Disney with the Dufflers - Take 2 - Jul 2019 - Day 2 - Universal Studios and Hard Rock Cafe

[tracey1302]

Pre-Trip Report

Day 0 - Monday 1st July 2019 - Overnight at the Radisson Blu, Manchester Airport

Day 1 - Tuesday 2nd July 2019 - Travel day and arrival at Sapphire Falls

Day 2 - Wednesday 3rd July 2019 - Universal Studios and Hard Rock Cafe

As is standard on anyone's first morning in Orlando, we woke up at 3.30am, then again at 4.30am and put the TV on, realising we were definitely not going to get anymore sleep.

However, I looked around our beautiful room at Sapphire Falls and felt that familiar thrill of excitement. We were on site at Universal and today was our very first park day!

Now about a week or so before we left, in a little bit of an anxious state over the new Hagrid ride and its stupid queues, I got the Touring Plans Universal app and quickly became a little bit obsessed with it so in these very early hours, I started planning out park strategies and pressing that awesome 'Optimise' button it offers, showing you the quickest way to get around the park

Having finally settled on my order of the day, Neil and I got showers and headed over to the beautiful lobby to watch the sunrise.

On our group chat, we got word that Sam and Uncle Mark were awake and we made plans to meet everyone in the lobby at 7am to get the boat. As we still had a little time to kill, we went down to the water taxi stop and took a few pictures. We hit a wall of heat. It was absolutely el scorchio and it was only 6.30am!

Heading back up to the balcony at Strong Water Tavern, we met up with Sam and Uncle Mark. Uncle Mark had been on a right adventure that morning. He'd walked over to Cabana Bay, and then had somehow ended up at some medical centre (he wasn't actually ill or anything, he'd just got lost ) and needed directing to get back to SF.

Around 7am, Megan joined us and I took a picture of the early morning crew and the first boat of the morning.

Mum, Martin, OB and Debsy were not far behind.

We headed down to the water taxi stop a little after 7am, but the first boat had just left We got to the front of the queue for the next one.

And waited. And waited. When Neil and I had stayed at Sapphire Falls in 2017, it was always the case that one boat left and another showed up almost immediately but not today. It got to 7.30am and I started to get stressed I wanted to be in line for the gate at 7.45am.

So me, OB and Neil decided to walk to get in line. This was a bad idea.

We got about half way there, so just after the RPR bridge walkway and we saw a boat go through to our left. It was definitely for SF, as there'd been a boat in dock at RPR. Then, suddenly, I got a bit giddy and decided I wanted to beat them. So I ran...

I left OB and Neil behind, who only started running when they saw the boat on the approach to Citywalk behind them

Prior to our holiday, I'd been doing a lot of running, and I got spinning on a regular basis. I totally smashed this run, and in that sort of heat, it was a hell of a workout (don't worry, people, I had water). I strangely loved it.

Anyway, I reached the IOA bridge and waited a good five minutes before catching a picture of the boat as it came by. Yes, that is our gang waving at me

I'm not sure that Neil and OB were as enthusiastic about the early morning workout as they rocked up behind me, sweating buckets, pouring water all over their faces. It was hilarious.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that it made no difference to time. We were still in line for 7.45am

The gates to Universal opened at 7.50am and we were away and through the gates... (thanks again to Tony, Tom and the amazing team at Orlando Attractions for our tickets, oh and our Disney holiday, oh and generally for everything in my life to do with Florida).

Mum took this photo of me, absolutely chuffed to be there on our first morning in my favourite ever T-shirt. I am a massive fan and scholar of Stranger Things. I'm a Lecturer in Film and TV and have written articles on the show, and am currently editing a book on it. I love it more than anything so the fact that Season Three was airing that night at midnight was a little distracting and I got a few comments throughout the day

As you can see, me and OB both brought a strong fun T-shirt game this holiday.

We headed up, following the crowds on the way to Diagon Alley.

We were greeted with this truly, truly incredible view that never fails to take my breath away. Diagon Alley really is out of this world. I think when you've been a few times, you almost take it for granted, but the level of detail is just unreal...

We headed straight for Gringotts' lockers. The queue was showing as 20 minutes but I knew that this basically meant it was a walk on. I grabbed everyone's stuff. Hats, glasses, bags, the works. However, here, I was faced with... the new locker system. I'm not sure why they changed this from a finger print system to a ticket scanning system, as surely the idea is that you put everything in the locker?

Anyway, unbeknownst to me, I put all of our stuff, including tickets, into the lockers... I didn't realise this would be a problem until I had shut the locker and quickly approached the two CMs on the entrance to Gringotts and told them what I'd done. However, it wasn't a problem. They said I just needed to find them when the ride was done. Phew.

So anyway, onto Gringotts we went, getting our security clearance in no time.

Gringotts was the ride that my Mum had been most worked up about the whole time we were planning Florida. She doesn't like rollercoasters. And even though I'd explained it wasn't a rollercoaster per se, there was a dip at the beginning (this was actually a lot smaller than I remembered). She sat between me and Martin, absolutely terrified, bless her, but she did it!

