Hogwarts

We brought Jorja's frog Horizon on this trip.  He stayed in the hotel with Jorja.  Look how adorable he is.  Jorja loves this frog.

Horizon

Okay, getting back to business.  Today we were able to get into the parks an hour early.  We wanted to take advantage of this.  We decided to walk to the parks instead of taking the water shuttles.  We thought it would be faster.  BIG MISTAKE.  The shuttles were coming faster than every 15 minutes, so it wouldn't have taken as long as we thought.  A lot of people must have had the same idea as us, because there was a giant security tent we had to go through.  This was probably the longest line we waited in the entire trip!  Oh well.  By the time we got to the parks we only had about 15 minutes until the park opened.  Our plan was to go to Rip Ride Rockit.  Yesterday this had a huge line, so we thought we would hit this first.  I guess not every ride is open early.  Boo!  We rode the Minion Mayhem ride and then went to Revenge of the Mummy. The Mummy ride wasn't open either.  What's the point of getting into the park early if the rides aren't open?  I guess we should have just gone to the Harry Potter rides, but those are at the back of the park and we only had a few minutes.  Anyway, we circled back to the Rip Ride Rockit and they were starting to let people in.  We waited in line until it opened.  This ride has you pick a song you want to listen to while you go on a crazy roller coaster.  They put you in a music video afterwords if you would like, although that wasn't working.  Mike and Maysen listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia.  They thought that was fun.  The workers gave us a secret code list to look at while we were waiting.  There are more songs available.  I put in a code and was able to listen to Rainbow Connection during the roller coaster.  It was pretty hilarious listening to Kermit the Frog singing while I'm being ripped around everywhere.  The other kids didn't get their selection in before the ride took off.  They don't know what they listened to, but they didn't like it.

Our next ride was Revenge of the Mummy.  The only reason we picked this ride is because it had a fast pass.  I'm not big into mummys, so I thought it would be pretty boring.  Even the first part of the ride I thought it was kind of blah.  Oh boy did that ride exceed our expectations.  It was so fun and ended up being Maysen's favorite ride at the park.  I have only been to Universal Studios in California, and that was when I was little.  Things have sure changed!  The rides were amazing.  It is obvious Universal Studios works a lot with movies because the 3D rides were incredible.  Maybe they are considered 4D because you feel heat, get water sprayed at you, move around crazily.  It is really fun.

After sneaking in another Gringotts bank ride we headed back to the hotel to check out.  We moved all of our stuff to the motorhome and had lunch there before we went back to the park.  I stopped to pose by Hello Kitty again for Abby.  Bubs said she laughed at the last picture I sent her.  I wanted to go in the store before I left, but never had the opportunity.

Stephanie

 Stephanie & Stockton

There are kid lands in both parks.  One is a Dr. Seuss theme.  It was fun.  We rode the Caro-Seuss-el.

Jorja

 Maysen

 Mike & Preston

 Stockton

We also rode The Cat in the Hat and The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train.  The train goes around the top of a restaurant.  That was pretty funny.  We got to go in the Star On/Off machine.  I was wishing that was better than it was because I love the Sneetches.  We rode One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  This is a lot like Odyssey at Lagoon. Jorja didn't want to ride because she didn't want to get wet.

Stockton, Preston, Maysen

 Mike & Stephanie

 Stockton, Preston, Maysen

 Jorja was thrilled to see something

closely resembling her name.

The kids spent an hour in this book shop.  I'm not kidding.  They didn't want to leave.  It was air-conditioned, so that was nice.  They just read books for an hour.

Maysen, Stockton, Jorja, Preston

 I was tempted to get this for my dad

 Jorja, Lorax, Stephanie

Mike really wanted to ride Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls.  Jorja didn't want to ride it because again, she didn't want to get wet.  We talked her into it.  It is kind of like a log flume ride but so much fun. We got SOAKED on that ride!  Jorja wasn't too pleased with that, but I think she was still glad she went.  We went straight to Popeye & Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges.  That is like Rattlesnake Rapids.  Again, we got soaked an again it was a lot of fun!  We then spent time squirting people with the water guns.  We road Jurassic Park one more time while we were soaked.  Preston was pretty miserable by this time.  His legs hurt where his wet clothes had rubbed against him.  Poor little guy.

Random picture of Smith family arms

The sky was starting to throated rain.  My kids were nice enough to get pictures taken in front of Hogwarts Castle before we left Islands of Adventures.

Stephanie, Maysen, Jorja, Preston, Stockton

 Mike, Maysen, Jorja, Preston, Stockton

We hurried over to Hogwarts Express.  We thought that would be a great place to be during the storm.  I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey one more time, but at least I was able to ride it twice yesterday.  Stockton said, "The Hogwarts Express sure loses it's magic after the fourth ride!"  True, but I still loved it!

Preston & Mike

Jorja had picked out a Hufflepuff shirt yesterday.  Maysen was still deciding what she wanted.  She ended up going with a Ravenclaw hat. We were about to buy it when we saw these Ravenclaw sweaters.  I had her try it on.  It looked so cute on her I knew it would be a tough decision.  Then I looked at the price tag and saw the sweater was over $100.  That made the decision easier!  Just a picture with the sweater for Maysen and we got her the hat.

Jorja and Maysen

 Maysen

We got some ice-cream while the storm was going crazy.  Jorja and I picked Butterbeer and it was delicious!  We looked at a couple of cool things there before heading out.  As we were leaving Diagon Alley I looked up at the dragon and said, "Good-bye!  I wish you would blow your fire one more time!"  Right then the dragon blew his fire.  It was funny and a perfect end to a perfect day.  We had to walk back because the ferrys weren't going with all the crazy lightning that was going on. The sky sure looked beautiful though.  Pictures don't quite capture the magic.

