BLDY&McGoo What Are We Thankful For 2016 – Day 14 – IHOP, Universal, Travelling Home

[BLDY&McGoo]

BLDY&McGoo What Are We Thankful For 2016 – Day 14 – IHOP, Universal, Travelling Home

Today I woke up at 8:30am soon followed by Scott a few minutes later, today was the day we were leaving which meant today was filled with sadness and joy.
Sadness that we were leaving the lovely sunshine, the relaxed atmosphere and after two weeks spoiling ourselves we were heading back to reality of the daily grind. The joy came from knowing our comfy bed, a nice hot bath and our furry babies were waiting for us at home.

We showered and then got ready for our day ahead, we had packed most of our belongings the last few days so we just had the last bits to add. I am a bit paranoid about leaving important things behind so we did our room checks together, something Dad and Kim should also have done but later on it seems not.

By 9:45am our bags were downstairs ready to be loaded into the car. We had weighed them with our dodgy scales and we had plenty of room left but I was concerned we were close to our limits on weight.
The fact all of the things we had bought with us fitted in just 1 holdall just proves how much shopping we did eek!

Dad & Scott did a rubbish run to the bin store quickly and then we had the difficult task of loading the bags into the trunk. Dad & Kim also had 4x cases plus hand luggage between them so this is what a Suburban’s boot looks like when it contains 4 holdalls, 4 suitcases, 3 rucksacks and 2 cabin cases. Scott did have his doubts that it would fit but luckily with a bit of advanced planning it wasn't too difficult.

We had another swoop of the communal areas and then waved goodbye to our happy holiday home shortly after 10am.

As a farewell treat we were soon pulling up at IHOP to enjoy one last breakfast where we were ordered and served quickly.
Kim had harvest grain pancakes & Scott had plain French toast whilst Dad stuck with his combo and I stuck with my BLT as we didn't want to change something good.

Our bill came to $46.89, I think we left $50 (half each) and then were soon on the road again. We were heading to Universal for our last hurrah but needed to do a quick detour to collect the coat that Kim had been debating on for Holly.

We soon parked up and Scott & I sat in the car whilst Dad & Kim nipped in, we people watched and chatted away whilst we waited and they soon came out so we were back on the road.

We arrived at 11:45am parking in E.T. 265 (paying $20, half each) and were walking through City Walk a few minutes later.
We had a few missions today, to get photos by the Universal Globe, to ride Minions and do whatever we could with the time we had left. Our flight was not until later this evening so we were determined to enjoy the majority of the day without having to clock watch.
We took it in turns to take photos by the globe before making our way into what seemed like quite a busy park.

Our first port of call was Rip Ride Rocket, Kim was chief bag holder whilst us 3 thrill seekers joined the 25 minute queue,Unfortunately it ended up being more like 40 minutes. I asked a cast member as we passed for the secret song list, she didn't have it but said the next guy would so when we got to him I asked. It was so much pressure as he was at the bottom of the steps and I needed to go up but he got out the list from his wallet and let me have a look. Scott thought I deserved major geek points for asking but I was really chuffed with myself. It was short lived though as by the time I got in my seat I couldn't work out how to get the number pad up so ended up with the random selection anyway. I had chosen Eminem’s Lose yourself which would have been number 306. Damn!

Dad being a single rider ended up being in the front seat with a randomer whilst we were behind. Scott and I had ridden before but this was a new one for Dad, His normal after ride expression is pretty standard but he came off looking a bit flush in the cheeks. We then had the pleasure of finding his ride video on the screens as we left and he looked petrified! We didn't buy it but Scott did give him a bit of a ribbing over it, taking a lot of pleasure in telling Kim how we had finally found a ride that scared him.

We hadn't realised or even really noticed when we entered but some of the Macy’s parade floats were on display in the park today, we passed Scooby Doo and later on Snoopy.

We weren't too bothered about the rides at this side of the park so took a wander past but stopped to look at The Knight Bus for a looksie.

The boys completely uninterested had a little moment looking over the water before posing together so I could take a nice photo. This is now my all time favourite photo of them which I framed as a Christmas prezzie that proudly sits on Dad’s desk at home.

We moved along past the hoards of people surrounding Grimmauld place and decided that we were up for a little Alien Attack. We waited about 20 minutes all together as had just missed a pre show group but boy was it hot today! We were melting by the time we got inside but were soon shooting and spinning the bad guys. I failed to record who won but It's safe to say it wasn't likely to be me.

