Step 1 for most trips is getting to your destination. Since apparition, floo powder, and portkeys are not part of my muggle travel arsenal we caught a flight to MCO. I'm about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh so when our local, tiny airport has a flight I usually take it. This time it was an evening flight, I left work about half an hour early and met my friends at the airport. Away we went and made it to Orlando no problems.
Since we landed later I booked us at the Holiday Inn Orlando on International Drive, about 3 miles from the Royal Pacific hotel, which would be our home away from home for the rest of the trip.
The Holiday Inn was perfect for the one night stay. I'm not even on a cruise but here is some towel art that make me happy!
Our plan to have food delivered backfired because it was getting late and we missed the window for ordering so we checked the phone map and discovered a Five Guys close by. Putting on our brave pants we journeyed across the parking lot and side street and found it! Sidenote, I am sometimes afraid I'll be grownup-napped and who knows what after that
from all the things I see on
Instagram about human trafficking and ways to escape abductors, so this was a major accomplishment for me and my friend, lol. Burgers, fries, a milkshake because it's vacation, were carried back to the room and late dinner was eaten. Now time to get some sleep, we have an early start tomorrow.
Epic Universe was our scheduled first park, which meant we had to check in first at Royal Pacific to get our room cards or the early morning entrance wouldn't do us any good. I had been searching all over the internet for the best park touring plan since
Epic is new and I was never there yet, I was really anxious about it. Not only was my friend, her mom and brother with us, but two other families as well, so 11 people total. I didn't want our first day to be a failure! And everyone else was just "make the plan, we'll follow" so the pressure was on.
I am happy to report we had a good first day, phew!
Quick trip to the room to drop off the luggage.
Hotel key cards in hand (I got E.T.!) we made our way to the bus and not long after arrived at EPIC UNIVERSE!!
I decided to start us in Super Nintendo World since we arrived right around 8am which was actually perfect, there was no line or wait at all to get in. But our window to get to Ministry of Magic with little wait had most likely closed.
I am not a gamer, I played Super Mario Bros. on the original Nintendo in the 80s and rescued Princess Toadstool from Bowser many, many times. I was also a Tetris player on the gameboy, how I miss those simpler times when phones weren't computers, but I am sounding old now so moving on. All that to say I was not impressed at all with SNW, but I am not the target demographic so I was ok with that. It was vibrant and loud, but there are a lot of steps and levels and kind of confusing. We also have a wheelchair in our group so that made it a little challenging but we managed.
Ahh, the excitement of the first ride! Before the letdown...
maybe because I skipped spoilers and didn't do intensive research? We didn't really like Mario Kart, the hats were heavy and didn't really enhance the experience. I think they got in the way. I would have rather just rode the ride and not played a game at the same time, I missed a lot of the scenery in the ride moving my head all around trying to throw bombs, at least I think that's what I was doing lol. score 2/10
So 1st ride, check. Now to the next ride, it will surely be better! Yoshi's Adventure!
It was not better.
I didn't take any pictures, it seemed to last about 15 seconds. Great for toddlers maybe? score 1/10
And I usually find the good in things, I promise it gets better!
We found our way to Donkey Kong Country, it was kind of hidden so if you are in SNW don't miss going because this was the best part of the land imo, Mine-Cart Madness.
We entered the line and played Mind Meld, which I had recently discovered watching
youtube park vlogs. We played that a lot over the next few days.
We also admired the decor and details, and one of my group who is a carpenter, discovered what we think is a mistake in this room. Can you see it?
but don't feel too bad for me, as I have found another love to sink my vacation money into, cruising. So when the opportunity arose to go with my friend to Universal I was 100% a yes!
