My Feet Are Gonna Pizza Flop-Off - 6 Days in 4 Parks! February 2024 TR **COMPLETE** x2 2/23/25

[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Sunday February 11th

After lunch, we went back to the Ghost Town area to go ride the Silver Bullet rollercoaster.

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DS didn’t want to ride, so we found a picnic table nearby for him to wait, and DH, DD and I went to get in line. However, we messed up a little and didn’t pay attention to the height requirement and missed that this one was 54”. Luckily, we didn’t wait long before we got to the measuring spot and found out DD wasn’t tall enough. I told DH to still ride and took DD off to go back and wait with DS for him to finish.

We were right there by Fiesta Village, home of a more tame rollercoaster called The Jauguar, and it didn’t have a long wait so we hopped in line there.

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There was a swing ride called Los Voladores in that area that we spotted as we walked off of the Jaguar, and DS wanted to ride. He and DD went to get in line by themselves while DH and I waited to the side to watch them go. However, once it was their turn, DD chickened out (after all those rollercoasters she had done!!) and came straight to the exit to wait with us while DS rode by himself.

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While we were waiting for DS to come off, I was looking around at all of the cute details in this area of the park. They had some of those multicolored Mexican flags (which I just googled and found out are called papel picado) and they had Charlie Brown characters on them!

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What a cute detail to go with the theme of the area!

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One of the other big rollercoasters DH wanted to do was Xcelerator. The height was 52” so DD was just there, but she was a little intimidated by this one. DS was still not a fan of the big rides after Hangtime. So DH decided to go on this one solo too. I could probably have ridden alone after, but it took him about 20 minutes or so to get through and it wasn’t that important to me to spend another 20 minutes of them waiting for me to ride.

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While we waited, we spotted some huge Pokemon stuffies in the Boardwalk game area that DS was pining over, and DD did some cartwheels.

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With most of the headliners under our belt, we had done pretty much everything we had set out to do for the day, but it was still early afternoon. So we changed tacks and decided to hit some of the smaller attractions. There was a shooter game ride similar to Buzz Lightyear we had passed a couple of times so we decided to go to that next. It was called Knott’s Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair. And we ended up waiting waaaayyy too long for it!

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The shooter game was digital and 3-D like Toy Story Mania, but the graphics were not nearly as good. And it was tough to shoot because it was also a pull-string shooter like TSM, but you had to hold the gun up to aim, so it made both arms pretty tired from holding and pulling!

After such a long wait, we wanted to use our meal deal to get a snack to hold us over until dinner. Strictly on a Stick was a stand selling corndogs and the like, and it had one of the Peanuts snacks we wanted to try, the Linus Macaroni & Cheese Bites with fries & a spicy aioli. We got the mac and cheese bites with some corn dog nuggets and a corndog to split.

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The last thing we had wanted to ride was the Calico Mine Train, which had a 30 minute wait.

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Even though it was a 30 min wait, the queue had some really pretty views.

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[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Sunday February 11th

I thought this was going to be another easy rollercoaster, but I was so wrong. I realized this as soon as it was our turn to board and it was a couple of bench seats on either side of an actual train car with no restraints similar to the Jungle Cruise. Lol It was actually a dark ride, which was fun but had an impressive number of animatronics!

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And also like the Jungle Cruise, it featured a view of the 8th Wonder of the World.

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By this point of the day, we were kind of at a loss for what else to do. Any of the rides we’d want to do again, particularly the Ghost Rider, had over an hour wait. But we wanted to at least stay through dinner to make sure we got our money’s worth on the meal deal and not have to purchase dinner somewhere else on the way home. So we meandered around, peeking in and out of the shops.

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We spotted Franklin waving at us from a window.

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We went to check out the pigs in Pig-Pen’s Pig Pen. They were so adorable!! Pig-Pen was also available in there to meet, but the kids were being sticks in the mud and didn’t want to meet any characters there.

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DS decided to spend a little of his souvenir money on a Woodstock.

