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The first trip of a lifetime trip report - day 3

jothp

Going to wash my car in honour of the mouse.
Joined
May 21, 2010
Day 3 Friday 14th August - Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure part 1
After a broken nights sleep the previous night with the disturbance in the corridor we were hoping for a good night. This didn't happen though - I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom only to tread in a big wet patch walking there. All the lights went on to find that a big area of the tiled entrance way floor was covered in water and it had spread onto the main bedroom area carpet and into the wardrobe. Somehow the girls had remained asleep so I didn't want to call anyone to come and sort it out so I moved the suitcases out of the wet and mopped up the floor as best as I could using the towels we had. It seemed that the leak was coming in under the connecting door from the room next door so we blocked the gap with a couple of dry towels and went back to sleep. Even though we had all this activity in the middle of the night I was still wide awake by 4.30 again and the girls woke not too long after.

We went for breakfast sharp at 7 again and managed to get to the water taxi by 7.25. Today however, luck was not on our side as we had to wait a while for the taxi to come. For some reason we went into the studios first again this morning and took another spin on escape from Gringotts before riding the Hogwarts express to IOA. I loved this ride but DH commented that he thought it looked a little silly that the wheels on the train didn't actually turn as it came into the station. Despite being at the park gates before they opened at about 7.45 it was about 9.00 by the time we made it to Hogsmeade. We decided that by that time Fobidden Journey would be a too long queue so Robyn and Olie took a turn on dragon challenge. Harriet really wanted to go on too - the lady at the entrance did a very thorough job measuring her, but decided she was just a few mm too short. Hattie was a little upset but luckily we had pre warned her that there was a good chance that she wouldn't be tall enough (to be honest I'm surprised that she was as close as she was) so she soon cheered up. We took a few pictures and looked in a couple of shops while waiting for them to come back. As it turns out Robyn didn't really enjoy this one as she said her head was banged around too much and she didn't ask to do it again for the rest of the trip.







Next we walked around the corner and me and the three girls took a couple of spins on the hippogriff before we left Hogsmeade to walked around to Seuss landing. We all did the trolley train ride at which point Robyn declared her disgust at these rides so I sat out of the carousel and one fish etc with her. We did manage to get her to join us for the cat in the hat but she was clearly wanting something a little more thrilling! The funniest part of this area was that Evie rode with Olie on One fish... Somehow she managed to move their fish up and down at just the right time to get sprayed by all the water - and she looks like butter wouldn't melt! We decided it was about time to do something that appealed more to the older girls so we walked over and let them ride together on Doctor Doom's fearfall with express. I waited for them by the exit while Olie let Evie have a go on a few games in the arcade.

They came off quite quickly but it was already 11.50. As we were all already feeling a little worn out and hungry we wandered over to Confisco grill for lunch. We were all really impressed by this lunch and we had a lovely server. Robyn and I had the chicken fajitas which were lovely. Hattie and Evie had kids pizza which looked great too and Olie had a burger. Olie ordered a coffee - he was told at the time there would be a bit of a wait as they would have to fetch it from next door. In the end he hardly had to wait and got two as two people both went for is coffee obviously without telling the other. We skipped dessert here with the plan of getting something later but we never did. The total cost including tax was $75 plus tip. We would certainly plan to go here again if we returned.
 
Great start to your trip! It's always best to make the most of mornings on your first few days. We are planning our first 2 nights at Universal next year so I'm reading with interest. Do you find out in advance which park is open for early entry? I'm a planner so would want to know in advance :surfweb: Looking forward to reading along :thumbsup2
 
Great start to your trip! It's always best to make the most of mornings on your first few days. We are planning our first 2 nights at Universal next year so I'm reading with interest. Do you find out in advance which park is open for early entry? I'm a planner so would want to know in advance :surfweb: Looking forward to reading along :thumbsup2

Universal don't seem to publish which park is open very far in advance. Initially it looked like it would only be IOA open but about a fortnight before we left I saw a forum post that someone phoned to check and found out that both parks were actually open.

I've got to go out soon to take the children to gymnastics but I'm hoping I'll be able to do another update later
 
Part 2
As soon as lunch was done we walked virtually straight back to where we had been before and hopped into the express queue for Spiderman. It was a bit of a surprise to find that we all loved this one so we went straight back in for a second go. Robyn was having another 'it's not fair' moment when we came off again - she stayed with me while Olie took Hattie and Evie on Storm Force Acceleratron. They thoroughly enjoyed it but I felt rather green just watching them. At this point we decided a break was in order so we returned to RPR and had a round of drinks in the club room before making our way down to the pool for the kids to swim. After swimming we all showered and headed up to the club room to check out the food available before heading back to the parks. It was as we walked through the door of the club lounge that we noticed the lightning and torrential rain out of the window. Thinking it would be short lived we helped ourselves to some refreshments (a rather nice pork stew was on offer this evening) and sat down to wait it out. Unfortunately the rain never stopped that evening and we spent some time pottering in our room and then returned to the club room later in the evening for cake as a consolation for not being able to visit the park.
 


One of the girls main aims was to ride rip ride rockit in the dark and they never managed it which was a real shame - it just leaves something for next time I guess.
 



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