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Old 28 Mar 15, 07:56 PM  
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**Leigh_11_22**
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Day 11 - Overnight stay at Universal

Here is a link to my pre-trip report and previous days

Index - Pre-trip and previous days

Really early start today we were up at 5:45! What sort of holiday is it when you have so many early mornings?! Anyhow, we were up and ready pretty quickly and heading to Universal.

When we got to the resort we somehow ended up at the wrong part of the hotel. I think that they used this building for conferences etc. We were given directions and found the right car park eventually. I was getting annoyed because I was so desperate to beat the queues for Harry Potter this morning and we were. Now running late!

The man checking us in was lovely and the foyer was very quiet at this time. I felt bad because as lovely as the man was, I was just absolutely desperate to get out to the park and he was very kindly giving us all sorts of information and chatting to Aaron! Lol. Our room was actually ready for us but we left our bags in the car so that we could make better time.

Leowes Royal Pacific Resort was absolutely stunning and I wish that we could of spent more time here. We got our passes sorted and had our photos taken. The check in man had suggested that if there was no boat waiting or on its way over the water then it would be quicker to walk to the parks. This was good information and we walked this time. It only took 10 minutes.

We were straight into the studios and up to Kings Cross we were all tired and grumpy but Diagon Alley soon cheered us up. What can I say? As a long time re-reader of the books and a huge film fan I was in awe of the place! I think that Aaron and I were in a bit of a daze of how wonderful it all was.









We looked in the shops and the windows then had a ride on Gringotts before it got too busy. We enjoyed the ride and it is clever but were not inclined to queue for it again at any point, if there was no queue I'd jump on but would never wait in those crazy lines they have!



The queue for Olivanders was building by this point so we went to a little shop around the corner in the marketplace (wands by Gregorovitch) were Aaron finally got a new wand! He was so happy. He chose the elder wand but it was a very big decision for him lol.







We had planned to beat the crowds getting to Kings Cross but time had gotten away from us. We joined everyone else and filtered through the long waiting area. We must have waited for 45 minutes in the end which was unfortunate timing but oh well. It was worth it though as the journey to Hogsmeade was very enjoyable. The imagineers (are they imagineers or is that just a disney thing? ) are very clever and have done a wonderful job bringing this world to life









Hogsmeade was beautiful. The Americans must think that we all live in quaint little cottages with constant snow.





We headed straight to Forbidden Journey and queued for about 15minutes. It was very hot in the queue area and by the time we had climbed the stairs it was really quite stuffy. There was a lady ahead of us in the queue who unfortunately fainted. Tom went ahead to help her as nobody seemed to know what to do. They eventually got her some water and took her outside I think.





The ride was amazing! I loved every second of it. It was quite scary in some places and I can see what some of the little ones might not like about it. Not Aaron though! He didn't bat an eyelid

We had a browse around Hogsmeade for a while and Tom and Samantha made the most of a 5 minute wait time for Dueling Dragons. While they rode we looked in Honeydukes sweet shop and in Zonkos too. We got some tubs of ice cream and sat and people watched for a bit.

We were hungry now so decided on the Hogs Head for some lunch. Tom and Aaron found us a table while we ordered. Sam and I went for mini Cornish pasties with salad. Tom had a turkey leg and Aaron had chicken. We had our first butter beers here too which we loved!





We enjoyed it in here and it was still quite quiet. We walked out of Hogsmeade now and opted (against my better judgment) to go on Poseidons Fury. It was ok but I felt like it was a bit of a waste of time. It was very cheesy and very long!

Next up was Jurassic park. We used our express pass and were sitting down within about 2 minutes. We really enjoyed this ride, Aaron loves the film too which helped. We were all soaked which was fine. We had decided to do all of the wet rides straight after each other this afternoon before heading back to the hotel.

We did ripsaw falls next which saw us get absolutely soaked! It is a long ride and very fun for kids. We did the rapids straight afterwards as we had nothing to lose by this point! We were soaked! The rapids were a real laugh, our boat kept getting the same people in the firing line of the water haha.



We were calling it a day now (1:30pm) to go and have a sleep. On the way we get some dippin dots. Aaron got a tuti fruti flavour and I got cookie dough, I wasn't overly keen but super dad polished them off as usual

We saw a meet and greet with Popeye and Olive so tom and Aaron met these and had lots of fun here.



We headed further round toward the exit and split up so that Tom and Aaron could ride Spider-Man.



Sam and I were feeling too cold and wet to be in the air conditioning so we walked ahead to Starbucks. We had lattes to go and met back up with Tom and Aaron who had actually queued to meet Spider-Man after the ride, I was a bit gutted that I had missed it, oh well. Aaron was made up about it though.

