Pixie Dust and The Dark Side.**8 parks in 9 days... Can it be done?!?**

[laekia]

I am sorry that your family did not like Epcot as much as you thought you would. Epcot is certainly different, in fact all the parks are very different from each other. You did get some great pictures....I love the family group shot the best in front of China.

I still think it's hugely because it was our 4th park in a row and I way way underestimated the effect that the princess half marathon would have on the park.... We were just not in the right frame of mind to tackle it.

We did however get the most pictures and the most character meet and greets so that part was great

Epcot is actually the park I want to return to the most... I want the chance at a bit of a do-over!

 

[laekia]

Sorry for the delay in an update.... As i figured life has gotten in the way We have some super big news coming up but i will save it for the end of the trip report! Lets just say my husband is giving me THE BEST christmas present ever! Now on with Islands of Adventure!

So we made it to Saturday. 4 parks down and 4 to go! Saturday was our day off from the parks, so we hung around the house, did some shopping, the boys went golfing in the morning and then the kids and DH went swimming…. It was somewhere around 55-60 degrees outside im guessing… it was a little chilly in the pool I wasn’t about to be jumping in there! It was a good relaxing day but we were ready to get back to the parks!


Sunday was the day the kids had been looking forward to the most I think… All of us are HUGE Harry Potter fans… that was actually our biggest reason for going to Universal, I doubt we would have if they hadn’t had the harry potter world. So this time we actually made it to Universal nice and early. The crowds weren’t nearly as bad as they had been the previous week when we went to Universal Studios so I was already feeling a little more optimistic. It’s a little sad watching all the resort people getting to enter the park early, but even with all the people going in early it wasn’t very busy. We had gotten to the park at about 830 for the 9am open, and they did open pretty much right at 9.

We beelined for the Harry Potter ride and when we got there the line was only about 10 minutes (Yay!) so we hopped right on that first.

We spent A LOT of time exploring this area… DH and DD2 went on the dueling dragons roller coaster.. they said it was ok. DD1 and I went to Honeydukes and Zonkos which is a candy shop and joke shop respectively.

We got a kick out of the candy shop and spent too much time and money in there They roped us into the chocolate frogs which I have to admit were really cool.

We also went on the smaller roller coaster that I cant remember the name of… it was a little freaky actually I kept thinking DD1 was going to fall out… really bad restraints on this ride. We went back towards the shops and saw that the line for Ollivanders was really short so we quickly jumped in.

Ollivanders is a wand shop and they do a little thing showing how a wand chooses a wizard and they pick a child from the “audience” to be the witch or wizard. There’s about 30 people in the room for each “show” and I knew that they liked to take kids between about 6-10… DD2 is 8 We got really lucky and she was chosen! She was absolutely beside herself it was the cutest thing. She got to wave the wands and say the spells  I didn’t get any pictures because it was no flash and I was too caught up in the moment and forgot I could have video taped it with no lights coming on <.< Anyways she ended up buying the wand that chose her and she was beyond excited about it. Really Great memory.


So after that we finally decided it was warm enough for some butterbeer. We decided to get one of each the frozen and the regular and see if we a) liked it at all and b) which one we liked best. Myself, DH and DD1 preferred the regular one and DD2 loved the frozen one. It was a bit hit all around for sure! We watched the Singing Frogs group while we drank our butterbeer which was also pretty fun… the girls were really excited to see the “singers from the movie”…. Sure we let them think that lol

 

[laekia]

We decided that was enough Harry Potter for the moment and we wanted to see the rest of the park so we headed out to the lost continent. We went to Poseidons fury first since the line wasn’t too long and Sinbad didnt start until 1230 (it was about 11 at the time). Poseidon’s Fury was a fun show/ride where you are guided through different rooms and experience special effects and a fun story line. It was fun to do once that’s for sure.

