Magical Enchanted Vacations by Sarah

23/07/2024

Genie+ is being retired for both Disney World and Disneyland. The new system will go live tomorrow! Please be sure to update your My Disney Experience and Disneyland apps so all will run as smooth as possible for your trip!

03/04/2024

Attention Disney Visa Card holders!!! (or anyone looking to go to Disney World that would like free food for getting a Disney Visa Card!). On April 9th, Disney World will drop a new promotion for select dates through December. If you purchase a Disney Vacation Package that includes a minimum 4 night stay at a Disney resort and park hopper tickets you would be eligible for the free dining promo if you are a Disney Visa card holder. Dates and availability will be limited! Any free dining promo is always super popular so if you are interested, DON'T wait!

11/10/2023

More flexibility in you park days starting January 9, 2024!!!!

🚨 IT’S COMING BACK 🚨 All-day Park Hopper Access returns to Walt Disney World on Jan. 9, 2024 😱 http://di.sn/6184ur994

31/07/2023

Okay, I've been putting this post off because our day at Volcano Bay was not all we had hoped! Basically, we did it wrong and learned A LOT! We would be pros next time around, if there is a next time!

Here's what we did right:
*Got there pretty early to get a couple loungers with partial shade.
*Rented a locker close to where our loungers were.
*Used our Tapu Tapu to get a return time for the AquaCoaster first (it was still a 2 hour wait but the wait only got longer as the day went on).
*Didn't plan to spend the whole day there
*Ate lunch at Kohola Reef and it was delicious!
*Walked through the Volcano along the bridge path.

What we did wrong:
*We didn't realize at first that you could go ride other slides without using Tapu Tapu. We thought you had to wait until you used your return time that you had saved first and then get another one. Instead, you can see the wait times at the Tapu Tapu stations (some of which are tricky to find) and on the signs around the park. If they say "Ride now" you can go get in a regular standby line.
*Didn't bring waterproof pouches for our phones. I'm not sure that I would have wanted to wear my phone around my neck in a pouch but it was also inconvenient to not have our phones with us. Maps were few and far between and we were not familiar with the lay of the land which led to a lot of extra walking. If we'd had our phones with us then we would have had a map to reference in our hands.
*Walked around barefoot! To quote one of the best lines from Pretty Woman, "Big mistake, big, HUGE!" This trashed my feet! 5 weeks later and my feet are still peeling! I had the worst blisters and it ruined my feet for the rest of the week! So, in the future, at minimum wear flip flops around and leave them on the racks where you enter the line. You can wear chaco or teva type sandals in the lazy rivers and wave pools. Best would be the "super cool" water shoes! Just do it.

WHAT WOULD I DO NEXT TIME?
*Rent a private cabana: You get a reserved shady area that's out of the sand, drinks, snacks, food delivery, refrigerator, locker, and your own Tapu Tapu pad! Just the Tapu Tapu pad so you don't have to walk all over creation to reserve your rides would be worth the price alone!
*Get there before opening! Head straight the the AquaCoaster and get it reserved, STAT. And then go ride as many of the other rides as you can while they are "ride now".
*Set up Tapu Tapu payment so you don't have to walk back to your locker to get your wallet then back to the place you wanted to buy something. With Tapu Tapu payment you can buy it when you see it. But, you may also end up spending more because it's so convenient!
*Finish at lunchtime and leave by 1:00.

When ended up leaving around 5:00 and headed back to Universal Studios for the rest of the evening. There were some rides we hadn't gotten to on Saturday and Kayleigh wanted to spend some more time doing spells in Diagon Alley.

29/07/2023

I’d love to help get you on your next vacation! Disney and Universal are my specialties but I can help with any destination, hotels, rental cars, activities, etc!

19/07/2023

A quick reminder about the promotion I’m offering for the next 2 Disney (Land or World) vacations booked and traveled by September 30, 2023. I will reward with a gift card to be used on your trip!

What will you treat yourself to? I’d make lots of stops at Aloha Isle for pineapple upside down cake with pineapple dole whip swirl at Magic Kingdom or at Red Rose Tavern in Disneyland for the Grey Stuff Gateau.

17/07/2023

On day 4 of our Orlando trip we checked out of Universal to move to a large vacation rental house. We had about five hours to kill between check out and when we could check in.

First, we needed to pick up a car since we were staying offsite at Disney; we would need our own transportation. Instead of renting a car through a traditional rental company we decided to rent a personal vehicle through Turo. I’d never used Turo before, so it was a whole new experience for us. How it goes for anyone with any given rental will completely depend on who you’re renting from. The owner of the vehicle and the policies they set forth will very owner to owner. The car that we got was a 2019 GMC Acadia. The car was in excellent condition, super clean, and drove really nice. The only thing that we wished was that the air conditioner worked a little bit better. But, overall, we didn’t have any problems with a car. Also, the owner that we rented from was great to work with. He even was willing to drop the car off to us at Cabana Bay for free and then we were able to drop it off at the airport for free which was was really nice of him. That was really great! A lot of owners charge an extra fee for pick up and drop off that aren’t at the same location. So we felt really lucky and blessed to have found the owner that we did that he was able to accommodate our needs. It really was a good experience!

