*Sorry there aren't any pictures in this update yet, but I'll add some really soon...also, sorry it's taken me so long to continue this TR. I get sad coming on the DIS when I don't have a trip planned...but there may be one in the works*
I woke up on Day 5 feeling very excited
today we were going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I had followed the construction pretty much since day one, so finally getting to see it all finished in person was a huge deal to me.
Having another early start to the day, my brother came to pick us up at the CSR and we drove over to UOR from there. We got there a touch later than I was hoping, but still early enough that I was satisfied. We splurged for preferred parking, and got in the Cat in The Hat lot.
This was the first time my fiancé had been to UOR since she was 9, and I hadnt been since 2006, so needless to say, as we were walking along towards the entrance to City Walk, we were both really excited. Something that I thought was different was that the bag check wasnt anywhere near the park entrance, but was back in the pedestrian walkways that take you to City Walk. I guess it must cut down on the lines getting in to the parks, but it seemed a little odd that you had to get your bag searched even if all you wanted to do is go to City Walk.
Once we got to the entrance to Islands of Adventure, we had to go to the kiosk to redeem our vouchers for actual tickets. There was hardly a line there, which was great because the park had literally just opened. Everyone was more or less making a b-line back towards where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was, but we broke away from the crowd just before SuessLanding for a brief pit stop. As I closed the door to my stall I noticed a purse hanging on the hook on the back of the door, so once we had finished there my first order of business was to find a cast member and pass the purse along in hopes they would put it in the lost and found. Luckily it didnt take long to come across someone who was very helpful and assured me it would get put in the lost and found at the front of the park. Satisfied, we continued to make our way back to WWoHP.
As we made our way through SuessLanding and then The Lost Continent, I was reminded of how much I missed that park. I kept pointing out points of interest to my fiancé as we went along, because she had never been there before. I wanted her to see Posidions Fury, but there just wasnt enough time in the day for it, so that will have to wait until next time (if its still there then).
When we rounded the bend and Hogsmede came into view I got a little teary-eyed. Here it was, at long last.
Thanks to my reading up before hand, I knew that the best plan of action for us was to put our stuff in the lockers at Dragon Challenge and then head over to the Forbidden Journey line up. By now the park had been open for about half an hour, and it was already packed in WWoHP. Olivanders had a really long line, but we bypassed that and headed straight for the Forbidden Journey. The line was really long, but I knew to just make my way to a cast member to let them know we didnt have any bags, and that we would be directed as to where to go.
We only had to wait about 20-25 minutes in the line to get on the ride, which was awesome. The line moved fairly quick, which is good in that you get on the ride quicker, but is bad in that you dont get to take in the themeing as much as you would like. The site I had looked mentioned this, so I wasnt disappointed. They suggested to do the castle tour first, and then get in line, but I was itching to get on the ride, so we went on the ride first, then did the castle tour.
*FORBIDDEN JOURNEY SPOILER ALLERT*
The ride itself is amazing. I was really nervous, but I had no need to be. It was unlike any other ride Id ever been on because of the movement of the ride vehicle. It really did feel like you were flying. The scene with the Whomping Willow was done really well. It looked just like the tree from the movies, and the motion was seemless. The Dementors were also really well done, very spooky. The large spiders were done well too
almost too well. I had to shut my eyes for a minute during that part
I dont like spiders. The on-ride photo that we had turned out awesome. My fiancé had the funniest expression on her face, and I had my eyes shut. We would have bought it, except it was about $30 for one picture
no way! All in all though, it was and still is my favourite ride of all time.
*END FORBIDDEN JOURNEY SPOILER ALLERT*
After the ride, my brother and parents split up from my fiancé and I. Our plan was to go to the Hogs Head for some butterbeer, while everyone else wanted to do the castle tour. We agreed to meet up later. So, it was off to the Hogs Head. I think we got there just as they were about to set up a proper queue, because the line we were in went in the opposite direction to what they wanted, but since no one was there to tell us where to stand, we were okay where we were. At this point there were two lines of people wanting butterbeer, one large line, and one smaller line. My fiancé and I were in the smaller one. The bartender was pouring butterbeer for our line first to make things a little easier, and I think that because he was just trying to get people through quickly he gave us our butterbeer for free! I tried to pay him, but he said it was on the house! Who would have guessed we would get some pixie dust sprinkled our way in IoA.
Hidden Mickey? I think so...
The butterbeer was really good, just what the both of us needed at the time. It was really hot out, and it was crowded, so it was nice to take a break from the heat and crowds for a bit, and just soak up the atmosphere. We decided that because it was so crowded already, and getting worse that it would probably be best to see other things and come back later on, so we decided to go on Spider Man next. I could have sat there for hours, but we had lots of stuff to see and time was ticking on, so off we went, taking pictures along the way.
