Pinch me, did it REALLY happen????? - All wrapped up, and yes, it DID happen!

[franandaj]

Enjoy your day.

Thanks!

 

[franandaj]

The next morning we had a wake up call for 6:15AM. I woke up at midnight and had to take a bath to fall back asleep. I woke up again at 3:00AM and realized that this is usually the time that my body is ready to go to bed, so it was definitely confused! I did fall back asleep and the wake up call was a good idea.

It took us about an hour to actually get up and dressed and get to the Lounge. Just to see, I am standing in the door of our room and Fran is standing outside the lounge.

Here they had some cereal, eggs and yogurt. I didn’t notice it until I just uploaded the picture, but I think on Pam’s TR we were talking about how people were lazy and left their trash everywhere. Now it’s in my CL photo!

They had a couple kinds of juices available

And Milk

On the hot bar there wa Oatmeal and hot cinnamon rolls.

They had a selection of pastries.

An assortment of fruit

Breads and more pastries

This was Fran’s breakfast, a little later she also added half a bagel and cream cheese

This was my breakfast

After breakfast we went back to the room to head out to Islands of Adventure and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

 

[TruBlu]

I look like I have been awake for over 15 hours with less than five hours sleep!

You look fantastic! I wish I looked that good after all that travel and lack of sleep. I looked like a zombie at work yesterday!

 

[TruBlu]

After breakfast we went back to the room to head out to Islands of Adventure and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Our favorite non-Disney place!

 

[rentayenta]

Great updates! The breakfast offerings look great but milk always skeeves me out when served like that. I always wonder how it stays cold. I see the block of ice but still.

Hope you ended up getting some sleep.

Have a great day- can't wait to see the pics and read all about it!

Glad the roast thawed.

 

[lisaviolet]

I wonder how many roasts get x-rayed?

...I better get dressed to go get some. :

The next

After breakfast we went back to the room to head out to Islands of Adventure and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Have fun Alison. And thank you for all the wonderful updates.

 

[Leshaface]

Oh wow, you're literally right around the corner from the CL Super convenient.

Mmm, breakfast looks really good!

Eek, I can't wait to hear about your first day at WWoHP!!!!

 

[dolphingirl47]

The room looks really nice and it is great that it is so close to the lounge. I am really shocked that most of the eating places at the hotel were already closed at 8:00 PM that is about the earliest we go eat when we are on vacation. It's great that you got to visit some characters straightaway.

Corinna

 

[PrincessInOz]

Love the breakfast offering. Seems like CL might be worth the extra $.

 

[Pinkocto]

I saw the 3:17 time stamp, yikes! I hope you made it through the day.

Great updates!

I think I would have been more than stressed cutting it so close at the airport.

Dinner looks great. Fran is a lady after my own heart always ordering fish and chips I'm also surprised the other restaurants closed so early.

The CL offerings look quite tasty as well. I had to laugh about not going out in your robe. I almost did that so many times at AKL.

Gross that someone left a used cup near food.

 

[Hawleys]

The roast!!!

What a relief to see it safe and sound in Orlando.

I always love "riding along" on your trips. This is shaping up to be a great one.

 

[franandaj]

You look fantastic! I wish I looked that good after all that travel and lack of sleep. I looked like a zombie at work yesterday!

My hair was all over the place. I'm lucky that we don't have to go back to work unless there is a disaster. I'm hoping we are past those for this trip!

Our favorite non-Disney place!

It was great, and you'll see in the next couple updates!

Great updates! The breakfast offerings look great but milk always skeeves me out when served like that. I always wonder how it stays cold. I see the block of ice but still.

Hope you ended up getting some sleep.

Have a great day- can't wait to see the pics and read all about it!

Glad the roast thawed.

That particular milk dispenser had an ice tube in the middle to keep it cold. Don't you remember when we were kids and our parents packed our lunches with sandwiches with mayonnaise and they sat in a hot classroom or locker for about 4-5 hours before we ate them? I'm surpised there weren't more instances of food poisoning as kids!

Still not much sleep, hopefully tonight, cuz I'm exhausted!

