A Magical New Year: Day 8 - Harry Potter and the Journey Home *COMPLETE*

[Stewboy]

Index

Saturday 5th January

Today was the final day of our holiday but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to have some fun before we went home…. but first, coffee. As usual after waking up - 7am this morning - I went to get us coffee from the Bayliner Diner.

Back at the room, Jo and I had a relaxing start to the day - enjoying our coffee in bed, before having showers, then getting down to business: packing.




Packing while Isabella sleeps!

At about 8:30am I went back to the Bayliner Diner to get us breakfast to eat in the room, coming back with three croissants: two with bacon, egg and cheese; one without. We ate ours straight away but let Isabella sleep - it was going to be a long day for her and we saw no reason to get her up too early.




Not quite the same as the picture...

Around 10am Isabella finally woke up. She had her breakfast while Jo did online check-in for our flight home.

Once we’d finished packing I took some of the cases down to the car, while Jo checked out via the TV - it was so quick and easy.


Ironic

Now that we were all checked out, we took the rest of the cases to the car and now the rest of the morning was ours to do with what we wanted.

As our flight wasn’t until 6:55pm, we were going to head over to Islands of Adventure - we had that Mythos lunch reservation booked too.

We got the bus at about 11am and were soon on our way into the park. Being a Saturday the park was very busy today; fortunately we weren’t there for any of the rides. We did want to see the Triwizard Spirit Rally outside Hogwarts though, but we had some time to wait until that started at 12pm, so Isabella did the final spells of the holiday around Hogsmeade until it was time.


Queen of the bus one last time


Easy tiger





There were a few people milling about by the stage, I think some people were using it to sit and eat their lunch! While we waited for the show to start we ate our Honeydukes fudge - it was delicious.

Once the show started everyone was told to to stay well clear of the stage - and with good reason: Isabella almost got hit by a flying staff when one of the Durmstrang students lost control of it! Someone approached us afterwards to make sure she was ok - she was fine obviously.




















Triwizard Spirit Rally

[Stewboy]

The Spirit Rally was fun, it was one of the things that we really wanted to see, so we were glad that we caught it before we went home. Once it was over we left Hogsmeade and headed over to Seuss Landing to watch the Grinchmas Who-liday Spectacular. We queued for about five minutes inside Seuss Landing (next to the Circus McGurkus quick-service restaurant) before being led to a soundstage located between Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. As we made our way to the soundstage we even saw the Hogwarts Express travelling between the two parks!


All the Whos down in Whoville


















On our way to see the Grinchmas Who-liday Spectacular

After a short wait while they showed everyone to their seats, the show begun. It’s essentially just a retelling of the Grinch story with some original songs (and a real dog - the highlight). The staging was pretty good, but I found it boring and didn’t really enjoy it - Jo and Isabella did though, and it was one of the final things on our to-do list to check off.








The Grinchmas Who-liday Spectacular

It was now time for our rearranged Mythos lunch reservation. As we walked through the park towards the restaurant we kept an eye on the Universal app to see if there were any rides with short waits that we could squeeze in before we checked in, but we were going to be out of luck today as the park was just too busy, so we carried on to Mythos and checked in at 1:15pm - about 15 minutes early.

As we were shown to our seat, we took in the surroundings; the theming inside the restaurant was really lovely. However, the service left a lot to be desired: we were brought bread but no butter; after ordering we waiting ages for our food despite the restaurant not even being busy; we only got one round of drinks bought to us.

In terms of the food, it was ok. I think I made the wrong choice; I had the Lamb Burger - it wasn’t very nice.

Jo, on the other hand, really enjoyed her Fork, Knife and Spoon Grilled Cheese (three cheese sandwich in Tuscan tomato soup with crispy pork belly and house made chips) and Isabella enjoyed her Chicken Fingers, so I probably just made a bad selection.

Despite the surroundings and the mostly tasty food, the service really did but a downer on it and I’m not sure we’d bother returning.


I'd like to know which six years!


















Mythos theming


Lamb Burger


Fork, Knife and Spoon Grilled Cheese


Chicken Fingers

Lunch was finished at about 2:15pm and now it was time to leave Islands of Adventure, and Universal Orlando, for the final time on this trip.

We couldn’t leave empty handed though, and as we made our way through CityWalk we had to get ourselves a final box of six Voodoo Donuts for the journey home! We each got to choose two, and our final selection contained: Voodoo Doll, Chuckles, Peanut Cake, Glazed Old Fashioned, Sprinkle Cake, and Butterfinger.

[Stewboy]

With our box of doughnuts, we headed back to the buses, and Cabana Bay for the final time. With time still to kill, we filled our mugs in the Bayliner Diner then sat outside to enjoy a drink, a doughnut, and the surroundings of this wonderful resort - we were really sad to be leaving this place, it was definitely the highlight of the trip.


The Adventure Lives On


Sad faces - Take 1!


Sad faces - Take 2!


Peanut Cake


Butterfinger


Isabella enjoying the Glazed Old Fashioned


Sprinkle Cake, Voodoo Doll, Chuckles for later

Finally, at about 3:30pm it was time to say a sad farewell to Cabana Bay and make the short, and uneventful, drive to the Orlando International Airport.


