Spending a day with Harry! An IoA TR!!

[jayyyloooo]

Spending a Day with Harry - A Day Trip to Universal!

My first Trip Report! Well, actually it's more of a mini-Report considering it was only a day trip. I'm using this as practice for my first real TR in November!! I figured this could be useful for people who are going to just spend a day at IoA for WWoHP. Or maybe no one will read it... that would be awful... anyyyway.....

So why did we only spend a day at Universal? My family and my friend's family both happened to be in Tampa this week and we decided to go into Orlando together for a day (It's only about an hour drive to Disney and an hour and twenty minutes to Universal). Of course I wanted to spend that day in Disney, but my best friend is totally obsessed with Harry Potter and still hasn't been to WWoHP, so she convinced me to settle for that.

When? Thursday August 4, 2011... Yup yesterday, I'm still on vacation in Tampa right now, but I was about to head down to the pool when it started pouring, so I thought I'd start this! We could have gone on Thursday or Friday, but we went with Thursday because we figured the crowds would be less (and boy were we right! But we’ll get to that later).

Who? Ok, this is going to be the long part, seeing as there were eight of us... So, starting off
Me – Hi, I’m Jamee! I love Disney (as all of us on here do!), so it really pained me to pass all of the Disney signs on I-4 and know that we weren’t going! I find it so hard to be in FL and not go to the Happiest Place on Earth! And not just this time… but the last TWO times I was there we haven’t gone! Ok, enough ranting about missing Disney This TR is about Harry! I am obsessed with Harry Potter!!! I’ve gone to the midnight releases of the books and movies and I sobbed at the end of the last movie because I knew HP was officially over! But this trip to WWoHP reminded me that Harry will always be there! (and I know that probably sounds sappy to non-HP fans but any true Harry fan will know what I mean). I don’t like Roller Coasters really so IoA is not my favorite park, but I go for HP! We went for a day last summer to see WWoHP, so this isn’t my first time.


Gab, my sister – she recently moved to FL and we were in Tampa visiting her. She loves Disney much more than Universal, but she still likes it. She grew up reading HP so it’s very special to her. Her only problem with theme parks is that many of the attractions make her sick, but she really tries to ride everything at least once.

Mom – My mother is one of my favorite people in the world! She loves Disney as much as the next person, but she’s not overly obsessed like me. But she always listens and entertains my plans for future trips! Even though she’s never read or watched HP, she fell absolutely in lovewith WWoHP… It just fascinates her so much! Her other favorite ride in IoA is Spiderman… She could go on that ride time after time!

Nina – My best friend: Nina and I have been best friends since before we were born! Our parents were always close friends and then we were born within three months of each other. Like I said before, she is a total Potter Fanatic and could not wait to see WWoHP. I absolutely loved that I got to be with her when she saw it for the first time! I told her about the DIS and that I’d send the link to my TR to her, so she might pop up if I convince her to get on here!

Amy- Nina’s sister: Amy is two years younger than Nina and I so she’s always kind of tagged along with us. But she was always like a little sister to me.

Nina is on the right and Amy is on the left

Ok, then we also had Nina’s little brother, and her Mom and Dad… I’ll just refer to them as NB (Nina’s Brother), NM (Nina’s Mom), and ND (Nina’s Dad). I don’t really have much specific to say about them, since I was mostly with Nina and Amy throughout the day. I also don’t have any pictures of them so we’ll just learn about them as we go

Ok… Finally! We can start the trip!!!
Obviously, since this was only one day, I’ll be explaining the day in a lot of detail so as to make this a decent size TR.

By the way, I know my pictures are really big, but I can't figure out how to make them smaller. If anyone could tell me how I would really appreciate it!

 

[RAPstar]

Welcome! Photobucket gives you the option to resize photos on their site.

 

[eargal]

Excited to hear more!

 

[Marquibiri]

Great mini TR!

Can´t wait to read the rest...

Marquibiri

 

[Brownie54]

I like the big pictures.

 

[jayyyloooo]

Part One: Arrival and Marvel Island

Ok, finally going to start this! So as I mentioned already, we were driving to Orlando from Tampa for our day at Islands of Adventure. My family is notorious for not leaving on time but surprisingly my mom, my sister, and I left my sister’s apartment at 8:10, just ten minutes after we planned to leave. The plan was to get to IoA at 9:30 and then meet up with Nina’s family. We did not hit any traffic on our way to Orlando and reached the valet at 9:25.

Side note: Valet parking is $8 more than regular parking and we all agree that it is one of the best $8 we ever spent. It puts you much closer to the parks and we just find the ease of it so nice.

Back to the report: We stupidly did not go to AAA and pre purchase our park tickets, so we had to wait in line for our tickets. HINT: Always look at all of the lines to buy your tickets. At first glance it looks like all the lines are the same, but we ended up finding one squeezed between two long and busy lines that only had ten people in it. We were through the line in less than ten minutes instead of the thirty we were expected in the other lines!

