Mollydolly334
Honorary Floridian
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2015
- Messages
- 836
Happy Sunday, DISfriends! Some updates after my brief hiatus…
I chopped off 6 inches of hair!
I turned 26 years old on July 30th and had a wonderful weekend in Door County, WI!
I received THIS letter in the mail from none other than my girl’s trip companion, Kahla!!
She got engaged over the 4th of July! Can you say WDW Bachelorette Party, anyone?? 
It’s been a crazy last month or so, but let’s go back to last year right around this time...
Trip #2, Day 4- September 2nd, 2019
Happy Labor Day! We were all up at about 8:15 AM today; we were heading off to Universal Studios today and planning on spending a very full day there!
It was a gorgeous day outside!
Surprisingly, we were not too tired despite doing long park days since literally the moment this trip began. Today was originally supposed to be a resort day, but due to hurricane uncertainties, we decided to switch our resort day to tomorrow. This turned out to be a really good decision!
While we were getting ready, I sheepishly approached Haley and asked “Can you do my hair in French braids?” She rolled her eyes and said, “Somehow, I just knew that you were going to ask that”
We were ready by 9:15 and decided to grab a quick breakfast at Gasparilla Island Grill! Kahla and Carla really enjoyed the egg salad that they had there and had this almost every day (they try to eat low-carb when they can and this was a great option for them)!. My mom doesn’t really enjoy breakfast food, so she just got a tea. I got an iced caramel macchiato from the coffee bar; these just hit different in Disney before taking on a park! I also got some Fruit Loops cereal with milk and a cinnamon roll to split with my mom.
I just got diabetes from writing that
When in Disney, you eat sugar for breakfast!!
We tried to eat quickly and called an Uber. We were walking through the gates of Universal Studios by 10:15 AM! Haley got soooo excited, she was like “Finally, this is my day!”
I was excited but also a little bit nervous about taking on Universal. I had not been here since 2013, and Haley and I had only done a half-day at Islands of Adventure since all of the Harry Potter stuff was contained to that park at that time.
This time, we were hopping between both parks AND doing CityWalk! I was super pumped, because I was looking forward to trying new rides and it was fun not knowing exactly what to expect! But, I was also a tad anxious about the ride situation, since so many of Universal Studio’s rides are simulators or use moving screens. And as you know, I’m not usually very good with those types of rides; when riding Forbidden Journey back in 2013, I could literally feel myself turning green! But, I was determined to try every single ride today and close my eyes if I needed to. I was NOT missing out!
We just bought our tickets right at the park entrance, the line was nonexistent! Somehow, I sweet-talked my Mom into buying me a lanyard too
Proud Hufflepuff right here! I literally could not fit the description more if I tried
What’s your Hogwart’s house?!
We decided to start out with Islands of Adventure first and hop between both parks all day! What better ride to do right after eating than The Incredible Hulk??
I was nervous, I had never ridden this roller coaster before and chickened out in 2013. I am a fan of roller coasters usually, but this one has so many inversions (7!!!). But, I WAS NOT going to chicken out this time. The line was only 5 minutes, so I didn’t really have time to question my decision. Carla sat this one out, but Kahla, my mom, Haley and I rode!
And, my verdict?
I LOVED IT! It was so much fun and very thrilling!! The uphill launch is awesome, and the coaster was nice and smooth so I didn’t feel dizzy at all. I really wanted to ride it again, but Haley was raring to go and said we could come back and ride later (spoiler alert, we didn’t
)
Next we rode the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. I kept my eyes closed literally the entire time, so I could not tell you anything that happened. But something tells me this ride isn’t very fun; I didn’t hear much of a reaction from my ride partners...!
I love this area of the park so much! It’s just so cute and kitschy.
As we passed by Dudley Doo-Right’s Ripsaw Falls, my mom almost screamed She always tells a story about when she went on this a long time ago with Haley, and got such bad whiplash she thought she broke her neck!
We decided to go around by the Jurassic Park area and ride Skull Island: Reign of Kong. There were no scare actors out in the queue; I had no idea that they even did this until I read some other Universal TRs after the fact! Thank goodness they weren’t out today! I love haunted houses, but not expecting it I would have been sooo scared!!
I had to close my eyes for some of this ride due to the screens, but I loved seeing the big Kong at the end! It looked so realistic and actually very scary!
Despite going to Islands of Adventure in 2013, I don’t really remember riding many rides! Haley and I more just spent the day seeing all of the stuff at Hogsmeade. One ride that I wanted to do in 2013 but never got to was the Jurassic Park River Adventure, so we headed there next!
I literally couldn’t believe it; every single ride had a wait of five minutes or less. We were literally checking off every ride in order one by one!
There were signs saying that you’d get really wet, so some of us put ponchos on. I was actually welcoming the water, since I had my hair back and I was wearing comfy clothes! I was soooo much more comfortable than yesterday without my corduroy dress and chafing thighs
You guys. I LOVED this ride. It reminded me so much of Splash Mountain! The drop was so much steeper than I thought it would be so I was shocked! I wanted to buy our ride picture so bad, all of our faces were like:
This was one of my favorites of the day! I got pretty wet but it dried off in like 10 minutes since it was so sunny.