The middle, not so much, but that's OK, we only need to eat the outsides tonight!. The rest are for Friday and Sunday.

Have fun Alison. And thank you for all the wonderful updates.

You're welcome and I took some pictures, just for you yesterday!

Oh wow, you're literally right around the corner from the CL Super convenient.

Mmm, breakfast looks really good!

Eek, I can't wait to hear about your first day at WWoHP!!!!

It was really close and very convenient!

That's coming up hopefully soon!

The room looks really nice and it is great that it is so close to the lounge. I am really shocked that most of the eating places at the hotel were already closed at 8:00 PM that is about the earliest we go eat when we are on vacation. It's great that you got to visit some characters straightaway.

Corinna

Actually there might have been one other restaurant that was open until 9 or 10PM. This was the place open until 1:30AM, but the sushi bar and the main bar with snacks had closed. Emeril's Tchoup Choup was probably open, but we had reservations there for the next night and it was a fancy place. We just wanted "grub".

Love the breakfast offering. Seems like CL might be worth the extra $.

If we didn't eat so much outside of the hotel.

I saw the 3:17 time stamp, yikes! I hope you made it through the day.

Great updates!

I think I would have been more than stressed cutting it so close at the airport.

Dinner looks great. Fran is a lady after my own heart always ordering fish and chips I'm also surprised the other restaurants closed so early.

The CL offerings look quite tasty as well. I had to laugh about not going out in your robe. I almost did that so many times at AKL.

Gross that someone left a used cup near food.

Yeah, I kept waking up in the middle of the night. I hope tonight that I'm sooooo exhausted that I DO sleep through the night! We both love fish and chips. We lived on that in New Zealand, it was the only thing that tasted the same as we expected every time.

The roast!!!

What a relief to see it safe and sound in Orlando.

I always love "riding along" on your trips. This is shaping up to be a great one.

It has definitely made it safe and sound and about to be eaten!

 

[franandaj]

As we waited for the elevator, I took this shot of the pool area. Sadly, I would not make it here this trip. That’s OK, with only two nights there just wasn’t time.

There is a path from the Royal Pacific over to the IOA/US/Citiwalk area so we headed on our way.

Here is the IOA tower from a distance.

As we approached the turnstiles I was dismayed to see a Brazilian Tour Group in front of us. It turns out that they weren’t staying at the hotel! We didn’t make it at park opening, but we were only 20 min late so we had a little time ahead of the crowds. The CM at the entrance told us that the best route would be to go left at the Green Ham.

We cut through Seuss land as it was on the way to our destination. When we visited in 2008 this was one of my favorite parts of the whole experience at US/IOA.

The next land we passed through was The Last Continent

This is Poseidon’s adventure and I hoped to come back to this later.

Next up, Hogsmeade!

 

[franandaj]

I got goosebumps as we approached Harry Potter Land.

I had to get my picture taken with the Hogwarts Express while the crowds were still low.

Right across the plaza was Zonko’s and Honeyduke’s

Fran didn’t understand why they went with a Wintertime themeing here, and there could be a number of reasons, but I still thought it was cool.

As musicians we always like to take pictures of things with musical instruments.

This broken arch was kind of cool

And our first full shot of the castle

The detail here is quite impressive

This sign at the entrance was really cool. The sparklies would write the name of the ride.

For whatever reason they would not let Fran take her ECV into the queue even though she was taking the "chicken" exit. Probably because the queue was pretty small and the larger ECVs could not make many of the turns. As a result, I pushed her in a wheelchair, that was not the best solution because we gave up on manual wheelchairs over a decade ago due to my inability to drive her without smashing her feet into whatever lay in front of us!

 

[franandaj]

It was about 8:30AM when we entered the queue and most of the park guests were still awaiting entry so we were able to take our time and get some pictures. The queue is one of the better parts of the ride. Once we entered the ride the queue was VERY dark, not only did we have a hard time taking pictures, but we could barely see where we were going!

There was a short part through the dark and then we went out into a courtyard area.

There was this funny sign. Notice the puking figure. I guess that is because there are so many non English speaking visitors to the parks!

