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Published: January 11th 2011
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IT WAS TIME TO GO TO HARRY POTTER WORLD! :D
The room was booked for 2 nights, courtesy of Bill and his accumulation of Holiday Inn points, and we were due to leave early Thursday morning and arrive some time on Saturday. Butttttt that didn't quite go to plan.
Wednesday night at about 9pm I started to feel unwell, sore stomach, headache, slowly rising fever. The first thing that came to my mind was "absolutely typical", quickly followed by "I need lots of panadol and some sleeping tablets" and that was the end of that. Well actually, it was not the end of that in fact, seeing as I woke up at 5am wanting to be sick and sporting a nice fever all over. This was the point in which I decided that I would not be able to leave at 9am as we had planned and spend a day at the other park we'd decided to go to; Universal Studios.
Instead, I spent the majority of the day lying in bed with a wet cloth over my head praying for this feeling to go away, with Will tending to my every need :P I wasn't sick with a
cold, I didn't have a headache anymore, I just had this terrible feeling in my stomach that wouldnt go away. Panadol eventually fixed the problem and we set off for Orlando at 1pm, so not that much long after we'd planned too.
I was feeling really good on the way, feeling better and it was great! Until my nose started running and I got my fever back again. When we got to the hotel room I got straight into bed, and poor Will had to cancel our plans that night to go visit people we knew in Orlando so that he could sit in the hotel room with a very sick rachel =[
Not one wink of sleep was slept that night, or maybe 3 hours at the most, but thankfully when I got up at 7am I felt much better and ready to go to Islands of Adventure to see Harry Potter! :D
We left at about 9 to get to the park at 9.30. Since it was a Friday and the first week of the new year, it wasn't overly packed and it was relatively easy to get in. We walked through the gates and straight
up to the Harry Potter part of the theme park. The place was absolutely PACKED. People here there and everywhere, from all places, of all ages to see the Harry Potter attractions. The first thing we did was head straight up to the castle and line up for the Forbidden Journey ride. The line wait was about 90 minutes, and it took a long time to wait but it really wasn't that bad. It was definitely worth it. Once we were inside the castle we could decide either to ride as singles in a 10 minute line, or as a double in a 45 minute line. The choice was pretty damn clear :D
Although we were split up into two different carts, we were still near each other enough to know that the other was having a fantastic experience seeing the spiders, dementors, dragons, flying on the quiddich pitch and being taken through the castle walls. The ride was actually mostly screen-simulated so we only FELT like we were flying, but it was still an amazing experience. The spiders were the only bad bad bad part about the ride because they were terrifying but it was such an amazing journey.
Well worth the wait.
On the way out we decided to get some Butterbeer at the Hogshead/Three broomsticks! With the souvenir mug, my drink came to about $11, but it was also worth the money :D Once we'd sat at a table to finish our drinks, we decided to walk through all the little shops like Zonko's and Olivander's and just look through the window, as the lines were long and we couldnt justify wasting more time spend in lines when we could be walking around the rest of the park.
The next stop was the lost continent where we experienced Poseidon's fury, followed by Seuss Landing (very cute world) and then Marvell comics, where we got on the Hulk ride (INSANE OH MY GOD) and then got some food. Food is always so expensive at these theme parks, but at least it was good-ish food.
Straight after eating, we got on the Fear Fall ride that shoots you straight up a tower and then lets you drop a few times. It was a FANTASTIC ride that I would definitely do again- we could see all the way over to the other park... well I could when I actually
opened my eyes :P
We then made our way to the Jurassic Park area and rode the River Rapid Ride which was AWESOME, it takes you on a river journey to see all the herbivore dinosaurs that are all peaceful, and then slowly develops into the chaos of the veloceraptors and tyrannosaurus rex that have broken loose in the science labs. It was a very cool ride :D
We ended the day with a little bit of shopping (i bought harry potter stuff :D) and then it was time to head back to the hotel.
We had every intention of going out again that night to see the friends we didn't see the night before, but when both of us felt like shit at the dinner table we decided it was another quiet night dedicated to sleeping. I actually slept that night too!
When we woke up Saturday morning, I felt almost completely better and ready for another day at Universal Studios! Checkout wasn't until 11 so we just decided to take it easy all morning and pack. Once all our stuff was packed and in the car, we left for our last day of this holiday. Being
a saturday, we assumed that Islands of Adventure would be packed with harry potter fans, which left this park mostly empty and ready for us to explore! The first ride we got on was the Rocket Ride, which pulls you up a vertical beginning and once you go over the top, all hell breaks loose from there hahaha. It was a truly epic ride. You even get to choose your own theme music that blasts in the head rest as you get thrown around. Pretty damn cool :D
We followed the road around to the different attractions, the next thing we did was the Twister studio, which is a walkthrough experience with the actors from the movie sharing their experience in making the film. Then at the end, we experienced our own twister on one of the sets, with lightning and fire and all! It was really really cool, and scary haha.
From there we made our way up to the Jaws area and got on the river ride. It was done pretty well with mechanic sharks swimming around and attacking the boat which was coooool. The kids screamed and the adults laughed. It was fun =] Then it was
off to the Simpsons ride (which really wasn't that good at all, it was a screen simulation again and it made me feel sick...) followed by a long wait in the Men In Black studio for a ride that had technical difficulties and wasn't letting anyone on, so we just left and continued our journey through Universal Studios.
We didn't actually go on any other rides while there, just browsed around and looked at the cool attractions, like the miniature hollywood with palm trees and hollywood-esque buildings. It was all very cool. So now we were left with no money and no energy, it was definitely time to go home. We stopped at maccas on the way home and that was the end of our totally awesome holiday at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure! :D
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