It was nearing 11:45 by now, and we were all itching to go to…
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
Somehow, we all got the memo to wear black and white today! We were all teasing Haley because the glasses on her shirt perfectly outlined a certain body part
We decided to ride Forbidden Journey right away since the line was only 10 minutes long. I was much more prepared this time!
Luckily, I can keep my eyes open during the live action parts; I only need to close my eyes during the parts in front of the screen.
It was sooo funny, towards the end where you are getting taken over by Dementors, Harry shouts, “LEAVE THEM ALONE, THESE ARE MY FRIENDS!” and then a picture of your ride vehicle appears in the smoke. But the picture was so unexpected and we're trying to see through all of the smoke! So Harry is being all heroic trying to save us, and this was literally us in the picture:
Haley and I were absolutely CRACKING UP!
Mom LOVED this ride soooo much and wouldn’t stop raving about it, so we decided to hop back in line and ride a second time! Kahla was feeling a bit dizzy after our second ride, so we looked around in the gift shop to stay cool for a bit.
After shopping around for a bit, we queued up for Flight of the Hippogriff. But, it started to drizzle, and after waiting it out for about 10 minutes, the ride workers sent us out of line! Booo! They were being super funny and cheery about it though. I was a bit worried about the CM quality of Universal and that they wouldn’t be as friendly as Disney. But, my worries were completely unwarranted because we had nothing but great experiences with Universal CMs today!!
We were a little bummed that we couldn’t ride Flight of the Hippogriff; this coaster looked so cute and you get great views of Hogwarts. I knew the perfect cure for that- a Butterbeer!
All three of us got a Butterbeer from the stand and I think Kahla and Carla got one to share!
I’m a huge fan of the frozen butterbeer, so that’s what I got! Everyone else just got the classic.
I love butterbeer so much; cream soda is one of my favorite sodas so this is delicious. (Wisconsin peeps- Sprecher cream soda is the best!) I much prefer this to the LeFous brew and would drink it every day if they offered this at WDW!
It was still drizzling just a bit, so we sipped our drinks and peeked through all of the shops. We all stopped in Honeydukes to look around!
I bought a chocolate frog and stuck it in my bag for later. We all bought stuff from here; my mom is a chocolate fanatic so she definitely bought a bar or two, and I believe that Haley also got some candy for Ryan. The worker here was so funny, he said that he bet he could guess my Hogwarts house. I was so impressed, then I realized that I was wearing my Hufflepuff lanyard. Typical Hufflepuff. So, I tried to guess his house, and I was RIGHT! He was a Slytherin- typical Slytherin being sneaky!!
We decided to look in the wand shop and see the show! I was the only one still sipping my Butterbeer, so I had to chug it so we could go inside and got the absolute WORST brain freeze of my life!
Haley was so excited because we were the only people in the show, and she really wanted to participate in the show! Then, at the absolute last second, a family with 3 kids came in Well, of course the boy in the group got to be the one to choose the wand! Haley was standing there like:
The wands here are so cool, but I feel like they are totally something a kid will buy and play with for like 2 days, then completely forget about it. I feel the same way about the banshee toys in Pandora!
Satisfied with our time in Hogsmeade, we took the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley! This was so cute and such a fun way to travel from park to park.
Carla and Kahla were getting hungry, so we decided to grab some lunch from the Leaky Cauldron! I was soo pumped to check this out. This was so cute on the inside! Unfortunately, Mom, Haley, and I weren’t super hungry, and I’m not a huge fan of traditional “British” food so the options weren’t really speaking to me. We decided just to all share a grilled chicken sandwich with french fries between the three of us.
I also got a pumpkin juice!
This was super tasty and very sweet. It tasted just like pumpkin pie! Carla and Kahla really enjoyed their food; they had a lot of great low-carb options here! We hadn’t realized how go-go-go we had been all morning so it felt weird to finally sit and take a break. I really only got a few bites of the sandwich, but this was fine with me because I really wasn’t hungry at the moment (remember this for later
)
After lunch, we decided to ride Escape from Gringotts! The line was 25 minutes, which seemed like an eternity compared to the low wait times all morning. We weren’t too disappointed, because we really wanted to see the inside of Gringotts!
About five minutes into our wait, my mom whispers to me, “I kind of have to pee…” I joked and said “Can you hold it?” And she said, “I don’t know…”
She started freaking out, saying “I think it was from that Butterbeer, it went from 0 to 100 so quick!!” I assured her that usually the standby wait times are posted as longer than they actually are and we would get on the ride soon. And then we waited...and waited… and waited… My mom was basically like this the entire time.
We ended up waiting 40 MINUTES for Gringotts!! My mom was literally freaking out, especially when the lap bar came down right on her bladder
As soon as the ride was done, she absolutely BOOKED it to a bathroom! When she came out, she said “If it would have been 5 more minutes, I would have peed my pants”
As for the ride, I didn’t really see much because the screen was making me dizzy! The others agreed that it was good, but not necessarily worth a 40-minute wait. My mom has now deemed it “the pee ride”
Once my mom had relieved herself, we explored Diagon Alley! I think I actually prefer the Hogsmeade area to this area of the park. It just seems cuter and more quaint.