We headed over to city walk and found the taxi boats. We used these every time now and they were so quick, it made us feel like we were actually on holiday.

Once back at the hotel we went and found our room. It was lovely. It had two enormous beds and the bathroom was massive! Tom was sent to get the bags from the car while we attempted to dry our shoes off. It was only 2:30pm now and we decided to have a nap. Not Tom though! He was having gym withdrawal symptoms and went down to make the most of the hotels gym. The three of us shut the curtains and put a rubbish film on

Once Tom was back we started to get ready to head back out to universal studios for a couple of hours.

We all had lovely wet trainers from earlier on . We used the water taxi again and headed straight for Despicable Me. We had really short waits this afternoon with our express passes. We loved this ride again.









I decided to try RRR while it was quiet, so Sam and I headed there while Tom and Aaron went to ride Transformers again. We arranged to meet back outside the Mummy when we were done. We used our express passes and were straight to the front. We were waiting for about 10 minutes as someone had been sick

Once it was sorted they emptied the other cars and sent them all around a couple of times to make sure they were clean and dry I think. We got seated and I tried to select a song but it had crashed I was gutted! Then we sat for 5 minutes wondering what was going on as they hadn't started the ride again?!

They asked us to get out and said that due to imminent weather conditions the ride wouldn't be running for about 20minutes. Well to be fair they had it right because a minute or two later a massive thunderstorm started. It was lashing down and was showing no signs of stopping after 15 minutes or so. We gave it up as a bad job and legged it over to the mummy!

We couldn't see Tom and Aaron but we had been much longer than we thought so just waited around for them. They eventually came out; they had ridden it while they were waiting which was fair enough. We all rode again together and enjoyed it, I really do love this ride. We went back and squeezed another go on transformers in. The express pass queue seemed to get forgotten about here which was really annoying! We waited for longer than the advertised stand-by line! :angry:



We had a look in the shops and then decided that we had time for one more thing. Shrek was the choice and we got into the last show of the day. We quite enjoyed it, I love the adult humour of Shrek and especially enjoyed the cheesy waiting area part! Once done we headed out with everyone else. We were planning tea at Bubba Gumps but had a last minute change of heart to go to the Hard Rock Cafe instead.

The place was really busy with it being park closing and 7:30pm. We were given a 45 minute wait which we were more than happy with as we went and plonked ourselves at the upstairs bar! We had such a great night here, it is one of my favourites of the trip. The bar maid was really helpful and humoured tom while he asked her about all of the different ales etc. We got straight on the cocktails, Aaron had virgin ones too. I think we enjoyed two rounds up here and were having a great time looking at all of the memorabilia and listening to the music.





We were called to our table downstairs, we were given a lovely private, high seated booth. We soon ordered more cocktails and starters. These were nachos and BBQ chicken wings. The portions were huge and delicious! In all honesty we were quite full and happy to just be out and having a drink!






We had our mains held back for a little while to make some room for them. Aaron had a pizza which he really loved, it was like the ones that I make for him at home (two tortillas sandwiched together with sauce and cheese and then fried). The three of us had massive burgers. I can't remember what they were as by this point I think I'd had about 5 cocktails! Bad mum alert!







We had a really lovely time here with lots of laughs and drinks. Samantha and Aaron headed back to the taxi boat while we had another couple. We settled up the bill, it was roughly $230 with tip. I think that this is the most we paid throughout the entire holiday, however I'd had about 9 drinks by this point so I couldn't really complain!









We headed down to get the taxi boat back to the hotel. I was a tiny bit tipsy by this point and promptly fell asleep standing up. Once back at the hotel the three of them were being completely mad and loud and driving me nuts.



This was obviously nothing to do with cocktails and the room spinning! Alarm set for extra Harry hours but to be honest I didn't have much faith in this happening!

Edited at 09:14 AM.
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Old 28 Mar 15, 08:51 PM  
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mick
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Good day with a cocktail or two

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Old 28 Mar 15, 11:02 PM  
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christybell
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What a brilliant day, that's an impressive cocktail quota Love the last pics, sum it up
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Old 28 Mar 15, 11:51 PM  
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16offtodisney!
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What a fab day :-)
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Old 29 Mar 15, 07:25 PM  
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KittyBlackDog
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Laughing, love a cocktail or 9

Great day
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Old 15 Apr 15, 07:17 AM  
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Redrach1903
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Oh what a great day again! Diagon Alley looks amazing ! Can't wait to see it in October!

Lol at your cocktail splurge fun!

Really enjoying this xx
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Old 15 Apr 15, 11:13 AM  
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JudeB
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Loved your report - we are staying one night in RPR this July and it gives a great insight to what to expect.
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