To Hogwarts we go---The Hat Returns

[zebsterama]

Thanks for a great TR! Get's me all inspired for our upcoming trip!

 

[samheatherwhite]

Thanks everyone. We did learn on our last day that they will trade the Chocolate Frog cards at Honeydukes as well. I have a bit more TR left. I will finish soon. We ran to Red River this weekend to teach B how to fish before he starts Pre-K on the 22nd.

 

[samheatherwhite]

We met back up with Sam and G and she kindly agreed to watch the Dr. Suess Show with him. This was really fun and totally uncrowded. The narrator was super cute and really good at her job. She chatted with all of the kids before the show started.

B was thrilled when one of the Things sat with him during part of the show.

Then Sam I AM came and got both of the kids to dance at the end of the show. Well worth the time to stop and watch it if you have kids that like Suess characters. I enjoyed it as well. A nicely done little show, super cute with a lot of characters.

After the show the characters hang around for some really fun photo opportunities.

The Lorax is my favorite and I loved that he met near his area.

The Truffala trees in the background looked just right.

Then the kids wanted to go see Thing 1 and Thing 2. The Cat in the Hat was also there.

The kids were starting to get hungry and had been dying to eat in the Jurassic Park Visitors Center so that is where we headed for lunch.

Sam wanted a bacon cheeseburger and so did B. G wanted the chicken strips and they all had french fries. I split B's burger and also had some of G's chicken. We also ordered 2 vanilla milkshakes to share.
The burgers were really good for quick service theme park food. Hot and fresh and decently seasoned. We always appreciate the toppings bars in restaurants because B loves tomatoes and this gives him a good opportunity for some healthier fare. Fries were good too. I don't know if we were starving or what, but the chicken was great. The mikshakes were ok. They were ridiculously thick which would be good if you ate them outside. We ate most of them with a spoon. We were pleased with this meal and if we wanted burgers and chicken we would definitely eat here again. The kids love the visitors center!
B really wanted some pool time so we headed back to CBBR. Sam and the kids swam in the pool and the lazy river for quite a while. This gave me plenty of time to get our bags packed and the room ready to go because we had a super early flight the next morning.

 

[macraven]

I so totally adore all suessland


Great you are showcasing your family with all the characters I love !


Again, fantastic pics

 

[samheatherwhite]

I forgot to add earlier that we stopped to play at the Suess Playground before we went back to the pool for the afternoon.

The original plan was that we were finished with IOA for this trip after lunch then pool time followed by an evening in the Universal park.
After the kids and Sam finished swimming I sent Sam back down to the pool with the tubes that we brought with us to give them away. He said that it was really difficult to get someone to take them which I thought was weird. I was looking forward to being able to gift them to someone. He was gone long enough that I had gotten the kids both completely ready to head back to the park.
We had some difficulty deciding which restaurant to eat at. We finally agreed to Confisco's Grill so back to IOA we went.

B got a grilled cheese with fries. He did not love this grilled cheese as it was quite hard. I think that it was a little but well done.

Sam went with the beef fajitas and G and I split the chicken.

These were pretty goo, not great. There was plenty of food for G and I to share with some left over.
My only gripe with Confusco's was that the service was not very good. The waitress tended to disappear. G and I had to drink some water out of our water bottle since our drinks ran out and she never came back to check on us. It also took just about forever to get our check. We decided that the kids and I would walk over to the Uni park and Sam would find someone to pay.
We made it all the way across and waited for Sam for at least 10 minutes!

We even stopped to take some pics.
I had never walked between the parks on the path in front of the Hard Rock since we usually take the HE.

 

[macraven]

Well if you all would have just walked out since your wait staff did not come around to collect for the bill, I'm sure they would have noticed then and promptly come to you

Lol

That slow service is aggravating
When you need a drink refill you don't want to wait forever for it


Kids look so happy in the pics !

 

[schumigirl]

Yep, hate having bad service........especially waiting for drinks when you're thirsty.......happened to us at the HRC.......I did go seek her out........found her not looking too busy........we got our drinks and didn't wait long again.

Love CG, sorry it wasn't brilliant for you.

Yep, kids look so happy in the pics.......

 

[samheatherwhite]

When Sam caught up we realized that we hadn't ridden Shrek yet so the kids and I got in line. Sam wanted to ride the Mummy so he went to do that.

