A Birthday Trip without a Birthday - 2/16: Conclusion and Bonus Birthday Tea

[nodnol]

Fröhliche Weihnachten from me as well! I wish you all a wonderful Christmas!
Katharina

[englishrose47]

To all my Dis Friends

[Minnie&Nana]

Fröhliche Weihnachten, Magdalene and Katharina!

[marvali]

Fröhliche Weihnachten to my two favorite German sisters and their family!!!

[Poolrat]

Fröhliche Weihnachten Magdalene and Katharina

[tiggrbaby]

[englishrose47]

Loved the Universal Update !! Yes PC is surely English !! But they were also at some point called WC( water closets ) A truly authentic one would have had a slot on the door for a penny !!Hence the term "Spend a Penney"

[Minnie&Nana]

Originally Posted by englishrose47

Loved the Universal Update !! Yes PC is surely English !! But they were also at some point called WC( water closets ) A truly authentic one would have had a slot on the door for a penny !!Hence the term "Spend a Penney"

Rosie, I remember visiting the UK when it was called a water closet!

[Flossbolna]

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful time over Christmas! And I want to wish you all the best for 2012!!

But I don't want to leave the old year without getting this TR up to date again. So after the replies, there will be another update.

Originally Posted by eandesmom

ahh...frozen butterbeer! It is incredibly delicious I agree. I am SO glad to hear that you had a great experience with the DU ticket/transportation package as I've recommended it to my best friend who is feeling quite overwhelmed with it all.

I was a bit worried after your FJ ride #1 review but feel much better now. I love the idea of exploding bon bons, how very very fun!

The package was really a great deal, she should just make sure to print out the confirmation twice because one has to be given to the shuttle person!

Those bon bons were a great piece of merchandise! I still have some because I only treat myself to one for a special occasion.

Originally Posted by lovealldisney

Love this update! Thanks Magdalene! That Butterbeer looks really yummy... Is it like a butterscotch type of flavor? It looks like it would be.

Since I am not sure what butterscotch tastes like, I can't say. An American friend told me before the trip that it tastes like cream soda with a little bit of pumpkin in it. But I also have no idea what cream soda tastes like, so I have no idea whether I would agree with that description. I can only say that it is sweet and delicious...

[Flossbolna]

Originally Posted by Captain_Oblivious

I can only imagine what you think of American slang terms for this place, such as "can", "john", etc.

Oh, I knew "john" and the British like to call it "loo" which seems similar to the German "Klo". We have lots of terms for it as well, sometimes it can be called the "quiet little place".

Originally Posted by Captain_Oblivious

I am very impressed with the theming there.

The theming is wonderful, I could have spent much more time there taking pictures. The insides of the shops is amazing!

Originally Posted by Captain_Oblivious

I was hoping they actually exploded like a firecracker, but I'm glad you enjoyed them anyway.

Not a firecracker, but still pretty fun to eat!

Originally Posted by Captain_Oblivious

Yeah, I think I'll be skipping that one.

Well, at least it is not a free-floating boat, but a train on a track!

Originally Posted by Captain_Oblivious

Sounds delicious!

Butterbeer is wonderful... Rereading my last update made me think that I should start planning a trip to Orlando mainly to go to Universal for the butterbeer.

Originally Posted by Curiouser&curiouser!

No matter how many pictures I see of Hogsmeade, I am still blown away by the detail.

It did blow me away in person still after having seen many pictures. I am so excited about the extension they are about to start building!

Originally Posted by Curiouser&curiouser!

You may have mentioned it in the past but I don't remember and now I have to know: What do they label Restrooms in Germany?

Katharina answered that for you - and she was quite right, her German is really good!

[Flossbolna]

Originally Posted by nodnol

Hello everyone!
I'm so sorry for being absent a lot this autumn and winter, but life and especially work has been very crazy.... Although we are already in Hogsmead, there are some things from earlier I want to comment on

Hi stranger! Great to see you posting again!!!

[Flossbolna]

Originally Posted by englishrose47

To all my Dis Friends

Originally Posted by Minnie&Nana

Fröhliche Weihnachten, Magdalene and Katharina!

Originally Posted by marvali

Fröhliche Weihnachten to my two favorite German sisters and their family!!!

Originally Posted by Poolrat

Fröhliche Weihnachten Magdalene and Katharina

Originally Posted by tiggrbaby

Thank you all for the Christmas wished! I did see your greetings on Christmas Day and was very touched that my DISfriends were thinking of me!

