Goooooood morning!

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. Seriously, where the heck did this week go? I mean, I’m not complaining, I love the weekend, but my goodness. May is going to be over before we know it!

Also, it’s kind of embarrassing how long this spring break recap is going to take me to write. In my defense (not that I feel like you all are mad at me or anything; I just feel like I need to defend myself!), I have 270 research paper paragraph drafts I’ve had to grade since we last talked, plus some short stories from my Creative Writing class. It’s been serious work! And on top of that, I’m babysitting twice a week and just agreed to rehearse for and perform in a symphonette concert!

Whew.

Sorry. Not complaining, I swear. 🙂 I love being busy!

Anyway…

Today I’m going to continue with my recap of spring break. If you’ve missed the other posts, here they are: Day One in Downtown Disney, and Day Two in Harry Potter World!

Islands of Adventure is really a pretty cool place. In terms of theme parks, I think it appeals to people of any age, which would make it nice for a family trip.

There was Dr. Seuss Land,

Toon Lagoon (lots of old cartoons, like Betty Boop),

Jurassic Park,

HP World,

a Middle Eastern market sort of place,

a Greek ruin and show (inside the ruin) devoted to Poseidon,

and then a rather elaborate section about Marvel comics, like Spiderman, the Hulk, etc.

In Marvel land, there were quite a few simulation rides, shops, and even a few roller coaster/thrill rides. We went on the SpiderMan ride, which was a 3D simulation and very entertaining, the Hulk roller coaster which was great (it reminded me of the Raptor at Cedar Point), and Dr. Doom’s Fearfall. The Fearfall was a huge tower encircled by a ring of seats. When you got on, the ride shot you up into the air and then dropped – talk about thrilling! It’s name is definitely appropriate. 😉

We circled the park a few times that second day, but to our surprise, it kind of fell flat. There was so much to look at, and I’m sure that larger families or kids would have a blast in the various lands. Despite all of that, though, we actually found ourselves repeatedly returning to Harry Potter World after each tour of the park to go on those coasters again, look through the shops once more, and just walk around. Not to say I had a problem with that! 🙂

Day Two of spring break started and ended in Hogsmeade, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way!

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On the morning of day three, we woke up quite early again to get to the park at a good time. On this day, we decided to check out Universal Studios. We had purchased the Two Park Hopper tickets, which allowed us to go back and forth between Islands of Adventure and US whenever we wanted.

When we got there that morning, we were greeted by the giant, iconic Universal globe.

We weren’t quite sure what to expect in the park, so we decided to just kind of go with what we saw first…

Which ended up being a Despicable Me-themed ride!

It was really cute: the premise is that Gru and the girls are turning the audience into minions. It’s another 3D simulation ride and it was a lot of fun. Plus the set inside was great!

After that we went to the Rockit roller coaster.

Yep, that’s a straight shot up to the top of the hill! This coaster was awesome: super fast, crazy loops and hills, and a cool little feature where each rider gets to choose what music they want playing as they ride! We went on it twice, and each time I chose “Pump It” by Black Eyed Peas. It seemed appropriate for the coaster. 🙂

After that, we ambled on down to New York.

I love old cars like this! This gorgeous car was just sitting off to the side, all by his lonesome…He was just too pretty for me not to get a picture!

After breezing through New York, we popped into the French Quarter, in which I got some of the prettiest pictures I’ve taken in a while.

I’ve never been, but my mom said this was set up very similarly to the real French Quarter in Louisiana. It really was beautiful, and I’m not sure if it was the time (it was about 10:00 at this point), the heat (about 85*F), or something else, but this part of Universal Studios was absolutely deserted. That was weird, but it did allow us to enjoy this little peaceful setting that much more.

The only other ride at US is The Mummy, which is based on the films.

We went on that one a couple of times. It’s in the dark, which is always thrilling, and I’ll take any thrill ride I can get!

After that we made a circle of the park, stopped by a show called Disaster! which was pretty fun, and then realized we were done with Universal Studios.

In all honesty, it was kind of a let down. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly was more than we got. Oh well. It was a good experience nonetheless!

After grabbing some lunch we (can you take a wild guess?) headed back to Harry Potter World. Seriously, it really was the best part of both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios in our opinion!

After going on a few of the rides again (I’m still shocked at how quickly we were able to get on and off every one of the rides…more on that in a later post, though!) we headed to The Three Broomsticks for an afternoon snack.

It came in the form of ice cream, but not just any ol’ ice cream….

Florean Fortescue’s, to be exact!

The workers at The Three Broomsticks were extremely accommodating and helpful when it came to my allergies. They answered any question I had and showed me a booklet that showed the things I could and could not eat depending on the allergen. Luckily, the ice cream was free of eggs or nuts, which, as the girl helping us pointed out, will be good for me in the long run as Florean Fortescue’s will be opening up in Diagon Alley this summer! Safe eating all around!

After this, my mom and I wandered around Hogsmeade a bit more, and rode the rides a few more times before calling it quits for the day. Our hotel had a pretty nice pool (although public pools totally freak me out…germs…just, ew) so we relaxed there for a good part of the evening.

While Universal Studios wasn’t a huge deal in my opinion, I’m still glad we gave it a go! And when in doubt, there’s always HP World to fall back on! 😉

Day Three of our trip was just as magical as Harry Potter World…but in a different way! 😉

As always, thanks for reading!

Have a great weekend!!