Day 01 - Islands Of Adventure

The short

Islands of Adventure today. First full day and it couldnt have been a more perfect first day of our holiday. Once in the park proer, we made a bee line to Hogsmeade and did Forbidden Journey (gold standard as always) and then Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. And Magical it was, such a great ride and experience, it was fantastic. Jurassic Park next, River Adventure and the super speedy, super awesome Velocicoaster DONE. BAAACK to Hogsmeade to do Flight of the Hippogryph and Hagrid’s again (yup). Pretty much walked on to the Hulk, then Kong and finally Spiderman and the day was done. Very chill day which we didnt expect and ride times were all surprisingly reasonable.. Met up with Pauline and Kevin and went to Chilis for dinner where we were reminded very strongly about how big portion sizes were - IT. WAS. A. STRUGGLE, but very good and great to meet up with the family (not for the first time, I may add - details below). Very tired by the end but overall we all had a very very enjoyable day. Heading to Universal Studios tomorrow with Pauline, Kevin, Emily and Kelly - really looking forward to it.

The long

First off, I am tired writing this as its been a pretty long but very pleasurable day, so please excuse the mistakes, blandness and lack of edit photographs (or even photosgraphs), it’ll get better once I get acclimatized… probably. Please also forgive the fact that this may descend into an incoherent scrawl as I have my first glass of the new whisky at hand as I write this, and it may not be my last as it it very, very nice…

Of all the gin joints in all the towns…

So before I head into today, Ill just give a little recap of some of the events of last night that failed to go into the yesterdays update. Picked up the car after flying through security at the airport and decided to head to Disney Springs to pick up the Magic Bands for our upcoming Disney parks this week. Oh and as soon as we stepped out into Orlando air, the heat just hit us, not too hot - a very pleasant warmth but glad that we dressed for the occasion beforehand. And our car was huge, so spacious and easily devoured all ten of our cases and bags with room to spare. Took about an hour from the airport and by change we parked at the nearest car park to Planet Hollywood which was the place we had to pick up our bands. We were tempted so much to stay at Disney Springs for a while because it felt so familiar and exciting, but came to our senses as it was getting on in the day and headed to the hotel to check-in (and get our smoothies #nom), unpack and get base camp established. And although we were kinda shattered from all of our travels, we headed out to Walmart to get some essential supplies in. Now Walmart is frickin’ huge, its like Asda on Steroids, which then had a baby with Costco and you could easily get lost in it. And who did we bump in to? Pauline and Kevin and the girls (my sister and brother in law for those who dont know). Absolutely crazy and completely unplanned, what are the chances??? So yeah, we were stood in the middle of Walmart catching up and getting the low down on what they’d been up to. It was really nice to meet them out and about even though we had plans to do so this week. So after we said our goodbyes, we returned to the hotel and we all pretty much crashed out.

And now…

This morning I woke up at 5am. Why was this you ask? Maybe it was it my body clock adjusting? Or the heat just getting too much? Nope, it due to an alarm going off, the alarm that Ann had set on her phone to get us up for our flight the DAY BEFORE! I was able to get back for a short sleep though before we woke up proper and we were all the better for a good night sleep.

So on to Islands of Adventure today, our first of the two Universal parks we were doing back to back to kick off the week. We decided to ease ourselves into it, as we had to get our tickets and the accessibility pass organized which would take a little time at guest services. There was a buzz of excitement and familiarity as we parked up in the Jurassic Park carpark and walked down the moving walkway. And the Jurassic Park theme tune playing (which is possibly one of the most emotive movie themes ever), was the icing on the cake. We got to the gate and took our our embarrassingly huge A4 printout to get into the park (I find it pretty crazy Universal still rely on paper and pen for these things). The person scanning us in called everyone by their correct names as we entered one by one, well everyone except me. He called me Gerald. Now, I’ll take this time to recall an event from the evening before - whilst waiting on our Smoothies at the hotel, we came across a whole bunch of keyrings with names, one of which had a similar name to Gerald - Geraldo. I joked at the time about having been referred to that as a friendly moniker occasionally in the past and how it would be funny if I purchased said keyring as a joke. Well, the dude at the gate just gave me a big push in that direction and then having seen a stroller in the park not a 100 yards from that point with the family name of Geraldo, my fate i now sealed.