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We walked past Hangtime just to make sure the posted wait was accurate, and it definitely was. I think it was about 45 min, so we decided once had to be enough.

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There were some cute photo ops near Camp Snoopy that we stopped to see.

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We decided to make our last stop Sutter’s Grill for a dinner of burgers and chicken tenders.

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As we were ready to leave for the evening, we made our way back through Ghost Town.

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When we exited the park, we spotted a Peanuts store across the street, and DD still wanted to see if she could find something to bring home. She didn’t end up finding anything, so I had to convince her there was nothing wrong with saving her money for Universal and Disneyland!

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I love Linus, he is my favorite Peanuts character! Maybe I felt drawn to him as a kid because I was also a hopeless thumb-sucker. Lol I even had a cat I named Linus!

We got back to the Worldmark Anaheim around 6 pm.

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Even though it was early, we were all pretty tired from such a long day with an early start time, so we didn’t waste any time getting ready for bed. The kids went to sleep early, but DH and I stayed up to watch the end of the Superbowl and watched most of the first episode of Tracker before we gave up and went to sleep ourselves. And it wasn’t a bad idea to get plenty of rest because we had an EARLY morning coming up!

 

[missjackiemcg]

What a fun day! I can't believe the kids didn't want to meet any Peanuts characters! Like you, Linus was always my favorite, though I was a finger sucker instead of my thumb! LOL

I definitely think it would be fun to add Knotts Berry Farm onto my yet to be planned, only in my head for now, trip to California! Looking forward to all the fun still to come!

 

[xApril]

Knotts is such a pretty park! I was there in September checking out their Halloween event. We were so tired from HHN and I’ve been dealing with foot issues so it was a bit of a rough day. It was busy in the park so we only ended up doing Ghost Rider and the Calico Mine Train Ride before the event started. The mine train ride was really cool and long though! Definitely surprised me coming from Universal and Disney! I never expect as much from some of the other parks but they always surprise me. We were able to hop on the Beary Tales ride too during the event and remember what you described too. It was cool though for what it was. My one friend doesn’t ride coasters so we tried not to do too much to exclude him.

Can’t wait to hear more!

 

[khertz]

What a fun day! I can't believe the kids didn't want to meet any Peanuts characters! Like you, Linus was always my favorite, though I was a finger sucker instead of my thumb! LOL

I definitely think it would be fun to add Knotts Berry Farm onto my yet to be planned, only in my head for now, trip to California! Looking forward to all the fun still to come!

It made me a little sad this trip that they were not as interested in the characters. I know as they get older our trips will change, but I still wasn't ready! They were definitely more about the rides! Which is fun, but just different.

Knott's was a great day trip, for sure, and it's close to Disneyland! Lots of thrills for the thrill seekers, nicely themed areas, and not crazy expensive. We were glad we decided to add it to this trip.

Knotts is such a pretty park! I was there in September checking out their Halloween event. We were so tired from HHN and I’ve been dealing with foot issues so it was a bit of a rough day. It was busy in the park so we only ended up doing Ghost Rider and the Calico Mine Train Ride before the event started. The mine train ride was really cool and long though! Definitely surprised me coming from Universal and Disney! I never expect as much from some of the other parks but they always surprise me. We were able to hop on the Beary Tales ride too during the event and remember what you described too. It was cool though for what it was. My one friend doesn’t ride coasters so we tried not to do too much to exclude him.

Can’t wait to hear more!

I feel like one of these days, DH is going to want to plan a Halloween trip to do all the California Halloween events! He loves that kind of stuff. It surprised me how much we enjoyed Knott's, I was worried we'd be too "Disney snobbish" to give it a chance. I mean, not really, but it is hard to give up a whole day and that much money on a different place when we weren't totally sure we'd enjoy it vs just adding another Disney day, which we definitely know we'd enjoy!

