Wait this doesn't have alcohol? Oct 2014 TR Updated 4/30

ashw100 · Jan 5, 2015

Hello everyone and welcome to my first UOR trip report. I am missing FL a lot right now with all this cold weather and my next WDW trip planning is done for now, so I thought why not do a TR for my trip to UOR/WDW. The five Ws for this report.

Who:

Me: Ashley

I am 26 and a mother of three boys ages 4, 2, & 6 months. I stay at home with them thanks to my awesome DH. I am a lover of all things Disney and Harry Potter. I was a crazy Harry Potter fan growing up, getting all the books and seeing the movies at midnight, reading each book a million times, etc. My family and then boyfriend, now husband went to UOR in 2007 and I have been itching to go back ever since they opened WWoHP.

Dad: Mike

My dad is some big head honcho for some large corporation, pretty boring. He just moved to Texas for his new job. He is super fun to be around and generally is having a good time. He enjoys the Harry Potter movies and loves to go theme/amusement parks.

What: MNSSHP/UOR Daddy-Daughter trip

When: October 16-19, 2014

Where: Wyndham Lake Buena Vista/Portofino Bay

Why: I am really not sure why. My dad and I were talking in May and he said he really wanted to go to see the Harry Potter stuff at UOR. I told him I have wanted to go there forever and was still sad we didnt get to go in February when everyone went to WDW. My DH and I were supposed to take a day to go over there but, then I got pregnant and didnt really see that point. So my dad says, I will take you. What?! :scared1:

I didnt take him seriously and just tried to forget about it. Well on Memorial Day he calls me and says I am ready to book this trip, you want to go? I mean who am I to turn down a free trip to a place I have only dreamed of visiting. My mom volunteered to watch the boys. I was a little nervous to leave them only because I had never been away that long and the little guy would only be 4 months when we were. Honestly though, I really needed the break (what mom doesn't) and it all ended up being fine.

So, there we have it. I hope you join me in reliving this fun weekend I got to spend in Orlando experiencing some of my favorite things.

Chapter Links
Is this real life?
This is Halloween
Boo To You
Buongiorno
Ay Caramba!
Wait, this doesn't have alcohol?
I just want my ride picture part 1 part 2
First Riders of the Day!
Is that a Goblin talking to me?
Tale of the Three Brothers
All Aboard!
No ride for us :sad1:

Going Home

Gracefulskinny · Jan 5, 2015

What a nice daddy! :thumbsup2

coastgirl · Jan 7, 2015

Aww, what a neat trip! Can't wait to read more--you had me at the pic with Hogsmeade in the background!

ashw100 · Jan 8, 2015

Gracefulskinny said:
What a nice daddy!

Thanks he is pretty great and I am so luck to have him.

coastgirl said:
Aww, what a neat trip! Can't wait to read more--you had me at the pic with Hogsmeade in the background!

Thanks, its one of my favorites, totally captures how happy I was to be in Hogsmeade.

ashw100 · Jan 8, 2015

Travel Day/MNSSHP
Thursday, October 16, 2014

This is the travel day which, I know is boring to some but ours was pretty eventful and I hope I can capture just how crazy our flight was.

Originally, when we booked this my dad was still living and working in Chicago so, he booked the flight so he could work part of the morning. He now lives in Texas and didnt have to work this day so we could have taken an earlier flight and after what happens next, I really wish we did. Unfortunately, there were no seats left on the earlier one.
We left the boys in the afternoon and they werent even sad I was leaving :sad2:

We got to OHare and security was great. I think it only took about 15 minutes to get through. We were trying to decide what to eat. I wanted Wolf Gang Puck express but my dad wanted to find something closer to our gate. We were in some satellite terminal and there was nothing good there. We had to trek all the way back to the main part of the airport but, I did get my Wolf Gang Puck. The pizza here is so yummy. We had this really fun bartender who was from Poland. When she found out I was 26, got married at 20, and had three babies, she said I belonged in her old country. What can I say I was born in the wrong era and apparently the wrong country as well? We enjoyed our pizza and then headed back to the middle of nowhere for boarding.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129386713@N08/15530819454" title="IMG_4321 by Ashley Schuch, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8647/15530819454_e0330be2f6.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="IMG_4321"></a>
At least it had this fun walkway

We get to the gate and our flight was delayed 45 minutes. I guess the flight crew wasnt there yet. My dad hates airline travel and his new job is basically all travel. And he has had horrible luck so far. When I mean bad luck, I am talking sitting on the tarmac and being delayed for hours. In 10 flights since June he had only one flight that left and arrived on time. I told him his bad luck needed to end here. I wish I could say it does but this trip only gets worse and a little crazy.

