The Magic 3 Travel Day

[MrsSilverStar]

Travel Day – Wednesday 16th October

The Magic 3 are Tara, Mark and Heath and this is our first trip to Florida. Full background info is in the pre trippie, which is short and sweet and can be found here.
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This trip has been YEARS in the making. I loitered on the Dibb for ages before getting a bit more involved and actually booked a trip for 2017 – however, I ended up cancelling it after getting cold feet about the cost! Then in February 2019, we went to DLP, as a way of testing the Disney waters…well we loved it and I think I booked this trip a couple of months later as soon as the free dining offer went live. You can see how we got on at DLP here.

Now it was finally time to head to Florida and I was both hugely excited and a little terrified about the holiday going well. This meant I got about three hours of sleep the night before, because I was just way too wired to relax properly.
We had a taxi booked to take us to Gatwick for our flight at 10.10am and the company had a tracking system…you can imagine my horror when I could see the taxi was still in Uxbridge, at least half an hour away, when it was supposed to be picking us up in about five minutes. Fortunately, it suddenly leaped to our road just in time to stop me panicking and we were off. It was lashing down with rain and very dark and miserable so we were thrilled to be leaving that behind us.

We had express security with our lounge access so we were through in seconds. Do you think they could tell where we were going?

Did a little bit of shopping in duty free, some Clarins face cream for me, a book for Heath and sunglasses for Mark. Then we headed off to the No 1 Lounge. We got seats with no problem as we were pretty early. I immediately got on the bucks fizz, it is a holiday after all! We all tucked into the warm buffet with bits like bacon, hash browns, sausages etc. It was nice to have space to chill, eat and drink, and charge our phones – that plus the express security, made it worth while for us to pay for the lounge (think it was about £80)

Once the gate was announced, we trotted off. We were flying with Virgin and obviously hoping to be on the Falcon but got the Ladybird. We were flying premium economy up in the bubble and it was nice to see the amount of space we had.

Heath got to go in the cockpit before take off, all the staff were so lovely and friendly.

Getting proper glasses, plates and cutlery was a small thrill too

However, we were stuck behind mega recliners . I won’t get into that old debate apart from saying, of course one of them was a small boy whose back didn’t touch the back of his reclined seat once and no, of course they didn’t sit up for food I do wish cabin crew still asked people to sit up while food is being served.
The food was nice enough and we all ate fairly well – it felt like a never ending parade of food to be honest, which affected one of us in a bad way at the end of the flight...*ominous foreboding*..!
We spent the flight mostly watching films but I had also packed a bag with a few presents for Heath which he started opening once we were on our way – it had stuff like a water-spraying fan (this was a god-send in the parks), a hidden Mickey book, notepad and a polaroid camera which we really enjoyed using to take pictures with characters later in the holiday…because he wasn’t spoilt enough with this holiday right?!

The flight went quickly enough but once we landed, Heath was complaining of a sore stomach…yep, he’d been stuffing his face the entire flight and unfortunately Mark (who was sat next to him) had slept through the afternoon tea so missed Heath inhaling lots of cake, plus the sweets the cabin crew kept giving him! He had a quick visit to the loo and I thought he’d be fine then, so we made our way back through the cabin to Mark…just in time for Heath to turn and say “I feel sick” before throwing up in his hands Thankfully he managed to avoid everyone and we quickly legged it back to the loo. The water was shut off as we’d landed so I was struggling to clean him up but luckily a lady handed me a pack of wipes which saved the day! He was fine once it was all out of his system and we made sure we were much more careful about how much he ate for the rest of the trip. We were last off the top deck but they’d held economy until we were off so we weren’t at the back of a giant queue luckily. There was no other flight but it still took about an hour to get through immigration. I’d read lots of horror stories about scary immigration officials but ours was very funny and nice, wishing Heath happy birthday and asking if Mark kept us chained in the basement because he’d been to Boston (for work) and we hadn’t

The bags were ready and waiting for us so we grabbed them and headed for the monorail – we were so excited and ready for the holiday to start. Unfortunately I had a daft planning fail here…I didn’t know exactly where to pick up a Lyft or Uber from…so we kept trying and running around, getting hot and sweaty and being charged two ‘no show’ fees before we finally discovered the (very clearly marked as it turned out ) ride share area. For anyone else who doesn’t know, it’s on level 2…which you will miss if you get the escalator down from level 3 because that brings you out on level 1…oh the fun we had!
This photo was taken before we were seriously grumpy and sweaty!

Thankfully, we were finally in a Lyft and on our way to Royal Pacific Resort. Took about half an hour from the airport. The check in guy was lovely and gave us a birthday badge for Heath and celebrating badges for me and Mark as it was our ten year wedding anniversary the month before – we got so many congratulations from staff and other guests while we had these on, it was lovely.
We dumped our stuff in the room (tower 3, floor 6, no photos because we were too excited to get to a park!), Heath and Mark put shorts on and we then had a quick trip to the club lounge so we could grab some waters – then it was time to head to Islands of Adventure.

