3 weeks is not enough! Disney & Universal Sept 2016 – day 17, IoA & US

[sha9]

I woke up around 7.50am but Marie was still sleeping so I checked my emails and did some internet surfing. The downside of sharing a room and no separate living room. We’d really enjoyed that aspect of the villa at OKW. Anyway, she woke up around 10 minutes later and we took our time getting ready. The great thing about being onsite with express passes is that there’s no rush and both parks were open until 7pm that day. Today was our last full day at Universal and we wanted to just enjoy it.
We decided on breakfast at the Orchid Food Court to try it out. It’s a self-service place with a limited menu but we managed to get something and it was fine. I’m not sure I’d make a habit of going there for breakfast on our next trip though.

The dining report for today is here.

By the time we got to IoA it was about 10am and starting to get a bit busy. We reactivated our Coke Freestyle mugs since we planned on spending a lot of time in the parks today. It cost $7.45 and we just reactivated both of them. We’re sisters but we didn’t want to drink out the same mug all day! The wait time for Spider-man was 35 minutes but we did it as a walk on with our express passes.
Look how different we look compared to the other day.

We then did Kong with our express passes although the wait time was posted as 20 minutes for standby. We walked on. We then did Jurassic Park River Adventure using our passes although it was only a 5 minute wait. We’re of the opinion that we have the passes so we may as well use them!

We refilled our drinks at a nearby Coke Freestyle machine and drank them on our way round to the Raptor Encounter. This was fantastic! There was a bit of a wait as they “swapped raptors over” then they let a small group in to wait and watch everyone elses encounter. I actually think that was the most entertaining part so even though you may have a 10-15 minute wait for your turn you’re still experiencing the fun. There was an Amazing Pictures photographer there and a staff member who will take a picture and/or video with your own phone so we managed to get both. The staff are really into it and do it so well it’s just great fun!

After we’d done that we wandered through The Lost Continent (very nice but nothing there) and Suess Landing (which I hate with a passion).
We still had the meal part of our mini golf meal deal to use so we headed out to Citywalk and went to Margaritaville for lunch. We got a table straight away and both had the Cheeseburger in Paradise. It’s a limited menu for the meal deal but we were happy and loved the burger. Not sure we would bother with the golfing meal deal again as we’re not bothered about the golf part.
After lunch we went back to the hotel for a chill and a cup of tea. We watched some TV (Star Trek: The Next Generation).
About 3ish we went back out and headed to US this time. It started raining as we passed the Toothsome Chocolate Factory and we hadn’t brought ponchos so we popped in to the shop for a look. We didn’t buy anything as it was very expensive and US chocolate is usually pretty poor.

By the time we got to US entrance it was pouring down so we had to buy new ponchos which was a bit of a waste of $10 each but had to be done. We went straight to The Mummy as we love this ride and afterwards refilled our mugs in Louie’s Italian Restaurant (I think!) as they have a Coke Freestyle in the doorway.

We really love The Mummy!

We went to Diagon Alley and managed to put our full cups in the lockers at Gringotts so didn’t have to force them down. There was a 20 minute wait so we did single rider again. You do miss a lot of the preamble and queuing area detail but it’s so much quicker.
We stopped at The Hopping Pot again for some Butterbeer ice cream and sat at the picnic tables there to eat it. Once we’d done we left DA and rode MiB with our passes. A 25 minute standby queue but walk on for us.

We then did Transformers and had a look in the shop at the Terminator 3D show. We didn’t buy anything.

We started to think about dinner but weren’t really hungry so on the way out we popped into the Beverly Hills Boulangerie to see what they had. We got some sandwiches and I also got a cake. Marie still had half her Cheesecake Factory tiramisu left so didn’t bother. We also popped into Cinnabon for two pecabons.
We got the boat back to the hotel for a change as there was one there. I think depending on where you’re leaving from it’s much the same time to get the boat versus walking.

We ate our sandwiches while watching Iron Man 3 and waiting for Agents of Shield to come on.

[Floridaagogo]

We stayed at hrh for 2 nights last year and took the boat for the 1st time.walking is quicker but it was a lovely way to approach city walk.we did the mini golf ...it's very close to the main rd.ds age 10 hit his ball over the wire fence in to the road ,luckily no car was passing 😳😳😳

[disneytrio]

Mummy is just brilliant, one of our favourites. Another great day!