Universal Orlando - Day 5
back to the real world
We set the alarm for 7:30 to give us enough time to pack up and be downstairs at Islands for our character breakfast. Roger blow dried wet shoes while I packed and Emmaline read a comic book on her iPad. Once packed, we checked our bags with the luggage desk and went to our breakfast. They had both a menu and a buffet. Ordering off the menu was more cost effective and Roger argued for that approach, but Emmaline and I liked the variety of items on the buffet. I pointed out that we could stuff ourselves silly and skip lunch, having an early dinner at the airport. Emmaline and I won out and we ate an $84 breakfast while meeting Gru, a minion, Bart Simpson and Homer Simpson. We ate a ton of food and I regret nothing.
After breakfast, we jumped on the water taxi and entered Islands of Adventure, heading directly for Pteranadon Flyers which was posting a 35 minute wait. I explained what happened the previous day to a very nice man who took us directly up the exit and onto the ride. Yay! 90 second later we were back out front with Roger. From there, we went back to Hogsmeade and rode Flight of the Hippogriff again before making another trip aboard the Hogwarts Express, which was posting a 10 minute wait, which we discovered basically means it’s a walk on. It does take 10 minutes, however, because first there is often a long line of people waiting at the ticket check which can get backed up with the people waiting until the front of the line to dig up their tickets, then they can’t remember which finger they used for the scan. I feel for some of the people that work there. I can imagine them rolling their eyes internally when the whole family gets up to the front of the line and waits while grandma tries to figure out where she put her ticket and recall which finger she used. But I have to say, from the outside, they are all so nice and friendly. Every person I encountered that worked there was really great. We always had super fabulous customer service.
So we’re back on the Hogwarts Express, Emmaline with her chocolate frog. I do think that the Hogsmeade to King’s Cross trip is a little more fun than the reverse. The Weasley twins beat dementors any day of the week! Once back in Diagon Alley we waved goodbye and took some final photos in the telephone booth and in front of Grimmauld Place. From there we made our way back to the Woody Woodpecker coaster. Emmaline rode twice - once with Roger and once alone. The second time with her arms in the air and, she assured me, with no screaming at all!
After that she and I rode Transformers, which we had tried to ride earlier in the trip, but it had been operating at half capacity and with express passes it was a 45 minute wait (90 minutes without). Even then, we waited for about 15 minutes, probably our longest wait with express passes. Transformers was not at all enjoyable. Just a bunch of robots fighting each other and exploding with 3D effects and motion simulation. Emmaline was a little scared and I found it pretty intense, too.
After that we went to give Minions one more shot, with Roger trying the stationary seating so he could actually watch the whole thing this time. He closed his eyes a bunch last time because it was making him so sick. He said even on the benches, it was still an issue with all the 3D effects.
After that we went to the photo store to get our magic photos corrected. When we looked at them, there was nothing there. Apparently, unlike Disney, they don’t automatically add anything to your magic shots, you have to go and add them. So we picked a couple things for the photos.
At this point it was around 1 PM and we didn’t have much else we wanted to do so we left the park. It was a little earlier than we planned, but we weren’t sure how long it would take us to get back to the hotel, move some items around in our luggage, get a Lift to the airport, etc. As it turns out, everything moved along really fast and we made it to the airport, checked our bags, went through security and were to the gate area with about 3 hours until our flight. Oh well, better early than late! We got a coffee and hung out in the food court area for awhile. After a bit we got some food for an early dinner so we could just come right home and not have to worry about dinner since our flight got in a 7 PM. Our travel home was uneventful, thankfully and we made it back home.
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