Day Four - Wednesday, September 2nd -- Islands of Adventure
6:30 am - Ewww....the phone is ringing....It's Optimus Prime and he wants us up. This is a vacation, right? Have we slept any? Ok, ok....I go about waking everyone and encourage us all to move quickly. We are tired this morning and choose to ride the boat to Citywalk instead of walk.
8:00 am - IOA gates are open for on-site guests...so in we go. We again go right...this time through Suess land. I take a few pictures and continue around the park headed for Hogsmeade. You can see the castle as you make the turn near the Mystic Fountain and once again, my geek meter peaks. Immediately, we head for the train and take a few pictures. We don't hog this area, as many guests are also taking pictures. Once again, I take pictures of the store fronts, signs, train, carts, and ground.
Our first stop.....butterbeer...today it will be frozen. Again I take everyone's picture while they take their first sip of frozen butterbeer. OH MY! This is the best! Frozen Butterbeer is the WINNER!
I walked into the bathroom, of course, to hear Moaning Mrytle. Took pictures of the goodies in Honeydukes, however, I was very disappointed they didn't have any Treacle Fudge or Hagrid's Rock Cakes, as I was looking forward to trying both. Oh well! They did have a cauldron cake -- after making my purchase we walked out of Honeydukes and around the corner. We each sampled the cake. Verdict: Too much chocolate for us. The cake was definitely fresh but not for us.
At this point, crowds were developing and we agreed it was time to ride some rides. I will admit this area of the Wizarding World feels crowded even with small groups of people. First stop...the Forbidden Journey. By this time, it was 8:40ish and the ride already had a 20 minute wait. In we went. Step, picture, step, picture, step, picture, EEK! So exciting! (I would hate to see this ride when its busy....the que line is enormous.) The wait was a true estimate but with so much to see --- it didn't feel long. We load onto the ride. OH MY WORD! I want to throw up! Get me off! The ride is interesting, its well done, its amazing but I can't do it. I managed to keep my eyes open cause I wanted to see it all but now I feel yucky. The ride unloads into a gift shop, I completely bypassed the gift shop....I needed air.
Once outside I began to feel better. We looked over and noticed the Flight of the Hippogriff had no line. I was feeling decent and recovering quickly (maybe I can ride Forbidden Journey again). ****Please note: neither my husband or son felt sick at all however, both were now sucking on ginger candies before ANY ride.***** We loaded onto the Flight of the Hippogriff almost immediately. Took some good pictures of the Hogwarts Castle and before I knew it the ride was over. Ok....definitely a kid's roller coaster.
9:15ish --- We had reservations at the Three Broomsticks at 10am for breakfast but the guys were already hungry. So I asked if we could eat early....absolutely. This time everyone chooses something different: son chose the pancake breakfast with water, husband chose the american breakfast with butterbeer, and I chose the traditional english breakfast with pumpkin juice. I will speak to mine only since there was nothing special about their breakfast choices. The english breakfast is huge. It includes ham, bacon, eggs, beans, tomato, mushrooms, croissant, and a black sausage. This breakfast is actually good, I particularly enjoyed the vegetables, beans, and eggs. The sausage was unique. I did try it but was just a little too odd for me. I also had my first and only glass of pumpkin juice. Pumpkin juice has a very acidic and strange aftertaste...not for me...I will stick to frozen butterbeer. After finishing our breakfast, we entered the streets of Hogsmeade once again and I made the worst mistake of the entire trip.
10:00am - Lets ride Forbidden Journey again, I feel better and I recovered so quickly before...so maybe I won't have a problem. I think the 10 minute wait time was what prompted me to ride again. I mean how often do the rides basically have no lines. So into the que line we go. Hubby hands me a ginger chew and ginger candy. So I suck on these while I ride. By the quidditch game, I'm in a full blown prayer and eyes screwed down tight. When it ends, I'm pale, sweating, and so sick....that's it - no more Forbidden Journey for me. This ride was worse than Transformers. I made it to the bench just outside the gift shop and waited for my husband to bring back a water. Ahhh! He bought a Gilly Water....got to take a picture. So with shaky hands I take my picture (husband is fussing, "I bought that for you to drink not take a picture of it!"), open the cap and sip. It took me 20 minutes to feel normal. Definitely done with this ride! Husband and son had no issues with motion sickness on Forbidden Journey.
By this time, the rest of the park is open and we cross the bridge into Jurassic World. We walk over to River Adventure, use our express pass and immediately board the ride boat. Umm! This is a good ride but surprisingly none of us cared to ride it more than twice.
