That's All Folks

Wednesday came and we headed out to the water taxis at 7:15 am.
We have yet to be in Orlando when a cold front hasn't hit and this time was no different.  We wore jackets or long sleeves the entire time we were there.  We started out in Islands of Adventure everyday then as soon as the other park opened we would ride the Hogwarts Express over and start riding rides in Universal Studios.  We road all the Harry Potter rides again in Islands of Adventure then shopped a little in their shops.  We still had time to grab breakfast so we ran to the front of the park and had Cinnabon for breakfast.  Next we were racing to grab the train again in King's Cross Station for Universal Studios.

I've talked a lot about riding the Hogwarts Express but I haven't described what happens on the train. It's got a lot of special effects to make it appear as though you are actually in a Harry Potter film.  The window has scenes that you would expect to see....country side, rain, lightning, death eaters, Hagrid, Ron & George Weasley, etc.  The train car you sit in is identical to the ones Harry, Ron & Hermonie always sat.    You also hear and see shadows go by the train car of Harry, Ron, Hermonie and the Trolley cart & lady.   At one point chocolate frogs get loose and jump all over the door glass.  They also have spiders get loose and jump all over the door glass on one of the train trips.  The train experiences and special effects are different depending on whether you are going to Universal Studios or whether you are going to Islands of Adventure which is an additional treat.  Really a fun train ride and certainly makes you feel very much like you are in the movie.  I've said this before but Universal went out of their way to make The Wizarding World of Harry Potter as magical as possible.



All in all my favorite rides in Universal Studios have to be "Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts," and "Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem."  The Minions ride is just a delight.   If you love the Minion movies then you will love this ride.  Just a lot of fun!  We got transformed into minions and then went through training supervised by Gru's three daughters.  Here is a peak of the ride from Attractions Magazine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIBFw-Ck8OQ

My favorite rides in Islands of Adventure are the "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" and "Spiderman."  There are a lot of other rides that are fun in both of the parks but these are by far my favorites.

We ate lunch at Confisco Grille Wednesday which is really good and later ate dinner at the Croissant Moon Cafe mainly because their desserts are fabulous.  We stayed mostly away from fast food type restaurants and went to restaurants that we knew had great food.  We did have a snack one day at Lard Lad Donuts and it is also very tasty.


Wednesday night Rick & Sarah went to the Mardi Gras parade at Universal Studios.  The rest of us were exhausted from running all over the park all day.  I think Rick should have gotten an award for catching the most beads.  He caught over 20 strands of beads.  Sarah found the whole experience embarrassing.  The teenage years are made for embarrassing your kids and Rick really embraces this blessing!

Thursday we went back to the parks early and re-rode all of our favorite rides and ate at Lombard's
Seafood Grill which I just love.  Again Florida restaurants just make the best salmon and veggies.  The restaurant has a beautiful fish tank that sits in the middle of the room and goes from floor to ceiling.  We sat against it as we ate our meal.  So beautiful!


Rick, Jonah and Luke rode the Hulk ride again.  They loved this ride.  It makes me nauseous just watching it run!  Later Jonah got to meet Doc Brown in the Back to the Future part of the park.  He even had his photo taken with him and the Delorean car.

Friday morning we packed up,  headed to check out and called for an Uber driver to take us to the airport.  I dreaded flying home because the flight down was so awful.    The flight back was fairly uneventful with the exception of an occasional dip or bounce due to turbulence.

I sat by a young lady on the flight home who had cat & dog fur flying off of her.  It quickly covered my shirt and I started brushing it off.  She apologized and said she has 2 dogs and 2 cats at home.  I realized why my nose was so clogged.  I was sitting next to a walking allergy factory!  Luckily the flight was short and I had Benadryl in my bags.



We drove back from Memphis and arrived home safely and weren't in the house more than an hour when one of my sons comes into the room and tells me,


"I don't think I'm going to be able to wear this underwear you bought me for the trip."

"What?! Why not?! Is it too small?"  I asked.

"No.  It's kind of too big."  he said.

"What size did you buy?!"  I yelled.

"They come in different sizes?!"  he squeaked.