After taking a quick pit stop in ToonTown, we got in line for The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. Now, every time prior to this trip Id been staying on-site, which gives you an express pass for every ride so you dont have to wait as long. I had been used to waiting a max of 15 minutes for most rides at USO and IoA, and once we got to the Spider Man ride and I saw a posted wait time of 35 minutes (could have been 40, I cant remember), with the line up out the door, I realized just how silly it would be to think we could get everything done in one day with both parks. It was this moment when I decided to let go of certain rides, and choose to do my favourites only.
About 5 minutes of waiting in the line up for the ride, my fiancé informs me that she has to pee again. This is about 10 minutes after having just gone in ToonTown. I asked her if she wanted to get out of line now while we hadnt gotten too far into it, or if she thought shed be able to make it until after the ride, and she opted to stay. She really should have gone. Once we got into the room with the video playing she was about to burst, so it was decision time. Let her go find a restroom on her own and stay in line to do the ride, or leave with her and come back. I couldnt just let her go by herself, never having been in the park before, so we decided to leave, but at this point we had literally just passed that room with the video and were picking up our 3-D glasses, so essentially, about to get on the ride. We walked up to a ride attendant to explain the situation to see if we might be able to come back and walk on, rather than waiting in the line again. She was very understanding and said it wouldnt be a problem, so off we went.
When we got back to the ride, we entered through the exit and the attendant let us right on, which was great. It was a favourite ride of mine, so I enjoyed it, and my fiancé thought it was worth the wait, as she enjoyed it too. So, the moral of this story
if you need to pee when you get in a line up, leave right away and go back.
Once we were done at Spider Man, my fiancé was getting hungry, and it was only about 11:30 or so, so we decided to break for an early lunch in hopes of beating the crowds. The first time I went to USO and we stayed on-site, one of the places we ate was Thunder Falls Terrace. Im not sure if it was because we were all so hungry, or because the chef was having a good day, but the food that time was to die for. I enjoyed it so much that I knew I had to take my fiancé there when we made our visit, so the next order of business was to backtrack to Jurassic Park for lunch.
The food was just as good as I remember, but it was a shame I wasnt as hungry as I had been before because I ended up not eating about half of my chicken. My fiancé made a pretty good dent in hers though, and she really enjoyed it too. It was also nice being able to watch the River Adventure come down right outside the window, and since my fiancé is a big dinosaur nerd, she enjoyed the themeing.
By the time we were done eating, it was getting really hot out, so we decided to head over to Pop Eye to cool down a bit. I figured the lineup would be really long because it was so warm, but to our surprise, we only had to wait 5 minutes or so. The ride was as awesome as always. It had been one of my favourites in the past, so to be able to share that with my fiancé was really cool. She liked it too, but she said she still liked Kali more because of the themeing. After having been on Kali now, I can say that I still like Pop Eye better
its longer.
So now that we were completely soaked, we thought it would be a good time to head over to USO to check out a few rides there. On my list of things to do was E.T, The Simpsons, Men in Black, The Mummy, and Jimmy Newtron if it was operational that day. We were hoping to go back over to IoA around 5 simply to soak up the rest of the Wizarding World. It was a lot to do in a few short hours, but I felt up to the challenge.
Things at Universal hadnt changed a whole lot for me, despite the addition of the Rip, Ride, Rocket and the Simpsons. Walking through the archway was like seeing an old friend again. It was nice to be back, but somehow I wasnt as impressed as I had once been. My fiancé didnt remember much of anything from her pervious visit, except for the Kong ride, which was no longer there.
The first thing I wanted to do in USO was E.T. It had been a family favourite on past trips, and I couldnt wait to do it again. It was as great as always, and walking through the forest brought back memories. My fiancé enjoyed it too, she thought it was cute.
We decided to head over to the Simpsons after E.T, but as we were on our way over we were discussing how much we didnt really like the show growing up, so in the end, we bypassed it altogether. Looking back on it, Im a little disappointed I didnt get to ride it, but I loved Back to the Future so much that it would seem sacrilegious to go on the Simpsons ride. Im sure the overall movement of the ride has gotten way better, and the screens are better, but Im still sad that they took it out and put the Simpsons in its place. Next time Im there Ill go on it....
So after deciding against The Simpsons we went to Men In Black: Alien Attack. I love that ride so much
I wish we could have done it more than once, but my fiancé has a bit of trouble on spinning rides, and at the end of the ride you spin for a good 15 seconds or so, which is about the limit she can take. She really liked it though, despite the spinning. It was neat to see the whole line, where you enter in the elevator
Id only been in the express line so I always bypassed that part. I got the highest score in the car, but it wasnt as good as some of the other times Id been on it.