 

[khertz]

Day 3: Monday February 12th

This morning started SUPER early!! We were up at 5:30 am (!!) to make sure we made it to Universal Hollywood in plenty of time for our early entry admission. We had debated this back and forth when purchasing our tickets because we knew we’d need to leave very early to get all the way there from Anaheim and knowing how brutal traffic can be. It was a bit nerve-wracking to pay extra for that early entry not knowing if something would happen that would keep us from making it in time. So we planned to leave as early as possible and just prayed it would all work out for the best.

DD was excited to go full Harry Potter, including these really cute ponytail holders my FIL got her.

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We brought breakfast in the car and hit the road just before 6 am. Thankfully traffic was no problem and we made it there in an hour and 5 minutes! The kids were excited to get their first glimpse of the Hollywood sign.

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We made it to the parking garage and were in a spot at 7:10! We had plenty of time to park and walk through CityWalk to get to the gates way before the 8 am early entry opening.

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The kids wanted to take photos with the globe, of course!

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When we were let in through the main gates, we were also given our Express Pass as we entered. Then we had to get through a second checkpoint where they scanned our Early Entry and let us further into the park.

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Because Universal Hollywood is built into the side of a mountain, we had quite a ways to get down to where Super Nintendo World is located. There were TMs leading the way and keeping everyone at the same pace down the very long escalators. Even people who opted for the regular stairs, possibly thinking it would be faster, were stopped at the bottom by a TM until the groups on the escalators made it to the bottom too. But for this family from the flat lands of Louisiana, it was pretty incredible to see these views from the top of a mountain while in a theme park!

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After what felt like forever getting down those escalators, and seeing SNW off in the distance getting closer and closer, we were finally walking in!!

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The theming in this land is just incredible!! Like you walked right into a Nintendo game! There are all the games around the land, and people say if you want to do those, it’s a good use of that early entry period. However, we were not focused on any of that, we just wanted to ride Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge! We immediately hopped in line.

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We loved our first ride on it, but it had a bit of a learning curve involved too! Like I didn’t realize until close to the end of the ride that when you’re shooting one of your shells, it goes in the direction that you’re actually looking with your goggles. So what else could we do once we finished, but hop right back in line?!

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[khertz]

Day 3 Continued: Monday February 12th

When we came off the ride this time, there was a 20 minute wait posted and about 8:40 by that time, so we still had 20 minutes before regular park opening as well. Lots of people had moved on to the mini-games around the land. The kids were kind of meh on a 3rd ride, but like DH and I said, it was why we had bought the early entry and there was not much else we wanted to do with that time, and we likely wouldn’t be able to come back and ride it later in the day either. One more ride, it is!

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After all that Mario Kart fun, we were ready to move on. DD wanted to look around the shop, and was really interested in the Princess Peach headband with the earrings attached.

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Mario & Luigi were out, and the line wasn’t super long but the kids were not interested in waiting to meet them.

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It was time to say goodbye to Super Nintendo World, but we definitely felt like we got our money’s worth on purchasing the Early Entry! We had waffled on it over and over because we knew we’d have to leave so early to get there, but it ended up being a great choice. We had hoped to get on Mario Kart at least once, so 3 times in a row was even more than we could have imagined!

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DD was excited to get to ride some of the things that she hasn’t been able to ride at Universal Orlando because she was too short on our last trip there. One of those rides was The Mummy, so we headed there next.

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I wasn’t expecting it to be so different from its Orlando counterpart, but it was still fun! There was no Brendan Fraser or movie set storyline which meant there was no iconic line at the end ("I would have enjoyed this interview a lot more if I had GOTTEN MY CUP OF COFFEE!"). DD absolutely LOVED it!! We had our Express Pass, but it was still a walk on, so we went through the line again.

Transformers also had no wait, so we held on to our Express for now and went to ride that next. We also passed Megatron that was out meeting guests.

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We skipped the Jurassic World ride because we didn’t want to get wet with how cold it was that morning.

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We decided the best plan of action would be to head all the way back up the escalators and work our way down using our Express Passes to get a ride on everything. When we got all the way up, we stopped to enjoy the view for a moment since we had to hurry past it before early entry time.

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Looking down at SNW.