Next up was The Simpsons ride, Scott & I had to do some persuasion with Kim to get her to ride, We described it but she was still concerned by the claustrophobic warning so I described it as a small plane but without a roof. Afterwards She said this helped her as it was a good way of thinking about it, she seemed to enjoy herself and I'm hopeful that she will go on rides more freely in the future.
I however forgot how much I hate this ride! There's something about it that just makes me feel so sick, I think I was a little green around the gills and very pleased to get back out in the fresh air.

Here's Dad & Kim with their new pal Snoopy!

The last thing we wanted to do was have a ride on Minions it was listed as 30minutes but as it was only 2:30pm we did have plenty of time so joined the queue. The detailing in the holding room was spot on, the drawings, the pictures on the wall etc were all really cleverly placed and we found the pre show video amusing too.

We took our spot in a car towards the back of the room and were oooing and ahhing with the whole room. My view was spoilt slightly by the lady in front having an abnormally large bun on the top of her head but I got the jist of it but it would have been more enjoyable on the front section.

As we left their were Minions doing a meet and greet and I just couldn't resist. Scott and I queued whilst Dad & Kim waited in the wings for taking our photo.
We had an amazing interaction, We stood there thinking they would straight away jump in and pose for the photo but Kevin had other ideas. He stood in front of Scott & then Gru joined in too blocking us from sight. They then did silly poses and both ran up to Dad’s camera before eventually settling down for a normal photo. It really made us chuckle and certainly an experience to remember.

We were pretty much all parked out now, we were hot and getting a bit hungry too so even though it had just gone 3pm we made our way to the exit.
We stopped for a rest room break and bought a lemonade for $3.40 from one of the shops at the exit.

I had heard good feedback about the NBC Sports Grille so we chose this as our finale eatery of our holiday. We were seated on a high top table and perused the menu whilst the server grabbed our drinks.

Dad & Scott both had the Grand Slam Burger, Kim ordered the smokehouse stack burger and I opted for the pork platter.

It took a little while to come out but the restaurant seemed really busy for a late Saturday lunch. The food was amazing! I wasn't a fan of the cornbread that came with mine but the meat was cooked perfectly along with the perfectly salted fries. Dad was half way through enjoying his burger when he said something about it, then we watched as it dawned on him that his ‘full lb’ burger meant that he was eating 4x quarter pounders at once! His face was a picture but hey the diet can start when he gets home.

Scott and I had decided that as we wouldn't even be here if it hadn’t been for a Dad & Kims generosity we would pay for their meal as a thank you for letting us take over their holiday. We paid the bill of $85.93 (Left $100)

We still had plenty of time and had planned to leave the area around 5pm, it was just gone 4pm when we finished so made a trip to the toilet upstairs, Kim nearly entering the kitchen as she went the wrong way oops and then made our way back past loads of happy theme parkers to the car park where I was pleased to see our car hadn't been broken into with all our belongings in.

We arrived at the airport without a hitch at 5:15pm and Scott had to say goodbye to his beloved friend, Mr Suburban. Our return slip said we took the car at 24424 kms with a return of 25326 totally 902km of driving for us McGoos.

We offloaded the cases with the help of a bellboy who cleverly managed to juggle them all on one trolley and was soon leading the way towards the check in desks. We weren't ready to join the queue just yet as wanted to change first so our park clothes could go in the case so we piled up our bags together and Scott paid him $20.

Now this is where things got a bit stressful, Kim toodled off to get changed, I was gathering my bits, intending to leave Scott with all the bags as he was the only one who wasn't changing. Dad was rummaging to find his new jacket which was no where to be seen.
Do you remember when I said this morning about how me and Scott checked everywhere together? We do this because I'm paranoid for leaving something important behind but we do it together so we are both responsible if something doesn't make it home.

I left Steve ranting to Scott whilst rummaging through cases thinking it must be somewhere and went off to find Kim. There was a queue for the ladies as always so whilst waiting I told Kim about Dad's dilemma.

Kim didn't have a clue but knew she hadn't packed it as she had thought Dad was intending to wear it, as it happens he had thought it was with his plane clothes but obviously not.
There as lots of muttered swear words, serious looks and quite a lot of tension but the upshot was it wasn't here so the only place would be back at Encantada, either in the wardrobe or on the bed.

