Keeping Up With...Family (Disney - Part 3)

If you haven't been reading along, you can see how the trip started by check out Part 1 and Part 2.  Today even though this is called Disney - Part 3, I'm actually going to talk about our day at the 2 Universal Parks.

Wednesday morning we got up and got ready to head to Universal.  Everyone was feeling good and Adrian & I were really looking forward to this day.  My mom volunteered to watch Zak for us for the day since there isn't a lot that he can do at the park.  We got up and out before he even woke up, which was awesome because he really needed the extra rest.  They spent the day with my brother and his family at the water park at his hotel.  Zak had a much better time there and we got to do a bunch more rides because we didn't have to parent swap everything.

We got there before the park opened and headed right to Dr Seuss land.  We were the first ones to ride every ride in that area, so fun!  Then we headed to ride the Spiderman ride, which was my favorite ride when Adrian and I went 8 years ago.  It was so unique and better than any ride I had ever been on.  We thought we'd ride it multiple times.  But the boys weren't impressed.  They thought it was cool but a little scary.  So we rode it once then headed over to meet Spiderman.

Seuss Trolley

Spider-pose!

After we finished up there, we headed to the water rides.  And boy do you get WET!  I'm glad we had crocs/flip flops for this part of the day.  Next time the boys will all wear bathing suits, our shorts took forever to dry.  Daniel loved the Jurassic Park water ride, AJ thought that one was very scary.  He actually thought it was really happening!  That pretty much finished up Islands of Adventure, except for the Harry Potter part.

And the Harry Potter part was AMAZING!!  Hogsmede is on the Islands of Adventure side so we walked around a little over there, got butter beer and then spent some time walking through the Hogwarts castle.  SO cool to see all the things from the books.  AJ was able to ride the Forbidden Journey ride and that immediately became my favorite ride ever.  The effects were amazing, the ride was thrilling, I LOVED it!  AJ got to ride it twice since we parent swapped out since Daniel wasn't tall enough to ride.  We finished up the rest of the rides on that side, then got on the Hogwarts Express to ride to Diagon Alley (the Studios side).

Outside the castle

Butter Beer selfie!

We grabbed a quick lunch then walked around Diagon Alley for a while.  This is the newest area of the park so it was the most crowded.  They have a new ride called Escape from Gringotts that looked awesome but the wait times have been 3-4 hours so we did not plan to ride it.  While we were eating, we looked at the app and the wait time was only 45 minutes!  We got in line and were on the ride in less than 20 minutes.  And the sound didn't work.  So we told the workers and they let us ride again. So we got to ride the most popular ride in the park twice in under 30 minutes.  And it was awesome!!

After we finished up there, we headed out into Universal Studios to ride the rest of the rides.  We had a great time and very few lines.  Some favorites included Transformers, Despicable Me and The Simpsons.  We ate Krusty Burgers and giant donuts for dinner in Simpson Land and then each picked one more ride.  Daniel picked to go back to Jurassic Park and AJ picked The Mummy, which we hadn't ridden yet because Daniel wasn't tall enough.  So he and I rode that one while Adrian and Daniel did one of the Simpsons' ones again.

We did every ride in the park that they boys were tall enough for and finished up before the park closed.  We skipped the night show and hit the road to beat the traffic out of the park.  It was an amazing day!!  The boys had a great time and so did the parents.  Although we missed having Zak with us, it was a lot easier not bringing him.  We all can't wait to go back again when everyone is taller and do all the rides.  The Hulk and the Music coaster (can't remember the actual name) are on the top of our to do list!


I'll be back with the next part in a few days, back to Disney!  For a quick peak at the whole trip, you can check out the pictures I posted on Facebook.