We still had time afterwards before the Sinbad show and the girls were a bit hungry so we decided to see if we could get into Mythos for lunch. We waited less than 10 minutes which was great  I cant remember the names of what we ate but DH and DD1 had some sort of burger with pulled pork on it which was delicious (I tried a couple bites  ) I think I had the steak and portobello panini which was ok but nothing to write home about… I liked the burger the others had better! DD2 had what she almost always eats… cheese pizza I have one very adventurous eating kid and one kinda boring eating kid lol at least DD2 will try new things even if she always goes back to the usual stuff. Anyways Mythos was worth it just for the décor if nothing else! The restaurant was amazing to see and based on the other food I would definitely recommend it.

She was super happy about her chocolate frog!


We finished lunch at about 1215 and booked it over to the Sinbad show. The girls were pretty excited about this show and wanted to sit in the splash zone. DH and I weren’t into the getting wet idea so we found a nice spot not in the splash zone

The show was good but I wasn’t blown away.

The girls liked it, especially the splashing part. It was actually pretty funny they had gotten splashed a bit near the start of the show and were disappointed they weren’t wetter. As the show was ending they got totally dumped on! It was hilarious cause neither of them were expecting it at all! So with happy wet kids and happy dry parents we headed to Suess Landing.


I was definitely excited for Suess landing and so was DD2…. DD1 was being a typical im too cool for this preteen and DH doesn’t like Dr Suess at all so I already knew he wasn’t going to be thrilled with this area.

We went on the High in the Sky Suess Trolley first because I really wanted to. Unfortunately the wait was a bit horrible…. I think we waited about 30 minutes for this one. I thought it was really cute and it was fun to read a bit of a Dr Suess book while we waited. DD2 and I had fun riding around Suess landing and checking out the sights…

the other 2 of course weren’t impressed and thought it was a bit of a waste of time although to their credit they thought I couldn’t hear them talking about it The girls went on the caro-Suess-el afterwards and then we met up with the rest of our group at the Cat in the hat ride. I decided to spring DH and DD1 mostly because they were getting grouchy and I could sense they would start irritating me soon lol so DD2 and I went on Cat in the Hat and had a blast and I sent the other 2 off to ride the Hulk since DD2 and I had no intent on riding that anyways.

The picture of the hulk was from up on the Suess trolley ride

Cat in the hat was really cute, it was a spinny ride (but not too spinny) that went through the story of the Cat in the Hat. We both really liked it actually. We went and met up with the other 2 near the Hulk and I sent them to go ride the crazy Doom drop since the line was short for that too. We went on the Storm Force Accelatron which is a ride like the teacups that you spin yourself. Then the other group went for ice cream and we stole my dad to go on the Spiderman ride. I loved this ride which wasn’t terribly surprising since I loved the transformers ride… it’s pretty much the same ride… it’s a 3d video ride where you sit in a large car and get taken through a Spiderman story line. I don’t make it sound as good as it is lol but trust me it’s fantastic, especially if you like Spiderman.

My favorite X-Men character outside of Spiderman


We met back up with the rest of the group and headed for Bilge Rat Barges. Again we stole my dad away and took him on this ride.

We had been on Kali River Rapids and we had gotten fairly wet and this ride was supposed to be pretty much the same so we figured we knew what we were getting into. Omg we so didn’t LOL. I don’t think any of us had ever been that wet in our lives! My dad said he would have been less wet if he had just jumped in the river instead! LOL It was really fun though. My kids wanted to go again but the rest of us figured we were wet enough for the moment We sat in the sun to hopefully dry off a bit while we waited for the girls and we hear the announcement that the ride has been shut down…. Hmm. We figure the girls might come back… nope. Hmmm….. we wait some more and watch the empty rafts go down the river….. hmm. My mom goes back to look for them but cant find them so they must still be somewhere back in like where she cant see…. HMM……. Im a little worried but not insanely so yet. 40 minutes later I finally see them floating down the river /end heart attack. The ride was shut down for about 20 minutes and they were about 20 minutes back in line so that was why mom couldn’t find them. I was super proud of myself for not tracking them down and letting them handle things on their own! Even if the handling meant waiting and trusting that my 12 and 8 year old were fine even if I couldn’t see them… I have a hard time with that, I micromanage a lot But anyways all was well and the kids were thrilled at the second ride and just as drippy as before! We kept heading around the park and saw Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls.