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The World Famous Studio Tour was something DH and I knew we wanted to do. It is an hour long attraction, so we decided to go ahead and do that first. We walked through Springfield, but no one was interested in riding this one. I was not interested in potentially ruining my day with motion sickness that I always seem to get from this ride, and everyone else didn’t mind missing it,

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[xApril]

It made me a little sad this trip that they were not as interested in the characters. I know as they get older our trips will change, but I still wasn't ready! They were definitely more about the rides! Which is fun, but just different.

Knott's was a great day trip, for sure, and it's close to Disneyland! Lots of thrills for the thrill seekers, nicely themed areas, and not crazy expensive. We were glad we decided to add it to this trip.

I feel like one of these days, DH is going to want to plan a Halloween trip to do all the California Halloween events! He loves that kind of stuff. It surprised me how much we enjoyed Knott's, I was worried we'd be too "Disney snobbish" to give it a chance. I mean, not really, but it is hard to give up a whole day and that much money on a different place when we weren't totally sure we'd enjoy it vs just adding another Disney day, which we definitely know we'd enjoy!

Hopefully they’ll get back into characters again at some point!

The Halloween stuff in California is so good! I’ve only tapped into Knotts and HHN but they’re both so fun. There’s a lot out there, just hard to fit it all in! I am the same way though. I was very adverse to doing Knotts since I had my tried and true Universal and Disney. My friends really wanted to do Knotts though and while I probably won’t go again on my own, if either of them wanted to go again, I definitely would!

I love the Starway escalators!! The views are unmatched and just breathtaking!! Mario Kart is such a fun ride too! I really want to meet Toad but the lines have always been nuts.

Their Mummy is so cool! I think since I’ve ridden Florida’s so many times, I kind of prefer California’s. Their animatronics are just so cool! Though the ending leaves a little to be desired…

Excited to see if you check out one of my favorites or not

 

[gosalyn_mallard]

Wow, wow, wow! SNW looks amazing!!! Your pictures make me want to plan a trip there! I grew up playing Mario on the original Nintendo. So great that you got to experience it first thing in morning with lower crowds. I don't know much about Universal in LA so looking forward to reading more!

 

[missjackiemcg]

Wowza!! I guess I had never thought about it or realized that this would be your view from Universal!! Incredible!

Super Nintendo World looked pretty amazing, and how incredible to get three rides in right away. Definitely worth the early entry fee from the sound of it.

We've been to Universal Orlando several times now, but have zero knowledge of their other parks. I'm excited to read about the Studio tour and the rest of your day in the park!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

I came over here for another report and I’m glad I found yours!

Your trip is off to a great start. Knott’s Berry Farm looks like lots of fun and early entry worked very well for you at Universal Hollywood. Three times on Bowser’s Challenge sounds amazing! My daughter and I watch that ride frequently on YouTube.

 

[rdkeim]

Excited to read another one of your TR's! I love DL and would love to go back sooner rather than later. I need to start working on my DH! Adorable picture of your kids on their first DL visit.

 

[rdkeim]

Caught up! Your kids seem like such good travelers and good sports about the early mornings. Getting there at the crack of dawn and having the early entry passes sounds like it was well worth it! Wonder if your DD will still be "into" the Disney characters?

 

[khertz]

Wow, wow, wow! SNW looks amazing!!! Your pictures make me want to plan a trip there! I grew up playing Mario on the original Nintendo. So great that you got to experience it first thing in morning with lower crowds. I don't know much about Universal in LA so looking forward to reading more!

We love Disneyland, but we were REALLY excited to get to check out SNW!! Really looking forward to Epic Universe even more now to experience the other Super Nintendo rides!

Wowza!! I guess I had never thought about it or realized that this would be your view from Universal!! Incredible!

Super Nintendo World looked pretty amazing, and how incredible to get three rides in right away. Definitely worth the early entry fee from the sound of it.

We've been to Universal Orlando several times now, but have zero knowledge of their other parks. I'm excited to read about the Studio tour and the rest of your day in the park!