Since we had nothing to do we went to the bar to have a few drinks. The wait flew by and soon it was time to board. My dad scored awesome seats, right next to the door and in the bulk head.

We would be first off, score :cool1:

! The first thirty minutes of the flight were uneventful and we had placed our drink orders with the flight attendant. I was very excited to be able to actually enjoy a flight without having to worry about my kids. Our flight attendant is getting our drinks and a drunk looking man comes out of the bathroom and come up behind the flight attendant and puts his arms around her and whispers in her ear.

At first I was like what the heck? Then I thought maybe he knew her because, seriously, who does that? Then she says, excuse me sir. and tries to get away. Oh crap, something is going to go down. Then the guys falls backward and lands on his butt right in front of us and proceed to pass out. This was pretty scary, his eyes rolled back in his head and he just slumped over. The next hour was a flurry of nurses, EMTs, and Drs taking care of this guy. It turns out that he had an extreme fear of flying and motion sickness. All of this took place right at our feet, as they fed him, I had to hold his legs up, my dad held his IV bag. Honestly, I felt really bad for him. He was sweating, ghostly white, and just super embarrassed but, really after collapsing he was completely fine. In reality, he just needed some food and something to drink but they were literally acting like he was on his death bed. This one nurse, I think she just really liked being in charge and the center of attention, she was obnoxious. I felt really bad for the other people on the plane because this was at the height of the Ebola scare and they had absolutely no idea what was going on.

So, we land and I had to get moved to the very last row on the plane so the obnoxious nurse could sit next to the guy. I was pretty annoyed we were on a tight schedule to get to MNSSHP and now I was stuck in the back. We get to the gate and everyone is told to stay seated because they needed to get this guy off the plane by the medical team in Orlando. We are waiting to deplane and the jet way is broken. Thankfully, the only thing wrong with this guy was anxiety because if he was seriously sick or injured it would have been a problem. It took twenty minutes to get the jet way hooked on. All this is happening and I just see my time at MNSSHP just ticking away. They were finally able to get this guy and the felt up flight attendant of the plane. They also let me get back to the front so I could still get off right away.

Once on the fake-o-rail, I relaxed a little. We had carried on our bags to save time and we just had to pick up our rental car and then drive. Should be super easy and quick right? Well, they didn't have my dad's car anymore so we had to go in and wait to talk to someone. Once we were on the road we hit major traffic on I-4. :faint:

. Could just one thing be easy? I called my mom and talked to my oldest. The mommy guilt of going to Disney World without them started to set in. We finally got to Magic Kingdom and I was so happy. Last time I left WDW, I didn't think I would be able to come back for 2 1/2 years and now here I was :cheer2:

. We had to wait a bit for the monorail but at 7:28 I saw this beautiful sight.

Gracefulskinny · Jan 8, 2015

What a hard way to start a trip! :faint:

ashw100 · Jan 13, 2015

Gracefulskinny said:
What a hard way to start a trip!

It definitely was but luckily that was only bad part of the trip.

angryduck71 · Jan 14, 2015

I hope that things got better for you on this trip! And I wish your dad was single -- what an awesome guy!

afwdwfan · Jan 19, 2015

Travel always sucks, but that is a brutal start. Thankfully you made it to MK. Things have to get better now, right??? :crazy2:

ashw100 · Jan 26, 2015

angryduck71 said:
I hope that things got better for you on this trip! And I wish your dad was single -- what an awesome guy!

