Minnesota has a school break every fall for the Minnesota Education Association conference. Schools are closed so the teachers can go to the conference. For MEA this year, the kids had Wednesday through Friday off, so we decided to take Monday and Tuesday off and take a week long vacation to Florida!
We started with 2 days at Universal Studios with the objective of experiencing the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" in the Universal Studios and Island of Adventure parks. One of the most popular rides is a newer rollercoaster called "Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure". To avoid long wait times for that ride, we decided to take advantage of the early access to the park that you get when you stay at Universal Studios resort. We stayed at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort and took a quick shuttle over to the parks. Here is our bright and early first morning.
6:03am. Waiting for the shuttle bus.
Excited wizards!
We arrived while it was still dark out.
The front desk guy at our resort said we could get breakfast at the Universal City Walk before entering the park at 7am, but everything was still closed when we got there.
Entering Universal Studios.
The Hagrid ride is in the other park, Islands of Adventure, which didn't open until 9am, so we had time to explore a bit and get the kids their wands right away in Diagon Alley!
Here is Sarah looking at some of the wands at Olivander's Wand Shop.
All set with the wands of their choosing, or should I say the wands that chose them?
Diagon Alley as the sun rose.
The dragon atop Gringotts Bank...
...breathes fire intermittently.
The Cronk wizards in Diagon Alley
Then we went back out of Universal Studios and walk across the City Walk to get to Islands of Adventure to wait for park opening to get a good spot in line for the Hagrid ride right away.
We passed by the same globe as we did in the dark that morning.
And finally got breakfast at Voodoo Donuts to eat while we waited to get in to Islands of Adventure.
Austin got the "Texas Donut" which was literally as big as his head!
The Islands of Adventure park has Hogsmeade (as opposed to Diagon Alley in the Universal park).
We went straight to the line for Hagrid's (as did pretty much every other person waiting to get in to the park). The line snaked by the Hogwart's Express, so we stopped for a photo op.
We got a great spot in line and were already making our way up the path with a view of the castle by 9:05am.
We passed by Hagrid's hut.
The ride was awesome and worth the rush to get in line in the morning. We ended up only waiting about 35 minutes or so, and by the time we were done with the ride, the app showed a 240 minute wait time!!
Then on to the castle!
We went through various parts of the castle while we were in line, including the dungeons where we saw the potions classroom and Professor Snape's office. We found the Mirror of Erised.
Dumbledore's office.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione
The moving photos in the newspaper
The sorting hat
And the paintings moving and talking to each other.
This is Helga Hufflepuff
Godric Gryffindor
Rowena Ravenclaw on the left with Salazar Slytherin on the right.
Butterbeer! It is as good as I thought it would be. Yummy!
We enjoyed exploring more of the fun shops in Hogsmeade.
Met the Hogwarts Express conductor.
And took the Hogwarts Express from Hogsmeade to King's Cross Station to get back to Diagon Alley.
In the train, they have animation on the window that makes it look like you are going across the countryside and into London. There is also animation on the compartment door/windows that makes it seem like Harry, Ron, and Hermione are walking by, chocolate frogs are jumping on the walls, etc. It was a different experience going in each direction too. A fun (and air conditioned!) way to get back and forth between the Harry Potter sections of the 2 parks.
Back in Diagon Alley
Gringotts Bank. The head goblin.
3D glasses on, ready to "Escape from Gringotts"
There were many themed shops like they have in Diagon Alley in the books.
We also found the dark Knockturn Alley where the dark magic shops reside.
This was one of the things their wands could do - they could make the skeletons on the screen dance mirroring the movements of their wand. Here, they were making a troll skeleton dance.
Platform 9 3/4
We stopped in to Honeydukes Sweet Shop for some chocolate frogs
And Butterbeer Fudge
For the 2nd day, the kids wanted to ride Hagrid's again, so this time, we went to park opening at 9am (instead of the early opening at 7am over at Universal Studios). We got right in line again and were able to ride Hagrid's ride again with minimal wait. It really was a fun ride with some surprises along the way. In line for Hagrid's we saw Hagrid's work bench...
...and lots of other fun details along the way.
The 2nd day, Trevor and I wore coordinating shirts.
These were quite appropriate for the 2 of us. Ha!
And Trevor's glowed in the dark too!
Since we had accomplished everything we wanted to do with the Harry Potter parts of the park and had some time to spare, we tried some of the other attractions at Universal. In the Jurrasic Park part of the park, there was a pterodactyl ride that the big kids were too tall to ride, so Trevor got to go all by himself!
We rode the Spiderman ride, which was glitchy and scared Trevor with the villians.
Trevor was barely too short to ride the Hulk rollercoaster, so while Daddy and the big kids rode that one, Trevor and I went over to the Dr. Seuss part of the park and rode the "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" ride.
Then the Cat in the Hat ride.
We headed back over to Diagon Alley on the Hogwart's Express for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron
I got butterbeer again.
Trevor tried the Pumpkin Juice (which was also quite good)!
We saw Kreacher peeking out of a window at Grimmauld Place
And called the Ministry for Magic on the phone booth phone.
My smart girl trying to figure out a rotary phone!
Trevor got eaten by a giant shark!
Then we saw the Shrek 4D show.
We became Minions and went through Minion training, but they changed us back. Maybe we're not very good at being minions!
We closed out our time at Universal with some Butterbeer Ice Cream!
Yummy!