So at this point I am texting Nina to find out where she is and she says they just got off of The Hulk and they are heading to Dr. Doom’s Fearfall, so I tell her we will meet her in front of Spiderman. Me and my mom head over to Spiderman and Gab decides to take a quick spin on The Hulk. Single Riders line of course! Wait until you see how the single riders lines will be our best friends today! As my mom and I are standing by Spiderman we spot NM and ND who decided not to go on Dr. Doom. Shortly after we are joined by Nina, Amy, Nick, and Gab. I forgot to ask them how Dr. Doom was, but everyone agreed that The Hulk is an amazing coaster. However, Gab did feel a little sick afterward, but she gets motion sickness very easily.

(Took that first picture off of the internet so show the whole coaster, as for the second one, I forget exactly where I took it but I think that is such a cool view!)

So a lot of people would probably ask… Why aren’t you making the mad early morning dash to Harry Potter!?!? When we went to IoA last year we did just that, and waiting in line for two hours just to get into the park and then we went back later and walked right in! I know that was a year ago and WWoHP had just opened, but we still figured we’d let the early morning mad dashers go in first and we’ll do the rest of the park first. So instead all eight of us decided to head onto Spiderman. This is where we introduced Nina’s family to the Single Riders line. After a little bit of convincing them we hop in the line, walk down a little back hallway and BAM there we are, waiting for single riders to be called!

I absolutely love this ride! I read an article a little while ago about how it’s outdated and needs an upgrade, but I don’t see it! I love the Spiderman movies so maybe that’s why I like it so much, but my mom has never seen one of the movies and it’s also one of her favorite rides. If they do upgrade it… I’d love to see how they could possibly make it any better! Maybe update the footage, or make it more high def… I don’t know, it will be interesting to see. The rest of Marvel Island is more food and shops and since it was only 10 in the morning we didn’t stop. But even so, I love walking through this area. I love the superhero themeing and this part of the land really goes all out with it. I wish we had more time to look around but I was already in Commando Park Tour-er mode

Up Next: Get Soaked in Toon Lagoon!


(Sorry! Now that I previewed this post I realize that it's pretty short! I'm still trying to get a hold of how long to make this updates)

 

[wdwfanatic316]

Great start! Can't wait to read more!

 

[carousel301]

Great report so far! I can't wait to read more!

 

[DiNap44]

Great Report.

I have to agree w/you on the Spiderman ride. The family and I were there last August and it was our 2nd favorite ride for the whole trip (including WDW). I'll let you guess which one was our #1 ride.

 

[Leucky]

Great report so far, cant wait to hear more. Last went to IOA in 2005

 

[christophfam]

Loving it!

 

[natebenma]

Another Disney-loving, Harry Potter Obsessed fan joining in!

Great start, interesting background and OMG, fantastic picture of the Hulk coaster cars!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jayyyloooo]

Another Disney-loving, Harry Potter Obsessed fan joining in!

Great start, interesting background and OMG, fantastic picture of the Hulk coaster cars!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks! I've been reading your TR as well!!

And I really wish I could remember where I took that picture!

I'll try to have another update either later tonight or tomorrow! Thanks for reading guys!

 

[ICan'tWait]

I'm in. Dying to hear how an afternoon as opposed to morning dash to HP goes.

 

[Fantasmic23]

I'm loving it!

 

[jayyyloooo]

Hey guys! Haven’t updated in awhile and I’m sorry! I’m also sorry that I don’t have too many pictures until we get to WWoHP, but I’ll try my best to still make this interesting! (I promise there will be a lot of pictures in the next update.)

Chapter 2: Getting Soaked and Almost There! (To Harry Potter of course)
So we had just finished walking through Marvel Island and now w had to go through the little carnival games area to get to Toon Lagoon. Now, remember, I had just been raving about how much I love the themeing of Marvel Island… I really hate this area. I hate stepping out of Marvel Island and into this… bleh! For a park that has six perfectly themed lands, this seems like just a cheap fill in for a small area of the park. The games that are there don’t make me feel like I’m in Orlando, capital city of THEME parks, but they make me like I’m at my school carnival or the amusement park in my area (and every good DISer knows the difference between theme parks and amusement parks). I know that some people may like this area and try to win a giant stuffed bear but I just feel like it’s a cheap trick.

Rant Over!