Thanks thing do get better. He is a great guy and pretty awesome dad but not single, lol.

afwdwfan said:
Travel always sucks, but that is a brutal start. Thankfully you made it to MK. Things have to get better now, right???

It was a little crazy. No more of that kind of crazy for the rest of the trip though.

ashw100 · Jan 26, 2015

I want to apologize up front about the lack of pictures. I only had my iphone this trip and most of the time I was just taking everything in and forgot plus photopass line were LONG. Okay, on with the story.

I couldnt believe how many people were just getting into the party. I know it technically starts at seven but, I figured by 7:30 everyone who could be would be in the park. I got a quick picture here, there was really no time to waste.

Under the train station was packed with people trying to get their trick or treating bags. I had no intention of actually getting candy. This night had more to do with getting on the rides I missed in February and seeing the fireworks and parade. Our little time here left room for nothing else. I know some people think its too expensive to for a five hour event and we werent even going to get the full five hours. But expensive is really all relative, I have spent equivalent money on concert tickets which are less than 5 hours and the nosebleed seats to a three hours Bears game is at least $75 so, I felt good about the use of money. We found out this was a sold out night but for what we wanted to get out of it, it was fine.
I wanted to get a picture where it looks down main street but the line was so long. I settled for my own pictures instead.

The first thing we did was get on BTMRR and score no wait.

I loved how they put fun projections on things during the party.
I havent been on this ride in long time and oh my goodness is it fun at night. I dont know how it is in the day either but I just have a feeling it is more fun at night. I could have done that all night and had fun but there were more items on my list. Next, we moved on to Splash and it was another walk on. My dad had no idea what was going on and so I tried to explain it to him as we rode. So I had to tried to look nice this night, I did my hair and makeup, planned out a cute outfit and it all went downhill on the second ride because my whole head got soaked. My makeup was running and hair was a mess and went straight up in a pony. Oh well at least my scary new look went with the party :rotfl2:

.

Once we were done with Splash the first parade was coming down frontierland. It took a long time to try and get around but we finally made it to the Haunted Mansion.

They had this lady out talking to the guests in line and she was hilarious. She called out this little kid in front of us and he was trying to act to cool and didnt want to talk to her.

I think we waited about 20 minutes for this but it was so worth it especially since I will probably have to skip it in May. I wanted to get the special magic shots here but, again huge waits. We walked through Fantasyland to check out the SDMT. I hadnt seen it yet and I didnt expect to be able to ride it but just look. The wait was about 45 minutes which is good but we had to make it back to MS for the fireworks so we skipped it. We then went to Space Mountain. The wait was twenty minutes and it was already 9. We still hadnt eaten so we decided to come back. So basically, we walked across the entire park for nothing. We did get some Photopass pictures though.

I wanted some corn dog nuggets so we went to Caseys. MS was pretty crowed and Caseys was PACKED. While we waited for food I heard music so I ran outside to see Celebrate the Magic. I was told I wasnt allowed to stand there so I sadly went back inside. We waited for our food and finally headed back to out to Main Street to find a place to eat. Main Street was surprisingly roomy. My dad and I found a spot near and tree to eat our corndog nuggets and watch the rest of Celebrate the Magic. After the show Main Street really cleared out and we moved to find a good spot for the fireworks. I ended up right in the center of the street between Caseys and the ice cream parlor. My dad went to get an ice cream while I held our spot and tried to finish off the nuggets. That is a LOT of food and I didnt finish them.

I called my mom to see how the boys were and ask if they wanted to watch the fireworks. I facetimed with them and held my phone right at my chest which provided and good view and didnt block anyones view by trying to hold it up over my head. I was so excited for the fireworks, I cant even tell you. I probably watched it 20 times on youtube. I love the music so so so much. I didnt get many pictures because of the facetiming and just wanting to enjoy it. Here is what I did capture.

About a third of the way through the show I noticed my son was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse instead of the fireworks :confused3

so I hung up :rotfl:

.
The fireworks were absolutely amazing and met every expectation that I had. I still cant get over the panoramic ones and cant wait until I get to take my boys.

ashw100 · Jan 26, 2015

After the fireworks we booked it to Space Mountain. We walked right on and had a great ride. I didnt remember this one at all so it was like a band new experience for me. I hope ds4 is tall enough to ride in May because he would love it, only 1 inch left to go!