By now I had examined the said underwear and the son who snapped at me in Walmart that he did NOT need his mother to help him buy underwear had bought himself a pair of men's 2XL underwear.  He had not noticed what size they were and had just put a pair on which of course means no taking back the whole bag of them.  Sure hope hot water and drying them on high shrinks them multiple sizes.  Otherwise we have another crazy memento of our spring break trip.




See camping isn't the only way for things to happen on family vacations that create memories and family bonding!  Can't wait for our families next adventure......"The Lion King" at Robinson Performance Hall.  In case you are wondering multiple family members will be checking the dates and times on the tickets I buy!

Universal Parks by Storm

Tuesday morning came early.  As we were getting dressed one of my sons says, "Ummmm.....guess where the underwear we bought is?"  

"You left it in the car back at the airport?!"  I yelled.

"Yep!" he said with a grin.

I took a deep breath and Rick made a comment about wasting money on underwear   Then we headed to the park at about 7:15 am.  We rode the complimentary water taxis from our hotel to Universal CityWalk then walked to the gates of Islands Of Adventure which was the only park that opened early the week we were there.  The park opened at 7:50.  So we didn’t wait long.  Then we raced to Hogsmeade which is at the back of the park.  If you love Harry Potter movies then Universal parks are a must.  I always feel like I’m in the movie when we are there.  

The first ride we rode was in the Hogwarts castle.  It’s called “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey”.  It’s a great ride on a bench that Hermonie has cast a spell on while we fly through the castle, get chased by a fire breathing dragon, fly through a quidditch match and then make it back to the great hall to be invited back by Dumbledore.  The special effects of this ride are just incredible!  Nothing like this experience.  You can actually feel the heat from the fire breathing dragon and so much more.  After this ride my kids rode a roller coaster in Hogsmeade.  I do not do roller coasters.  So I looked through the stores in Hogsmeade.  They are replicas from the movie.  They sell chocolate frogs and so much more.  So a lot of fun to go through.  Once my kids were finished with the roller coasters we boarded the Hogwarts Express and headed for King's Cross Station in  Universal Studios which is another park in Universal Orlando.  From King's Cross Station we made our way to Diagon Alley.  

Diagon Alley looks just like it does in the movies and even has the white dragon on top of Gringott’s Wizarding Bank.  We rode “Escape From Gringotts”.  It starts out in Gringott's Wizarding bank lobby with all of the goblins busy at work.  We then entered one of the goblin’s office and he described our journey to one of the vaults.   Bill Weasley comes in and offers to go with us on our journey.    So off we go into the carts to the lower vaults.  Right away there is an intruder alert and Beatrix Lestrange  appears and throws a spell our way.  Our cart spins through the tracks until Voldemort and Beatrix appear and threaten us to tell them where Harry Potter is.  He and Beatrix cast spells at us and our cart continues to spin until Harry, Ron and Hermonie appear riding on the dragon and casts a spell which connects a chain to our cart and get us out of harms way.  Finally we are safe and Bill Weasley wishes us well on our way out.

After this ride we ran through a few of the shops in Diagon Alley and then headed back to the train in King's Cross Station to board the Hogwarts Express to go back to the Islands of Adventure for the day.  We find that the Harry Potter rides get harder to ride as the day goes on.  So we ride them first thing before anyone else is in the parks.  We always get express passes with staying on resort property which allows you to go to through the express line but still the lines can get really long.  

We ate breakfast at The Three Broom Sticks in Hogsmeade.  Eggs, sausage, pancakes and croissants, and potato fingerlings....yummy!  The place looks just like it does in the movie.  The food is good but it’s mostly the atmosphere that gets me.  Luke and Jonah had butter beers...one frozen and one unfrozen.  Luke is fairly addicted to that butterscotch drink.


