Rain!

[battymum]

2 days to go, and it is pouring rain. We are staying at hard rock hotel at the moment we went to universal yesterday with the intention of going to ioa today, but noone is keen to go in the rain. What can we do.?
We still have tomorrow and we will be going to ioa rain, hail or shine as we have to see Harry!
I am using free wifi in the lobby and the rest of the family is lazing about in the room. We are all needing a bit of space at the moment, to be honest we are ready to go home and this weather is not helping.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Bummer about the rain. It can get a little trying and tiring after being together 24/7 for a few weeks . Enjoy Harry Potter. I think rain will make it feel even more real for you, it's awesome and hopefully it will keep crowds away for you.

 

[PrincessInOz]

There are a few water rides at IoA and you will get wet if you are going to get on those rides. If you're just going to see Harry and not wanting to get on the water rides, then chil-lax and take it easy.

Hope the weather gets better for you.

 

[battymum]

Well we braved the weather and headed to ioa around noon, the rain has been unbelievble, it hasnt let up all day and the forcast for the next few days is more of the same.

We went to IOA and headed straight to WWOHP, we ducked into the poseodon ride, just to get out of the rain a bit, thought that was a bit lame, although obviously they have spent a lot of money on it. Dh and ds went on dragons challenge and thought that was cool. Dd and I checked out the hogsmeade shops, they are really well done, but because of the weather, everyone is trying to shelter inside so it was chaotic.
Now i am a ride wimp but ds convinced me to ride flight of the hippogriff, i watched it for a bit and realised that it was a pretty tame coaster, so braved it. It was pretty fun, it really is a kiddy coaster, so just my type.
Then we headed to the castle, we all walked through, although it was raining there were plenty of people about, but i guess less than normal. Ds13 has had bad experiences on motion simulator rides so he chickened out while the rest of us rode. (mission space orange left him green for hours). Now dd and i are ride wimps but we were brave and thought it was AWESOME!!!!!!! Even though we had a mechanical failure just as the womping willow was about to thump us and left us laying on our back for a few minutes, we were still happy to go straight back on. Funnily dh, who usually pushes us to go on all the rides came off feeling queasy.
After that we walked a bit more, had some butterbeer, which we could not finish between us, it was nice and maybe if we were hot, but we were soaked to the skin and just wanted to go. So we strted heading out nd went via urassic park, and what the hey, we are alredy soaked, lets go on the flume ride!!
We walked back to hard rock and fought for the shower, now we are dry and have five sets of soaking clothes and shoes hanging in our bthroom.
We will eat in tonight, lets see what the weather brings tomorrow, dh doesnt want to go out in the rain again, (more wet clothes) we might try and head to the mall, (like noone else has thought of doing that)

 

[areweindisneyyet]

Glad you had fun at Harry Potter. Sorry to hear the rain is putting a dampener on the end of a magical trip. We were a bit like that for our last couple of days in London artier in the year. The feeling that the end is nigh and your head starts to turn to home.

On a brighter note, a day at the mall cannot be wrong, there is always a new bargain to be found. Hope the clothes dry out for the flight home.

Safe travels

 

[Travel Mum]

Hi Battymum!!

We are very near you as we checked out of POR this morning and checked into Staybridge Suites International Drive! The rain is unbelievable as I don't think I have ever experienced such non-stop torrential rain. It started yesterday on and off and, after we had gone into MK for MNSSHP and gone on Space Mountain, we came out of the ride to find it was pouring down. We ended up having to buy the very expensive Disney ponchos (but at least they are good quality ones and re-usable) and proceeded to go trick or treating in the rain for a while which was funny. However, luckily, it was not raining by the time the fireworks and parade were on so we got to watch them. The headless horseman did not ride though as I guess it was too slippery. However today is a differerent story and we have all gotten soaked just getting in and out of the car! Tomorrow is a shopping day so will be okay if it's still raining as it's expected to do but Monday is Sea World, Wednesday is Universal and Thursday IOA, so I really hope the rain has stopped by then

Hope the rest of your trip goes well!

Travelmum

 

[kylieh]

What a shame about the rain. We had it bad for a few hours only, no where near what it sounds like for you all.

 

[aussietravellers]

So sorry it has been raining. Sounds like you had a fun time though at IOA, despite being saturated.

The mall sounds like a good idea, that's where I'd be heading. Mall at Millenia and I became very good friends on our trip last year

Hope the weather improves for you

 

[WAMUMOF4]

Hope the weather is much nicer for you today enjoy your last few days

 

[Mum from oz]

Good to hear from you Battymum! Sorry about the rain. I also though the Poseidon thing was lame. LOL. Hopefully shopping tomorrow will make up for the weather!

 

[battymum]

Well, if anything it is raining more than yesterday, but i cant complain, we are day 23 and 24, it has to rain sometime right?
Its a shame, but of the places we have stayed, HRH is a pretty nice place to be in the rain. We can eat in, the kids would still like to swim but the pool is closed (roller coasters open, go figure!!) apparently they wont let people swim because they cant see the bottom of the pool, even though it is only 3 foot deep
I am considering trying to get an earlier flight tomorrow as i am concerned about delays and making our connnecting flight in dfw. We have about 3 hours but it may not be enough.
We spent all of friday at universal and saw the best part of ioa, so i guess it hasnt ruined too much of our trip.

 

[kylieh]

Hey Battymum - on the connection home make sure the person in Orlando books you all the way through to Sydney. They can do it, just depends on the AA agent.

Our experience - checked through. Flight was delayed for 3 hours from Orlando as the plane was broken and they needed to fix. There was a Qantas/AA rep waiting for us in Dallas and we were ushered to the Qantas flight. The plane was delayed for us (and 20+ others connecting as well.)

Another family's experience - booked the same was, QF code share etc from Orlando. At Orlando the agent said they could only give them boarding passes to Dallas. At Dallas Qantas said they were late boarding and couldn't get on the plane. Could of been us, just luck of the draw on the agent and how delayed the first flight was. Don't know what ended up happening to the family as we were now on the plane. Long story short - DH is a part of the Qantas advisory panel and he had a call from some important product manager in Qantas about what happened with the other family the following day

Our bags didn't make the flight of course and Qantas had them couriered to our home the next day.

If the AA flight is on time or even an hour or so late you should be fine.

 

[Busy Busy]

We flew back to Orlando on Saturday 8th (yesterday) from the Bahamas and we had a pretty bumpy flight as we got closer to Florida.

The rain when we arrived was MENTAL!! We couldn't believe it. I had been worried that we wouldn't want to get on our flight to Atlanta and then Vegas because we had loved Orlando so much - but the rain made it easy to leave (and we weren't even out in it!!).

The roof was leaking all over the place at Orlando airport and there were buckets everywhere. Also, the monorail ride from terminal to terminal was through torrential rain.

Good luck to those of you that are still there - humidity first and now the rain - enough!!!!

Wow - there go the Bellagio fountains again!!