After our trip through space we headed to Liberty Square to find a spot for the parade. We got there about 20 minutes before the parade and the street was pretty packed. We found a secluded spot right in front of the Liberty Bell. This is not a spot I would suggest but, for us it was perfect. I could see everything and had very few people around us. Our view was slightly obstructed by the flag poles but honestly I was just happy to be there. Because of the obstruction and being slightly removed from the street the pictures are terrible. I took them only so the boys could see but Ill post them here too.

What can I say about this parade that hasnt been said already? Its amazing and the Haunted Mansion section is the best thing to ever happen during a parade. After the parade, I really wanted to ride BTMRR again. I had a plan of all the attractions I wanted to ride but it all went out the window because I had to ride this one again. It was pretty crowded and they opened up the entire queue this time. I think we only waited about 20 minutes or so though. It did not disappoint yet again. At this point we probably only had an hour left of the party. I still really wanted to see if we could get on SMDT so we headed that way. I think the posted wait time was 35 minutes so we got in line. I am so mad I didnt get any pictures of the queue sorry. This girl behind me started talking to me and of course anyone wants to talk about Disney I get so excited and talk nonstop. I think we probably only waited 20-25 minutes. The thing that really held everyone up was the interactive queue sections. People could seriously not help them selves and just had to stop and play. I think the wait would have been 15 minutes without that stuff in there. We got on and I loved it. I know a lot of people were disappointed with it but honestly I think it is perfect and classic Disney. The mine scene is just my favorite. I took a video for ds because he is so excited for this ride and has seen the commercial for it one Disney Junior. I was too busy just taking it all in to notice that it was too short or not thrilling enough. I will say I didnt notice any swaying at all though. We had 15 minutes before the park closed and time for one more ride. I chose my all time favorite attraction at MK, the TTA. Im sure you all think I am crazy but I just love this ride so much.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/129386713@N08/16151204031" title="IMG_4444 by Ashley Schuch, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8647/16151204031_4a0a7f37e0.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_4444"></a>
One day I will get a good picture of the castle from this ride.

We stepped off exactly at midnight and made our way out of the park. One the people on Lines really wanted to get a pin from the party and I said I would try to get one. We got into the emporium just in time because they started turning people away a minute later. This kind of annoyed me because on normal park nights the shops stay open much longer but on a night when time is very limited and they paid extra to be there they close the shops almost immediately after park closing :confused3

. Anyways, I got the two pins and I didnt want to tell my dad that I was buying pins for a fellow Disney fan that I knew online, lol. I told him I was buying it or a friend back home and he still thought I was insane. Purchases in hand we made our way our of the park.
We got to our hotel for the night. The lobby of this hotel is very deceiving. It looks all nice and Disneyfied but then you make your way to your room and it is blah. We were in the motel section which was run down and a little depressing :sad:

. Oh well, it was for one night. We watched some Disney DVC propaganda and went to bed.

afwdwfan · Jan 27, 2015

ashw100 said:
I want to apologize up front about the lack of pictures. I only had my iphone this trip and most of the time I was just taking everything in and forgot plus photopass line were LONG.

I completely understand and don't blame you at all. We kind of did the same this last trip.

ashw100 said:
Our little time here left room for nothing else. I know some people think its too expensive to for a five hour event and we werent even going to get the full five hours. But expensive is really all relative, I have spent equivalent money on concert tickets which are less than 5 hours and the nosebleed seats to a three hours Bears game is at least $75 so, I felt good about the use of money. We found out this was a sold out night but for what we wanted to get out of it, it was fine.
I wanted to get a picture where it looks down main street but the line was so long. I settled for my own pictures instead.

