The Land Sea and Wedding Trip Oct 2015 - Day 15 Universal Studios, Cheesecake Factory and Shopping

[Lisa29]

The Land Sea and Wedding Trip Oct 2015 - Day 15, Universal Studios, Cheesecake Factory, Mall at Millennia and Disney Springs

The previous day is HERE.

Sunday 25th October 2015

It was an early wake up for us this morning, with Phil's alarm going off just before 7am. We both got up and got ready and Madison was up not long after. Kaley was a bit later, waking around 7.30am. They all had breakfast and as we still had a bit of time, I nipped next door and brought Sydney and Saxon to our room for 10 minutes as they were leaving today and I thought Michelle might get things done a bit better without Saxon getting under her feet.

Very quickly, we were saying goodbye to them and we were on our way back up to Universal at 8.15am. We did valet parking again and were into Universal Studios before 9am.

Our first stop was Rip Ride Rockit

Phil and Ryan went on this, the wait time wasn't too long and I managed to get a picture of them, not that you can tell!

We walked towards Transformers when they were done and came across Dan and Dave. We talked for a bit then went on our way.

We stopped for some pictures

We went into The Film Vault and Phil bought a Back to the Future t-shirt ($26.58 inc tax) and then it was time for Diagon Alley! I'm not actually sure how I managed to do anything else other than running straight here!

We walked inside and I was absolutely blown away by how impressive this is. I think I walked around with my mouth open! I love Hogsmeade but I think they majorly surpassed themselves in doing Diagon Alley. There was so much to look at and everything looked amazing.

Look!

And then you get a glimpse of the dragon

Seriously, I was so excited walking through here, I just wanted to stand still and do 360 turn to take everything in.

Phil wanted to ride Escape from Gringotts so he went that way.

While he was inside, we stood waiting for the dragon to breathe fire and were in luck as we didn't wait long at all

Phil took a few photos inside the 'bank'

And he also caught the dragon too

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[Lisa29]

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After we had taken the photo of the dragon breathing fire, the girls and I were just wandering around, taking everything in. We went into Wiseacres where I bought a postcard ($1), a train ticket ($10.95) and a Gryffindor pack of notebooks ($14.95)

We also changed some money at the Gringotts Money Exchange

We met back up with Phil and he had really liked the ride and thought I would like it too. The wait time had gone up now and I didn't want the girls to have to wait around anymore so I was happy to leave it for now.

We carried on our wandering

And came across Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour

Even though it wasn't even 10.30am, we had to go in and get some ice cream

It was too early for me to have ice cream but is never too early for Phil, Madison and Kaley so they spent some time choosing. For some reason, I didn't make a note of what they each had, I just have the photos

They all really liked these but they were huge and I didn't want Madison and Kaley eating all of theirs so I upset them by taking them off them after a while and throwing the rest in the bin! Mean Mummy! (These were $4.99 each plus tax, so $15.95 total.)

Phil captured one more photo of the fire breathing dragon as we were walking towards the exit of Diagon Alley

We weren't going back to Islands of Adventure today so we didn't do the Hogwarts Express in the other direction, something I understand is different and we should have done. I suppose we will have to go back one day to be able to do that journey.

Once we were outside, we stopped to look at the Knight bus

I'm not sure where this next photo was taken but as it is sandwiched between other HP photos, I presume it must be in the same area

We had a couple of photos outside Grimmauld Place

We saw Kreacher in the window a few times while we were there, before taking a slow walk over to the Simpsons

We had a bit of a wander round here, just taking everything in.

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[Lisa29]

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We sat on a wall and took more photos

We went round to check out the ET ride but the wait time was 20 minutes and we didn't want to wait that long

We (mostly me) decided that we were done, we only really came to go to Diagon Alley and after checking the wait times app, all the rides we may have done had long wait times.

We started walking out, stopping off to look in one of the shops

Then Madison and Kaley had a photo with 'Marilyn'

They had NO idea who she was but wanted a photo anyway. They also had a pic with the Mystery Machine

We had to get more photos of the Universal globe on the way out

As we walked past the new NBC place, they had the Manchester derby on the outside TVs so we stopped to watch for a few minutes. It was 0-0 at the time and finished up that way too.

One last picture and we were on our way out of Universal Orlando for the last time this trip

We were actually back at the valet area at 11.30am so we really hadn't been long at all and the $25 parking cost and $5 tip was rather excessive!

Our navigational skills were a bit off as we left and we took a few wrong turns before we eventually found the same way that we went yesterday. It was really busy on I-Drive and the traffic was very slow moving and at some points, a standstill.

After a little while we were moving properly and we were soon arriving at the Mall at Millennia. We drove in the first entrance and ended up around the back so drove back round to the front and lucked out in getting an excellent parking space, right in front of the entrance.

I should mention here that we were supposed to have been eating at the Hard Rock Café today but I really, really, really, really wanted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory so Phil reluctantly agreed which I was very happy about.

We went straight to the Cheesecake Factory and had to join a queue to check in. They told us it would be 20 minutes and I think it was just under that when our buzzer went off and we were seated.

I find the menu here very extensive

There are so many choices, I always struggle to make a decision. I suppose that isn't a surprise really, when you think how many different cheesecakes there are!

We ordered the usual diet cokes and water for the girls and were soon brought some of the delicious bread

I love this bread and I'm sure I ate most of this as Phil wasn't very keen.

