Tuesday 2 July
Everyone liked their wake up call of “It’s time to go to Universal” better than yesterday’s accountants joke – go figure!! No one dragged their feet about getting ready, and we were at the front office by 9am waiting for our shuttle bus.
There are several KOA RV parks in this area, but I picked this one because it offered a free shuttle bus service to all the theme parks. We met a lovely older couple from South Carolina heading to Universal as well. They were very chatty and had lots of good advice for us when they heard our itinerary. And our bus driver sounded like Mrs Wallace from OBPS, so we guessed her to be from Boston, but she quite indignantly said no, New Hampshire! Same area to us!
Once through the gates at Universal, we headed straight for the Harry Potter land, to find the rides there were all 75 minute waits, and there was nothing suitable for the little kids. So I bought everyone a Butterbeer (which Harry and his friends drink a lot of in the books – don’t worry Dad, it’s not really beer!), and we headed to the Jurassic Park land. There we rode on Pteranodon Flyers and as we alighted from the ride at 11.30am realised it was all we had done so far!
Universal at Orlando is two parks next to each other, and as some of the rides were the same as the ones we had done in Hollywood, we thought we would have no trouble doing both parks in one day. When we bought the admission tickets we were offered a fast pass so that we would never have to wait in a queue for a single ride, but as this added approx $100 to EACH ticket price (!) we politely declined. It did mean though that we missed out on doing two rides of interest to us – The Amazing Spider-Man (which had an 80 minute wait) and a Despicable Me minion ride, which varied between 75 minute and 110 minute waits!! If we hadn’t had to be back in place to catch the shuttle bus at 6pm, we probably would have waited in line for the Despicable Me ride, but couldn’t change the pick up time, and figured the day was long enough by then.
We had an early lunch to beat the crowds, during which time it poured. Ross went to buy ponchos for everyone, but refused when he found they were $8 each! We did the Carousel in the Dr Seuss land as it was undercover and then split up so that Ross could take the older three back to Harry Potter World, while I did the rest of Dr Seuss land with the little three. While the older kids lined up for the one major ride for 75 minutes, we did The Cat in the Hat ride, a playground area called If I Ran The Zoo, and a trolley train ride on a track up above Dr Seuss Land.
Once we met up again, we headed over to the other theme park, but soon found there wasn’t a lot there to do that was suitable for everyone. Both parks are so expansive too, that it takes a fair amount of time to move between them and from ride to ride. At 110 minutes we weren’t prepared to line up for Despicable Me, but we did do there a ride that was my favourite, the ET adventure. We checked out a couple of other rides, shows and stores, but then decided with the time we had left to return to the Islands of a adventure park and do some water rides.
On the river rapids ride, Belle and I happened to sit in the seats that were smashed and we were both SOAKED! Belle cried and asked me was she melting, but once the bigger kids told her she had “won” by being the wettest, she was very happy! We decided to do some souvenir shopping on the way out, were caught up in the Harry Potter souvenirs without even looking elsewhere, but the lines to the counter were so long Ross made me leave my purchases there so we wouldn’t miss the bus. We arrived at the meeting spot at 6.05pm to see the bus driving away! Thankfully, the couple we had met that morning saw us and made the driver return for us!
We returned to the RV park to shower and change out of our wet clothes, and I put some laundry on while we went to dinner. We went just to the top of our street to a restaurant Ross wanted to try called Bob Evans, another chain we saw a lot of around New York State. We enjoyed good meals with salad and vegetables, and everyone had a free cookie for dessert, and luckily Tuesday night was their kids eat free night!
The man from the bus was also doing laundry when we returned, and told me a lot of their background story and about his wife’s health battles. They have a two day pass to Universal, so are returning tomorrow. I shared with him that one souvenir item I nearly bought was a Harry Potter souvenir surprise for Abi for her birthday. (Aside here: while everyone has been good, mostly always well-behaved and fun to travel with, Abi has been excellent at mothering the little kids and helping us with anything and organising everyone…even if I do cringe at some of her words because they could have come straight from my mouth…).
Anyway, the kind man took money I gave him and is going to pick it up for me tomorrow, which is awesome as I had told her at dinner how I had nearly bought it but had to leave to catch the bus. I have to tell SOMEone the secret, so write it here knowing Abi will not read this and will now have a lovely surprise for her birthday when we get home…IF I can keep it a secret for that long…