I've never had a problem with paying for the party... I mean you can technically get in at 4, so you can potentially get 8 hours for much less than the price of a single day ticket. But your argument really does a nice job putting it in perspective. It may not be the best value in the world, but it is far from the worst.

ashw100 said:
I loved how they put fun projections on things during the party.
I havent been on this ride in long time and oh my goodness is it fun at night. I dont know how it is in the day either but I just have a feeling it is more fun at night.

It is like 2 completely different rides. I always make an effort to ride it at least once during the day and once after dark every trip. Night is my favorite though. :thumbsup2

ashw100 said:
About a third of the way through the show I noticed my son was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse instead of the fireworks so I hung up.

Can't blame him. Fireworks are always much better in person than over the phone. :rotfl2:

ashw100 said:
I will say I didnt notice any swaying at all though. We had 15 minutes before the park closed and time for one more ride.

I didn't notice it either. Although I was riding with DS, who is a twig and our car just rode at an angle with me on the downhill side the whole time. :lmao:

ashw100 said:
Anyways, I got the two pins and I didnt want to tell my dad that I was buying pins for a fellow Disney fan that I knew online, lol. I told him I was buying it or a friend back home and he still thought I was insane.

I totally get that. My family thinks I'm nuts and has no interest in the Dis, Dismeets, etc even though I text and facebook with some of the Disdads on a daily basis. :lmao:

ashw100 · Feb 8, 2015

afwdwfan said:
I completely understand and don't blame you at all. We kind of did the same this last trip.

I've never had a problem with paying for the party... I mean you can technically get in at 4, so you can potentially get 8 hours for much less than the price of a single day ticket. But your argument really does a nice job putting it in perspective. It may not be the best value in the world, but it is far from the worst.

It is like 2 completely different rides. I always make an effort to ride it at least once during the day and once after dark every trip. Night is my favorite though.

Can't blame him. Fireworks are always much better in person than over the phone.

I didn't notice it either. Although I was riding with DS, who is a twig and our car just rode at an angle with me on the downhill side the whole time.

I totally get that. My family thinks I'm nuts and has no interest in the Dis, Dismeets, etc even though I text and facebook with some of the Disdads on a daily basis.

I knew Disers would understand. They don't get it but it makes me happy to share my interests with people since my family doesn't want to talk Disney with me very much :thumbsup2

. I will have to see how the mine train feels when I ride with my DS. I'm excited to try BTMRR during the day again but, I have a feeling night will still be my favorite.

ashw100 · Feb 8, 2015

Okay so, I have been avoiding the boards since the change over. I finally decided to update today only to find all my picture from flikr aren't showing up. I used flikr because you don't need to edit the picture size. So this update will be much shorter than planned because I had to resize all the picture and then it only let me include 10 in the update .

Buongiorno!
I think we got up around 7:30 this morning. We had a 9:15 breakfast reservation and had to pack up to move to the next hotel. Once we packed up we checked out and got in the car to head to the Poly. We got through the Magic Kingdom gates just before 9 and I got a picture of the pumpkin Mickey I had forgotten about the night before.

I have never been to the Polynesian and I was sad that I had to see it in such a sad state. I didn’t take any picture because it was just walls everywhere. Hopefully, I will get some good pictures here in May. We were seated almost immediately and I knew exactly what I was getting. I have been thinking about the Tonga Toast for awhile now and I just knew I would love it. I also got some Kona coffee.

Oh my, this was heavenly! I wanted to do this breakfast because I couldn’t see taking time out of my schedule to do this breakfast with the boys that didn't involve characters. Well guess who has a reservation for May? Only 90 more days until I get to have this again but, who’s counting? After breakfast, I had some shopping to do at DTD. I was a little nervous because of all the construction but we were there early and had no problems. I had about $250 in Disney gift cards left over from our trip in February and wanted to get some toys for Christmas. We went to the WOD and I got a Darth Vader, Buzz space gun, and some stuffies for the baby. When I went to pay I realized I left my gift cards at home. That was pretty stupid but, I paid for my gifts and now had $250 for our trip in May. Next, we went to Once Upon a Toy, my dad and I had fun building light sabers for the older two. When we checked out the cm was from Chicago and we had fun chatting with her. She told us to make sure we packed this in checked bag as security would take them if we tried to carry it on. Supposedly, it’s considered a weapon. I know people have carried them on but, I didn’t want to risk it. I had to check out the new Co-Op and I longingly lusted after all the items especially the Vera Bradley. Side not, my dad got me the hipster for Christmas. We headed out of DTD to make our way to our new hotel.

