Monday, October 7, 2013
Universal Islands of Adventure and Chef Mickey's
Since we
were on fall/Halloween vacation we decided to take our own decoration to
decorate our room window. We let the
girls take charge of the decorating and they used a string of lights, some
Disney Halloween clings, Boo to You jelly clings, garlands and sparkly
pumpkins. We also put a magnetic dry
erase board and pens on our door. Each
day we put a message on the top and encouraged others to write on the board
too. We always looked forward to seeing
what was written on the board at the end of our day.
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| Daughter decorating the room window |
This day was
our Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal day so we decided to skip
getting up super early and eating out.
Instead we ate jerky, almonds and dried fruit in our room as we got
ready for our day then we took a cab to Universal. Disney resorts have cab stations at their
main buildings and Pop Century is no different. There was a cab ready as soon as we walked up. The cab fare with tip was about $35. Our driver was very nice and knowledgeable
about our destination and was happy to answer questions. He dropped us off at
and escalator that we took up and then crossed on a bridge over to City
Walk. City Walk is an entertainment
district full of restaurants, shows and shops.
We found a photo op or two and eventually made our way to Islands ofAdventure entrance. We had pre-purchased
our tickets and needed to go to the IOA kiosks to pick them up. It was simple and fast and we were off to the
IOA gates in no time at all.
We entered
the park and passed through the port of entry shops, Seuss Landing, The Lost
Continent and then into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! It was surreal, like we walked right into the
movie set. There were snow covered roofs
and stone buildings towers, butter bear wagons, store fronts from the books and
movies and more! As we passed the train
station we saw the Hogwarts Express engine and the conductor so we had to get
his photo with the girls! As we walked
through the streets of Hogsmead the familiar towers of the Hogwarts castle came
into view! We were all so excited! The wait time was really short at about 20
minutes. In all honesty, the majority of
the wait was just the time it took to walk through the queue. We started in Professor Sprout’s greenhouse
classroom and entered the castle doors. We wound through the hallways and saw tapestries, statues and many of
the familiar sights of the castle interior. There were even portraits that moved and talked to each other. I tried to take photos and video but it didn't translate well. It was really neat to watch though! We passed Dumbledore’s office and he spoke with us. He was kind of cryptic but told us to meet
the trio in the Dark Arts classroom. Once we entered the dark arts classroom Hermione, Ron and Harry snuck in
and asked for out help. We followed along
another hall and this is where we left the girls to ride the ride. They encountered giant spiders and dementors,
rode brooms over the quidditch field and helped the trio save the day! While they rode, hubby and I headed to the
exit which emptied into Filch’s Emporium of Confiscated Goods. We had so much fun wandering around this gift
shop. So many neat things! Even the cast members were into the spirit of
things as they all wore robes, proudly announced their house and had us sign
with our charge with a feather pen.
After the ride the girls were so excited telling us about their
adventure. I had to buy the ride photo
of them! (which I didn't post because I haven't scanned it)
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| The girls and the train conductor |
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| Hogwarts |
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| The girls in the Herbolbogy classroom |
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| House points |
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| Ready to board the ride! |
There was a
wand cart near the exit and both the girls and hubby decided to check it out. The woman at the card did an amazing job
creating an experience for them, telling them about the lore for each
wand. After about 30 minutes they each
picked their wands. BFF bought Hermione’s
wand, daughter bought Sirius Black’s wand and hubby bought Lucius Malfoy’s cane
wand.
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| Wand shopping |
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| BFF bought Hermione's wand |
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| Daughter bought Sirius Black's wand |
Next to the
wand cart was the Flight of the Hippogriff family coaster. We decided to give it a ride! The girls and I loved it, Hubby, not so
much! The theming was amazing as we
passed by Hagrid’s hut and his giant pumpkins. We could hear his dog Fang in the hut barking. As the hippogriff took flight we passed
Buckbeak who bowed as we passed.
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| Hagrid's Hut |
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| Buckbeak |
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| The girls enjoyed it, dad did not |
As we headed
toward the next ride we saw that the Hogwarts Frog Choir was performing so we
decided to watch the show. They were
really fun to watch and we all enjoyed the show. Afterwards they posed for photos so I had to
get the girls with them.
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| The girls pose with the frog choir |
I posted video of them performing on youtube. You can view it here
The girls
wanted to ride the Dueling Dragons roller coaster next. This was another queue with wonderful theming
based on the Tri-Wizard Tournament. We
passed banners cheering on the tournament champions and we even saw the flying
car. Inside the building we saw the Goblet
of Fire and the golden egg with the underwater clue. Eventually you get to a point where you have
to choose, red or blue! The girls chose
BLUE! Off they were to ride the blue
dragon coaster. They had fun! We skipped
the ride and waited by the exit. We had
our own fun talking about how much we loved everything there. After the girls exited they decided they
wanted to ride the Hogwarts ride one more time so we let them go on the ride
while hubby and I found a place to sit and admire his wand cane.