Going home faces

Arriving at the airport, we went through the usual routine: drop off the car, drag the luggage to check in, drop off bags, waste some time in the shops, go through security, then head to gate.

All of this was fairly straightforward - there were no lines at Virgin check-in and we avoided any issues with the self check-in kiosk as there was a lady on hand to help.

Once the bags were out of the way, we stopped at the Disney Earport shop where Isabella bought a pin and a pressed penny, and we bought some Disney luggage stickers - 50 for ten dollars!


Disney luggage stickers

Now there was nothing left to do but head through security. So after a quick costume change in the restrooms, we made our way through and took the tram to our gate area.

There was about an hour and a half till our flight, so we thought we’d go for a drink in Bahama Breeze, and maybe get Isabella some dinner as she’s not a fan of aeroplane food.

The restaurant was busy with a 15 minute wait, but we were ok with that so we waited. Fifteen minutes later we were called and shown to our seat. Isabella ordered some Chicken Tenders and Jo and I ordered drinks: Margarita for Jo, Goose Island IPA for me.


Those plugs look safe...




Bahama Breeze

We enjoyed relaxing with a drink and Isabella enjoyed her food. It was soon time to pay up and head to the gate. I made a quick trip to the shop to get water while we waited for our server to reappear - she’d gone AWOL at the most inappropriate time!

She eventually reappeared, we paid the bill and headed to the gate. Just as we got near our gate, an alarm went off and the doors to our area gate shut! There was only about 15 minutes until we needed to board and we had a momentary panic!


Sunset




Cheers

Fortunately however about five minutes later the doors were opened again, although the alarm was still going, and we were able to get through to our gate. It was an odd situation - there were still people waiting at the gates in that area (there were about ten gates altogether) and they hadn’t been told to leave - nobody was really paying any attention to the alarm so I’m not even sure what it was all about!


Denied!


Beyond the doors

At our gate they were boarding premium economy and upper class, despite the screen saying that the flight was delayed by an hour! Eventually someone put some duct tape over that message - that’s cutting edge technology right there!


See the tape?!


(Not) ready to board the plane

It was now time for us to board, we got settled in our seats and…. waited for at least an hour until we finally took off. There was an even longer to wait for any form of entertainment as there was some problem getting the seat back screens going.

To keep us entertained they provided some drinks - Jo had a vodka and tonic, I had a Tiger beer, and eventually the seat back entertainment was up and running. I watched the rest of the original Omen (I’d watched half on the way out), followed by Solo; Jo watched some episodes of Family Guy, and Isabella watched Incredibles 2.


Final Sear selfie of the holiday

It was soon dinner time - Jo had a vegetable curry, I had chicken meatballs - both of which were ok. Isabella just wanted to sleep so she didn’t eat anything.

Jo and I both had a little bit of sleep too, and then before we knew it they were serving us a breakfast of a croissant and a granola bar - they were nice.

The time had flown by (pun intended!) and it was now almost time to land; by 8:15am we were on the ground back in London.

Because of long queues at passport control on our last couple of holidays Jo had booked Premium Passport Control - obviously this meant there was no queue today anyway! It was still worth it though as we got through super quick, and after a short wait for our bags we left Gatwick Airport just gone 9am and walked to the courtesy bus stop.



The bus arrived straight away and we were soon on our way back to Purple Parking where we were reunited with our car. As usual, London was cold and we were all tired and just wanting to get home asap. The car was quickly loaded up, and we were on our way back to Hertfordshire.

It was just before 11:30am that we arrived back home, cold and exhausted. We all put our cosiest onesies on and decided to have an hour nap…and that is how this trip report ends!

Thank you all for reading along and for all of your comments. We had an absolutely wonderful time at Cabana Bay - it’s a fantastic resort which I cannot recommend highly enough. A one week trip over New Year is brilliant and we’d love to do it again one day.

However, as much as I enjoyed our trip to Universal, I definitely missed Disney and you’ll be pleased to hear that our next trip is a Disney one. In October this year we’re off on a 7 night Disney Cruise from San Diego down to Mexico and back, and for the first time we’ll also be visiting Disneyland in Anaheim so we’re really excited about that!

So all that’s left to say is: TFR!


Matching onesies

[JanetteP]

A stunning report, as usual, really enjoyed reading about your adventures. Cabana Bay is definitely on my list. Your next trip sounds fantastic - cannot wait to read all about it.

[Floridafour]

A great report as always, thank you and I look forward to the next one, a 7 day cruise sounds fab 👍

[princess allie]

Great report, I have really enjoyed reading along.

[Excited83]

I don’t normally read Universal reports but I had to make an exception for this one! Thanks for sharing. So excited to read about your next trip - sounds fantastic!

[Palm trees]

That sounds like a fantastic holiday, a change from Disney, but fun all the same.

[mick]

Thanks once again for doing a trippie sounds like you a great week

Your next trip sounds lovely I will look forward to reading about it

Joan

[dixonsontour]

Enjoyed your report. We loved Cabana bay too, it’s got such a great feel. Cruise from San Diego sounds fantastic.