To Hogwarts We Go!

[samheatherwhite]

Hi everyone! I decided to start a trip report detailing our wonderful trip to Universal Studios.

This is my first try posting a picture so we will see how it goes. Above, hopefully, is a picture of the two stars of our show. Gracie and Brant. This is a picture from G's 7th birthday party. She is a sweetheart and is totally obsessed with all things Harry Potter right now. She has read the first 3 books and is a loyal Gryffindor. She has made sure that everyone in the family has been sorted into their proper Pottermore decided houses. She loves to read, play dress-up, and dance and is so excited to see Diagon Alley. B is 2 years old and all boy. He loves dinosaurs and anything with wheels. He likes HP too because G does and he is totally her mini me. He is a Slytherin because his favorite color is green and he thinks snakes are cool. I'm sure when he is a little older G will sort him officially, lol.

The rest of the crew is myself, a stay at home Mom, my sister C, who is expecting a little girl, and Gran, the kids favorite person in the whole world.

We started our trip on Monday, September, 15th, and stayed at the Royal Pacific for 5 nights.

 

[samheatherwhite]

Yikes, If anyone could tell me how to make pictures smaller I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Dashzap]

Great looking kids!

I think you pick the size on the hosting site as you link.

 

[lazer]

Following for sure! We're headed there Thursday, staying at RPH and I have an all-boy 2 year old too

 

[rnorwo1]

I'm in!

 

[ArwenMarie]

Following!

 

[samheatherwhite]

I'm just going to jump right in and get started. Hopefully I can shrink the pictures as I go.
We live in the Texas panhandle and we flew Southwest out of Lubbock, which is where C lives. It is a little over 2 hours away so we left super early to be at the airport by 8:30am.

Here is Gran, C, G, and B at the airport. We flew to Houston and then on to Orlando, arriving at about 5:30. Tony Hinds picked us up and we headed to the Royal Pacific. (I totally recommend Mr. Hinds, his service could not have been better.)

Here is a room picture. I will warn you now that I take a ton of pictures but I am no photographer. My camera also acted up a little while we were gone making some images a bit blurry.

B had already accidentally destroyed his pretty lei that the kids were given when we checked in. we had a 4th floor room in tower 3 and we loved the convenience of this tower. I will request tower 3 again.

We decided to take the boat to City Walk and get something for dinner there. We took our first boat ride which was one of B's favorite things to do on this trip. It was already getting late and we had big plans for another early morning the next day.

 

[samheatherwhite]

Here is a photo from the boat that I took on the way to dinner. The hotel was beautiful.
We decided to eat at Maragritaville and we waited to be seated for about 10 minutes. By then the kids were super hungry. They are early to bed early to rise kiddos and bedtime was approaching fast, especially after a 5am start.
It was super fun in the restaurant. A neat guy on stilts went around to all of the tables and made cool balloon hats.

B got a pirate hat and G had the man make her whatever he wanted.

I will include food reviews in my trip report as I always like to see some of the options.
Before I get into the food I should preface this by explaining that B is a super picky guy. Everyone else is pretty adventurous.
G got the kids pasta and it was okay. It didn't have much flavor but it did fill up a hungry tummy.
The rest of us got salads. I got one with chicken strips on top to share with B. The chicken was really good and moist, very flavorful. B wouldn't know because he won't eat chicken of any kind. The veggies were fresh and the salad was good. Nothing really stood out here but it was tasty. One problem we had was that it took forever and a day to get our food. We didn't mention it as it was busy but the waiter did take 20% off of our bill which wasn't necessary but appreciated.

After dinner we decided to try the walking path back to the hotel so we would be ready for out early entry the next day.

 

[rnorwo1]

Loved the update! I've been thinking about our first night, so maybe we will do this as we are arriving at about the same time and also staying at RPR. Two of my three kids will love the hats!

 

[samheatherwhite]

We started Tuesday morning bright and early. EE started at 7am which is 6am our time so we didn't quite make it right when it started. C and Gran are not morning people.

It was a really nice day and G was so excited to see HP. To get a complete picture of our little group you must picture a dancing 7 year old humming the HP song (Hedwig's Theme) loudly.

We chose to walk this morning and by the time we hit the park C needed a bathroom stop so the kids and I took some pics by the Despicable Me ride.

G couldn't wait for a ride any longer so we decided to try DM before we headed to DA. B and C both rode this one as well in seats that didn't move. They were in the front row and the 3d was a little overwhelming for B. He loves minions but chose not to ride this ride again, preferring hanging out in the fun gift shop.

This ride was super cute, the rest of us loved it.

I loved the details from Gru's house that we included in this ride. So cute.

After becoming Minions it was time to head to DA. I'll leave you with this picture of G and C dancing to London!

 

[Sazzo'sMommy]

Love it! Keep it coming!

 

[Dashzap]

G couldn't wait for a ride any longer so we decided to try DM before we headed to DA. B and C both rode this one as well in seats that didn't move. They were in the front row and the 3d was a little overwhelming for B. He loves minions but chose not to ride this ride again, preferring hanging out in the fun gift shop.

