Universal Studios

On Thursday morning we got back to port and we took a shuttle to the airport and then went to our hotel for our last few days in Orlando.  We dropped our bags off and then headed to Universal Studios for the afternoon.  We decided to start off with Islands of Adventure.

We walked through Suessland and looked for gifts for our niece and nephew before heading to the Harry Potter section of the park.  I am a pretty big fan of Harry Potter--I've read all of the books (more than once) and David has watched all of the movies with me since we've been together.  When I went to Orlando with my family almost 5 years ago, this part of the park had just opened.  Jeremy, Aja and I checked it out and really enjoyed it.  It was fun to go back and to check out the Harry Potter section in the other park as well.

We were all set to ride the main ride that's inside the castle.  We waited in line for a while and for the first 30 minutes the line was moving well, but then it suddenly stopped.  They made some announcements about how they were trying to get the ride up and running again, so we eventually decided to leave and check out the rest of the park and try to come back.

 We headed over to the Jurassic Park area for lunch and to visit the dinosaurs!  And we rode the River Adventure which was a lot of fun

 Then we headed to the superhero section.  We rode the 3-D Spiderman ride and took some fun pictures inside the daily bugle.  From there we headed over to Hulk.  As we were going to get in line the guy informed me that I would have to take my cast off to ride the ride.  He said I could walk up in it and just leave it with the attendant, but I didn't feel like it was worth it to try to ride without it--and I felt like that could be pretty painful.  So I rested for a few minutes while David rode the roller coaster.

We headed back through the comic strip land and snapped a few pictures. 

Then we decided to try Harry Potter again 

Excited that we made it this far in the line!  We were able to ride the ride the second time around

 Then we rode the Hogwarts Express over to the other park.

 David enjoyed hanging out in the phone booth in "London"

Diagon Alley (the newer Harry Potter section) was pretty cool.  Everything about it felt true to the books and movies and we enjoyed walking around there.

From there we headed back to our hotel for the evening.  Our hotel in Orlando was very nice and spacious.  It was a great place to relax after a long day of walking around.

David's favorite part was that there is a Giordano's pizza closeby and so we ordered dinner and caught up on our Thursday night shows while we ate.

Friday morning we headed back when the parks opened.  We started the second day in the original park

Our first adventure was with the Minions--which may have been David's favorite part!

From there we walked around the different areas of San Francisco and headed to ride the roller coaster in the Diagon Alley section.  Then we checked out Men in Black and shot some aliens.  

 After we spent Thursday afternoon at the park, I realized that I probably would not make it through a whole day of walking around on Friday with my foot.  So we planned a break in the middle of the day Friday.  Luckily right outside the parks is Citywalk which has lots of restaurants, shops, and a movie theater.  We ate at a Mexican Food restaurant and then caught a matinee of the new Avengers movie which we both really liked.

 We headed back in to the park to buy a few last souvenirs.  We took the Hogwarts Express from the older park over to the Islands of Adventure and bought a few last minute things before heading back to our hotel.

We rested Friday night and then headed to the airport on Saturday morning.  While it was sad to end our vacation, it's always nice to return home.  

And we were glad to see this girl and give her the souvenir we bought for her--okay maybe we bought it for us because we thought it was pretty cute!