franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
So I promise this is the only “rapid fire” update that you will get from me on this TR. I was really excited to get this post up. You will see why when you get to the end of this update! Many of you will not be as excited about it as I am!
Day 2
3:38 AM
I know the time because our fancy new clock that we used for the first time on the Mississippi cruise was projecting it strongly on the wall. Here is a picture I took later in the day. When the room is dark, the projection is brighter.
What is with me and sleeping on vacation????
Do I get myself so worked up in the days before that once I get there I'm that wound up? I browsed the DIS for a bit, but I knew that the "Twilight Zone" was approaching. It's more annoying on the West Coast, I'm up at 1AM more often than I'm up at 4AM, but maybe not considering my last few trips!
I looked at FB. I tried to sleep, I wrote in my phone journal, I tried to sleep. Finally, I turned on World News Now which turned into America This Morning. I kept trying to sleep to no avail. At 6:25 the alarm that Fran had set went off.
We both got up and got dressed slowly. EMH was in US this morning which was perfect, this all fit into my plan. We went upstairs to the bar which they convert into a QS breakfast spot to see what they had. I wanted cereal and was hoping for something NOT loaded in sugar, corn flakes, Special K, even Honey Nut Cheerios are OK even if they are on the higher side of sweetness. The best I could do was Frosted Mini Wheats. I also grabbed a coffee.
Fran had a chocolate croissant.
We motored our way over to City Walk to make our way into US. I didn't take any pictures as we were on a mission.
They were actually letting people in before 8AM, but I guess the only thing that was open was Diagon Alley and it took a while to get back there. The areas we couldn't go to on the way were roped off to herd us in the direction they wanted. We entered and it was brilliantly done.
The Weazley Brothers shop….
I had wanted to use the big camera to take pictures in this area, but when the moment struck me I didn't want to take the time to get it out, so I just went with the point and shoot. By this point my tummy was feeling a little queasy.
I parked the scooter.
I decided not to finish my coffee.
We found the Gringott's ride and found out there is no option to go through the queue and then bail on the ride. It's also not scooter friendly (that's an understatement), so I said "so long" to Fran and got in line.
I was in line in the outside queue for less than 10 minutes before I got a very bad feeling in my stomach. I got out of line and ran straight for the first trash can I could find. One of the nice TMs was working at a cart next to the trash can and offered me the napkin dispenser that he had just restocked. He offered to get me medical attention, but I knew exactly what it was as I had suffered a similar problem a few weeks ago. It all comes down to sugar and caffeine don't go together when it comes to my stomach. I left the queue to find Fran and my bottle of water.
After a few minutes rest, I decided again to give it a shot. The wait time was still 30 minutes (which is where it was when I first got in line), by this point it was only 8:20, so we had plenty of time to do what we wanted still even after I rode the ride.
This was one of those portraits that was moving.
It was a neat ride, but it was really uncomfortable. They tried to push the bar down hard on my legs and it hurt while I was riding. The fact that most of the ride relied on projections on a video screen also took away from the Wow factor. I mean I’m sure it’s easier to produce than an actual animatronic dragon. There were a lot of stairs in the queue and I was exhausted by the end of the ride just from climbing up and down the steps. I never realized that there was a single rider line until I got to the loading process. I considered going back for a second ride, but the thought of it just wore me out.
After the ride, we went into the animal store.
Fran wanted me to take a picture of this kitty.
Then we checked out Knock turn alley.
I didn’t get any pictures actually insides Knockturn Alley as I didn’t get the big camera out. It was interesting. It was really dark. I’m sure that it was all indoors, but it had that “outdoor” feeling to it and was definitely a neat effect.
It was cool, but almost every place was selling the same souvenirs for the four different houses, and I'm getting so over "stuff". Fran bought a conductor style "Platform 9 3/4 hat", but that's it. I noticed that they have added some sort of game (in both lands) similar to the Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom game where you need wands to wave at the window displays to activate certain features.
Good job Universal! You found a way to sell every bleepin' kid a wand to wave around and annoy everyone in a 3 ft radius!
We took one last look up the street at Gringott’s.
And then we looked back to the exit of Diagon Alley and left.
Then we decided to take the Hogwarts Express. But first i had a visit with Stan and the Night Bus.
The train was interesting. We got to see the "wall" where you transform but scooters couldn't go that way, so I watched a few people go through and then we went through a regular door to the boarding area.
