Just keep Swimming 2018 - Here we go again! Day 2

[Tessiebear]

Day 2 - Universal (with a little Animal Kingdom &#128513

More reasonable start to the day with a 6am wake up without an alarm (yay, we’ve Floridarised already). Quick pop down to the hotel restaurant for me and Sarah to get drink refills for everyone for a much needed coffee. Headed off by car at 8am and was at Ponderosa on the 192 for a breakfast buffet not long after. I picked up a couple of voucher booklets piled outside and ponderosa had buy 1 get 1 half price voucher, so for the 7 of us with unlimited drink refills came to a bargain $61 plus tip. All enjoyed the buffet with the 2 teens definitely getting their money’s worth, with a selection of pancakes, hot sausages/bacon etc, and Beth’s consisted of a plate of sugar (think blueberry pancake, choc chip cookies, ice cream with chic and marshmallow sprinkles, and you’ve hit the picture 😂&#128514. From there we headed for Universal. Now I should add from here Mike is Lead driver and I am second reserve, however since brand new car collection at the airport I haven’t had a look in and Mike is in control And Barrie is navigator riding up front) basically have adopted Maverick and Goose roles 😂. So Barrie inputs universal into satnav and we are off. Who knew when in Orlando the satnav would send you to a separate place called universal and not the world famous universal studios 😂😂 not us apparently, so some ten miles in the opposite direction before goose realises and Maverick then attempts a manoeuvre that we would get to experience again later on in fast and furious 😂😂. Anyway we arrive and get parked in Spider-Man on the roof 😩, already imagining the heat the car will have on our return. Through security which has had a makeover since we were last here in 2016 and was so smooth and fast 👍 and round to Universal to activate passes and we are in. The Williams are all major filmies and Nathan wants to get into film graphic design as a career so this is definitely the park for them and they do lots of photo taking ops as we go. boys head to rip ride rocket first which states 45 min wait so the rest of us go in Shrek 4D opposite. Great fun and come out to find boys waiting. We bought a couple of refillable mugs between us for $13 each which turned into a great purchase and were refilled at least ten times today. Onto fast and furious next, which was great fun too (better than I was expecting after reading the reviews) but no major unexpected manoeuvres with burning rubber like Maverick had this morning &#128514. Next onto diagon alley for some pics of the fire breathing dragon, and then the night bus interaction. We then went for lunch at Mel’s diner, no pics of food as was inhaled too quickly but it was a bacon cheeseburger for goose, chicken nuggets for callum and chicken sandwich got me, all meals including the best milkshakes I’ve ever had for $13 each. Onto ET (one of our faves and we were Dave, Bob and Fred today after Barrie refusing to use his own name after becoming Barbie last time 😂&#128514, then Simpson’s ride and another mooch, before Barrie getting a lard lad doughnut on the way out just after 5pm. Back to the car and air on ramped up for 5 mins before we climb in, only for the three of us in the back seats to lose a layer of skin when our skin touched the leather &#128580. Back to hotel for quick freshen up and change and then hopped on the resort transfer to animal kingdom to ride FOP (excited much! ) with a fastpass I secured just in the off chance we fancied a quick AK visit. (We have two AK days planned over the fortnight both with FOP fastpass roses secured) Well wow what can I say, surpassed all our expectations and even Maverick came off smiling (that’s a first!). So a quick night blossom from pongu pongu for the kids ((qs snack), and rum blossoms for us adults $10

and Over to restaurantasauraus for dinner and 7 x qs bacon cheeseburger

combo meals purchased, (bacon cheeseburger, fries, chocolate caramel brownie and refillable soda included) and the guys ordered 2 bud lights, which also appears to have been included at no charge (as we had the combos they shouldn’t have been) - result. Early night tonight, back at hotel by 10.45.

Discovery cove tomorrow - yay

Until then... ,
Teresa x

[collybird]

A fab day, it was a great idea to book the FoP FP for the evening of a Universal day just for a bonus ride.

[Cinderella]

Great pics 👍