NYC & Florida Aug/Sep 14! Day 10 - Universal Studios

[Lolly90]

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Sunday 7th September 2014

Today was another exciting day as we were visiting the new Harry Potter – Diagon Alley area, after it’s opening in July. Universal Studios is also my favourite out of the two Universal parks. So we were up nice and early so we could get there for when the park opened. For breakfast it was IHOP, for the very last time this holiday I had the buttermilk pancakes with chocolate chips and an iced vanilla latte again. It was just as good as always. Mark went for the breakfast with a side of pancakes again.

We then headed off to Universal.

It seemed a bit busier than it was on Friday, I’m guessing because it was now the weekend, so we made our way in and straight over to Diagon Alley. We arrived in London and managed to find the entrance, through the wall, just like in the film.

It looked incredible already. As we did on Friday we went to the ride first, The Escape from Gringotts.

The queue was about 40 minutes long already but it’s broken up quite well, with the elevator ride and all the scenery to keep you occupied. Unfortunately as we got the very front of the queue the ride broke down. They had to send a few carts round to check everything was ok before we could get on but it was definitely worth the wait. This ride was amazing, much better than Forbidden Journey in my opinion. The 3D effects are really well done and it was all just very exciting for me. I don’t want to mention too much about the ride, for those who have been on it yet. The best part was that I didn’t feel at all ill afterwards, yay!

I didn’t know if there was a ride photo on this one, so just kind of hovered at the end trying to see. A lady who worked there came over to us and asked if we’d had our picture taken, which we hadn’t. The photo opportunity is in the queue, which we had once again missed. She kindly took us back through the queue, took our picture and went back to add it to our card. I was glad we hadn’t missed out on this one.

Once this was all out the way, we had a good wander round Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley (which I really loved) taking lots of pictures. The fire breathing dragon on top of Gringotts bank was a very nice touch.

For me Diagon Alley was better than Hogsmeade, but that might have just been because it was all new to me but it seemed bigger too.

We spent quite a bit of time here before heading back outside to the London area. We were going to come back later for anything we wanted to buy. We took pictures of King’s Cross, Grimmauld Place and with the Knight Bus.

The bus conductor and the floating head spoke to us and tried their very best to be funny. They asked where we were from, so I told them originally Liverpool, so as we were walking away the head told me to enjoy swimmin’ in a pool fulla liver!

Next we walked across to The Simpsons area. This was here last time we came but they had extended it and added some new things.

We headed for the ride first, which is another simulator. There was a bit of confusion as we were getting on the ride, someone had been sick in the room we were told to go in to but there was an attendant in there telling us to go back. So we went back and waited. I don’t mind this ride but it isn’t a favourite especially after seeing it had made someone ill.

We got some pictures taken on The Simpsons sofa, with our photoconnect card, we wasn’t sure how this worked at first so there are a few pictures of us looking ever so slightly confused. We took our card over to the counter, where they were able to put some borders on the pictures for us.

We headed over to MIB, really enjoyed this one. I do love Will Smith Next up was E.T Adventure, we didn’t do this one last time so I wanted to see what it was all about. It’s nice to see some of the classic rides are still around. We got some more pictures taken at the end, we only really wanted one with E.T but the photographer was clearly bored and had us taken loads with E.T and on the bike.

After our photo shoot, we moved on round to Shrek 4D. Mark is the biggest Shrek fan, so he really enjoyed this one. I like how it’s different to a lot of the other experiences too. From here we went straight across to Despicable Me. We actually came on this last time but hadn’t seen Despicable Me, so it was nice to do it again this time after having watched the films. I love Minions, even though they seem to be everywhere lately, so we got a photo taken with one at the end. There wasn’t a queue and this minion is from our favourite part in the first film, so we were happy with that.

We continued round to the new Transformers ride, I was quite disappointed that this was so similar to Spiderman but I suppose it’s better if you’re a big fan of Transformers. There weren’t any Transformers around at the time, so we didn’t get any pictures. Our last ride of the day was The Mummy. We loved strolling through the New York section of the park, having been in New York earlier on in our holiday.

We headed back to Diagon Alley and decided what we were going to buy. We started with a frozen butterbeer each; I got mine in the souvenir mug. The frozen one is so much nicer than the original, but I still struggled to get through it all, it’s quite sickly.

Then we went and have a look in Borgin and Burkes. There were loads of things to choose from but in the end I got myself a Deathly Hallows t-shirt for $22. We got plenty of sweets last time, so didn’t fancy these again.

Another thing on my must do list was a Lard Lad Donut, so we decided to pick one of these up on our way out. It had just started to rain once again, so we chose to take this back to the villa and eat it there. I’m happy to say we finished this; we had some that afternoon and finished the rest the next morning. They are so lovely and fresh, definitely worth the $5.

On our way out we took our photoconnect card to the photograph shop, were they added some more borders to our pictures and we chose the ones we wanted printed. You’re supposed to get one 5x7 and one 4x6 but both of ours ended up being 5x7. Photos and donut in hand we made our way back to the car.

As it was still relatively early we decided to head to Vineland Ave Outlets on our way home. Mark picked up more things from Ralph Lauren and I picked up a lip gloss trio from Clarins. We got back to the villa, showered and got dressed before heading back out. The plan was to head back to Universal, to go the Hard Rock Cafe at CityWalk, however just as we got there it started to rain, it was torrential rain. We hung around under shelter for a while hoping it would ease and we could make our way over but it just wouldn’t let up. We made the decision to head to International Drive and find something to eat there. Neither of us are very familiar with International Drive, having never stayed here before. We drove up and down and eventually spotted an Applebees. I’d heard of this place before so decided to give it a go, as we were starving at this point. I got chicken fingers and chips, I'm not really sure exactly what Mark had.

We both enjoyed it and were just happy to be eating something. After this we made the drive back to the villa and crashed out after a very long day.

Next: Day 11 – Magic Kingdom & Wishes Dessert Party

[collybird]

Love your outfit today, very cute.

[Lolly90]

Originally Posted by collybird

Love your outfit today, very cute.

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Thank you!