It is definitely strange to us to see mountain ranges from a theme park! Not something we have ever gotten in Florida, that's for sure!!

The early entry was so early but definitely worth it. We were able to get in, do the ride several times, and get out before the crowds grew. It stayed pretty busy in that land for the rest of the day!

As much as we love UOR, it was cool to get to experience a new Universal park!

I came over here for another report and I’m glad I found yours!

Your trip is off to a great start. Knott’s Berry Farm looks like lots of fun and early entry worked very well for you at Universal Hollywood. Three times on Bowser’s Challenge sounds amazing! My daughter and I watch that ride frequently on YouTube.

Welcome!!

Knott's was a lot of fun. I am so glad we decided to add a day there. It was great to have a day of roller coasters & thrill rides that were brand new to us.

Caught up! Your kids seem like such good travelers and good sports about the early mornings. Getting there at the crack of dawn and having the early entry passes sounds like it was well worth it! Wonder if your DD will still be "into" the Disney characters?

It has gotten so much easier as they have gotten older! We don't stress as much about the early mornings or the late nights like we used to! There is so much to enjoy about experiencing the parks at different stages of their lives. I'm sure when they are even older, the early mornings will go away in favor of sleeping in and late nights!

 

[khertz]

Sorry for the long delay, the last couple of weeks were a bit crazy. DS was in musical theater this semester at school, and for the first time in many years, they put on a musical for the school of Willy Wonka Jr.! He was cast as Mr. Bucket, and so we had many late nights of rehearsals and then last weekend was pretty much all devoted to the performance! He absolutely loved it, and can't wait to sign up for musical theater again next year.

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Day 3 Continued: Monday February 12th

Then we made it to the Studio Tour. They had a board showing what things were filming that day.

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So many great Universal movies!!

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One of the first areas we went through was where they had filmed some of the movie Ted.

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The Kong 360 part was cool, but not as cool as it probably was for everyone who saw it before the full ride was created in Orlando. But still fun the way they incorporated it into the studio tour.

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Our tram operator had promised us a famous person sighting, and here it was! He asked who had seen Jurassic World and knew who was the star of that movie. Were we prepared to see Chris Pratt…’s car?! DD really got a kick out of this joke Along with other famous cars from the movies.

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The “disaster” portion of the ride was pretty cool too. They showed us how they can create fake ran, then flood the street and quickly drain it. There were video screens that showed us this being used in a film also.

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We got to see some sets from one of our favorite shows, The Good Place!!

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The Jaws portion was super quick!

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There were lots of residential streets with houses from many different shows and movies.

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There were a lot of sets from a movie we have never seen, Nope.

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There were lots of scenes on the tram with one of DD’s Orlando favorites, Jimmy Fallon, so she had to make sure she got a picture with his farewell as we exited the tram tour.

IMG_4697 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

Part of the tram tour that we also got to experience but didn’t take photos of is Fast & Furious: Supercharged. For some reason I thought it would be a little different than the one in Orlando, but it really wasn’t except that it was shorter. Just as cheesy though!

 

[missjackiemcg]

I've always wanted to see Jaws pop out of the water in person LOL That would really make my whole trip!

I love that your son enjoyed Music Theater at school! I wish more schools offered the experience. My son would have LOVED something like that. And what a fun show to do, Willy Wonka, Jr! I'm sure he was a star!

 

[rdkeim]

What a fun tram tour! Always exciting to see scenes/sets from shows you've watched. It sounds like the musical was a great experience for your son! Our oldest son was pretty shy in HS but he joined the drama club and had a big part in one of their plays. It was so good for him since he wasn't a sports kid. I'm sure you were very proud of your DS!

 

[khertz]

I've always wanted to see Jaws pop out of the water in person LOL That would really make my whole trip!

I love that your son enjoyed Music Theater at school! I wish more schools offered the experience. My son would have LOVED something like that. And what a fun show to do, Willy Wonka, Jr! I'm sure he was a star!

