Florida Part III

Our final day of amusement park adventures came and went and it was a blast! I'm pretty relieved to be wearing something other than sneakers, a backpack, and a Disney poncho though. We slept in really late the third day because we didn't arrive home until nearly 3am from Magic Kingdom, after breakfast with Babka we checked online for details about Universal and saw that they were open until 10pm (or so we thought).

We got to the park about 1 o'clock thinking we had all day to browse Islands of Adventure, but when we went to purchase tickets the attendant told us that 'peak season' ended about a week prior so now the parks closed at 8:00 and 8:30. Also, if you want to see all of Harry Potter World you need to purchase tickets for both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios because Hogsmead and Diagon Alley are split up and are only linked together by the Hogwarts Express.

Not cool Universal, not cool.

So we splurged on tickets for both parks and rushed to fill the seven hours we had to see everything. We stopped at a couple rides that are near the entrance, and from afar I could see the main Jurassic Park building *insert happy gig here*

It was like being a kid in a candy shop! I've dreamt about visiting Jurassic Park in Universal for years, and to finally be there was so exciting. Even the gift shops were retail heaven for me, I ended up spending an unnecessary amount of time in them because I wanted to buy everything.

As far as the Jurassic Park ride goes, it was a blast! Once we actually got to ride it I mean. Imagine this... we are in line, literally the next people to get into one of the river boats, and suddenly over the intercom they announce that due to the impending weather the ride will be shut down. I was devastated, I thought that I wasn't going to be able to go on the one ride I had wanted to visit since I was a kid. And I started crying tears of distress, I panicked! One of the ride attendants standing near us saw my reaction and tried to calm me, she optimistically said that once the weather cleared up the ride should be up and running again. She hinted that if we mentioned her name on some of the other rides they would let us skip to the front, something we could do while we waited for the lightning to dissipate. 

So that's exactly what we did, we headed over to Hogsmead and shot to the front of the Hogwarts ride while there was an hour long wait. Thank you Tisha! Shortly afterwards the sky turned bright blue so we ran back to Jurassic Park and finally checked it off our list! *phew*

I know these attractions were geared more towards kids, but I got a huge kick out of them. This girl was in the nursery where a baby raptor had 'just hatched.' There was some cheeky animatronic effects going on but I didn't care. In the middle of the Jurassic Park area is a busted raptor cage, inside is someone dressed in this elaborate raptor costume, it would bob its head up and down and shriek while people posed for photos with it. The 'raptor handler' would calm it down and watch that it didn't bite people, one couple came up with their baby and it too started shrieking. I would have snagged this photo opportunity in a heartbeat if there wasn't a 50 person line and we weren't on a time crunch.

And then there was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This was unlike anything either of us had ever seen, the attention to detail was crazy, the sights, sounds, and smells were perfectly fitting. It was exactly like I pictured it, you feel like you are walking through Harry Potter's back yard! That's Hogwarts up above, to get to the ride inside you must walk through a maze of hallways lined with 'moving' paintings and floating candles. You can even take a tour of the castle, that's how intricate it is. Below is Hogsmead, it's set in the winter time so the poor park employees were wearing flannel pants in hot, humid, 90+ degree weather.

And of course we had to try butterbeer! It tasted just like you'd imagine, slightly cream soda-ish with a more caramel twist. We got them frozen, perfect on a tropical day like it was.

After taking the Hogwarts Express (which was a great ride in itself) we followed the crowd behind a building, and tucked away through a brick wall was Diagon Alley. Straight ahead you can see the massive dragon clinging to Gringotts Bank. Every ten minutes or so he roars and spews a massive fireball into the center of the buildings, you can actually feel the heat it's so intense.

Being short on time we really hadn't stopped to eat so we grabbed lunch at The Leaky Cauldron, there you can chomp down British foods like cottage pie, fish and chips, and bangers and mash. It was a nice change of pace from the chain foods we'd been filling up on recently.

We managed to do and see so much more in Universal than either of us thought we would, it was so much fun! And dare I say... the rides there were better than the majority at Disney... It's a bummer it wasn't open later, but I'd say we had a successful three full days of amusement parks. The City Walk stays open after the parks close so we browsed through the city of restaurants and grabbed dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe before heading home.

The next day we spent with the Placko ladies and the rest of the family doing breakfast and dinner. Man, grandmothers sure love to feed you until you're grotesquely full. And often. It was a great six days in Oveido, but the last day of the month we said our emotional goodbye's and headed to Tallahassee to split up our drive to New Orleans. When we left the squeeze's parents home on day one I set the tripometer to "0", as of today we have put about 3,000 miles on my car! And we're still not in Austin yet! Soon though...