It didn’t take too long to get to UOR and soon we were pulling up to Portofino Bay. I forgot to get picture of the front because I was in awe of how beautiful it was. I instantly felt like I was in Italy. There were little European cars our front and a fountain.

courtesy travelingmmams.com

We gave the car over to the valet and didn’t touch it for the rest of the weekend. We stepped into the lobby and again I am silly an forgot pictures. I think I was just too excited, I am usually excessive in my picture taking.

courtesy orlandoinformer.com

We went to the desk to check in. My dad had booked this through the discount people through his job. He quit that job back in July but he paid the trip in full when he booked in May. He gives his name and the guy got a scared look on his face and said “your reservation has been canceled.” Umm what? My dad was very unhappy. I rarely see him get upset at service people but, I could tell he was really trying to hold back. We asked to speak with a manager. The manager comes out and she was very unpleasant. She said we don’t have reservation and my dad tries to explain that he already paid for it and luckily I printed all our confirmation stuff. As I am searching for the papers I mention that maybe it was because he booked it through his old job. But even that wouldn’t have made sense because so was the first night’s hotel and the rental car. Well she pulls it up by the confirmation number and it turns out it was in my name. I had to laugh. I have no idea why he would put the room in my name since I didn’t book or pay for it. But I was relieved to have a place to sleep. We went to our room. I wasn’t sure what he had booked but we had an easy walk to our room. It was right on the main Piazza where you could see the water. Here are some room pictures.

After, we put our stuff away and checked out the rest of the resort, we jumped on the boat to get to US.

Our room is located to the right of the big tower in the center.

My dad has a painting that is this exact scene from the real Portofino Bay. It is my ad's favorite painting and when we saw the hotel, we knew we had to stay here.

afwdwfan · Feb 9, 2015

ashw100 said:
I used flikr because you don't need to edit the picture size

I use photobucket for that same reason. I've been able to use it just fine even after the changes.

ashw100 said:
When I went to pay I realized I left my gift cards at home. That was pretty stupid but, I paid for my gifts and now had $250 for our trip in May.

Oh, well, at least you have the right attitude about it! The money was going to be spent for Christmas anyway, and you'll be back!

ashw100 said:
He gives his name and the guy got a scared look on his face and said “your reservation has been canceled.” Umm what? My dad was very unhappy. I rarely see him get upset at service people but, I could tell he was really trying to hold back. We asked to speak with a manager. The manager comes out and she was very unpleasant. She said we don’t have reservation and my dad tries to explain that he already paid for it and luckily I printed all our confirmation stuff. As I am searching for the papers I mention that maybe it was because he booked it through his old job. But even that wouldn’t have made sense because so was the first night’s hotel and the rental car. Well she pulls it up by the confirmation number and it turns out it was in my name.

Wow, that would have been a scary situation. I can only imagine some of the thoughts going through your Dad's head at that point. I'd have been flipping out. Thankfully it was just a slight misunderstanding and it all worked out in the end.

Gracefulskinny · Feb 9, 2015

What a scary way to check in! :scared1:

Glad it was all sorted!

ashw100 · Feb 18, 2015

afwdwfan said:
I use photobucket for that same reason. I've been able to use it just fine even after the changes.

Funny photobucket still makes me resize otherwise the pictures are huge. Thankfully, I have figured how to use flikr with the new boards so the TR can get back on track.

afwdwfan said:
Oh, well, at least you have the right attitude about it! The money was going to be spent for Christmas anyway, and you'll be back!

Wow, that would have been a scary situation. I can only imagine some of the thoughts going through your Dad's head at that point. I'd have been flipping out. Thankfully it was just a slight misunderstanding and it all worked out in the end.

I was mentally flipping out and thankully, it only lasted for a couple of minutes.