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| Red or Blue? |
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| The flying car |
We were all
pretty hungry now so we decided to have a nice family meal at the Three
Broomsticks. Lunch was delicious! We ordered “The Great Feast” which feeds four
and included rotisserie smoked chicken, spare ribs, corn on the cob, roast
potatoes, carrots and broccoli, and a fresh tossed garden salad with vinaigrette
dressing. We also got four butter beers
with souvenir cups to drink. Butter Beer
is amazing!! It was all so incredibly
good and hit the spot for our hungry crew.
While we were sitting there we noticed shadow projections around the
building of brooms and feather dusters cleaning and owls flying through and
leaving mail. It really added to the
ambiance of the whole experience. We
just kind of took it all in and the girls decided to practice casting spells
with their wands.
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| The Three Broomsticks |
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| Butterbeer! |
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| The Great Feast |
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| Every feast needs salad |
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| Be afraid |
After a leisurely
lunch, we decided to go through all of the shops! We went to Zonko’s, Honeydukes, The Owl Post,
Dervish and Bangs and Olivander’s. We
bought chocolate frogs, Bernie Bott’s jelly beans, pumpkin juice, house pins
and patches, house mugs; I bought a house tumbler set and a messenger bag with
Hedwig on the front. The girls’ bough
Key chains, time turners and daughter bought a stuffed Chinese Fireball Dragon.
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| Enjoying Hogsmeade |
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| Hermione's Yule Ball Gown |
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| Owls in the Owlery |
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| Honeydukes and Zonkos |
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| Goodies |
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| Dragon kite |
We met a
wonderful cast member named Diane who manned the pin and key chain cart. We chatted with her several times during the
day. She gave us directions, advice and
went above and beyond in helping daughter to track down that Dragon.
Sometime during the day we all needed a bathroom break and it was Diane who directed us to the location. As we walked in the bathroom we heard splashing and a familiar voice talking. It was Moaning Myrtle! She was entertaining everyone in both the men's and women's rooms. It was unexpected and very funny!
We finished
up our day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter by around 4pm. We were very fortunate that the lines all went
quickly, but there were a few rides in other areas we decided to visit before
we left the park. We rode the Jurassic
Park River adventure which was really enjoyable, although hubby did not like
the drop at the end.
We went back to Dr.
Seuss Landing and rode “The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley”, “The Cat in the
Hat”, and the girls rode the “Caro-Seuss-el”. The Grinch himself made an appearance! However my camera chose this
moment to break! The lens folded in
weird and it wouldn’t work the rest of the trip. So we used the Samsung tablet and cell phones
to take photos for the rest of the week. We were finished at around 6pm and everyone decided to go back to the
resort, plus we had 8pm reservations at Chef Mickey’s for dinner.
Universal
had a cab station at the exit and we told the staff where we were going and
they picked a cab and loaded us in. We
really enjoyed this cab driver. He was
fun and chatty. He took us to our
building instead of dropping us off at the Classic Hall, which was super nice
since we were all tired and had bags full of souvenirs to take with us. This cab cost a little bit more than the ride
over but I gave him $40 and told him to keep the change.
We went back
to our room and organized our goodies and rested and washed up a bit. Then we headed for the Contemporary Resort
which houses Chef Mickey’s!
It starts with a family photo, our fist package photo of the trip, which turned out super cute. We were seated soon after. This is a buffet style restaurant with American cuisine. I love all of the art in the restaurant. It is all contemporary Disney, very cool! Our waitress was awesome! She was fun and attentive. She even taught BFF the proper way to peel and eat shrimp! We met Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Donald and Minnie! They were all so engaging and fun, even with the teens! While we were sitting there our waitress and Mickey Mouse came out with a cupcake on a Mickey plate with a 21 written in whipped cream and wished me a Happy Birthday, very loud and publicly! It was truly a surprise! It turns out that my husband told our waitress that the next day was my 40 something birthday and he would like it if they could do a little something special. He did all of this while the girls and I were at the buffet! It was super duper cool and Mickey even gave me a kiss!
There was a
family at the table next to us with Dad and Mom, a young boy and toddler
girl. It turns out it was the boys 8th
birthday! So we wished each other Happy Birthday and exchanged Hi-5’s. It was really cute!
After dinner
we walked over to the connecting walkway between the Contemporary and Bay Lake
towers where we watched the water parade as it floated past. None of the photos turned out, that is the
bad thing about photos with a tablet or cell phones, but we enjoyed watching
the show.
We caught
the monorail and decided to take the long way around to our stop. We love looking at the resorts along the
monorail and had never done this at night. Everything was lit up and decorated for fall! After our monorail ride we caught our resort
bus and went back to Pop Century to rest up for tomorrow!
Here are our white board messages from the day!
Second day photos on Flickr
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