandwich.
Service for breakfast was really slow - even though it was really quiet. We didn't get to finish it all as we had to rush and get our shuttle. But the actual food was tasty
Again, the shuttle was very smooth and easy. I can very much recommend the Mears Shuttle for a couple wanting to get from Disney - Universal. It's just a case of a quick phone call the day before. But I think if you were traveling as part of a a bigger group, it would be worth considering the price difference to just get a taxi
The plan for today was to start at Universal and then finish at Islands of Adventure. Especially leaving enough time to really explore Harry Potter.
Here we are when we first arrived, only problem of travelling as a two - it's a bit more difficult getting 'couple' pictures with things!!
There were soooo many characters out as we arrived at Universal Studios, so we decided to stop and take some fun pictures. We even saw 'Doc Brown' by the Back to the Future Delorian which Scott thought was amazing!
We then saw Marley from Marley and Me and the little pug dog that was in Men in Black - soooo cute!
We finished our character meeting with a trip to chat to Donkey. Donkey was amazing and made a big fuss that we just got engaged - it was sooo hillarious, such a highlight of the trip and we still talk about it today.
We obviously went on a few rides - from what I remember we just stuck to The Simpsons, The Mummy and Rip Ride and Rockit.. and one more ride on The Simpsons before leaving the park - we did some shopping at Kwik-e-Mart too and got some cool 'Duff' drinks glasses - I thought the Marge wigs were hillarious haha.
So we then headed to Islands of Adventure and to Harry Potter section. We got our frozen Butterbeers - which we had decided not to do the first time we were here so it was something to look forward to when we came back - it reminded me on honeycomb flavoured Mackies Ice Cream
We enjoyed these in the looooong queue to see the little show in Ollivanders - cute to see once, but not something to repeat.
We then decided to get some lunch - hot dog for me and turkey leg for scott. We then went to Hogs Head Pub in Hogsmeade and had a pint of cider each. It was actually pretty quiet and nice to just take a break for a bit.
We went on the HP and the Forbidden Journey - queue was pretty big, so we decided to just to do single rider. Wow we completely lucked out and walked straight on and on the same carriage! So we decided to go on again single rider - and ended up getting on our own vehicle with nobody else?! Considering it was such a long wait to get on we were soooo lucky and don't quite know how that happened!
We then wondered round Hogsmeade one last time before heading round to Spiderman, Doctor Doom (which I was rediculously scared of but went on - yey!) and then rode The Hulk repeatedly until the park was pretty much closing!
Once we were done in the park and was going to have a drink at the Margaritaville drinks stand. However we were ID'd and the server wouldn't accept our Driving Licenses (the cards with the pictures) - never experienced this anywhere else, but he said it was policy to only accept passports (which we don't feel comfortable carrying with us to theme parks).
Anyway we had a wonder around City Walk before going for dinner in the Latin Quarter - the food is soo good here which is why we decided to go back (we had went here on our last trip). I just really wish there was more of an atmosphere. It was so quiet and although the service was good (no waits etc) - our waiter seemed a bit 'off' - we had a few cocktails over dinner, and they had a really extensive mojito list which was great - but when Scott asked if he could have his made with Dark Rum as that's how he likes it, the server was beyond rude and made it seem like it was the most rediculous request someone could have made?! Anyway when the drinks came they were lovely and we both had lovely coconut prawns to start and fajitas for mains which were amazing.
After dinner we continued our cocktail drinking at the bar at Pat O'Briens which was nice. And after a few cocktails, we called up the shuttle and arranged to back to the hotel.