Teknik_DC2
Proud Red Head
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2009
I'm back with what is likely the latest Trip Report I have written. This trip took place way back last year from December 4th-10th 2014. I am usually more on top of starting these trip reports right when I get home. But with the holidays and other things keeping me busy I am just now finally able to get to it. For those that are unfamiliar with my Trip Reports you can view all of my past recaps in the links found in my signature. I like to write pretty detailed recaps and there are now over 15,000 photos to be found between all my past trip reports.
Those that you will be seeing in this trip report are myself (Jeff), My wife Kiera, our Son Daniel, and Kiera's little Sister Kena also came along with us.
So how did we come about this vacation? Well for those that haven't followed my past recaps we had a big Family vacation to the Universal and Disney parks the first 2 weeks of June in 2014. The vacation was amazing and so much fun. However the dates we choose were picked in hopes that we would catch the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Diagon Alley in soft openings. I mean I had followed this thing before it was ever announced or ground broke. I followed all the Insider tips an advice. It had to open while we were there. We had to see it without the crush of crowds that would descend once it officially opened. But what happened? Gringotts happened. Its well known now that Diagon Alley itself as well as the Hogwarts Express were ready to go in late May. However the Gringotts ride was having issues and JK Rowling and Warner Brothers would not allow the land to soft open without Gringotts. And so we never stepped foot in this new land during our June trip. We missed the soft opening by 12 days.
Kiera and I had actually become Annual Passholders to Universal back in 2013. Already planning on visiting my parents who lived in Charleston, South Carolina sometime during the Holidays this year and seeing how expensive flights were to Charleston from Salt Lake I began looking in to other options. One of which was flying in to Orlando. We figured we could spend a day to go see Diagon Alley and then drive up to Charleston. This plan was set in stone when I found the cheapest Airfare to Orlando that I had ever found in all our years going to Florida. I got us 1 way tickets for only $110 a person on Southwest. We held off booking our return flights from Charleston until we saw them go a little cheaper.
However it ended up being for the best that we hadn't booked a return flight yet. Just weeks after making our plans to go to Charleston and booking flights to Orlando my Step Dad accepted a Job to transfer to a different department at Boeing and my family would be moving to Seattle, Washington that fall. We now had to decide if we should cancel our trip back east and go up to Washington instead. Or do we change our plans all together. Since we already had the time requested off work, and one leg of the flights booked we decided to spend that entire week in Orlando. I was even eventually able to secure us our return flights for only $120 a person. Shortly after deciding to do the whole week in Orlando thats when Kiera's mom gave the ok to have Kena come with us and her flight was soon booked too.
We had been coming to Orlando for over 5 years at this point. We are Universal Orlando Annual Passholders. However in all those trips Universal was still always the side trip. It was tacked on after the main event was booked which was usually a Cruise or a Disney trip. This would be the 1st time Universal would be our main event. And at Christmas no less which is the 1st we've visited the resort during this time of year. Universal and Diagon Alley was the main reason for this trip. We planned to spend much time at the resort. We did however decide to take on a Night at the Magic Kingdom though for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.
I was excited to see how our first actual Universal Orlando Resort vacation would play out.
Those that you will be seeing in this trip report are myself (Jeff), My wife Kiera, our Son Daniel, and Kiera's little Sister Kena also came along with us.
So how did we come about this vacation? Well for those that haven't followed my past recaps we had a big Family vacation to the Universal and Disney parks the first 2 weeks of June in 2014. The vacation was amazing and so much fun. However the dates we choose were picked in hopes that we would catch the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Diagon Alley in soft openings. I mean I had followed this thing before it was ever announced or ground broke. I followed all the Insider tips an advice. It had to open while we were there. We had to see it without the crush of crowds that would descend once it officially opened. But what happened? Gringotts happened. Its well known now that Diagon Alley itself as well as the Hogwarts Express were ready to go in late May. However the Gringotts ride was having issues and JK Rowling and Warner Brothers would not allow the land to soft open without Gringotts. And so we never stepped foot in this new land during our June trip. We missed the soft opening by 12 days.
Kiera and I had actually become Annual Passholders to Universal back in 2013. Already planning on visiting my parents who lived in Charleston, South Carolina sometime during the Holidays this year and seeing how expensive flights were to Charleston from Salt Lake I began looking in to other options. One of which was flying in to Orlando. We figured we could spend a day to go see Diagon Alley and then drive up to Charleston. This plan was set in stone when I found the cheapest Airfare to Orlando that I had ever found in all our years going to Florida. I got us 1 way tickets for only $110 a person on Southwest. We held off booking our return flights from Charleston until we saw them go a little cheaper.
However it ended up being for the best that we hadn't booked a return flight yet. Just weeks after making our plans to go to Charleston and booking flights to Orlando my Step Dad accepted a Job to transfer to a different department at Boeing and my family would be moving to Seattle, Washington that fall. We now had to decide if we should cancel our trip back east and go up to Washington instead. Or do we change our plans all together. Since we already had the time requested off work, and one leg of the flights booked we decided to spend that entire week in Orlando. I was even eventually able to secure us our return flights for only $120 a person. Shortly after deciding to do the whole week in Orlando thats when Kiera's mom gave the ok to have Kena come with us and her flight was soon booked too.
We had been coming to Orlando for over 5 years at this point. We are Universal Orlando Annual Passholders. However in all those trips Universal was still always the side trip. It was tacked on after the main event was booked which was usually a Cruise or a Disney trip. This would be the 1st time Universal would be our main event. And at Christmas no less which is the 1st we've visited the resort during this time of year. Universal and Diagon Alley was the main reason for this trip. We planned to spend much time at the resort. We did however decide to take on a Night at the Magic Kingdom though for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.
I was excited to see how our first actual Universal Orlando Resort vacation would play out.