We were seated in a car with six other people. Again most everything happened on the video screen. It was fun.
[Continued in Next Post]
Day 2
3:38 AM
I know the time because our fancy new clock that we used for the first time on the Mississippi cruise was projecting it strongly on the wall. Here is a picture I took later in the day. When the room is dark, the projection is brighter.
What is with me and sleeping on vacation????
Do I get myself so worked up in the days before that once I get there I'm that wound up? I browsed the DIS for a bit, but I knew that the "Twilight Zone" was approaching. It's more annoying on the West Coast, I'm up at 1AM more often than I'm up at 4AM, but maybe not considering my last few trips!
I looked at FB. I tried to sleep, I wrote in my phone journal, I tried to sleep. Finally, I turned on World News Now which turned into America This Morning. I kept trying to sleep to no avail. At 6:25 the alarm that Fran had set went off.
We both got up and got dressed slowly. EMH was in US this morning which was perfect, this all fit into my plan. We went upstairs to the bar which they convert into a QS breakfast spot to see what they had. I wanted cereal and was hoping for something NOT loaded in sugar, corn flakes, Special K, even Honey Nut Cheerios are OK even if they are on the higher side of sweetness. The best I could do was Frosted Mini Wheats. I also grabbed a coffee.
Fran had a chocolate croissant.
We motored our way over to City Walk to make our way into US. I didn't take any pictures as we were on a mission.
They were actually letting people in before 8AM, but I guess the only thing that was open was Diagon Alley and it took a while to get back there. The areas we couldn't go to on the way were roped off to herd us in the direction they wanted. We entered and it was brilliantly done.
The Weazley Brothers shop….
I had wanted to use the big camera to take pictures in this area, but when the moment struck me I didn't want to take the time to get it out, so I just went with the point and shoot. By this point my tummy was feeling a little queasy.
I parked the scooter.
I decided not to finish my coffee.
We found the Gringott's ride and found out there is no option to go through the queue and then bail on the ride. It's also not scooter friendly (that's an understatement), so I said "so long" to Fran and got in line.
I was in line in the outside queue for less than 10 minutes before I got a very bad feeling in my stomach. I got out of line and ran straight for the first trash can I could find. One of the nice TMs was working at a cart next to the trash can and offered me the napkin dispenser that he had just restocked. He offered to get me medical attention, but I knew exactly what it was as I had suffered a similar problem a few weeks ago. It all comes down to sugar and caffeine don't go together when it comes to my stomach. I left the queue to find Fran and my bottle of water.
After a few minutes rest, I decided again to give it a shot. The wait time was still 30 minutes (which is where it was when I first got in line), by this point it was only 8:20, so we had plenty of time to do what we wanted still even after I rode the ride.
This was one of those portraits that was moving.
It was a neat ride, but it was really uncomfortable. They tried to push the bar down hard on my legs and it hurt while I was riding. The fact that most of the ride relied on projections on a video screen also took away from the Wow factor. I mean I’m sure it’s easier to produce than an actual animatronic dragon. There were a lot of stairs in the queue and I was exhausted by the end of the ride just from climbing up and down the steps. I never realized that there was a single rider line until I got to the loading process. I considered going back for a second ride, but the thought of it just wore me out.
After the ride, we went into the animal store.
Fran wanted me to take a picture of this kitty.
Then we checked out Knock turn alley.
I didn’t get any pictures actually insides Knockturn Alley as I didn’t get the big camera out. It was interesting. It was really dark. I’m sure that it was all indoors, but it had that “outdoor” feeling to it and was definitely a neat effect.
It was cool, but almost every place was selling the same souvenirs for the four different houses, and I'm getting so over "stuff". Fran bought a conductor style "Platform 9 3/4 hat", but that's it. I noticed that they have added some sort of game (in both lands) similar to the Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom game where you need wands to wave at the window displays to activate certain features.
Good job Universal! You found a way to sell every bleepin' kid a wand to wave around and annoy everyone in a 3 ft radius!
We took one last look up the street at Gringott’s.
And then we looked back to the exit of Diagon Alley and left.
Then we decided to take the Hogwarts Express. But first i had a visit with Stan and the Night Bus.
The train was interesting. We got to see the "wall" where you transform but scooters couldn't go that way, so I watched a few people go through and then we went through a regular door to the boarding area.
We were seated in a car with six other people. Again most everything happened on the video screen. It was fun.
[Continued in Next Post]