Now, finally we made it to Toon Lagoon. We didn’t really want to ride the water rides this early in the day (it was only about 10 in the morning at this point), but at the same time we wanted to let the mad dashers get through WWoHP first… However, we weren’t seeing any lines of people waiting just to get into Harry Potter land, so we thought maybe we were safe. (Remember: last summer we waited in a line that started back by the aforementioned carnival games just to get into the land. Needless to say, we were a little wary on this trip.) But just after deciding to head through this area and onto HP, we say that the wait time for the raft ride (I forget the name, it’s something with Barges. It’s a circular raft like KRR in AK) was only five minutes, which as any theme park go-er knows, is a walk one, they just don’t have any signs lower than that! So being as this is one of my favorite rides, I got some of us (not everyone was willing to get soaked this early! Specifically, none of the parents!) to go on. We got soaked! We knew we would though so it was all good, and it was a lot of fun. So as we were already all wet we decided to head to Dudley Do-Rights Ripsaw Falls.

Side note: I wore stretch denim shorts today. (I call them my sheggings, you know, short jean leggings, short jeggings = sheggings! Anyway…) Note to self: never wear these again when going on water rides! They took FOREVER to dry. However, unlike regular denim shorts, they didn’t get uncomfortable unless I was sitting for an extended period of time. Out of all of us, Amy was wearing cargo shorts and they dried in less than an hour. So in case you’re wondering, when water rides are coming, cargo shorts are the way to go!

As for Dudley Do-Rights Ripsaw Falls, I decided to opt out. (I’m not a huge fan of log flumes, unless at WDW of course! Then it’s a mad dash to Splash Mountain!) Everyone else seemed to like this ride though, so I was the only one waiting out. I just walked around in the sun and tried to dry off while I was waiting for them. It was a 35 minute wait so I was just about to get a snack when Nina came up to me. She said they did Single Riders and it was a walk on! Some fun stories they told me about the ride:
1. The other two people in Amy’s car were very quiet, they didn’t say anything, and they didn’t even scream at the big drop! But hey, it was single riders, and you take what you get for a five minute wait.
2. The two boys in the front of Nina’s car had family members manning the water cannons up above. So not once, but twice, they tried to hit the boys but went to late and hit Nina instead! Hahaha!!
3. We told NM that you didn’t get very wet and of course, she came out sopping wet. So umm, yea YOU WILL GET WET! Fortunately, she wasn’t mad, so all was good!

(I tried to get one of the logs coming down, but no such luck!)

So after our nice little water ride debacle we decided to head to Jurassic Park to finish up the water rides while we were already wet. I love the music in the Jurassic Park area! I know there is different music in the lands of every them park, but for some reason, I only ever remember this one (I’ll have to pay attention to that on my next trip!). I love walking under the stone arch and hearing the music prehistoric sounding music! Anyway, when we saw that the River Adventure was a 50 minute wait and we could see the signs for WWoHP straight ahead with NO LINE to get in, we quickly forget about that ride, with the intention that we’ll come back later (we never did though, no one wanted to get wet again after finally getting dry).

So we took a little bathroom break and then we were off! During this break I saw this through the trees! And I got even MORE excited!!!

And in no time we were crossing over the bridge and seeing this

And this

And walking under this

We had arrived!!!

(Still haven't gotten the hang of resizing pictures. I can resize them on photobucket, but when I previewed this thread, they were still huge! Sorry!!)

Up Next: We’re off to see the wizard!!! No not Oz!! HARRY POTTER!!! YAY!!!!

 

[Copper Queen]

I love your pic of the castle! It looks so impressive!
I can't wait to see it with my own eyes next week.

 

[Marquibiri]

Great TR!

I usually leave all wet rides for noon.

Finally into WWoHP

Marquibiri

 

[natebenma]

Enjoyed your update. You said your first update was written when you were still in Tampa. Are you back home now?

I love the water rides, too- so much fun- but so much prep goes into riding them. What to wear, how to protect stuff from getting wet. IoA does a good job with their 3 water rides very close to one another (Bilge Rat Barges, Ripsaw Falls and Jurassic Park).

Great pictures as you are approaching WWoHP!!!

 

[jayyyloooo]

I love your pic of the castle! It looks so impressive!
I can't wait to see it with my own eyes next week.

Thanks! And you will love it! I can't wait to go back!

Great TR!

I usually leave all wet rides for noon.

Finally into WWoHP

Marquibiri

Thanks! And that is definitely the way to go!

Enjoyed your update. You said your first update was written when you were still in Tampa. Are you back home now?

I love the water rides, too- so much fun- but so much prep goes into riding them. What to wear, how to protect stuff from getting wet. IoA does a good job with their 3 water rides very close to one another (Bilge Rat Barges, Ripsaw Falls and Jurassic Park).

Great pictures as you are approaching WWoHP!!!

Yea Sadly we flew home a couple of days ago. It was so nice there! I really wish I was still there!!

Yea, you can get them all out of the way at once. My main reason for wanting to stay onsite at Universal is so I can do these rides and just leave most of my stuff in the room and then get to change after... sigh... one day

Thanks!