You have to put your stuff in a locker to go on that ride, and it was a busy day, so it took us a minute to get a locker but we got one eventually. When we went back to get our stuff out of the locker, there was some kind of an error, so we had to find an attendant to help us, only there wasnt anyone around, which was frustrating. Apparently we took too long to put our stuff in the locker or something
I still dont quite know what happened. Anyway, we had to wait a good 15 minutes until someone came along and we could get our stuff back.
Once the locker incident was rectified, we made our way over to Jaws, but it was down so we couldnt go on. At this point I was getting a little hungry, and the funnel cake stand just happened to be close by, so we stopped for a funnel cake. My fiancé had never had one, so instead of getting one each, we just split one. She really enjoyed it, but we were glad we only got one because more than half of one would have been too much.
As we were eating our funnel cake, we got to talking about the WWoHP, and decided that despite the fact we didnt get to do a whole lot at USO, we wanted to go back and soak up the atmosphere there until we had to leave. Of course we took our time leaving the park and making our way back over, but that was our general course of action.
We almost went on Twister, and Shrek, but just browsed around in the gift shops instead. The Rip, Ride, Rocket was down that day so we didnt get to see it in action, but I still cant get over how big that drop is
there is no way I could tackle that one. As we walked past The Mummy I tried to talk my fiancé into riding it, but she wasnt having it, so we skipped that one too.
So, with a few more pictures and one last wave goodbye, it was time to head back over to IoA for the last 3 hours of the day or so.
When we got back to IoA we did the Cat in the Hat, and the Seuss Trolley Train Ride before slowly meandering back to WWoHP. Once back there, we went into the gift shop that you come out of on the HP ride, I think its called Filchs Emporium of Confiscated Goods. I noticed you could see the locker area for the ride through the gift shop, so because we were right there, we decided to do the ride one more time. It was just as awesome the second time. After this ride we explored the gift shops some more, and split a bottle of pumpkin juice in the owlry. Once done the pumpkin juice, we just sat there and soaked up the HP atmosphere some more, before going back into the gift shops to make our purchases. I was given money by a friend of mine to get her stuff from WWoHP, so I ended up getting her some pumpkin juice and a few chocolate frogs. I bought a pink pigmy puff
its soo cute!
By this time it was time to head back to the front of the park to meet back up with everyone else and head back. Once we met up with everyone, thats when we decided we wanted to try and see if could get the on-ride photo of my fiancé and I from the first time we rode the ride in the morning, so back through the park we went. At this point, it was about 30 minutes to park closing, so as tired as everyone was we hurriedly walked back. When we got there, thats when we found out how much it would be, and decided we just couldnt do it, so back to the front of the park we went. It was after park closing now, and we were just taking our good old time leaving. Before we headed back to the resort, we took a quick stop in the Hard Rock Café shop.
Overall, the pace we had was a bit hurried for the whole day and there were other rides I would have liked to have done, but I think I would have been rushing us too much to have done anything more than what we did. All in all, it was a long and busy day, but it was awesome, and one of the highlights of my trip. I hope to get back to USR and have 3 days to spend between both parks so it wouldnt be as rushed, but I was happy just to see WWoHP, let alone my other favourite rides.
Up next: Day 6
Chai Cremes.
Love the pictures of the gorilla. Was he actually that close or did you need to use the zoom on your camera?
My parents both ended up getting the breakfast skillet (I think). They were happy with it, but also noticed the staff to be generally uninterested. 
I didnt want to go back to the hotel just yet, especially not before Sorin, so I decided to stay for the ride and then head back to the hotel for a nap (and a migraine pill). While in the line up we met a lovely family from Perth, Australia. The one thing that makes waiting in long lines bearable is meeting new people like them. I hope the rest of their vacation went well. We got in row 1 for our flight to the golden state, which I was very excited about. Id read on here that that was the best row to be in because you wouldnt be able to see peoples feet dangling, and I would definitely agree. It was the best ride Id ever had. If you dont mind waiting a little extra for a more awesome flight, definitely ask to be in row 1. 
. Pedro brought us out two cupcakes with Mickey sprinkles for my fiancé and I to celebrate our engagement. It was very unexpected, and very nice! Then it was time fore the real desert. I think it was a bread pudding with bananas foster and ice cream or something like that
but it was my second favourite desert of the whole trip. It was my fiancés first time there, and she loved it. 
So, the only logical explination we could come up with was that he forgot it back at 'Ohana. My mom said she'd go back with him and told my fiance and I to go on and that if we met up later, then we met up, but if not we shouldn't worry about it too much. So, with that, my fiance and I headed in the park. 
Im pretty sure everyone had the breakfast sandwich with bacon, but I had the one with ham. It was really good. I was a little sad this would probably be the only time we ate at the Earl, and unfortunately I was right. Im really glad we got to go there though. 