We looked through all of the little shops around Diagon Alley, and then decided to head out of the Harry Potter section.
I was super excited to see the rest of the Studios park, since I hadn’t been here since 2002!!
I have super fun memories of this park. I can clearly remember the Jaws ride, the Nickelodeon Studios show, and the Twister attraction. There was also an Alfred Hitchcock exhibit which started my love for horror movies!! Here’s a vintage picture for giggles
Carla had been talking non-stop about a ride that we HAD to do!
Revenge of the Mummy!
It was literally a walk-on; there was absolutely nobody by it and I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was a ride had Carla not pointed it out! I was a little suspicious, thinking that may reflect the quality of the ride.
BOY, I was wrong!! This ride was AWESOME! It was so fast and thrilling in the dark. Everybody agreed that it was the best ride of the day. Since there was no line, we ended up going on 3 times in a row!!!
Would The Mummy hold it’s spot for #1 ride of the day? You’ll have to wait and see…
Kahla and Carla decided to get a drink at Finnegan’s pub and grill, while Haley, Mom, and I took on the Rip, Ride, Rockit!
The wait was only 5 minutes! I was really excited to ride this, since this ride reminds me of a ride I love at 6 Flags Great America in Illinois called “Raging Bull.” Plus, we were intrigued that you could play music on the ride too!
My mom and I got front row! And….woah. This ride throws you around and that completely vertical climb is so intense! I liked it, but was a little too rough and definitely not as smooth as it looks. My mom did not really like it- she's so tiny that she was whipped around like crazy!! The music definitely added to it though! I decided on “That’s the Way (I Like It)” by KC & the Sunshine Band
After our rough ride, we got some drinks and joined Carla and Kahla at Finnegans, since they were just finishing up their drinks. I just got water since I didn’t feel like a drink. Mom and Haley also got soft pretzels from a stand outside, but I said I didn’t want one (remember this bit for later )
We sat and chilled inside for awhile, it was dead in there!
Writing it all out, I still can’t believe that we got this many rides done on our Universal day. We were literally some of the only guests in the park.
Here’s a picture from later to fully explain how deserted it was! Holy cats!
After we finished our drinks, we looped around over to Men in Black: Alien Attack first! My score was terrible!!
We then checked out Simpsons Land! I sent soooo many pictures to Tom since The Simpsons is his favorite TV show. He even has a Homer Simpson tattoo!
Haley wanted a Duff beer, so we sat down at the outdoor beer stand! My mood was starting to decrease and I couldn’t really figure out why. Mom encouraged me to get something to drink, and I decided on a slushy. But, just as they were about to pour my drink, the slushy machine broke!
So I didn’t order anything. I felt like @StarWarsMomofGirls! daughter Gwen; I was getting hangry, but nothing was sounding quite right to eat!
We were talking to the workers, and they had the news playing in the background. None of us had really checked our phones that day, and we found out that Disney and Universal were scheduled to close tomorrow at 3:00
WDW was then opening MK at 7:00 AM for EMH. So, our ADR for dinner at the Boathouse was definitely going to be cancelled.
I was pretty upset but trying not to show it in front of Carla and Kahla. I was thinking that this was probably just the beginning of more closures!
We decided to ride the E.T ride once everyone finished. Once we were in the dark and in line, I felt safe to cry and I let a few tears shed. I felt so silly crying about the parks closing, but I had been really hopeful up until this point that they wouldn’t close them! Of course, Haley noticed right away and asked loudly “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?”
Well, that got me even more! Everyone was really nice and understanding about it though. Carla especially was so sweet, giving me a huge hug. She said, “Even if we had to hop on a plane home right now, it wouldn’t even matter because I am having such a wonderful time” ❤
Luckily, I recovered in time to ride E.T, but I was fading fast and still unsure why. This ride is so cute! We have a picture of 8-year old Molly on the bicycle somewhere in the basement!
After our ride on E.T, we decided to take the Hogwarts Express back to Hogsmeade.
The bartenders in Simpsons Land did not have only bad news to share; they had told us that today, the line for Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure had been the lowest they had seen since it opened back in June! Haley was DETERMINED to get on, so that’s where we headed.
It was right around 8:00 PM at this point, and the line said that it was 90 minutes. We had mutually decided to endure the wait; the park was open until 10:00 tonight and we knew that this would be our last ride of the day.
I was still not in the best of moods and just really quiet and not engaging in conversation. My mom knows exactly what quietness means; HANGRY MOLLY. She said, “When was the last time you ate today?”
And then it hit me; I had a bowl of cereal and half of a cinnamon roll for breakfast at 9:00, and 3 bites of a chicken sandwich at 1:30. It was 8:00 now!!!!
