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.