B did not love this one. It is pretty rough and he thought some parts were a bit scary.
Sam rode the Mummy twice in the single rider line and said that his wait was less than 5 minutes each ride.
Next on our agenda was a meet up with Optimus Prime. That was a must do for both kids.

We had also neglected to get a photo with JAWS. G thinks this is hilarious. B wanted no part of it!

G and I definitely needed some more time in DA before our trip ended. B and Sam were not interested so they went to play in the Fieval area.
G wanted to ride Gringott's again so we hopped in line.

This is such a fun ride and I never mind waiting a bit since the que is so well done.

We finished up any shopping we had left in DA and met up with the boys.
G wanted to try a churro so we got one to split since nobody was huungry. She had been interested in these all week and now was our last chance.

One giant churro split 4 ways was a nice treat. Both the kids really liked this and I see more of these n our future. B couldn't remember what it was called and mentioned to his Gran that he ate round cinnamon toast. It took me a while to figure out what in the world he was talking about.

On the way out we decided to hit the bakery case and get the kids one more treat.

G went with a triple chocolate dipped marshmallow on a stick. She loved this and said that the marshmallows were fresh.

B got the same thing but in all milk chocolate and sprinkled with m&ms.
He liked it too.

Sam and I got a plain rice krispy treat to share. The humidity did this no favors. It was soggy and tasteless, after about two bites each this got dumped. Oh well, we didn't need the calories anyways.

 

[macraven]

Yay

More trip report!

 

[samheatherwhite]

The bad news is that our trip was over. We had a flight out at 7am from MCO! Flight times were not ideal but since it was summer time I knew that it wouldn't really matter to us. We had 3 choices, leave at 7am and have about 4 hours and a half hours travel time. Leave at 9am and have almost 11 hours travel time, or leave at 9 pm and have around 8 hours travel time. To me it was no option. We are morning people anyways and any time you have kiddos the lowest travel time is ideal.
I had talked to Tony Hinds, our driver the day before and he said that the security delays in the airport were awful so we left our hotel at 3:30am! EEK!
I had done 95% of the packing the day before while the kids played in the pool with Sam so we didn't need to much prep time in the morning.
Sam and the kids ran down to get a luggage cart while I finished all of the last minute packing. They all mentioned how pretty Cabana Bay was in the dark. I was afraid that the kids would be hard to get up but they were troopers. The pic above was taken when they got back with the cart.

We hung out in the lobby waiting for our ride and took a few more pics around the dark empty hotel.

One last look at the wonderful lazy river.

They were pretty spunky for before dawn!
Mr. Hinds is always on time and I will brag on his service one more time!
We had an uneventful ride to MCO where we checked our bags and got in the most horrible line for security. We were crammed in line like cattle for what seemed like forever. B's carry-on got flagged for a search. I was kind of embarrassed when they opened it and all that it contained was stuffed animals and fudge that we bought to give Grandad as a gift and a few other items that we didn't want lost or squished. The fudge which was bought in cubes in a box apparently looks like C4 on the scanner.
I was glad that we got to the airport so very early. I hate to worry about being late...I am never late!
I will share the airport muffins that we bought as a warning to others. Only 2 places were open before 7am. One was McDonalds and the other wasn't a chain. The McDs was totally cram packed so we grabbed muffins from the other place.

One was apple and the other was chocolate chip.....neither was eatable. They were raw in the middle but somehow managed to be dry and tasteless. We tossed these.
We had an uneventful flight to Dallas and then another back to Amarillo. An hour and a half more in the car and we were home.
Neither kiddo napped, lol, but they did go to bed early that night.

 

[samheatherwhite]

I am going to include a list of everyone's favorite things to finish off our wonderful trip!

Favorite Ride:
Sam-The Mummy
H- Forbidden Journey
G-Dragon Challenge
B-One Fish, Two Fish

Favorite Restaurant:
S and H-Finnegan's
G and B- 3B's, Leaky Cauldron, Dino Digs

Favorite Snack:
S-Florean's Ice Cream
H- Pumpkin pasty
G-lemonade slush
B-Unlimited Icee refills at CBBR

Favorite thing we did:
S-
H- Character breakfast, all HP
G- Getting a wand at Olivander's, Clearwater
B- Swimming, especially in the lazy river

Best Play Area:
S,H,G,B-Jurassic Park

We loved CBBR and would stay there again in a heartbeat. We had no issues and really liked EE. We all preferred the pool area that included the lazy river. The food court was better than expected and overall we found the food to be very good. We felt Mythos was overrated and Finnegan's was wonderful.
The HP and Jurassic Park areas were awesome and the Suess area was so fun.
We met some really great tms and we loved the characters. We found that the character interactions blew the competition away both in time and interaction.