I remembered that I had my chocolate frog in my backpack from earlier and fished it out. I ate the entire thing, (which is crazy impressive because it’s a huge block of solid milk chocolate) and I literally felt myself come back to life.
I felt so much more human after this and my mood took an absolute 180. I should have known that chocolate would do the trick
The line actually didn’t feel too long at all. We made friends with the people next to us! They were a boy and a girl who were both around my age, and I asked them if they were staying at Disney because they had MagicBands on. They said no (they were at MK earlier today), but that they were CMs. The girl was a VIP tour guide!! So, we of course asked her a lot of questions about funny stories/celebrities/etc. We also bonded over our mutual love for Jon (my VIP guide in May)!!
The line didn’t take the full 90 minutes, we were on in just over an hour!!
And…
OMG. Sorry, The Mummy, this ride takes the cake!! My mom asserted her authority and took the bike, so I was stuck with the car But this was probably one of the funnest rides I’ve ever been on. It was so incredibly smooth, and there was just so many fun elements involved! I won’t spoil the ride for those who haven’t ridden, but there were so many surprises which we all loved. There was a moment during the ride were Haley looked back at us and literally had this look:
We were all on a huge high after that ride and all agreed that it was our favorite ride of the day. I’m so glad we waited!!
We wanted to get in line again, since it was only 9:20! But, sadly, they had closed the line for the night. It was a good thing though; we were all absolutely FAMISHED and needed dinner immediately.
So, we headed on over to CityWalk to peruse our options. It didn’t take everyone much convincing, and pretty soon we were headed here…
We couldn’t get in and order fast enough! Our waitress was so friendly and sweet and took our orders right away. I decided that I needed a drink after my emotional roller coaster of a day, so I ordered a Peach Smash, which was delicious and refreshing!
We were starving, so we also ordered food right away. I decided on the BBQ Chicken flatbread with a side of truffle fries!
As we were sitting at the table, we were talking about how productive of a day we had. We literally had gotten almost every single ride in the park done! It was such a fun day, and I’m so glad we decided to do Universal today instead of the next day. Haley happily watched me eat crow!!
We saw the cute little robot character meet in the distance, but they didn’t come by us, which was fine by me. Our food came nice and quick!
And then, I did something I never do in restaurants. I FINISHED THE ENTIRE ADULT PORTION OF FOOD.
I literally didn’t leave a scrap left!! Clearly, I was hungry from not eating and walking around all day! The flatbread was ginormous too, so it wasn’t an easy feat. My food was delicious, and everyone else really enjoyed their food as well. Now that we somewhat knew what to expect with closures, our moods had turned for the better. We were already discussing what we were going to do at the GF tomorrow night!
Carla and Kahla aren’t huge dessert people, but I insisted that we get a dessert to share. We are at the Chocolate Emporium for goodness sake! We had our sights set on the specialty milkshakes for the entire meal, but instead, we made a gametime decision and went with a…
“May Contain Nuts” sundae!
Y’all, this was insane!! It was a lot bigger than it looks in the picture!! In this sundae, there was peanut butter ice cream, peanut brittle, Reese’s cups, Reese’s pieces, peanut butter sauce, whipped cream, and an ENTIRE PIECE of chocolate peanut butter pie!
Haley and I were in literal heaven. Both of us are pb-chocolate freaks and I’m pretty sure we could have finished this between the two of us!
We were all so full! We waddled out of the restaurant at about 11:00. CityWalk was open until midnight so we explored for a bit! They were playing some great music over the loudspeakers; they played “If I Had A Million Dollars” by Barenaked Ladies, and now that song will always remind me of Universal Studios
We made a stop in VooDoo Donuts; this was a must-do for me!
I can’t remember if anyone else picked up any donuts, but I definitely did. I chose an “O.D.B.” ( vanilla donut with chocolate frosting, Oreos, and peanut butter), and a “Neapolitan” (chocolate donut with strawberry frosting, and mini marshmallows).
Luckily, I had enough donut self-control this time and waited a few days to eat them
We didn’t feel like walking back to the front of IOA to catch an Uber, so we decided to follow the sign that said “Universal Resort Hotels” and catch an Uber from there. I was pumped because I love looking at themed resorts!
It was a longish walk and we were worried that we had gotten lost. But pretty soon, we reached the Hard Rock Hotel!
This hotel was so cool! I really enjoyed looking at all of the memorabilia while waiting for our car. I would love to stay at a Universal-area resort sometime; Portofino Bay especially looks gorgeous.
Overall, we had such an amazing day at Universal. I was so glad we came, and I definitely want to do another day there on our next trip! It may even be fun to tack on a day at the start/end and stay one night at a Universal resort! It was just so much fun to experience something new and ride rides I had never tried before. I love WDW due to it’s nostalgia and familiarity, but it was fun to switch it up for a day!
We arrived back at the GF around 12:30 and promptly CRASHED. We were all so exhausted and my feet hurt soooo bad from walking in my Converse sneakers all day. Tomorrow was supposed to be a rest day… but, Mom and I had promised to wake up at 6:00 AM the next day to hit MK right at 7:00! SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK! You’ll find out how that went in the next update
I chopped off 6 inches of hair!