My son and I sat in the non-moving seats on DM in July, and I was surprised how dizzy I got. I've never had a problem with 3D movies before. I was impressed...usually they aren't as good when you aren't sitting in the middle of the theatre.

I love all the pictures with your report! We went to Universal at the end of July, but I didn't carry my camera (too hot out to carry anything extra). Now I wish I had pictures. I took about 12 with my phone.

 

[schumigirl]

Joining along.......your pictures are lovely and your children are beautiful........looking forward to reading more about your trip

 

[ArwenMarie]

Great report so far

Looking forward to food reviews!

 

[samheatherwhite]

Thank you everyone, I will add more soon. I took almost 1000 pictures,lol. I tend to go overboard and DA was so cool. I wanted to be able to show my husband and Dad what they missed.

 

[macraven]

We started Tuesday morning bright and early. EE started at 7am which is 6am our time so we didn't quite make it right when it started. C and Gran are not morning people.

G couldn't wait for a ride any longer so we decided to try DM before we headed to DA. B and C both rode this one as well in seats that didn't move. They were in the front row and the 3d was a little overwhelming for B. He loves minions but chose not to ride this ride again, preferring hanging out in the fun gift shop.

I loved the details from Gru's house that we included in this ride. So cute.

!

i think i didn't clip out the one pic you had that i really love also.

the lion has the dog in its mouth.
the dog has the cat.
the cat has the mouse
and the mouse has the cheese in the mouth.

i always try to get different angles of that pic so i can see the cheese.

 

[samheatherwhite]

Sorry read on for the corrected version. I am new at the whole trip report thig and obviously not very good at it!

 

[samheatherwhite]

Sorry I forgot to resize the pictures. I will redo it later.

 

[samheatherwhite]

We had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. We love Hp so much. G was excited to see the Knight bus as the 3rd movie and book is her favorite. Her meany Momma won't let her read any farther than that due to content as she is only 7 years old and they start getting a bit dark. She appeals this decision daily.

We saw the conductor and the shrunken head but we had places to go and dragons to see.

Our first view of DA. It was perfect, exactly as it should be. The detail here was out of this world.

I took way too many pictures of this girl.

As you can see it was not crowded while we were there at all. We just gawked around for a little while. Then I parked the stroller in Pram Parking and we headed to Olivander's Wand Shop.
G had just turned 7 and one of her gifts was a gift card to be used to by herself a wand. I was hoping that she would be chosen but it wasn't our day. G and B were the only kids until right before they let us in and a birthday kid came in. We had no chance, lol.
It was a super sweet show and we enjoyed watching the birthday sweetheart get her wand. When the show ended we headed into the shop to let G get a wand.

We explored for ourselves for a minute and then a wonderful Tm came over and helped G. She was super helpful and really made G feel special. G wasn't sure what she wanted and she had decided to just wait and see what wand "made her heart happiest." The Tm asked her if she wanted famous witch or wizard or a by the date wand. G wanted to see her birthday wand first but that wasn't the right one. After looking at the display of all the character wands she chose....

The wand of Sirius Black. An interesting choice, she said that this wand was her favorite design and since it was one of her favorite characters that this was the one. Her heart was happy!

Here is G with her new wand. Our first of many purchases! She was so proud of her wand and it is displayed in her room.

 

[samheatherwhite]

After we got G her wand we went outside to try it out. She wanted to start with wingaurdiam leviosa since that is her favorite spell. We tried it out and soon discovered that spell casting is harder than you think. No wonder wizarding schools are important. G's movements were too big and a sweet Tm soon came over and really showed her what to do. This sweet lady spent like 15 minutes making sure G could make her wand work.

She even took her to another spell casting spot to make sure that G could do more than just the one spell. It was really nice.

The look on G's face when it worked was priceless.

Here is the next spell that we tried.

After that we continued to explore DA trying new spells as we went.

G had a blast playing with her wand that morning.

I loved all of the store fronts, this is the house elf agency.

Here is a crummy picture of The Hopping Pot. We found that the week we were there this was a great place to grab a drink with little to no wait every time.

After some serious spell casting we knew that it was time to try Butterbeer.
We stopped by The Hopping Pot and took a little break, it was really hot this day.

Here is G with our frozen Butterbeer. I loved this and drank way too many of these the week we were there. It was so good. G loved it as well. Gran said it was good but C thought that it was too sweet and never got another one, silly muggle. Picky B wouldn't taste any of our treats so he snacked on water and a package of fruit snacks.

Gran got the lemon squash and it was so sour none of us could drink it. I was not surprised that I didn't love this as sour is not my thing but C, Gran, and G all really like sour and this was too much for them as well.

C got the fizzy orange and this was a winner for everyone. (Except B who loves orange juice but still wouldn't taste this.) C and Gran much preferred this to Butterbeer. G and I also loved it but we still liked BB better. The cinnamon sugar rim really took this up a notch, so yummy.

gra