Fave chatacter meet
Sam-Gru
H- Pink Beret and chicks from Hop,
G- Lollipop dancers from HOP parade, Gru,
B- Diego and Spiderman, and all of the bunnies

We had 5 full days and loved that amount of time. We never felt rushed and could really go with the flow and take it all in. Plus plenty of time for the pool.

We can't wait to go back! Thanks for reading along!

 

[macraven]

Totally enjoyed your report

Thanks for sharing everything with us


I hope you get to return soon to the darkside

You are now one of the pros and know you will share your wealth of info with other homies

 

[Elliotterae]

This was a great trip report. I really enjoyed all the pictures and details. We are headed to the Dark Side for the first time since the kids were born and your report prompted a couple questions.

1. I had read that there wasnt much planning needed at UO and IoA but you mentioned lunch and character meal reservations a few times. Are they neccesary? We would like one character meal and probably will want to eat at Finnegans. Should I make reservations for those.

2. The dinosaur interaction you had, Id have to go back up and re read to see the name of it, but the one where you were second in line after Seusse rides, I hadnt heard of it. Are there many things like this around the parks? Is there a good run down of all the attractions that arent rides somewhere I should read over. I can tell from your reports there is a lot more than our 2001 trip and more than my limited guide book reading has told me about. Id hate to miss something like this. The kids will love this, and since I'm going to end up being 20 weeks pregnant, the more non-ride activities we can find the better.

 

[samheatherwhite]

Hi, Elliotterae, I will do my best to answer your questions.
1. Planning is easy at Universal. I am super type A so I like reservations but many people don't bother. Especially during slower times. If you don't want reservations I think that you would have no trouble at all eating anywhere as long as you ate early or at off times. I think that you do have to have a reservation for the Super Star Character Breakfast held in the UO park. I have never done one at the hotels but I don't think that a ressi would be necessary unless you are there during a major holiday break.
2. You are talking about the raptor encounter. It is one of our favorite things to do and makes a great photo or video. It is fairly new and I highly recommend going as soon as it opens so you don't have to wait. Uni has a lot of fun things that aren't rides. I can't help you with the shows much. The Suess little show is super cute for littles and my 8 year old really liked the walk through attraction that is called Poseidon's. There are characters everywhere, use your daily map to get times. The meets with them where they come out and sing along w their parade float and then take photos is awesome and all times are on the map. If you like HP there are little shows all day in each land in both parks. Be sure and talk to the knight bus conductor and the shrunken head, they are hilarious. The Jurassic Park discovery center is a super fun exploration area for kids and often has displays where the kids can ask questions.
I hope this helps, feel free to ask me anything and I will do my best to help!

 

[Elliotterae]

This does help. I am super planner deluxe when we do Disney. I go with a basically minute by minute breakdown for each day. (Line up for rope drop at 8:00, Seven dwarves mine train 8:55- 9:05, Pooh 9:10-9:20, ect)
But since we are staying at Royal Pacific with Express passes and everyone says there is no need for that at Universal, I had sort of decided to try my hand at winging it. Clearly, I'm not cut our for that because the closer it gets, the more I analyze trip reports and start making little "mini plans" that keep getting more detailed.

 

[macraven]

If writing down plans for what to do and where to be at all times in the park, no problem

So what makes you feel more in control and comfortable

After being in the parks part of the day, you will find you can wing it at the parks

Do plan parade and show times and then hit rides and meals as it happens

 

[agavegirl1]

For my Darkside plans, I plan in longer time blocks. I also plan WDW trips like you do but for the Universal portion of my Orlando trips, I use chunks of time like three hour blocks with goals in them. Plan as much as makes you comfortable and don't be surprised if you end up with extra flexible time to fill.

 

[samheatherwhite]

I am a mega planner too but I have really come to love the play it by ear time at Universal. It works especially with kids, if they want to do something off the wall, you can!