Next we headed to the Spiderman ride.  This ride is just so much fun and really makes you feel like you are in one of the Spiderman movies flying around with him.  Far too much action going on in this ride to describe but trust me it's a ride you will want to ride multiple times.  After we finished the Spiderman ride the boys all headed to ride the Hulk rollercoaster.  Again I don't do rollercoasters.  So I sat that out but they say it goes up to 67 mph!  Here is a link to a video of this ride:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsjdYQJc748

Lunch was at Mythos.  This is my favorite park restaurant ever.  The artisan bread, the salmon, and the steamed veggies just make me want to eat there every meal!  We got the same great waiter that we had at our 2016 visit.  After lunch the boys rode the Hulk rollercoaster one more time before we headed back to the water taxis to take us back to the hotel.  The same storm that was coming into the Orlando that caused all of that lovely turbulence was now bringing in high winds and thunder and lightning.  So we went back to the room to wait it out.

Shortly after returning to our rooms all of our cell phones started buzzing with tornado warning to take cover immediately.  We called the front desk to see what was going on and they said there were storms coming in but no need to take cover.  I guess Florida's weathermen's definition of take cover when a tornado is present is different than Arkansas.  The lady at the front desk told me Florida almost never gets tornadoes and that this was just going to be a bad thunderstorm with high winds.   After a couple of hours the wind and rain and hail seemed to quiet down and Rick and Jonah decided to head back to the park.  The rest of us were still a bit skittish of the winds and rain returning.  So we stayed in the room.  They lasted a couple of hours before the rain hit.  So they headed back to the Citywalk to grab food to bring back to the room.  By the time they got to the water taxis they weren't running due to lightning.  So they had to run to the buses in the rain.  Quite an adventure since the buses go to ALL of the on property resorts instead of just being able to take one boat ride directly to your resort.  They were both soaked by the time they got to the room and so was the food!  But they made memories and had an adventure.

  

Livin' On A Prayer

Monday came and we headed to the Memphis International Airport for our flight to Orlando on Allegiant Airlines.  I had never flown Allegiant but it was over $500 cheaper for us to fly them.  So I figured why not!  The night before the flight I googled Allegiant’s safety record.  It's never a good idea to google your airline's safety record the night before a flight.  If you want to research airline safety do it WAY before you book the flight.  I'm preaching to myself of course!   Anyway Allegiant's safety record was a little scary but I have family that flies them all the time.  So I forced myself to chill out and not mention what I read to anyone in my family.

Once we got to the gate where our flight was leaving from we sat for a couple of hours until it was time to leave.  A lady came over and sat down beside me after a few minutes.  She turned and said hello and feeling a bit nervous I asked her if she had ever flown Allegiant.  She told me how she flies it all the time because it's so much cheaper.  She said recently she had googled their safety record and it was scary.  So she decided not to read any more safety articles before a flight.  I told her I had done the exact same thing and now I was about to hyperventilate before the flight.  She said she understood that she had actually flown once on Allegiant when on take off a loud engine noise occurred followed by smoke filling the cabin.  She said the flight continued but she was a nervous wreck.  

Well you can imagine that this conversation did not help calm my nerves for the upcoming flight.  But I remembered what my friend, Ginger, said...."I get really close to God when I fly."  So I was determined to pray through my fear of flying.  The flight to Orlando turned out to be filled with far too much turbulence for my tastes.  I basically want my flights to feel like I’m on the ground....no sudden movements...just smooth rides.  About 30 minutes into the flight the rollercoaster ride started and I squeezed Rick's hand so hard that he said, "Hey!  You're cutting into my hand!"  

Jesus and I talked a lot on that flight and I was proud to be on a row with another lady who talked with Jesus just as much as I did during the flight.  She apologized to those around her for being so vocal with her fear of flying.  But I actually found it comforting that I wasn't the only one thinking if God wanted me to fly surely HE would have given me wings!  Once we landed we both emphatically said, “Praise Jesus!”  

Next we found our way to Uber pickup and contacted an Uber driver in the area.  Since Allegiant flies into the Orlando Sanford International Airport we had a 45 minute ride to our resort, Loews Royal Pacific in Universal Resorts.  Our Uber driver arrived quickly and I climbed into what I can only describe as a back seat glove box.  It was tight but I folded into it while everyone else in my family sat in a comfortable seat.  It was the least I could do after my crazy "Wicked" mistakes earlier in the trip.  The Uber driver had music playing on the radio that was filled with four letter words.  So Rick asked that he turn off the music and he did quickly.  We arrived at our hotel and quickly headed to check in.  

