Day 18 - Wednesday 24th August
We were exhausted after the heat of yesterday so I wasn't up till 9. Still made it down to the pool before anyone else as Bonnet Creek though. Have come to quite enjoy the pool at our building in the morning. Stayed about an hour then upstairs to see if anyone else up. Henry decided on the gym so we agreed to meet at tower 4 pool which was also completely empty. I assume this had something to do with the dark clouds looming in the distance. Just as David arrived, the thunder and lightening started. It was quite a show so instead of going back to the room we sat on the swings and watched with towels over us until the rain got too much. Sounds crazy but it was so nice for it to be raining after the heat the day before. Our plan today had been to go to lunch at Longhornes, then go carting then Universal. Well it looked like the rain was here to stay so we gave up on the go carts and just left it a little later getting to Longhornes. Excellent as always, must be our most consistently good restaurant in all the years we have been her, never had a bad meal. We all went for the $12.99 American steak dinner again. So much food, absolute bargain. When we came out side we were surprised to see it was brightening up so got on the I 4 and were at Universal within 20 minutes. Henry still hadn't been on Hulk so tried US first, huge queue and single rider was closed so we decided to just get the train over to IOA. On the way we saw the queue for King Kong was 90 minutes and surprised to see that there was an express line now, typical, wasn't there last week when we had express tickets. We walked past and then I said, I was just going to see if there was still a single rider line (the express line was going in the entrance that was single rider last week). Luckily there was and we we told to enter express and it would split further down. Express passes were checked with those little hand held machines a little further along but we stayed in the same line as them and were just told to stay to the right. We could easily have just joined the express line but felt wrong somehow. The group in front of us who were single riders didn't feel the same and joined the express queue. I'm so glad we stayed in single rider. We were on within 15 minutes and all in the same vehicle, but better than that we all had a seat at the end of a row. This meant the ride was so much better than last time. Far better view of what's going on. I won't spoil it for you but I loved it. It was a real bonus to get on as I didn't think we would.
So off to Howarts express and literally got straight on. I still love the train. Henry always tells me not to tell the other people in the carriage that I use to go to work on a train that had carriages that were just the same, but I can't help it. Usually people start talking to us as soon as they hear our accents, the London connection I assume. We were with a nice family and chatted the whole way. David went off to the American Express lounge for water and snacks, but really just to sit down in peace and quiet for 30 minutes. Henry and I got butter beers and made our way to MIB. We rode four times, Henry finally got over 600k, his PB. David met us and also went on. Then back to ride HP, single rider. Got on really quickly as something must have gone wrong with main queue as no one was coming through so two whole cars of single riders went straight through. Then transformers and finished the night in terminator. It had been a lovely afternoon, the weather was so much cooler than the day before.
We left at 8 and had a quick look at the big new chocolate restaurant, it's just opened and I can't remember the name. Looked good but none of the cakes, chocolates etc had prices so had to ask. $10 for a cupcake, seriously. $13 for a shake! Needless to say we didn't partake. A long walk back to the car. We're so glad to get home. Should have gone to bed early but Spy was on HBO so we all watched. We all had to be up early in the morning for GCSE results, so off to bed.