As we walked away from River Adventure, we noticed something called Raptor Encounter. There was barely 10 people in line so we decided to check it out. Its funny! Don't won't to spoil any surprises...but even though I watched group after group and knew what was coming.....I still screamed. The guys thought that was funny. Ha Ha momma screamed....so funny. They talked about it all day. Better still the team members took a video on my phone....so its been watched over and over...its even been sent out to family. Glad I provide comic relief to my little world. With not much else over here, we walked over to Toon Lagoon.
Toon Lagoon has the best water rides. My family and I loved them. Our favorite....Ripsaw Falls. Tip: wear something that dries quickly....no jeans. Most water rides claim you get soaked and yes, you do typically get wet on every water ride. Ripsaw Falls means SOAKED! When you exit this ride, if anything is relatively dry on your body, it might be your back simply because it was pressed against the seat. We rode this ride the most out of all the rides. We even decided it was worth admission to IOA just for this ride. Now don't get me wrong, the theming isn't great but the ride is good.
While still in Toon Lagoon, we ran over to Bluto's Barge and used the express pass to bypass the lines. We rode this once but it was fun and again gets you wet. Everyone was wet! With squishy tennis shoes, we decided it was time to try and dry out. We were all getting hungry and we wanted to eat in Mythos but definitely not soaking wet. So off we went to the Marvel area.
We walked slowly enjoying the sun into Marvel and immediately saw Wolverine. Momma had to have her picture taken with him. Still really wet, we decided to get a coke and sit in the sun. My son also chose a churro....his favorite vacation snack. We watched Captain America interact with the kids, which was so cute. After about 30 minutes, we were relatively dry and again using express passes walked straight onto Spiderman. Spiderman is another ride similar to Transformers. Now with everyone sucking on ginger candy, we loaded into our "car", put on the 3D glasses, and were immersed into a comic book. I still had to close my eyes for parts of this ride.....mostly anything that involved swinging or falling; so I missed a lot but I didn't get sick. And again neither my husband or son had any issues. Go figure.....I guess I have gotten old. Ugh!
By this time, we were hungry. So we rushed over to Mythos, the hostess had us seated at a table within 10 minutes of putting our name on the list. We chose the Spanakopita for an appetizer (delicious), son chose the cranberry and blue cheese encrusted pork loin (he loved it), and hubby and I shared the brown butter gnocchi (again another delicious dish). The waitress was very attentive and service was exceptional. Total with tip $65 and worth every penny.
My son loves Greek mythology so we decided to check out the Poseidon's Fury. This was a waste of time, especially for us short people. They crowd so many people into the first two rooms that I would have required a ladder to see anything. By the time, we reached the last room, which is where the real show takes place....we were all ready to leave and just didn't care.
From there we decided to chance, the Sinbad show. This one was good. It's a live action stunt show with comedy. We will definitely visit this show again on future visits. The show lasts approximately 20-25 minutes and we felt worth the time. Its shaded and you can sit for this show.
At this point, we were pretty much done with IOA and all agreed to go back to the hotel until dinner.
7:00pm - I love reading traveler reviews and I use them to make choices for our vacations. I was excited for us to try Emeril's at Citywalk, as the reviews put it at almost a 5 star restaurant. After a break at the hotel, we felt relaxed and hungry. There was no wait at Emeril's and we were promptly seated. This would be our worst dining experience of the entire trip and the most expensive. We were placed at a table with a new waiter who was being trained....not a problem. The guys ordered lemonades and I stuck with water. We also placed an order for Boudin Balls. As we reviewed the menu, they brought out a bread basket. The bread was good. After about 10 minutes, the waiter returned to take our order. Son chose the Braised Beef Short Ribs, husband chose the Sweet Barbeque Roasted Salmon, and I chose the Grilled Double Pork Chop. The glasses are so small here that the waiters couldn't keep the glasses filled and we sat a good portion of the time with empty glasses. 30 minutes into our dining experience, the appetizer of Boudin Balls came out. These were delicious. Being hungry the 3 little balls were gone within a few minutes. An hour into our dining experience, our entrees came out. Husband said his was good but nothing exciting. Son stated he was basically eating his Nene's pot roast on mashed potatoes....not what I'm expecting for $34. Now to mine, the pork chop was extremely thick and coated with a sauce. It was not easy to cut and I'm pretty sure wasn't cooked all the way through but since the restaurant has such dim lightening I couldn't tell. The sweet potatoes were the only tasty thing on my plate. I ate roughly half of the pork chop before I just quit. Still hungry and wanting to try the raved about Banana Creme Pie, we sat for an additional 20 minutes. Again another major let down. The dessert had no flavor, it was huge but relatively tasteless. By this time, we were just ready to leave. I received the bill......$147.23 (without tip) --- most expensive meal and the worst. I wouldn't recommend this restaurant.
By this time, it was close to 9:30pm and all tired. So back to the hotel and into the fluffy comfortable beds for the night.