Guest Services. The girl assisting Ann, Lexi could not have been more helpful and pleasant. Right, I get it , I know this is their job and they get paid to do it, but I’ll tell you what I havent seen such kindness and willingness to help from random people in a long while. and it really didnt stop there. Such nice people here (be warned I fear I may say this a lot on this trip).

So on to Hogsmeade and the plan was to get a return time for Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (which I will be calling Hagrid’s from this point on), and ride another Harry Potter ride while we wait. We had been forewarned about how excellent Hagrid’s would be by Michael & SJ, so kinda hyped for it. Decided to do Forbidden Journey while waited, and I couldnt quite believe that the wait time was only 15 minutes! The queue experience was excellent and this has been an outstanding ride in the past, so to see this at 20 minutes, that cray-cray. Pauline and Kev had said the parks were a little quieter but I really didn’t expect this. Hopefully a sign of good things to come. So the five of us strolled through Hogwarts halls, wearing our custom HP t-shirts, and we laughed and reminisced about previous years, even way back to the first year when it was only Ann & I as the children were all too small to ride. Happy times at Hogwarts.

Oh yeah the custom t-shirts (see I told you this was going to be all over the place). I’ll mention this only because it’ll matter later, but one of the sets of t-shirts we did (and we did 3 sets in total), was personalised t-shirts with quotes and character references from Harry Potter, all in Gryffindor colours. Ann had Dobby, Grace had Luna, Patrick had Fawkes, Robert had Hagrid and I had the Deathly Hallows. We didnt really have the time to make them so close to the holiday in hindsight but really glad we did.

Anyway, me and my soon to be sidekick for all park rides Grace, were in one cart and the other three in another. It was just like I remembered, and Grace loved it too (though closed her eyes at the spiders). Very enjoyable first ride of the holiday, scores out of ten below.

GG 8.5

AG 7

PG 8

RG 8

GG2 8.5

Now I and the other have adjusted these scores, in anticipation for the newer rides (Im looking at you Rise of the Resistance), so they may have slipped from previous years, but this is still fairly respectable overall.

Hagrids next and again the girl at the gate, Autumn was so amazingly nice. We had an issue getting a retun time for another ride, so she gave us 5 free tickets to walk on to any other ride later in the day and when I had problems with my locker she gave me a comp locker ticket without question. They dont need to do this, but it really made it so special for us. Just utterly humbled by the whole thing.

So Hagrids, aye well to start I was on the motorbike and Grace in the side car, with the rest of the troops not far behind. And it was so utterly, gob smackingly fantastic - I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time (while holding on to the handlebars for dear life). Everyone loved it and Grace screamed 10. 10. 10. 10. no 11, can I give it an 11?…. as we came off the ride and couldnt wait for me to ask her her rating. Ive said we should also give a ride a star everyday and Hagrids got five stars, it was that good.

GG 9

AG 10

PG 8.5

RG 9

GG2 10 (just 10 grace)

Had to get a Butterbeer (so good), and we then headed off to get a return time for the next coaster - VELOCICOASTER! We decided to come back and do Flight of the Hippogryph at a later time.

Life finds a way

We managed to get a return time for Velcicoaster which everyone apart from Ann decided to do. Yes, even Patrick “I dont do Rollercoasters” Gaffney decided he would go on it. No coaxing, arm twisting nothing. It was a big thing for him as hes not good with heights at all and it was a big one, so we dont to PG for stepping up to the plate. Meanwhile Robert “I love all the coasters” Gaffney, had been waiting all day for it!

Jumped on Sadie’s favourite ride, River Adventure, while we waited to go back, and we survived unscathed (well unwet, if thats such a thing). Funny thing as we were waiting in the queue, I had to borrow Anns prescription sunglasses as I couldnt read my phone clearly. Definitely felt old, if I didnt already at that point! Scores on the doors for this one were:

GG 7

AG 6

PG 7

RG 7

GG2 7

Back to Velocicoaster at our return time and the tension was building. Ann took some time out to go fill our unlimited refillable drinks and we hesitantly shuffled to the ride entrance. Grace was getting a little nervous, and even more by the fact it was only 2 persons wide as she would be on the end. But she wanted to try at least once, and to her and everyones elses credit, they did great. But boy, was it fast. Superfast really, reaching up to 70mph at one of the loops, and although that doesnt sound like much, it felt very very much. Robert had it as a definite contender for best ride, and Patrick thoroughly enjoyed it, which was great to hear.

