Day Two: Sunday, February 7, 2016: Universal’s Islands of Adventure
We awoke bright-eyed and bushy tailed with our kids crawling into bed with us. After a bit of a tckle-fight, we went downstairs to indulge in the luxury of having our own kitchen, coffee-maker and couch. After so many trips staying in an on-property resort, I have to say it was very nice to relax in our own home atmosphere instead of the usual difficulties of morning in a hotel room. We had bagels and coffee and got the kids cereal and milk and didn’t have to run down to a food court in order to do it. The kids relaxed on the couch and watched cartoons on Nick Jr.
When Nonna and Opa got up, both kids squealed with delight. It was so nice having everyone together in the same place – in a huge beautiful house no less. That might have been one of the greatest parts of the trip. The not-so-great part of the trip was the weather on that Sunday morning. It was cold, gray and very windy. We got everybody ready by dressing in lots of layers before packing up the van for our excursion to Universal’s Islands of Adventure.
Now, Jenn and I love, love, love Disney, but none of us in the group had ever been to either of Universal’s parks. However, GG and Nonna both are huge Harry Potter fans so when we first started discussing this trip, it became a part of our itinerary pretty quickly. Looking at the options, we decided to go with Islands of Adventure tickets for our family and for Opa and dual-park tickets for GG and Nonna so they could experience both parts of the Harry Potter stuff. We’re just not huge Harry Potter fans, but we are big Jurassic Park fans and the kids love Dr. Seuss. It was a no-brainer to go with IoA.
When we made it to Universal just prior to park open, it was freezing. The wind was whistling through the parking structure and the ramp over to City Walk. I had read that if you wanted to ride The Forbidden Journey with little to no wait, you had to hoof it back into the Wizarding World as quickly as possible after park open. However, it was too cold to go that fast. Instead, we stopped into the Universal Studios store and bought warm stuff. We got a cool Captain America blanket for Matt along with a Captain America action figure because you can’t just buy a blanket for a 2-year-old when there are a million toys in the store. We also got some warm Gryffendorf socks for Jenn who had worn flip-flops anticipating a warmer day and a ride on the Jurassic Park water ride.
We don’t know a thing about the Harry Potter crests, but apparently Gryffendorf is ok according to GG. Jenn promised to give her the socks once she no longer needed them. Rachel kept herself busy being her typical crazy self.
Now warmer, we pushed our little blanket guy into Islands of Adventure to go Forbidden Journeying with Harry Potter. In order to do that, though, you have to go through Dr. Seuss land and even though all of the strategy guides everywhere say run as fast as you can to Hogwart’s Castle, well, you’ve got to stop and check out Seuss Landing a little, right?
Playing the role of taskmaster, I hurried everyone along as quickly as possible. We went through the Lost Continent section very fast barely noting the weird rock faces and other stuff that we largely didn’t care about. On the other side was our destination: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Of course we had to stop for a few more photos.
By the time we reached the castle, the wait time was up to 45 minutes. Let this be a lesson to all of you rope droppers out there: a party of seven aging from toddler to grandparent is not going to move fast no matter what you do, so you would be better off taking a page out of Elsa’s book and just letting it go. As it was, the wait wasn’t so bad and there are lots of cool things to look at in Hogwart’s Castle, even if you aren’t interested in the books or movies. When we finally got to the ride, Jenn took the kids out the duck-out exit and I took the two big Harry Potter fans and my father-in-law on the ride I had hurried us all morning to try to get on. What a mistake.
In my own defense, there wasn’t really any way for me to know what this ride was going to be. I knew it was immensely popular and was billed as a motion simulator. I was picturing something along the lines of Star Tours, only Harry Potter-themed. Now, my mother-in-law loves motion simulators and I assumed based on the popularity that both GG and Opa would love it, too. I was so wrong!
First, you have to get onto a conveyor belt in near pitch-dark and sit down in some very cramped seats. The bars came down, and then they immediately came up. A worker came rushing over yelling at us to get up, so we did. Then we had to walk the wrong way back down the pitch-dark conveyor belt in order to get on a different car where they separated us completely before the bars finally came crashing back down and we were off. I can only figure that we were overweight together or something, but there was no time for explanations in the frantic dark of The Forbidden Journey.
Now on the ride, I began to feel nauseous as I was jerked to and fro toward one screen and then an animatronic and then another screen and then another animatronic. It went on like this until a dragon breathed fire in my face and I sank to the terrible conclusion that I had killed my in-laws by forcing them onto this terrible torturous ride. When The Forbidden Journey had gratefully concluded, I walked off with shaky legs to find my sister-in-law laughing hysterically at how horrible the ride was. Thankfully, when we finally located her parents, they were laughing, too. Despite my fears, no one had died. Turns out we were all just happy to be alive.
