Florida Trip! Day 2 - Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure

Right about 8am when my alarm went off, I was really regretting planning our park days first. We got up and at 'em as quickly as we could, and got to Universal Studios (Islands of Adventure Park,) where my friend's dad had left some complimentary tickets for us. (I know, right?) We had a little drama when we lost Alisa's bottle RIGHT OFF THE BAT, our first morning! These headless photos are playing around on the rocks while Jeff tried to find it for us.




Actually, as you will find out, climbing on these rocks was probably their Universal highlight... Sad!

We started off in Seuss Landing with Cat in the Hat, and my, did Alisa hate it! Amie was a little freaked at the spinning, but liked the visuals. We moved on to the Carouseussel for an easier ride, but Lisie wasn't having that either. So, we moved on, skipping the lame island, and headed right for the big winner, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! By this time, it was sprinkling on and off, but we weren't deterred - we brought ponchos! We took our time meandering through Hogsmeade and taking pictures on our phones to send to our families so they'd be jealous. We did baby swap for Dueling Dragons, or now the Tri-Wizard something or other. It went nice and quick, but Amie still refers to that as the "scary castle." Great ride, we love it, glad we didn't miss it. We skipped the Flight of the Hippogriff because the girls were too small, and stopped to enjoy a butterbeer. We also bought a pumpkin juice, and let me tell you, that was the second worst mistake of the trip! It wasn't awesome, it tasted cidery, like I should have it warm with a slice of pie and a santa hat. Worst part, though, they didn't have prices posted, and found out the (DELICIOUS) butterbeer was $3.50, and the pumpkin juice was over $6! Lame. We also spent a great deal of time at Ollivander's. There is a queue, a LONG one, just to get into this place! We knew we had to make it a priority, because we had planned on getting my sis Jaimie a wand from there for her birthday. It was a bonafide mad house. SO BUSY! I gotta say, we had a really hard time picking out just the right wand for her. They had all the characters' wands, as well as a huge selection of other wands. I opened dozens and dozens of wand boxes, Jeff and I debated back and forth and back and forth about what design she'd like (without ever agreeing!) Finally, we knew we had to go with the 12-inch wand made of Reed. If you know her well, you will know why we came to this conclusion.

The rain picked up, so we headed to the new Harry Potter ride. They had a sweet baby swap with benches and Harry Potter movies playing while we took turns. That was by far the longest line we waited in there, but still only about 30 min. Or was it 60? It was cool, though, cause it took us through Hogwarts with talking portraits, the greenhouse with Mandrakes and the Pheonix at the entrance to Dumbledore's office, among a thousand other things. This ride was OFF THE CHAIN! (I don't even know where that expression comes from, but it felt right.) It's part simulator, part moving, part animatronic, part superawesome! It scared us a little, for real. When we got out, it was pouring!! I told Jeff it's gonna stop, so we should just keep going. It was raining so hard, however, that many of the rides were totally shut down. We kept going around the circle, but we ended up just taking the very long way out and leaving anyway. We missed some of the best rides, but fulfilled our biggest priorities. We waited a minute before going to the parking garage, but it only seemed to get worse. We had a poncho over the stroller, but Jeff and I were literally as wet as if we'd gone in a lake with our clothes on. I'm mostly sad we didn't get to do the kids stuff at the Studios side, cause I had told Amie we were going to see Spongebob and Dora today and she was totally pumped. Luckily, she has a short memory. We VERY reluctantly left, and while we were driving home, it slowed to a sprinkle and then stopped. I knew it! Oh well. The girls were not loving it. So we just went grocery shopping (bought bottles!) We also visited Farris and Foster's, my old Chocolatier employment and bought some good good goodies!! Bummer that no one I knew was working that day. We went to a yummy deep-dish pizza place for dinner, then settled sleepily in to our condo.

Sidenote: It occurred to me on our way there that hurricane season starts June 1, and we flew in at 11:30pm May 31st. But usually, there's nothing to worry about so early in the season... well, except that tropical storm torrentially drenching us out of our Universal day!