I got the kids cleaned up.  Put medicine on their legs where it had been rubbed raw from walking in wet clothes.  Mike and Preston played a game of Golden Snitch.  That was Preston's souvenir that he begged and begged for.  Mike finally agreed to get it if we ate lunch in the motorhome.  Preston loves the game, so at least that turned out well. We got the kids to bed and started driving away.  It was a little tricky getting out of Orlando.  Mike took the wrong interchange once, which was annoying because not only were we tired, but we had to pay extra tolls.  We managed to get a couple hours out of Orlando before we stopped for the night.  Mike went far enough so that I wouldn't have to deal with tolls when I start driving in the morning.  Today was a super fun, wonderful day.

Harry Potter!

Mike and I decided to get a hotel room for one night.  We stayed at the Royal Pacific Hotel.  Because we did this, we were able to get Fast Passes for our entire family for two days.  The fast passes are around $100 a piece depending on the day.  Staying at the hotel was cheaper than buying the passes for two days.  We figured that we drove across the entire country for this, we don't want to spend it in lines.  I wasn't sure if this was going to be a good idea or not, because many of the Harry Potter rides don't accept fast passes.  Turns out, these things were amazing!  We were so glad we had them.  We went on many rides that we would have not even attempted.  It made the day a lot less stressful.  Anyways, we started the morning by checking into the hotel and getting our picture taken for our passes.  Our rooms weren't ready, but we didn't need them!  We were ready to play!

Stephanie with Hello Kitty (for Abby)

Maysen and Preston rode Pteranodon Flyers first.  Preston was the only one who met the height requirement and he was only allowed to take one other person.  He chose Maysen.  Next we went to Jurassic Park River Adventure.  That was a lot of fun.  Maysen really liked it.  She has read the book and loved how she could see things pulled straight from the book.  It was pretty fun and you didn't get extremely wet.

Preston & Mike

 Man!  Preston sure has an amazing scared face!

I was so excited when we finally made it to Hogsmeade!  That place was amazing!  So beautiful.  I loved it.

 Stephanie

 Stephanie, Preston & Maysen

 Jorja taking a picture of Mike taking our picture

 Stephanie, Preston, Maysen & Stockton's head

 Hogwarts!

Mike bought two frozen butterbeers for us to share.  DELICIOUS!!!

Stockton, Preston, Jorja, Maysen

Next we headed to wait in line for a Harry Potter ride.  We thought we were waiting in line for Flight of the Hippogriffs, which is a little kid roller coaster, but we were actually in line for the Forbidden Journey.  It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  I loved it!  The line went pretty fast and we were entertained by walking through Dumbledoor's office, watching the portraits talk to each other, seeing the Fat Lady and all sorts of cool things.  When we got to the ride it was on a conveyer belt, kind of like Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.  The seats were in seats of four and they hung like the Bat.  I don't know how to explain it, but it felt like you were flying following Harry Potter on his broomstick.    It was cool because it wasn't on a typical roller coaster track.  You had no idea where you would go next.  I could have ridden that ride all day.  It was so much fun! 

We rode the Dueling Dragons ride next.  Preston was too little for that, so I stayed in the candy shop with him while the others rode it.  Then Stockton and Jorja stayed with Preston while Mike, Maysen and I rode the other side.  We then ate at the Three Broomsticks.  We got the family feast and we ate our hearts out.  Our next stop was the Hogwarts Express.  I was so excited to ride this!  It did not disappoint.

Stephanie, Stockton, Conductor, Preston, Maysen, Jorja

Because there were six of us in our group we got our own compartment. It was pretty cool.  As you were driving, shadows of Harry, Ron and Hermione came and you could hear them talking.  They would look in and say things like, "This compartment is full."  It was fun.

Mike, Stephanie, Preston

 Stockton & Jorja

 Maysen

 Hagrid photobombing

Hogwarts!

We took the Hogwarts Express to London.  When we came out, it looked like Universal Studios.  We were confused.  We could see the Night Bus, but we thought there would be more to Harry Potter than this!  Soon after we found the passageway to Diagon Alley.  It was so cool back there!  I can't believe this entire place is hidden.  Even the Dragon on Gringotts bank!  That ride was a lot of fun as well!

Diagon Alley

We made our way out of the park and headed to the hotel to get settled. We stopped by Simpsons Land and watched a pet show on our way out.

It was nice to have somewhere to escape from the heat!  We had two rooms.  The kids were in one, we were in another.  They were connecting rooms.  I was quite happy with this.  We had no idea how far the kids would be from us.  We unpacked and rested until we were ready to go again.  We went back to the parks and stayed until everything closed.  We noticed there wasn't a huge line by Olivander's wand shop.  We were the only ones in our group.  It was great!  Maysen was the one picked to have a wand chosen.  I was really happy about that.  Harry Potter was more a part of Maysen's life than the others, so it was cool she got to do this.  I was so excited to buy the wand that was specifically picked out for her.  Until the casher told us it was $53.  I was willing to pay $25, but this seems crazy!  Instead we took some pictures.  I wonder if Olivander ever chooses the cheeper wands when he does his demonstrations?

Maysen

There were not a lot of people in the park at the end of the day.  We enjoyed that!  Today was so much fun.  We are all really quite tired tonight, but we are hoping to get up bright and early tomorrow and start over again!