I turned 26 years old on July 30th and had a wonderful weekend in Door County, WI!
I received THIS letter in the mail from none other than my girl’s trip companion, Kahla!!
She got engaged over the 4th of July! Can you say WDW Bachelorette Party, anyone?? It’s been a crazy last month or so, but let’s go back to last year right around this time...
Trip #2, Day 4- September 2nd, 2019
Happy Labor Day! We were all up at about 8:15 AM today; we were heading off to Universal Studios today and planning on spending a very full day there!
It was a gorgeous day outside!
Surprisingly, we were not too tired despite doing long park days since literally the moment this trip began. Today was originally supposed to be a resort day, but due to hurricane uncertainties, we decided to switch our resort day to tomorrow. This turned out to be a really good decision!
While we were getting ready, I sheepishly approached Haley and asked “Can you do my hair in French braids?” She rolled her eyes and said, “Somehow, I just knew that you were going to ask that”
We were ready by 9:15 and decided to grab a quick breakfast at Gasparilla Island Grill! Kahla and Carla really enjoyed the egg salad that they had there and had this almost every day (they try to eat low-carb when they can and this was a great option for them)!. My mom doesn’t really enjoy breakfast food, so she just got a tea. I got an iced caramel macchiato from the coffee bar; these just hit different in Disney before taking on a park! I also got some Fruit Loops cereal with milk and a cinnamon roll to split with my mom.
I just got diabetes from writing that
When in Disney, you eat sugar for breakfast!!
We tried to eat quickly and called an Uber. We were walking through the gates of Universal Studios by 10:15 AM! Haley got soooo excited, she was like “Finally, this is my day!”
I was excited but also a little bit nervous about taking on Universal. I had not been here since 2013, and Haley and I had only done a half-day at Islands of Adventure since all of the Harry Potter stuff was contained to that park at that time.
This time, we were hopping between both parks AND doing CityWalk! I was super pumped, because I was looking forward to trying new rides and it was fun not knowing exactly what to expect! But, I was also a tad anxious about the ride situation, since so many of Universal Studio’s rides are simulators or use moving screens. And as you know, I’m not usually very good with those types of rides; when riding Forbidden Journey back in 2013, I could literally feel myself turning green! But, I was determined to try every single ride today and close my eyes if I needed to. I was NOT missing out!
We just bought our tickets right at the park entrance, the line was nonexistent! Somehow, I sweet-talked my Mom into buying me a lanyard too
Proud Hufflepuff right here! I literally could not fit the description more if I tried
What’s your Hogwart’s house?!We decided to start out with Islands of Adventure first and hop between both parks all day! What better ride to do right after eating than The Incredible Hulk??
I was nervous, I had never ridden this roller coaster before and chickened out in 2013. I am a fan of roller coasters usually, but this one has so many inversions (7!!!). But, I WAS NOT going to chicken out this time. The line was only 5 minutes, so I didn’t really have time to question my decision. Carla sat this one out, but Kahla, my mom, Haley and I rode!
And, my verdict?
I LOVED IT! It was so much fun and very thrilling!! The uphill launch is awesome, and the coaster was nice and smooth so I didn’t feel dizzy at all. I really wanted to ride it again, but Haley was raring to go and said we could come back and ride later (spoiler alert, we didn’t
)Next we rode the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. I kept my eyes closed literally the entire time, so I could not tell you anything that happened. But something tells me this ride isn’t very fun; I didn’t hear much of a reaction from my ride partners...!
I love this area of the park so much! It’s just so cute and kitschy.
As we passed by Dudley Doo-Right’s Ripsaw Falls, my mom almost screamed
She always tells a story about when she went on this a long time ago with Haley, and got such bad whiplash she thought she broke her neck!We decided to go around by the Jurassic Park area and ride Skull Island: Reign of Kong. There were no scare actors out in the queue; I had no idea that they even did this until I read some other Universal TRs after the fact! Thank goodness they weren’t out today! I love haunted houses, but not expecting it I would have been sooo scared!!
I had to close my eyes for some of this ride due to the screens, but I loved seeing the big Kong at the end! It looked so realistic and actually very scary!
Despite going to Islands of Adventure in 2013, I don’t really remember riding many rides! Haley and I more just spent the day seeing all of the stuff at Hogsmeade. One ride that I wanted to do in 2013 but never got to was the Jurassic Park River Adventure, so we headed there next!
I literally couldn’t believe it; every single ride had a wait of five minutes or less. We were literally checking off every ride in order one by one!
There were signs saying that you’d get really wet, so some of us put ponchos on. I was actually welcoming the water, since I had my hair back and I was wearing comfy clothes! I was soooo much more comfortable than yesterday without my corduroy dress and chafing thighs
You guys. I LOVED this ride. It reminded me so much of Splash Mountain! The drop was so much steeper than I thought it would be so I was shocked! I wanted to buy our ride picture so bad, all of our faces were like:
This was one of my favorites of the day! I got pretty wet but it dried off in like 10 minutes since it was so sunny.