GG 9

AG -

PG 8.5

RR 9

GG 9

We decided to use our free tickets we got earlier to do Hagrid’s again whilst it was still within walking distance, so back to Hogsmeade we went. The day was pretty easy going so didnt fell like were had to hurry through anythng at any point which was a nice feeling, so backtracking really wasnt an issue.

Flight of The Hippogryph. It was very short, just like this paragraph so heres the scores:

GG 6.5

AG 5

PG 6.5

RG 6.5

GG 6.5

Seriously though, still a nice wee ride, but when you now need to factor in the newcomers, it starts to slip.

The Fountain of Knowledge

Whilst taking a break before doing Hagrid’s again, we decided to sit on the edge of a nice water fountain in The Lost Continent area. I took my camera out for the first time (hence the lack of photographs, but that will definitely be changing as of tomorrow), and took a few shots of Grace. All of a sudden the fountain started speaking to us! It was surreal. His name was apparenlt Finneus (yeah Finneus the Fountain) and complimented us on our tshirts and asked where we were from. And on hearing that we hailed from Scotland, he put on a poor scottish accent (as you do or at least as others do) and asked about Haggis, the weather and the MIDGES, all the while cracking jokes. It was hilarious and so surreal. It was things like this that made our day get better and better. And it really didnt stop there. So we then got into the queue at Hagrids with our free passes, only to be called back hurriedly by one of the ride ushers. We thought we had done something wrong, but they wanted to see our custom T-shirts! And they were so impressed by them, that they told us to keep our free tickets as they were going to walk us all right to the front of the ride! We just couldnt believe it. It was EVEN better then second time, so better in fact I increased my score to 9.5. As we were leaving we thanks the crew, and they then asked if we wanted to do it again. WHAT??? It was insane, so yeah back to the front of the line yet again for our third time around Hagrids. Such a crazy series of events and special shout out to Justin, Andrea and Jake for that, absolutely buzzing after it and definitely worth eeking out the time to get the thsirts designed and printed.

To wrap up the day, we got a return time for Kong and while waiting for that headed to The Hulk. The ride Grace had been desperately wanting to try since the last time when she was too short to ride. The queue time was only TEN MINUTES!!! Just me, Robert and Grace for this one and Grace, who had been a bit shaky after Velocicoaster was starting to get a little anxious for it. She gripped my handed as we headed off from the platform, and after the first look I heard her screaming. Thinking that she it was too much for her, I looked over only to see her screaming with joy and we twisted upside side down and around and around and around. She exited with the words, BEST RIDE EVER! although her heart won out as she ultimately settled on Hagrids as her most favourite ride experience of the day. I was a little apprehensive about The Hulk after riding Velocicoaster, not living up to the memory and would pale in comparison to the newer tech rides. But it did not disappoint, it was everything I remembered it was, great solid ride and one I would happily go on again and again (which coincidently is what Grace said she wanted to do). One of Robert favourite ride from last time, and he felt the same way to.

GG 9

AG -

PG -

RG 8.5

GG2 10

Penultimate ride of the day - Skull Island: Reign of Kong and although I couldnt remember much from last time, it was really great and mixed visual effects, motion effects and animatronics really well.

GG 8.5

AG 7.5

PG 7.5

RG 8

GG 8

And finally Spiderman. Showing its age a little now, but still a good ride with lots of great sequences.

GG 7.5

AG 7

PG 7

RG 7

GG 7

And with that, we were done with the Islands of Adventure for the day. Honestly so overwhelmed by it all, and cant say enough how much of an amazing day we all had. If every day turned out to be half as good as this, it will be a fantastic trip.

And for dinner we caught up with Pauline, Kevin, Emily and Kelly after a quick change and headed to Chilis. Having only had a snack as we werent really hungry throughout the day, we were ready for it! We sat down to a a plethora of home made chips/nachos, cheese, chicken tenders, wings, bites, sizzling fajitas, corn and the biggest mozzarella sticks on the planet. Of course, not accounting the portion sizes, I think it defeated most of us in the end (well apart from Kev, Patrick and Robert), so will to take that into account in future. It was a great night made even better by my mum and dad who had given us the funds to cover the meal before we left (thanks guys! :)

Were heading to Universal Studios with P&K tomorrow, so need to be up bright and early, so with that Ill sign off for now. Thanks to those of you who are still here, spk to you tomorrow!

Step count of the day: 20.5k

Star rides: Hagrid’s (5 stars)