We did the same strategy with Disney, taking advantage of the "Early Morning Magic Hours" in which the park opens early only for Disney resort guests. We got on the bus from our resort around 6:10am, got in line at Magic Kingdom at about 6:40am. One of the cast members had us make another line to the side of the people waiting there, so we ended up right up front as they opened the gates. They opened the gates about 10 minutes to 7am. We arrived in the dark with the castle all lit up.
We had the teacups to ourselves!
My little maniac spinning us
We walked right onto the Little Mermaid ride too.
Then Peter Pan!
Trevor loved this one!
We walked under the castle arches and saw the beautiful mosaics.
After we took advantage of our early magic hour, we sat down for a nice breakfast, which included Mickey waffles for the kids, of course!
I told Trevor to make his scared face. Ha!
Then we had fun on the jungle cruise!
Austin found our tour guide to be hilarious!
Trevor loves the big pirate ship!
We also went on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which I don't think we went on last time we came. Then Aladdin's Flying Carpets - ironically, we waited longer for this ride than most the others we went on!
We took a break to hang out in some rocking chairs in the shade and enjoy some Dole Whips!
Trevor was excited to meet this bear even though I'm not sure we know who this character is!
Trevor visiting Winnie the Pooh's house
Flash back to 2015
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
This ride stalled out while we were on it, so the kids got to just keep racking up points by shooting their lasers at the targets while we were sitting there.
On to Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor.
My goofy monsters...
Race track.
I think I should be concerned that this one will be driving in a few years.
Trevor was my chauffeur
Crazy driver!
"Look, Mom! No hands."
Dumbo!
Sarah was particularly looking forward to this one.
Fun fall decor was around the park for the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.
We decided not to pay the extra $550 to stay in the park for the Halloween party, which meant Magic Kingdom closed for us at 6pm. We were disappointed not to be able to stay to see the parade and the amazing castle projection show and fireworks like we did last time we were here 4 years ago, but because we rocked the early morning magic hours and were able to ride so many rides with minimal wait times, we had pretty much finished everything we really wanted to do in Magic Kingdom by about 3pm.
We watched the end of a show on the castle stage, recorded Sarah practicing her tap dance (homework for her dance team over MEA), then headed over to Hollywood Studios to do some of the rides we wanted to do there and stay for the Fantasmic Show.
We didn't plan on getting to Hollywood Studios on Tuesday, so we didn't have a fast pass for Slinky Dog Dash, their newer ride there. We got in line when the wait time said 80 minutes, but only ended up waiting 45 minutes. We were all pretty tired by then, though, so the kids were whiny and didn't want to take a photo. So here's me in front of Slinky Dog Dash while we were waiting.
It was a fun ride, but I've got to say, I personally preferred Hagrid's over at Universal (probably my favorite of the trip). The other ride area at Hollywood Studios that is new and popular is the Star Wars part of the park, but we have zero interest in Star Wars, so we just skipped that.
We did get a fast pass for the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and the boys loved that one. It was fun and fast. It starts you off accelerating really fast and then goes into the dark. Trevor is turning into quite the roller coaster enthusiast. I would often be sitting next to him on the roller coasters and would hear him scream, "This is awesome!"
After that, we had some dinner, then headed to the Fantasmic show. It was in a big ampitheater with a mountainous set with a lagoon between the audience and the stage area. During the show, they sprayed the water up and projected images on the water in the air. They also had boats going around the lagoon with characters on them, as well as fireworks and lights shooting off the stage. We enjoyed it!
The dragon was after Mickey and set the lagoon on fire.
Steamboat Willie came out driving the big boat with all the characters on it at the end!
Back to our resort after that, where Trevor got the pull down bed complete with a mural of the alligator from the Princess and the Frog.
We did early morning magic hours again the next day for Animal Kingdom so we could check out the Pandora Flight of Passage ride that is popular there. We entered the park in the dark before sunrise and the part of the park leading to this ride was like a jungle lit with black lights. None of us have seen the Pandora movie, but the scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed the ride with minimal wait.
Getting assigned our avatars.
We did another Pandora ride next, the Na'vi River Journey. It was interesting and beautiful, but probably would have had more meaning for us had we seen the movie.
We managed a pic by the iconic tree in the middle of Animal Kingdom.
We had fun seeing the bug show!
Our bug eyes!
Hakuna Matata!
Dinosaurs!
The safari was fun and interesting. We got to see some beautiful and impressive wildlife.
Alligators
Baby giraffe
Mamas and baby giraffes
Elephants
This ostrich decided to hang out and strut in front of our bus for a little while.
White rhinos - these guys are HUGE!
Some Mickey ice cream bars for a treat!
We rode the Hollywood Tower of Terror and, even though Sarah wasn't sure she wanted to go on it, they all seemed to enjoy it.
We saw Lightning McQueen at his training academy.
Then we headed out of the park and took a bus back to our resort. Trevor didn't make it more than a few minutes on the bus before he was out cold!
For the next 3 days, we enjoyed relaxing and swimming in the pool. I quite enjoyed putting up my (swollen, sore) feet, sitting in the shade, and watching the kids goof off and play.
Trevor "swabbing the decks"
Launching the rocket!
Austin had fun trying to catch the ball while jumping in the pool.
Night swim!
The relaxation at Nanny and Grandpa's was a perfect end to a fun vacation! We definitely needed the relaxation after the crazy packed days at the parks!
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