It was nearing 11:45 by now, and we were all itching to go to…
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
Somehow, we all got the memo to wear black and white today! We were all teasing Haley because the glasses on her shirt perfectly outlined a certain body part
We decided to ride Forbidden Journey right away since the line was only 10 minutes long. I was much more prepared this time!
Luckily, I can keep my eyes open during the live action parts; I only need to close my eyes during the parts in front of the screen.
It was sooo funny, towards the end where you are getting taken over by Dementors, Harry shouts, “LEAVE THEM ALONE, THESE ARE MY FRIENDS!” and then a picture of your ride vehicle appears in the smoke. But the picture was so unexpected and we're trying to see through all of the smoke! So Harry is being all heroic trying to save us, and this was literally us in the picture:
Haley and I were absolutely CRACKING UP!
Mom LOVED this ride soooo much and wouldn’t stop raving about it, so we decided to hop back in line and ride a second time! Kahla was feeling a bit dizzy after our second ride, so we looked around in the gift shop to stay cool for a bit.
After shopping around for a bit, we queued up for Flight of the Hippogriff. But, it started to drizzle, and after waiting it out for about 10 minutes, the ride workers sent us out of line! Booo! They were being super funny and cheery about it though. I was a bit worried about the CM quality of Universal and that they wouldn’t be as friendly as Disney. But, my worries were completely unwarranted because we had nothing but great experiences with Universal CMs today!!
We were a little bummed that we couldn’t ride Flight of the Hippogriff; this coaster looked so cute and you get great views of Hogwarts. I knew the perfect cure for that- a Butterbeer!
All three of us got a Butterbeer from the stand and I think Kahla and Carla got one to share!
I’m a huge fan of the frozen butterbeer, so that’s what I got! Everyone else just got the classic.
I love butterbeer so much; cream soda is one of my favorite sodas so this is delicious. (Wisconsin peeps- Sprecher cream soda is the best!) I much prefer this to the LeFous brew and would drink it every day if they offered this at WDW!
It was still drizzling just a bit, so we sipped our drinks and peeked through all of the shops. We all stopped in Honeydukes to look around!
I bought a chocolate frog and stuck it in my bag for later. We all bought stuff from here; my mom is a chocolate fanatic so she definitely bought a bar or two, and I believe that Haley also got some candy for Ryan. The worker here was so funny, he said that he bet he could guess my Hogwarts house. I was so impressed, then I realized that I was wearing my Hufflepuff lanyard.
Typical Hufflepuff. So, I tried to guess his house, and I was RIGHT! He was a Slytherin- typical Slytherin being sneaky!!We decided to look in the wand shop and see the show! I was the only one still sipping my Butterbeer, so I had to chug it so we could go inside and got the absolute WORST brain freeze of my life!
Haley was so excited because we were the only people in the show, and she really wanted to participate in the show! Then, at the absolute last second, a family with 3 kids came in
Well, of course the boy in the group got to be the one to choose the wand! Haley was standing there like:The wands here are so cool, but I feel like they are totally something a kid will buy and play with for like 2 days, then completely forget about it. I feel the same way about the banshee toys in Pandora!
Satisfied with our time in Hogsmeade, we took the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley! This was so cute and such a fun way to travel from park to park.
Carla and Kahla were getting hungry, so we decided to grab some lunch from the Leaky Cauldron! I was soo pumped to check this out. This was so cute on the inside! Unfortunately, Mom, Haley, and I weren’t super hungry, and I’m not a huge fan of traditional “British” food so the options weren’t really speaking to me. We decided just to all share a grilled chicken sandwich with french fries between the three of us.
I also got a pumpkin juice!
This was super tasty and very sweet. It tasted just like pumpkin pie! Carla and Kahla really enjoyed their food; they had a lot of great low-carb options here! We hadn’t realized how go-go-go we had been all morning so it felt weird to finally sit and take a break. I really only got a few bites of the sandwich, but this was fine with me because I really wasn’t hungry at the moment (remember this for later
) After lunch, we decided to ride Escape from Gringotts! The line was 25 minutes, which seemed like an eternity compared to the low wait times all morning. We weren’t too disappointed, because we really wanted to see the inside of Gringotts!
About five minutes into our wait, my mom whispers to me, “I kind of have to pee…” I joked and said “Can you hold it?” And she said, “I don’t know…”
She started freaking out, saying “I think it was from that Butterbeer, it went from 0 to 100 so quick!!” I assured her that usually the standby wait times are posted as longer than they actually are and we would get on the ride soon. And then we waited...and waited… and waited… My mom was basically like this the entire time.
We ended up waiting 40 MINUTES for Gringotts!! My mom was literally freaking out, especially when the lap bar came down right on her bladder
As soon as the ride was done, she absolutely BOOKED it to a bathroom! When she came out, she said “If it would have been 5 more minutes, I would have peed my pants”
As for the ride, I didn’t really see much because the screen was making me dizzy! The others agreed that it was good, but not necessarily worth a 40-minute wait. My mom has now deemed it “the pee ride”
Once my mom had relieved herself, we explored Diagon Alley! I think I actually prefer the Hogsmeade area to this area of the park. It just seems cuter and more quaint.