The walk from the hotel to the parks was through some nice greenery and along the water, plus it was nice and quick. I was so happy seeing Citywalk and the parks coming into view.
I’d pre-bought a photo pass during one of the sales so had some piccies taken at the entrance

We headed for Suess land first. Heath is not a big fan of roller coasters and wanted to ease in gently. These were fun and it was just nice being there and soaking it all in

But I was desperate to get to Hogsmede so soon dragged us off there. To be honest, I’d only bothered with Universal for the Harry Potter stuff but I actually really enjoyed both parks a lot more than I thought I would and I’m really pleased we webt.
It was spine tingling to walk into Hogsmede, just wow, the theming is fantastic

We noticed there was only one family of three in the queue for Ollivanders so hopped in behind them

It ended up being our two families, a woman with two girls and an older couple. The girl in front of us in the queue was very loud and precocious so we weren’t surprised when she was selected for the wand choosing ceremony but her mum whispered to me that it was their eighth attempt and they’d been sent over from the other one after she burst into tears when she wasn’t chosen! I was a little disappointed that Heath wouldn’t get a go but luckily for us the lady in charge was awesome and told us and the other two young girls to wait after she’d finished the ceremony with the first girl and sent them off. Then they all got their own ceremony which was shortened to just the moment of the wand choosing them but Heath loved that, “I got the right one first time!” so it was perfect for us. The show is very cool so worth watching even if you don’t want a wand. Heath’s is a holly wand with a dragon heart string, for people good with animals who love travel – so cute.

After we’d bought it, we noticed loads of green light outside and got out there in time to see three green fireworks go off…the dark mark! Soon death eaters were roaming around, stopping to fight kids with wands, it was awesome and Heath loved it. Their costumes and masks in particular were fantastic.

Heath did a few spells after he’d finished fighting the baddies but we didn’t bother trying to watch the dark arts projection show. The heat coming off the mass of humanity in the area in front of the castle was horrible. The first show filled to capacity so there was a holding area for the next one, which freed up space for those of us not watching it, which was great for us. What a perfect first night, which felt like a complete fluke because I didn’t expect Heath to get his wand until tomorrow and we didn’t know about the roaming death eaters (this may be just a Halloween thing, not sure if it happens all year round). After all that planning, it was great to get some surprises.

We decided to head back after all this as we were exhausted after such a long, busy day. I felt terrible by this point, thought I might faint or throw up or both! I’d drunk too much free booze on the plane and not enough water since hitting the park. I felt so much better after having a shower back at the hotel. The boys shared a cheese pizza from the food court downstairs before we all tumbled into bed, exhausted but happy after our wonderful day in Florida!

Tomorrow, for our first full day, we’re heading into Studios for more Harry Potter fun…coming soon.

[sheluk]

What a fab day (bar Heaths sickness) and well done for partaking in the free booze

Your night sounds fantastic w the death eaters.

Can’t wait to read more x

[MrsSilverStar]

Originally Posted by sheluk

What a fab day (bar Heaths sickness) and well done for partaking in the free booze

Your night sounds fantastic w the death eaters.

Can’t wait to read more x

See more...

Free booze is my weakness

The Death Eaters were awesome! It really was a great first night.

I'm slowly plugging away at getting it all written...I take my hat off to all of you who have done multiple reports, they take a lot of time and effort with all the photo faff! Lovely to have the memories though x

[Leia77]

Fabulous start! Loved your cases, so cute. You all lasted so well. Looking forward to reading more 😊

[MrsSilverStar]

Originally Posted by Leia77

Fabulous start! Loved your cases, so cute. You all lasted so well. Looking forward to reading more 😊

See more...

Mark doesn’t love them when he has to use them when travelling for work on his own 🤣 but they are so cute!
I’m amazed how long we kept going now I look back at it. We definitely don’t manage to keep up that pace for the whole holiday!

[Leia77]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

Mark doesn’t love them when he has to use them when travelling for work on his own 🤣 but they are so cute!
I’m amazed how long we kept going now I look back at it. We definitely don’t manage to keep up that pace for the whole holiday!

See more...

Haha, don’t think my husband would be too impressed with that either ☺️

[jothp]

What a lovely first day but a shame that Heath was sick. Even though my eldest is nearly 12, I can't quite stop carrying baby wipes around with me as they are just so useful!

We all love the Harry Potter areas in the park. The spells you can do with the wands are really good fun.

[MrsSilverStar]

Originally Posted by jothp

What a lovely first day but a shame that Heath was sick. Even though my eldest is nearly 12, I can't quite stop carrying baby wipes around with me as they are just so useful!

We all love the Harry Potter areas in the park. The spells you can do with the wands are really good fun.

See more...

I think it was good in a way, because it reminded him that his little stomach can’t handle too much junk food! Thank goodness for baby wipes!

The spells were very cool, I was so impressed with the whole Harry Potter world, such amazing detail.

[Goldia]

Yay, you've started. What a brilliant travel day, apart from Heath being sick of course.

I loved the photo of your cases at the airport. The lounge and flight all seem great. Running around in a panic trying to find the ride share area doesn't sound so fun. What a pain!

I can't believe you made it into the park on travel day, we've never done that as we've always been too tired. What a lovely evening.

I'm looking forward to reading about your adventures.

[mick]

A brilliant first day :spin well done on doing a park on travel day

Joan