Once we checked in and got our park passes and our express passes we headed straight to our room to relax for a minute and then to dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp on Universal's Citywalk.  Our hotel was on Universal property.  So we just took a water taxis ride from our hotel to Citywalk.  Dinner was great and so nice to just relax after a crazy couple of days.  We also had a surprise visitor at our dinner table.   Jordan Loomis, a member of  Bryant High School’s band, The Legacy, dropped by to talk to my kids.  So all in all a good night and a good ending to our first day in Orlando.

Wicked Dreams Can Come True

Last fall Rick and I decided we would book a trip to Universal Orlando over spring break.  We had been to Universal in 2016 and it was by far our best vacation ever.  So I booked the vacation package for us.  It was a lot cheaper for us to fly out of Memphis on Allegiant Air.  So when I heard "Wicked" would be performing in Memphis at the same time we needed to leave for Orlando I took it as a good omen.  So I booked tickets to "Wicked" for that Sunday night and got us a hotel room close to the airport to fly out the next day for Orlando.  

A couple weeks before our spring break vacation I had an anxiety dream.  I dreamed that my family got to Memphis to see “Wicked”.  We were having a great time and getting ready to leave for the show when I realized I had left our tickets at home.  I cried my heart out and kept saying “I’m so sorry” over and over again.  I woke up crying and told Rick about the dream.  I had this dream several more times before we left for our trip.  So when our trip day rolled around I had the show tickets, plane tickets to Orlando, hotel information and Universal Orlando park tickets all in a folder on top of my suitcase to insure no disaster would transpire.

Sunday came and we finished packing and loaded my van for the trip to Memphis.  Before we left the driveway this little voice in my head said, “Make sure you have the tickets in your bag.”  So Rick and I opened the trunk and made sure all the tickets were packed.  Once we saw they were in the folder in my bag we hit the road.  Well...sort of....first we headed to Walmart for a last minute stop for underwear for a certain son of mine who thought that packing 1 pair of underwear was a great idea for a whole week of vacation.  

The road trip to Memphis was like all of my trips to Memphis far too long.  We got to our hotel, Home2, in Southaven, MS and started getting ready for the show at 6 pm.  Once we freshened up we were ready to leave to do some site seeing before we headed to the show.  So I got the "Wicked" tickets out of my bag and something on the first ticket caught my eye.  The time “1 pm” jumped off the page at me and a wave of fear hit me.  

“It says 1 pm!” I wailed loudly.  

“What?!”  Rick asked quickly.  

I quickly pulled the reservations up on my phone and it showed the show time to be at 1 pm not the later show.  I was hysterical and started crying and saying over and over, “I’m so sorry!”  I checked my phone calendar and it said the show we were seeing started at 6 pm.  Rick suggested I call the Orpheum where the show was playing and see if they could help us.  By now it was 3 pm.  So I called the Orpheum and through tears I explained what had happened.  The lady was very sympathetic and suggested that I call Ticketmaster because I had bought our tickets through them.  By now Rick suggested our kids walk around the hotel while their mother had an emotional meltdown.  I finally got Ticketmaster on the phone and explained to them what had happened and asked if they could help me.  The customer service rep was honest that since the show was already in progress that it was their policy to not refund or exchange tickets.  But he was very sympathetic and offered to go to a manager on my behalf.  I’m happy to report that Ticketmaster was very gracious and did help us.  “Wicked” was sold out Sunday night.  So we decided we would see “Lion King” in Little Rock around Luke’s birthday.   

As for me....I'm scarred for life.  I don't know if you've ever had an anxiety dream come true but I have and I don't want it to ever happen again!  Why after several dreams I didn’t look over the tickets closer I’ll never know.  Maybe the stress from my dad’s recent cancer diagnosis in conjunction with my sister’s cancer diagnosis a year ago just had me all discombobulated.   I don’t know.  But I do know that I will never rely solely on my iPhone calendar again and I’ll always have someone else in my family double check behind me.