We looked through all of the little shops around Diagon Alley, and then decided to head out of the Harry Potter section.
I was super excited to see the rest of the Studios park, since I hadn’t been here since 2002!!
I have super fun memories of this park. I can clearly remember the Jaws ride, the Nickelodeon Studios show, and the Twister attraction. There was also an Alfred Hitchcock exhibit which started my love for horror movies!! Here’s a vintage picture for giggles
Carla had been talking non-stop about a ride that we HAD to do!
Revenge of the Mummy!
It was literally a walk-on; there was absolutely nobody by it and I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was a ride had Carla not pointed it out! I was a little suspicious, thinking that may reflect the quality of the ride.
BOY, I was wrong!! This ride was AWESOME! It was so fast and thrilling in the dark. Everybody agreed that it was the best ride of the day. Since there was no line, we ended up going on 3 times in a row!!!
Would The Mummy hold it’s spot for #1 ride of the day? You’ll have to wait and see…
Kahla and Carla decided to get a drink at Finnegan’s pub and grill, while Haley, Mom, and I took on the Rip, Ride, Rockit!
The wait was only 5 minutes! I was really excited to ride this, since this ride reminds me of a ride I love at 6 Flags Great America in Illinois called “Raging Bull.” Plus, we were intrigued that you could play music on the ride too!
My mom and I got front row! And….woah. This ride throws you around and that completely vertical climb is so intense! I liked it, but was a little too rough and definitely not as smooth as it looks. My mom did not really like it- she's so tiny that she was whipped around like crazy!! The music definitely added to it though! I decided on “That’s the Way (I Like It)” by KC & the Sunshine Band
After our rough ride, we got some drinks and joined Carla and Kahla at Finnegans, since they were just finishing up their drinks. I just got water since I didn’t feel like a drink. Mom and Haley also got soft pretzels from a stand outside, but I said I didn’t want one (remember this bit for later
)We sat and chilled inside for awhile, it was dead in there!
Writing it all out, I still can’t believe that we got this many rides done on our Universal day. We were literally some of the only guests in the park.
Here’s a picture from later to fully explain how deserted it was! Holy cats!
After we finished our drinks, we looped around over to Men in Black: Alien Attack first! My score was terrible!!
We then checked out Simpsons Land! I sent soooo many pictures to Tom since The Simpsons is his favorite TV show. He even has a Homer Simpson tattoo!
Haley wanted a Duff beer, so we sat down at the outdoor beer stand! My mood was starting to decrease and I couldn’t really figure out why. Mom encouraged me to get something to drink, and I decided on a slushy. But, just as they were about to pour my drink, the slushy machine broke!
So I didn’t order anything. I felt like @StarWarsMomofGirls! daughter Gwen; I was getting hangry, but nothing was sounding quite right to eat!We were talking to the workers, and they had the news playing in the background. None of us had really checked our phones that day, and we found out that Disney and Universal were scheduled to close tomorrow at 3:00
WDW was then opening MK at 7:00 AM for EMH. So, our ADR for dinner at the Boathouse was definitely going to be cancelled.I was pretty upset but trying not to show it in front of Carla and Kahla. I was thinking that this was probably just the beginning of more closures!
We decided to ride the E.T ride once everyone finished. Once we were in the dark and in line, I felt safe to cry and I let a few tears shed. I felt so silly crying about the parks closing, but I had been really hopeful up until this point that they wouldn’t close them! Of course, Haley noticed right away and asked loudly “WHY ARE YOU CRYING?”
Well, that got me even more! Everyone was really nice and understanding about it though. Carla especially was so sweet, giving me a huge hug. She said, “Even if we had to hop on a plane home right now, it wouldn’t even matter because I am having such a wonderful time” ❤
Luckily, I recovered in time to ride E.T, but I was fading fast and still unsure why. This ride is so cute! We have a picture of 8-year old Molly on the bicycle somewhere in the basement!
After our ride on E.T, we decided to take the Hogwarts Express back to Hogsmeade.
The bartenders in Simpsons Land did not have only bad news to share; they had told us that today, the line for Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure had been the lowest they had seen since it opened back in June! Haley was DETERMINED to get on, so that’s where we headed.
It was right around 8:00 PM at this point, and the line said that it was 90 minutes. We had mutually decided to endure the wait; the park was open until 10:00 tonight and we knew that this would be our last ride of the day.
I was still not in the best of moods and just really quiet and not engaging in conversation. My mom knows exactly what quietness means; HANGRY MOLLY. She said, “When was the last time you ate today?”
And then it hit me; I had a bowl of cereal and half of a cinnamon roll for breakfast at 9:00, and 3 bites of a chicken sandwich at 1:30. It was 8:00 now!!!!
I remembered that I had my chocolate frog in my backpack from earlier and fished it out. I ate the entire thing, (which is crazy impressive because it’s a huge block of solid milk chocolate) and I literally felt myself come back to life.