We found Jenn and the kids in the Three Broomsticks restaurant and spent some time eating some snacks and recovering from our ordeal. After laughing and laughing about our experience, we finally got the energy to continue our day. Thankfully, the sun decided to come out at that time and we moved on to Jurassic Park. The day was starting to get much better!
Walking through the big gates into Jurassic Park was very cool. In fact, everything in this section of IoA is awesome. We took the kids over to the Discovery Center and got them set up with Opa, Nonna and GG while Jenn and I shed some of our layers and ran over to the River Adventure ride. Even though it was still chilly, the sun made it just warm enough and the ride was amazing. One of the best flume rides I’ve ever been on. I ‘d say it’s better than Splash Mountain and the animatronics with the T-Rex are every bit as fantastic as the old Yeti on Expedition: Everest. It was truly a good ride that made Islands of Adventure more than worth the price of admission.
Jenn loved it even more than me and spent the next forty minutes or so riding it again and again with her sister and her. Meanwhile, the kids were having a ball in the Discovery Center just running around and climbing up on stuff. Matthew loved the big dinosaurs.
Eventually, I took them over to the Camp Jurassic playground to run off even more energy. This playground is amazing. One of the coolest kids playgrounds I’ve ever seen with so many neat little touches. There’s a whole section that makes it look like raptors have broken out and invaded the forest right off the path you are. They shake trees out in the distance and it really looks like raptors might be closing in on you. Matt thought it was awesome. Rachel got scared, so we headed back to the slides before hooking back up with Jenn and Opa. GG and Nonna split off from us to go spend the afternoon doing more Harry Potter stuff.
As for us, we stopped into Thunder Falls Terrace for a pretty yummy lunch of ribs and chicken. After lunch, it was time for me to shed layers once again and get super wet with Rachel on the Popeye ride. When we first planned this trip to celebrate her birthday at Disney World, she was so excited to ride her two favorite rides again: Soarin’ at Epcot and Kali River Rapids. Well, it just so happened that both of those rides got shutdown for refurbishment while we were there. She was a little disappointed, but like a trooper didn’t let it bother her too much. When we were planning our day at Islands of Adventure, I realized that Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barge in Toon Lagoon was basically Kali River Rapids. She was so happy! I promised her I would ride it with her.
Of course, that was before the weather was in the 50s. By the time we got on, though, the sun was shining brightly and it may have even touched 60 degrees. The bright big smile on her face was really all I needed to keep me warm. Also, since it was a little chilly, there was no line for it at all. In fact, the workers didn’t even make us get off at the end and we stayed on for three full rides around getting more and more wet as we went. Rachel absolutely loved it and I think it was more fun than Kali River Rapids. The Popeye theming is well done especially the octopus and the barge itself. I realized half-way through our third ride around though that Rachel really didn’t know anything about Popeye. The whole ride Sweet Pea is trying to get the can of spinach over to Popeye until he finally eats it and defeats Bluto at the end. Toward the end of our last ride, Rachel turned to me and innocently asked, “What’s with the spinach?” I just had to laugh.
When we finally got off, we found Matthew running Jenn and Opa ragged up and down the stairs at the play area next door. I grabbed the backpack from her and Rachel and I changed out of our wet clothes. With the sun high and bright in the sky, we ventured down into Marvel Super Hero Island. Matt was starting to get cranky as he hit his naptime, but he refused to sleep. We did get lucky and found a short line to meet Spider-Man. That kept Matt happy for about one minute. Originally I was going to browse in the comic book shop and get him a comic book, but his attitude convinced me otherwise. We shoved off and headed over to Seuss Landing. Thankfully, Matt fell asleep in the stroller on his way over.
Jenn and Opa took Rachel on the Cat in the Hat ride while I sat in the shade with Matt. When they were done, I took Rachel on the carousel before we went into the Circus McGurkus Café to rest and wait for Nonna and GG to meet up with us. Jenn took Rachel over to get her face painted while we waited. When Matt woke up from his nap, he was still pretty cranky and everyone else was getting tired. We had originally planned to eat at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for dinner, but we decided to cancel our reservations and head back to the house for some pizza. First, GG and I took Rachel on the trolley which runs throughout Seuss Landing. There are some spectacular views from this ride, but it is incredibly short.
With that done, we made our long trek back to the van and stopped at the Papa Johns in Davenport for two big pizzas. Unfortunately, it was Super Bowl Sunday, so everyone was getting pizzas at the same time, but it worked out eventually and we went home to relax. We devoured the pizzas and got the kids in bed before watching the first half of the Super Bowl and chilling out in our huge comfy living room, or as Nonna referred to it “our recovery pod”. It was a good first day at the parks, and we hadn’t even been to a Disney Park yet. Jenn and I crawled into bed, dreams of the Magic Kingdom dancing in our heads.
Next up: The Magic Kingdom!