Gracefulskinny said:
What a scary way to check in! Glad it was all sorted!

Definitely scary but all turned out well in the end.

ashw100 · Feb 18, 2015

We made our way to Universal via the boat. I have to say the boat was so nice. It was much quicker than I thought it would be and it was so relaxing. Before we went, I was a little annoyed that with the price point of the hotel we were so far away but, I never felt like it was too far and having the distance was actually really great and allowed us to be completely immersed in the environment of the hotel. Once we docked we had a short walk to the entrance of the park.

The plan for this day was to ride all of the big rides and then hop to IoA later. I stopped to get my photo connect card and get our pictures taken. The photographer was really funny and energetic when he was getting us to pose. Here are our pictures.

The first ride we hit was Minion Mayhem. I knew this would be a long wait even with the express pass, so I decided to get it out of the way. We waited about 20 minutes. It was a cute ride but definitely not worth the wait that is has and not something I would feel the need to do again unless the boys wanted to. The next ride we wanted to do was Rip, Ride, Rock it. I have to say I was pretty nervous about this one. Before the previous night, I hadn’t been on a rollercoaster in 7 years and this one looked to be pretty intense. A couple of months before our trip Jimmy Fallon was taping the tonight show at Universal and there was a video of him and Kevin Hart on this ride. If you haven’t seen this go to watch it now because it is hilarious but it was super intimidating too. We put all our stuff in a locker and got in line. This wait did not look bad for the express pass but we waited 30 minutes for this one, it was better than the posted 80 minute wait for standby though. I got on this ride and it was honestly so intimidating especially going up the first hill. You are literally flat on your back going up :faint:

. I couldn’t even enjoy the music I picked because I was freaking out. Honestly, after the first climb it wasn’t too bad. In fact I LOVED this ride. It was such a rush and it was definitely one I wanted to do again. The ride photo is pretty bad but this is going to be a common theme for this trip.

This is super embarrassing :eek:

I can't even believe I am posting this

Next, we decided to ride Transformers. I was really excited to ride this. My mom has been talking about this ever since my parents took my brother to Universal Hollywood after his Marine Corps graduation. This was a great ride for express pass because we were able to walk right on. Again, this ride was awesome. It was totally as good as the hype my mom gave it. By this point we were getting really hungry and I was hoping to eat a Krusty Burger so we headed to Springfield. As soon as we walked into Springfield, I felt totally transported to the Simpson’s world. We walked into Moe’s and I was blown away. They did such a good job with this. When we tried to get in line we saw how crazy long it was, one of the team members pointed out it went back even farther :scared1:

. There was no way we would be waiting in that line. I wasn’t about to leave with not having tried anything though. We went across the way to grab a Duff beer. The Duff beer was really good an refreshing but holy cow it is a BIG beer :drinking1

. The big beer combined with the no food was not the best combo. We wanted to ride the Simpsons ride. I am not sure if it was the Buzz or what, but we loved this ride. We went to see if there was a ride photo because they pretend on the ride. Instead of a ride photo they did have a really fun photo op that we decided to do. Have to get the money out of the photo connect.

After the Simpsons ride were still hungry but instead of getting food we chose another ride. Men in Black was a ride I remembered from our trip in 2007. Honestly, I remembered this being really fun but now I feel like it is a little dated and not exactly up to par with the other rides here.

At this point, we had made our way all the way back to the London waterfront. I was planning on saving this for the next day but, I just couldn’t resist going inside for just a peek :rotfl:

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Gracefulskinny · Feb 18, 2015

ashw100 said:
This is super embarrassing I can't even believe I am posting this

Meh, I've had worse! :lmao:

ashw100 said:
Men in Black was a ride I remembered from our trip in 2007. Honestly, I remembered this being really fun but now I feel like it is a little dated and not exactly up to par with the other rides here.

Well thats good to know and slightly disappointing. Its one of the few rides last time I was there I rode that I can ride without getting sick.

Wait this doesn't have alcohol? Oct 2014 TR *Updated 4/30*

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Wait this doesn't have alcohol? Oct 2014 TR Updated 4/30