I felt so much more human after this and my mood took an absolute 180. I should have known that chocolate would do the trick
The line actually didn’t feel too long at all. We made friends with the people next to us! They were a boy and a girl who were both around my age, and I asked them if they were staying at Disney because they had MagicBands on. They said no (they were at MK earlier today), but that they were CMs. The girl was a VIP tour guide!! So, we of course asked her a lot of questions about funny stories/celebrities/etc. We also bonded over our mutual love for Jon (my VIP guide in May)!!
The line didn’t take the full 90 minutes, we were on in just over an hour!!
And…
OMG. Sorry, The Mummy, this ride takes the cake!! My mom asserted her authority and took the bike, so I was stuck with the car
But this was probably one of the funnest rides I’ve ever been on. It was so incredibly smooth, and there was just so many fun elements involved! I won’t spoil the ride for those who haven’t ridden, but there were so many surprises which we all loved. There was a moment during the ride were Haley looked back at us and literally had this look:We were all on a huge high after that ride and all agreed that it was our favorite ride of the day. I’m so glad we waited!!
We wanted to get in line again, since it was only 9:20! But, sadly, they had closed the line for the night. It was a good thing though; we were all absolutely FAMISHED and needed dinner immediately.
So, we headed on over to CityWalk to peruse our options. It didn’t take everyone much convincing, and pretty soon we were headed here…
We couldn’t get in and order fast enough! Our waitress was so friendly and sweet and took our orders right away. I decided that I needed a drink after my emotional roller coaster of a day, so I ordered a Peach Smash, which was delicious and refreshing!
We were starving, so we also ordered food right away. I decided on the BBQ Chicken flatbread with a side of truffle fries!
As we were sitting at the table, we were talking about how productive of a day we had. We literally had gotten almost every single ride in the park done! It was such a fun day, and I’m so glad we decided to do Universal today instead of the next day. Haley happily watched me eat crow!!
We saw the cute little robot character meet in the distance, but they didn’t come by us, which was fine by me. Our food came nice and quick!
And then, I did something I never do in restaurants. I FINISHED THE ENTIRE ADULT PORTION OF FOOD.
I literally didn’t leave a scrap left!! Clearly, I was hungry from not eating and walking around all day! The flatbread was ginormous too, so it wasn’t an easy feat. My food was delicious, and everyone else really enjoyed their food as well. Now that we somewhat knew what to expect with closures, our moods had turned for the better. We were already discussing what we were going to do at the GF tomorrow night!
Carla and Kahla aren’t huge dessert people, but I insisted that we get a dessert to share. We are at the Chocolate Emporium for goodness sake! We had our sights set on the specialty milkshakes for the entire meal, but instead, we made a gametime decision and went with a…
“May Contain Nuts” sundae!
Y’all, this was insane!! It was a lot bigger than it looks in the picture!! In this sundae, there was peanut butter ice cream, peanut brittle, Reese’s cups, Reese’s pieces, peanut butter sauce, whipped cream, and an ENTIRE PIECE of chocolate peanut butter pie!
Haley and I were in literal heaven. Both of us are pb-chocolate freaks and I’m pretty sure we could have finished this between the two of us!
We were all so full! We waddled out of the restaurant at about 11:00. CityWalk was open until midnight so we explored for a bit! They were playing some great music over the loudspeakers; they played “If I Had A Million Dollars” by Barenaked Ladies, and now that song will always remind me of Universal Studios
We made a stop in VooDoo Donuts; this was a must-do for me!
I can’t remember if anyone else picked up any donuts, but I definitely did. I chose an “O.D.B.” ( vanilla donut with chocolate frosting, Oreos, and peanut butter), and a “Neapolitan” (chocolate donut with strawberry frosting, and mini marshmallows).
Luckily, I had enough donut self-control this time and waited a few days to eat them
We didn’t feel like walking back to the front of IOA to catch an Uber, so we decided to follow the sign that said “Universal Resort Hotels” and catch an Uber from there. I was pumped because I love looking at themed resorts!
It was a longish walk and we were worried that we had gotten lost. But pretty soon, we reached the Hard Rock Hotel!
This hotel was so cool! I really enjoyed looking at all of the memorabilia while waiting for our car. I would love to stay at a Universal-area resort sometime; Portofino Bay especially looks gorgeous.
Overall, we had such an amazing day at Universal. I was so glad we came, and I definitely want to do another day there on our next trip! It may even be fun to tack on a day at the start/end and stay one night at a Universal resort! It was just so much fun to experience something new and ride rides I had never tried before. I love WDW due to it’s nostalgia and familiarity, but it was fun to switch it up for a day!
We arrived back at the GF around 12:30 and promptly CRASHED. We were all so exhausted and my feet hurt soooo bad from walking in my Converse sneakers all day. Tomorrow was supposed to be a rest day… but, Mom and I had promised to wake up at 6:00 AM the next day to hit MK right at 7:00! SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK! You’ll find out how that went in the next update
Universal was a blast! It was definitely a day of ups and downs, but overall it was one of my favorite days of the trip!!