Kids menu

Kaley had kids fried chicken strips with fries ($6.95)

Madison had Kids Roadside Sliders - two bitesize burgers on mini buns with fries ($6.50)

They both really enjoyed their food and ate everything

Our food came out a few minutes after theirs did. Phil had the Spicy Crispy Chicken Sandwich - spicy chicken breast covered with melted cheese and your choice of spicy buffalo sauce or chipotle mayo. Served on a brioche bun. ($12.95). He had this with the spicy buffalo sauce and fries

He loves buffalo sauce so really liked this. I think he would still have preferred to be at Hard Rock Café but at least he got to have something with buffalo sauce!

I had the Farfalle with Chicken and Roasted Garlic - bow-tie pasta, chicken, mushrooms, tomato, pancetta, peas and caramelised onions in a roasted garlic-parmesan cream sauce ($16.95)

This was absolutely amazing, it was so tasty and delicious and was my absolute favourite meal of the holiday so far. (In truth, only one thing after this comes close.) I really loved this, the flavours all went so well together and I ate just about everything, and this was quite a big portion.

I have found a recipe for this, that I have amended slightly, and now make it all the time as everyone loves it.

The total here was $49.35 plus tax ($3.21) making the total $52.56. Our server had been good so we tipped $10, just under the 20% mark. I think this was excellent value for what we got and such a contrast to the Disney prices. We were too full for dessert so we passed on the cheesecake this time.

We went to look around the shops afterwards. We went into Macy's where I bought Kori, Piper and Saxon a set each from Carters for their Christmas presents, along with a couple of sets for Kaley. This all cost $59.99 including tax.

From here, we went to Abercrombie Kids and bought more for the girls. We got them a t-shirt each, a shirt each and some jeans each, these were reduced to $29 each. This is them wearing them last year

This all cost $168.06 including tax. We went to Under Armour next where I bought my secret Santa present for Jamie ($31.94 including tax). Phil also bought himself a pullover.

On a roll with secret Santa presents, we got Bethany's from Hollister ($30). I got three of their body sprays for $18 and some lovely thick socks ($9.95).

I think it was around 3.30pm by now and we had got everything we wanted so left.

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[Lisa29]

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As we were near it, Phil wanted to see the Orlando Eye so we drove there. It wasn't working so he just got out of the car on his own to have a look and take some photos

It does look very impressive close up, we saw it in the evening on a different day and not all the lights were on it so I don't know if there were issues of some sort.

We drove to the Walmart on Turkey Lake Road and bought US Weekly, some Coors and a couple of baby outfits for friends who had just had babies at home. Phil was bothered we didn't have enough memory cards for the Cruise so we bought three more. I also bought some Palmolive washing up liquid as I love the smell of this

This is all used up now, if anyone knows where we can buy it here, PLEASE let me know!

We spent $102.10 here including tax. The memory cards had been $20 (two of these) and $15, making the bill a lot higher.

From here we drove down Turkey Lake Road/Palm Parkway to Disney Springs. We parked in the multi story again, level 2 row 1 and went straight to the Marketplace via the new bridge.

More photos

We went into Disney's Wonderful World of Memories and bought some Christmas presents. We got a Draw the Pixar characters book ($9.95), a Pixar crayon set ($6.95), two colouring books ($4.95 each) and a photo frame ($26.95). Next up was Disney's Days of Christmas for an ornament ($14.95), followed by Once Upon A Toy

We bought the Disney Monopoly ($44.95) for Madison to put away for Christmas

We went into World of Disney and bought more Christmas presents to put away. We got two packs of Mickey head bobbles ($9.95 each), another frame ($14.95) and a set of coasters ($8.95)

These were some of the frames, including the personalised one we bought on a previous visit

We were done by now and headed back to the car around 6.45pm and drove back to Kidani, arriving around 7pm-ish. We went up to the room, dumped our bags, grabbed a couple of packets of crisps (chips) and went down to the savannah. Unfortunately, it was too dark by now and we couldn't see anything. We went back inside

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[Lisa29]

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We decided to go and have a look in Community Hall. It was so good in here, they had so much to do, it was themed really well and was such a good set up. Here's some photos

We sat down to do some colouring

After colouring, Kaley played some games

It really was lovely in here and we left after about 45 minutes. If anyone stays here and has a bit of free time, it is well worth a visit.

We went into the arcade next

And spent a bit of time playing in here. We stayed for a while then went back up to our room

The girls had showers and we put them to bed but they were pains and I was still waiting for them to be asleep at 9.10pm as I wanted to finish packing. They were finally asleep around 15-20 minutes later and I was able to get the rest of the packing done

We were all done and in bed at 11pm.



Day 16 - Embarkation day on the Disney Dream is HERE

[Floridaagogo]

Awesome day.where did you get the recipe for the pasta from please ?

[Buffton]

Jam packed day! Brilliant shopping with some fab purchases. Can't wait for the cruise reports!
Lizzie X

[l33na]

Fabulous day. Please share your pasta recipe. I can't wait for your cruise report. We did the Disney cruise in July. Wish I had written a report. We absolutely loved it.

[pho3nix]

Lovely day - you managed to do so much! Looking forward to your cruise report - we head off on ours soon 😀 x

[WileyCoyote]

Busy day, lovely pics around the park. Eek to throwing away the ice cream. Riot time!
Excited for the cruise ...