Everyone absolutely loved Gringotts. It is a brilliant, brilliant ride. Hagrid is better (in my opinion). But Universal have just totally blown it out of the water with all of the HP rides. They're so worthy of the enormity of the franchise.

After Gringotts, we decided to have a bit of breakfast at the San Francisco Pastry Company.

Hubby asked me to take a picture of him whilst looking unattractive and eating...

I had the world's largest blueberry muffin and a water. It was great.

After breakfast, the Touring Plans app told me that the queue for Minions was not going to be practical for us at that time of day, so we headed for Transformers which was showing a 30 minute queue. We waited 15 minutes.

This was me in my super cool 3D glasses on Transformers.

We had a bit of a mare on Transformers. Basically, we got on the ride and just at the moment where you go riding through the streets with Bumblebee, the ride broke down. The screens froze. It got back up again within about five minutes, but then broke down again right before the end. However, the ride staff were brilliant and, as would be expected, they fixed the ride quickly and let us ride on again immediately. It worked perfectly this time.

The HD in Transformers is stunning when it works . It's just great.

After Transformers, we were headed for RRR which was showing a 20 minute queue .

Before we came to Florida, the Dufflers all declared rides that they were going to brave themselves and go on, whether it be the Hulk, or Rock N Roller, or RRR. When it came to it, however... Sam, who had, just the previous night, said he was going on RRR, chickened out.

This ride is really great. That initial launch is just fantastic (I kept my eyes open this time – ha!). Martin has since said this was one of his favourite coasters of the holiday...

Me, Neil, OB and Martin declared ourselves the fab four as we went on everything.

After this, we headed around to The Mummy. I was quite excited to go on this one, as I'd missed it when we went in 2017, as me and Olly had opted for another go on Gringotts. Megan was terrified in the queue for this ride (even though she'd done it as a 12 year old in 2014!) but we talked her through it and she did it! I really enjoyed The Mummy – I love when you enter the tomb and the beetles come at you and then you shoot backwards! Brilliant!

We ran into this guy just outside the Mummy's tomb. I love these photo opportunities!

Looking at my app once again, we headed back around to do MIB and the Simpsons. A few of us stayed off The Simpsons, however. Neil felt really sick the last time he'd been on it, so we stayed off it, opting for Diet Coke and ice creams instead!

After this, it was getting close to the lunchtime showing of the Blues Brothers, which we'd all said we wanted to see. Neil and I headed over to get a 'space' opposite the stage in the shade (it was absolutely cooking hot at this point).

Everyone joined us soon enough and we had some beers and danced along! It was terrific! Me and Neil love the Blues Brothers so much. At our wedding, we even walked back down the aisle to 'Everybody (Needs Somebody To Love)' – it's one of our absolute favourites.

We also got this fab photo opp with Elwood Blues. I think he wanted to stay and drink beer with us

After this point, we were all hot, sticky and ready for a rest! We'd totally smashed it. So, we headed back to Sapphire Falls and straight for the pool. I opted for my favourite, but ridiculously expensive, frozen Pina Colada.

Neil and I had some nachos – they were fantastic. Got to to love the poolside service!

We had just about finished our nachos when the clouds started to darken... we all know what that means... rain. The lifeguards blew their whistles and got everyone out of the pool, and the entire pool area was evacuated because of rain, thunder and lightning.

Once it looked like the rain wasn't going to clear, we moved up to the lobby and sat around watching the tennis for a bit on the massive screens. We also had some really yummy fruit juice which was free

For the past few days, we'd seen this absolutely gorgeous, massive dog in the lobby called Scooby. Neil loves dogs (his Mum has two) so he went over to say 'hi'

After this, we went back for showers and had a pre dinner drink in the Strong Water Tavern. Someone took this great picture of us all on the terrace. Even though it had rained in the afternoon, it was still so, so hot. It was literally like walking out into a steam room.

However, when we headed down to get the boat to Citywalk, there was still thunder and lightning in the area, so the boats weren't running. We waited about fifteen minutes and got the bus to Citywalk instead, heading down on the walkways, old school style.

Once we arrived, we headed for Jimmy Buffett's (again!) but it was still a 40-50 minute wait and we were all really hungry. So we headed over to, to my disdain, Hard Rock Cafe.

They announced a 30 minute wait but we were seated within 20 minutes. The place was absolutely packed to the rafters.

While the service was good, I thought the food was ridiculously overpriced and poor quality. I also think that my experience was tainted as the air conditioning wreaked havoc on my lenses. I had to leave the restaurant at least half an hour before everyone else so I could get some of the humidity back into my eyes!

I did, however, get some lovely pictures of my time outside the Hard Rock Cafe!

Everyone joined me soon enough, and we got the bus back to Sapphire Falls. Or, should I say, we got the bus back to Aventura, which turned up almost immediately, and walked across.

It was IOA tomorrow, and I was super, super excited to go on some first class rollercoasters!

Day 4 - Islands of Adventure, Bahama Breeze and Bar 17 is here.

[Inky]

I Need to pluck up courage to go on RRR next year!

[Rescuer]

Great first day.
It was our first day as well and I totally agree with you about the heat. It was melting and we were just shopping, you did really well! Can’t believe you were running in that heat though. 😂