We joined the long queue for check in and there was certainly more than the usual end of holiday negativity in the air, eventually we got to the front and had the awkward moment when our bags got weighed. We were thankfully all under and our cases sailed through.
Scott was eyeing up the poster for upgrading so we asked but it was dearer than if we had of done in advance so we left it with the hope that we would have no one in our row again or someone small.
We had plenty of time so we set ourselves down at the seating area where we left Dad & Kim with our hand luggage so we could look at the shops.
Scott was eyeing up a neck pillow in the newsagents, it was a pricey purchase but we had some dollars spare so thought why not. A couple of packs of polos and some sweets meant we spent $50.10.
There isn't much to look at in the airport but we browsed the Universal store and a couple of others then went back to find the others. Dad had gone off to ring Encantada so we sat whilst Kim went for a wander. Scott declared he had a headache so I nipped back into the shop to buy some water for $2.79 so he could take some tablets.
Dad had returned to say he had to ring then back in half an hour as they were off to look, there was a high chance that our house had not yet been cleaned yet so we were hopeful.
Lucky for him when he rang again they had found it in the bedroom and were happy to send it to the UK for postage costs (it turned up at home 3 weeks later with a postage of about $50, an expensive mistake and the same price as the jacket! Oops)

With that now dealt with and out of the way we decided it was about time we made our way to security, the advertised wait was 26 minutes but it took us 45. There were lots of families around us so all of the luggage, prams etc were taking their time so it was incredibly slow and boring.

For once I got beeped for an ankle check which was a bit random and it was only when I put my trainers back on I'd realised I'd walked through with my Fitbit still on which hadn't got flagged up.
We were on the tram to the terminal at 7pm and nipped into the shop near the gates. I bought 3litres of water for $13.47! Expensive or what?!?

We found some seats near our gate so sat down for a while whilst we waited. I wrote my notes, Scott watched something on his phone and we generally passed the time with loo breaks, people watching etc.

At around 8pm they began boarding and by 8:15pm we were sat in our seats ready to leave. There was quite sometime before the seat next to Scott was filled so his heart did break a little but it was taken by a woman who was quite small and kept herself to herself so it wasn't awkward. It felt like it took ages for us to depart but we left at 8:45pm watching the lights twinkling below us.

I listened to music again and Scott watched a couple of films in between nodding off.
About an hour in our dinner was served, Scott chose what I think was cottage pie, and I had Thai green chicken. I don't eat rice so just picked at the meat, it wasn't awful but certainly wasn't going to fill me up, thankfully my porky platter from earlier was keeping me going.
The salad and the pudding pot was vile!

Time passed and we had little naps to kill some time, at 3am, or 8am uk time, breakfast was served. I felt really relieved at this point as it meant we were nearly home, the sky map didn't feel like it had changed much until this point.
Breakfast was a little disappointing though as I was really hungry by this point, We had apple juice, a blueberry muffin too (if it's not a chocolate muffin it's not good) and then a ham & cheese roll. I picked out the cheese so it ended up being a very stale, very dry offering.

From 9am UK time, the sky had cleared and the ground was in sight, I enjoyed watching the world under us change from leafy green fields and trees then industrial looking buildings ands housing estates so took a few photos whilst thinking when will I next be going on a plane.

We landed around 9:30am to a cold but bright December morning, stayed on the plane for a little while then made our way through security. The new machines make the process really easy, we were through in just a few minutes so we could collect our luggage.
We had to wait for everything to come through and there were a couple of carrousels in use but eventually all 8 bags came out in one piece. We lost Dad at one point but found him after a minute or so and then made our way to the car park.

The parking Dad had chosen was painless, we found the car quickly and then had the task of trying to load everything and us into a car that wasn't small but certainly not as roomy as the Surburban. We were just a little cramped.

So that's a wrap!

Spends

Food - $152.56
Shopping - $42
Other - $30 (Parking & Bellboy)
Total - $224.56

[collybird]

Glad the jacket made it home eventually! Not really your fault, as he is a grown up!

[Nesbits]

You had a nice trip, I enjoyed reading along. Hope ou get to go back soon.

[mick]

Thanks for taking the time to do your trippie I have enjoyed reading along you seemed to have had a fabulous holiday

Joan

[WileyCoyote]

Oh going home, sad face
But great day at Universal and great food at NBC - loved it there last summer
Ooopsie about the missing jacket - we are like you. I pack and then Andy does a final sweep as a double check. Good it was found and sent on though .

Ah, so you are home, hope all is good with you and the car/house/life stuff .. !

[disneytrio]

Really enjoyed reading along, it was a bit of an expensive mistake with the jacket, at least dad got it back, thanks for taking the time to do the report.

[PixieBoot]

I've just binge read yr report- enjoyed, thankyou!