Here there were ramps, I pushed Fran up the first one and stopped at the landing to let another party in a wheelchair go by. The nice man offered to push Fran while his daughter pushed the son in the chair. Thank goodness or I would have been pooped! There were still three more ramps to go up.

I believe that this area was supposed to replicate Professor Sprout’s classroom.

Back inside the building. I was letting other guests go past us so that we could have time to get some good photos.

Another interesting sign, sorry it’s so blurry.

We passed into another “chamber” and this room was filled with talking portraits. This was really cool, but difficult to photograph.

This small chamber emptied out into this large portrait room which was really cool. All the portraits were talking to each other. One portrait was complaining about “all the muggles around here, must be Dumbledore’s doing” and other such mumbles.

The next place we went into was Dumbldore’s office. This was really cool but very dark. None of my pictures came out well. You can see along the left side of the wall cabinets with all of the Headmaster’s gadgets. I supposed if I had the time to ponder it I could have identified many of them.

To the right, Dumbledore was speaking many of his classic lines from the movies. I was able to take this blurry picture of the pensive before I realized that the floodgates had opened and the non-hotel guests had entered the park. I couldn’t just let everyone go past me or I’d never get on the ride.

In this next room, Harry, Ron and Hermione were talking to us, giving us important information (that I missed, trying not to take Fran’s feet off with the wheelchair!). I know the picture is blurry, but I think you can make our their images.

From here on out, I had to concentrate. The portraits were telling us to secure valuables, glasses, earrings, purses, etc. I quickly gave Fran my camera, glasses and purse, prayed that my earrings would be OK and wheeled her into the “chicken” waiting area. I got back in the queue and was placed in line for a ride vehicle.

Holy Hippogriff, Harry!

What a ride! Now I love RnRC, ToT, Star Tours, CA Screamin, Space Mountain, RSR all the Disney thrill rides. As cool as that ride was, I will NOT be riding it again! Pam, if this is what Star Tours does to you, I am so sorry! I will tell you in advance that it took a while for me to start to feel normal again.

It was like a combination of Soarin, the loop in Screamin and the launch of RnRC. But instead of riding on a country drive (like Radiator Springs Racers starts) as in Soarin (nice and easy), these ride vehicles are like little drag race cars that can turn on a dime, you’re flying forward and the next second you’re on your back flying backwards. The reality is GREAT! You narrowly avoid the wamping willow, the spiders try to eat you and the Dementors want to suck the life out of you. I don’t think I would be spoiling anything to tell you that Harry saves the day and you are given a hero’s welcome in the Great Hall.

If you DO NOT suffer from motion sickness at all, I would recommend trying it, but they are not kidding with all the warnings! For me that was a once in a lifetime experience. Of course they have learned from Disney and empty you out into a gift shop. I didn’t find anything (there), but Fran bought a T-shirt.

 

[catherines_mama]

Amazing description and I definety know... I'm not riding it but I will enjoy the queue.

I love RNR and other true roller coasters but I cannot do simulation. I can't do Star Tours etc. just tosses my tummy too much. I don't think I'd realize you could enjoy the queue so much, thank you!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I don't get motion sickness on any ride except for Mission Space.....and when I see a boat.


So, I just LOVE this ride. Love your description of the queueing area and the ride.

 

[Leshaface]

Oh
My
Gosh.

That queue is sick! I had no idea how much detail there was to it. That is amazing. The ride sounds ridiculously intense but something right up our alley!

 

[TruBlu]

I did the queue with the family and took the chicken exit, and then we all went back and took the Castle Tour Line. It was really cool to see everything twice and not feel rushed at all.

I LOVE that park! They did a fantastic job with it!!!
Did you make it to Olivander's? My boys were both picked for the show (he split it up between them). One of the coolest things EVER!!!

Then we had lunch at the Three Broomsticks and saw the House Elf's shadow in the rafters.

I can't wait to go back! I have terrible motions sickness, so I will never get to ride - but the castle alone is worth the trip!!!
And the Butterbeer.

 

[usnuzuloose]

I would love to have seen what you rode. That is the only way to know if I would ride something. I hate places that take a long time to get to the ride. By the way did the roast get some radiation? Looks like your having a blast.