None of us really wanted to get wet again except for DD1 who was dying to try this ride. Luckily her grandfather took pity on her and took her on the ride.

They had a blast and were once again wet… theres an awful lot of water rides at islands of adventure….. We headed to Jurassic park but unfortunately it was closed  I wasn’t looking forward to the drop on the ride but I LOVE the movie and I was really disappointed that I wasn’t going to get to experience it cause I heard it was a great ride…. Although more water lol.

We passed Jurassic park since everything was closed and headed back to Harry Potter and Hogsmeade since the rest of our group hadn’t been there yet.

The girls took grandpa on the Harry Potter ride and I took the rest to the Three Broomsticks for a snack and some Butterbeer. I would have loved to have a full meal here! I was really cool.

We actually shared the pasties and some French fries and each had some butterbeer.

It was a nice break It was late afternoon by this point and we decided since we had so much food still left at the house we were just going to have some sandwiches/leftovers when we got home.

We looked around at the shops in Hogsmede again and then we decided to try and get on Spiderman again before the park closed. Closing was at 7 and it was about 6 at this point. We got to Spiderman and found the ride was closed and not working  We waited for about 30 minutes but it looked like we were out of luck so we decided to head out and head home for the evening. Islands of Adventure was definitely good but not as good as I was expecting. We had planned to go back on our last day but we changed our minds and decided we likes Universal Studios better than Islands of Adventure.

 

[heaven2dc]

Having so much fun reading all about your first trip to WDW! I loved the pic of your daughters with Mickey - esp the one where DD1 was looking over at DD2 when Mickey was messing with DD2's hat. That pic reminds me of my kids when they were that age - sometimes fought almost every day but when special moments like this happened, their love for each other come out at the most surprising moments.

I can't wait to go to Universal Studios on our big family trip next year - I think we'll probably just hit Islands of Adventures. It looks like so much fun!

 

[laekia]

Having so much fun reading all about your first trip to WDW! I loved the pic of your daughters with Mickey - esp the one where DD1 was looking over at DD2 when Mickey was messing with DD2's hat. That pic reminds me of my kids when they were that age - sometimes fought almost every day but when special moments like this happened, their love for each other come out at the most surprising moments.

I can't wait to go to Universal Studios on our big family trip next year - I think we'll probably just hit Islands of Adventures. It looks like so much fun!

Welcome and thanks! Watching the kids, especially interacting with the characters, was one of my favourite parts of the trip. My favourites were actually Gaston and a late night princess visit both at Magic Kingdom.... That's actually our next stop on the trip report

Island of adventures was a lot of fun and I definitely recommend it if you are a Harry Potter fan... Hogsmede was for sure the best part! We actually prefer Universal Studios but both parks are really good in their own way... Depends on what you are looking for I think. I have a hard time choosing! It's going to be even harder when Universal opens up Diagon Alley!

 

[MidnightParade]

Wow! I can't believe you drove from Winnipeg! That must have taken some stamina. lol Hopefully it was either a fun or uneventful drive!



Enjoying the trip so far, look forward to reading more!

 

[laekia]

Wow! I can't believe you drove from Winnipeg! That must have taken some stamina. lol Hopefully it was either a fun or uneventful drive! Enjoying the trip so far, look forward to reading more!

It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be! My kids are great travellers and my husband used to drive truck for a living so I'm the only one who has a hard time we also have 2 DVD players in our van so that certainly makes a difference LOL

 

[laekia]

Happy free dining day!!!