It was not as fun as the old Jaws attraction at UOR but still pretty cool that they still have Jaws represented in Hollywood!

This was super new for his school, and I am SO glad they have introduced it! He can't wait to do it again next year!

What a fun tram tour! Always exciting to see scenes/sets from shows you've watched. It sounds like the musical was a great experience for your son! Our oldest son was pretty shy in HS but he joined the drama club and had a big part in one of their plays. It was so good for him since he wasn't a sports kid. I'm sure you were very proud of your DS!

DS is not really a sports kid either, and I was really surprised when he chose this elective and that he was so excited about performing! That's so great your son was able to do it in HS. Our DS will be going to HS in 2 years and where he will be going has a pretty big drama program there so it might end up being something he enjoys doing for the next several years!

 

[khertz]

Day 3 Continued: Monday February 12th

After the tram tour, it had been a long time since our small breakfast, so we were starting to get hungry. We wanted to head to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for lunch at Three Broomsticks, but DS said he wasn’t interested in eating anything there. We stopped in Springfield to get him a hot dog first.

IMG_4698 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

DD was ready to get her robes on and head into the Wizarding World!

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As we walked through Hogsmeade, DD really wanted to do some magic. DS had picked one of his interactive wands to bring with us and he was ok to let her use it primarily. The only problem was that we had to just wander around and look for the metal markers in the ground to see where she could do magic since we didn’t have a map of the magic spots. While I made a mobile order of our lunch at Three Broomsticks and waited for our return window to arrive, DD made her way around doing magic wherever she could. Some of the spots were a lot more tricky than the spells available in Orlando!

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We made it to Three Broomsticks once our food was ready. I got the shepherd’s pie, DH had the fish & chips, and DD got the macaroni & cheese, plus we got a frozen Butterbeer to share.

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After lunch, we decided to go over and visit Ollivander’s because it didn’t have a long wait.

IMG_4728 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

If you have followed any of my previous UOR TRs when DS was younger and DD was too little to join us, you might remember that DS has been chosen for the wand ceremony not once, not twice, but THREE times! Now that DD is older and more of a Harry Potter fan herself, she was really hoping to be chosen, but we told her that it was probably pretty unlikely. She mostly just wanted to be reassured that if she was chosen, we’d buy the wand for her. Not thinking much of it, we said sure. However…our kids are basically Ollivander magnets! The wandmaker walked right over to DD and asked if she was there to find her wand!!

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The wand that chose DD is made of ebony with a unicorn hair core, so of course DD was absolutely thrilled with it!

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We went to do another ride that DD was excited to finally be tall enough for, Forbidden Journey.

IMG_6939 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


IMG_6944 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

We used our EP on this one, so we got on very quickly. DD was a little nervous about the over-the-shoulder restraint but she really ended up enjoying it! She has always enjoyed Escape From Gringotts, but Forbidden Journey is such a quintessential Harry Potter experience that I was excited for her to finally get to go on this one, and it didn’t disappoint. She loved it!

Then we used our EP to ride Flight of the Hippogriff.

IMG_0828 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

Before we moved on, DD wanted to do more magic with her new wand, so now that we had a map, it was a lot easier to do so.

IMG_4758 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

DS really wanted to get a set of Slytherin robes, so we went into one of the stores to purchase. They had looked and thought the robes were about $50, but once we tried some on and realized he’d need an adult size, it turned out those were a lot more expensive and out of his souvenir price range. He was a little bummed about that. At least we had gotten a photo of him smiling big when he thought he was going to be able to bring this baby home.

IMG_4762 by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

 

[missjackiemcg]

Lots of magical fun in the wizarding World!! During covid, we took our son to Universal Orlando and got to do our own private wand ceremony, which was super cool! Of course he was picky and didn't like the wand that chose him, so he picked out something different!

Such a bummer about your son not being able to get the Slytherin robes. My son is about to turn 15 and that shift from fitting into kid stuff to suddenly needing adult size everything sure does come with a big sticker shock!!! (especially for his hockey and lacrosse equipment--yikes!)