[Flossbolna]

Originally Posted by englishrose47

Loved the Universal Update !! Yes PC is surely English !! But they were also at some point called WC( water closets ) A truly authentic one would have had a slot on the door for a penny !!Hence the term "Spend a Penney"

WC is still used in Germany! It stands for Wasser Closett - so the same as in English. That's where the most commonly used term for that place comes from: "Klo" - and toilet paper is "Klopapier" - my mother however when writing the shopping list always wrote "Clopapier" which used to amuse Katharina and me as kids - that she would use the posh spelling with a "C" for the rather ordinary product.

Originally Posted by Minnie&Nana

Rosie, I remember visiting the UK when it was called a water closet!

When I was in England for the very first time in the summer of 83, we came across a restaurant where it was called "cloakroom" - which we looked up in the dictionary and it told us that this was a place where you would place your coats - so we were really surprised when after we enquired about the toilet we were actually shown to that door... After opening the door, things became evident, it was indeed the restroom.

[Flossbolna]

Part 4: On to other Islands and Adventures

By now the crowds started to arrive at WWoHP, the wait time for FJ was up to 15 minutes now... And we decided to head somewhere else and left Hogsmead at around 9:45 am:







We had heard that Spiderman was a must do and that it was attracting rather long lines as well, so we wanted to make sure to get that done in the morning hours as well. So we continued to walk around the lake of IoA, passed through the Jurassic Park area and then found ourselves in Toon Lagoon. This is a funny looking place, very cheerful:







And then we arrived at Marvel Super Hero Island. It is quite funny that Disney ended up buying Marvel and now their largest competitor in Orlando has a land themed after Disney's intellectual property. I am not a comic book fan and so I did not expect very much of this land. I think visually it is the least pleasing of the IoA lands, but neither do I think that it is ugly. BUT it has one problem: they play a lot of very loud music here. In general I found Universal and IoA more "noisy" - the background music is not so much in the background as perhaps trying to be a soundtrack to your adventure?

So, this is a view down Marvel Super Hero Island's main walkway:



You can see some of the Hulk coaster in the background.



Walking towards there we had seen numerous groups of people which seemed to consist of several special needs children with parents and possibly siblings. Each group was wearing matching t-shirts, each group with a different design, but all of them had the name “dreamflight” on them in some way or another. I actually looked it up afterwards and that is what I found:

"Once a year, 192 deserving children from all over the UK, accompanied by a team of medical carers, board a chartered Boeing 747 and head to Florida to spend 10 magical days of fun and excitement. Many children could not undertake such a trip without the support of the army of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and non-medical volunteers who care for the children 24 hours a day."

I think we met them on their IoA day.

And we met a group of them when we went on Spiderman. It seemed like it was taking ages to load the ride, but then we realized it was because one of those groups was getting on the ride via the Express Pass line (the Universal version of Fastpass, but only available to Universal's hotel guests and people who pay for it). Still the wait was not long at all!

The deal with Spiderman is that you are supposed to go out and hunt for a new story in the city with a newly designed vehicle. You actually walk through the newspaper office in the line:



The ride itself reminded us of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey because it was a similar combination of moving through rooms combined with screens. And the end result is extremely impressive!! We both really loved that ride and knew that we wanted to ride it again in the afternoon. I knew that it was considered an excellent theme park attraction, but did not expect it to be that good. It definitely exceeded my expectation and even came close to beating FJ as best attraction at Universal.

I also knew that I wanted to ride the Hulk. But Katharina saw it and decided that she rather let me experiment it with it on my own... And considering that it was supposed to have severe rain at some point during the day, I thought it would be better to get that ride in as soon as possible. A coaster in the rain is unpleasant!

The wait time was 10 minutes, but in reality I just walked onto the ride – the first row would have been quite a wait though. I was really a bit nervous, this coaster does look very impressive!! And then it has an interesting launch which did take me by surprise... But in the end I enjoyed it a lot! Great coaster (even though, I would recommend to try to get one of the rows towards the front, those seem to be less rough).

When I got off, I at first had trouble finding Katharina since she had tried to escape the loud music in that area, but we quickly reconnected and I told her that it was not bad at all and that she should come along for a ride in the afternoon.

But now it was time for another break. I had read that there was one of those places called "Cinnabon" which people mention now and then in their TR at IoA – in the Port of Entry area. And we had talked about getting a coffee there. So since we had to pass through there on our way over to Universal Studios, this was the perfect opportunity for a coffee break with one of their baked goodies. It was extremely delicious!!



There was also a Universal character hanging out in that area and interacting with the people sitting there. It was quite fun to watch, no lines for a greeting and this character seemed to love to sneak up on people:



The next update will take us over to Universal Studios.

[glennbo123]

I don't think I'd like the loud music in some of those IoA areas either. They must be trying to generate excitement, I guess.

Okay, so whenever we get to Universal, we need to try Spiderman in addition to Forbidden Journey. Got it!

I see Katharina heading to Cinnabon.