Once we got all loaded into the car, we headed over to the Disney Character outlet that’s close to the Universal parks. I had been to the one close to Disney Springs when we were at Disney World. But I had never been up to the one closer to Universal so we headed over there to check it out.

The Disney Character Warehouse is full of merchandise that’s left over from the parks. A lot of it is deeply discounted. Some of it not so much. And what they have can change drastically from day-to-day . Some days you might find some great day deals, and some hard to find items and other days there might not be anything that you’re interested in. The latter was the case for us; I tried really hard to find something that I just had to buy, but came up empty. I will say that the store up by Universal is, maybe not half the size but significantly smaller than the store that’s closer to Disney Springs and I guess that makes sense due to its proximity to the Disney parks. Sidenote: the outlet store that used to be in Las Vegas is now a Character Warehouse, and it was about twice the size, easily, than the character warehouse that was near universal. So that might need to be a regular stop every time I go through Las Vegas from now on. 

We met up with the girls younger cousins at the Character Warehouse and spend a little time just hanging out there together. Got a cute picture of them on the bench, spontaneously, putting their arms around each other. Adorable!

After we left the character warehouse, we headed to go grab some lunch and decided just to go cheap and find a Wendy’s. We stopped at Wendy’s in Kissimmee and just eat in the car with air conditioning on. I will say it was probably the best frosty I’ve ever had.

At this point the girls were getting a little cranky from being in the car plus the heat and so I thought to turn that around we would take a detour. Instead of following the directions towards the house, I followed the signs towards Epcot. So we drove through the Disney World arch and around Disney property. The girls started doing a scavenger hunt. Last time we were at Disney World they had started doing the character wrapped buses but we had never spotted any. We were on the lookout to see if we could find all of the sensational six and any others that were out there. So, my oldest daughter started taking pictures on her phone for our scavenger hunt.

I will say that driving around Disney property, seeing Tower of Terror, Spaceship Earth, Caribbean Beach (where we stayed last time) and the character buses really turned the kids moods around!

After that little detour, it was about time that we could check in to our rental home so we headed towards the Solterra resort. I will say that check-in was super easy and a directions to the house worked out fine. The code to get in the doors worked just as it should and the house was in top shape as far as we could tell based on first impressions. It was very clean and neatly organized and we were looking forward to our stay.

The rest of our extended family joined us shortly there after that afternoon and evening. We hit up Walmart for a grocery trip. My sister-in-law and her family had stopped at Sam’s Club before we checked into the house. We got all of that stuff unloaded and visited with each other for the evening, and got ready to head out early the next morning. 

17/07/2023

This is a cost effective way to visit all 4 Walt Disney World parks!

From now until September 29th enjoy this incredible ticket deal at Walt Disney World!
Visit all 4 parks- 1 day each- for just $396 + tax!

Combine this deal with up to 30% off your room!
*blackouts 7/1-7/4 and 9/1-9/4

13/07/2023

The end of day 2 at Universal Orlando

*Well... after about 4 hours total waiting between our time spent in the morning and at the end of the day, WE DID GET TO RIDE HAGRID'S!!! And we LOVED IT! The track did something new that I had not experienced before (I won't spoil it since the surprise was half of the fun)! Such a fun ride and we would all do it again in a heartbeat! Each of our girls got to ride up on the motorcycle and they were on cloud 9 about it! It was fun to watch the looks on their faces and they took their roles as drivers very seriously!

*Afterwards, the kids wanted to go do Forbidden Journey again. They were with their Harry Potter loving cousin who hadn't had a chance to ride it yet and they were excited to go with him!

*We were ready to call it a day but wanted to sneak in 1 more ride and then get some dinner on the way back to the hotel. But first, I needed to go get a drink refill (gotta make use of that cup!).

*The girls were debating on which ride to do as a final ride and ultimately decided to go on one they had only done once, Spiderman. John took my cup for a refill and the girls and I jumped on the ride. John also went to return the $67 worth of ponchos that I'd bought earlier in the day after getting caught in the rain. We didn't end up needing them again so back to the store they went!

*And with that, we headed out. We stopped at the Bread Box for some sandwiches to go(more on this in a minute). It took forever, long enough I got 3 more refills on my drink!

*We then made our way to the buses. By now it was raining, again. We just pushed forward and got to the moving walkway as quick as we could. Two moving walkways and an escalator later we were to the bus stop. The walk just to get to the bus stop (this was the first time we'd tried to ride the bus) was enough to sway me to want to only stay at a resort with a shorter walk or boat service, especially at the end of the day! In addition to the longer than we would have liked walk to the bus we had just missed it! It was quite a while until the next bus came, maybe a solid 20 minutes or more, and then 2 busses came at the same time! They need to work on their spacing!

*Despite the wait, we were happy to be on our way back to the hotel. Since we switched hotels, again, I headed to the front desk to check in while John went to luggage services to retrieve our things. Everything went smoothly with both so within a few minutes we were headed to our room.

*Once in our room we busted out our sandwiches. 3 of us were happy with ours, 1 was so so on hers, and my poor husband wasn't able to eat his. He had ordered his on gluten free bread but it was not made to his specifications. He was understandably frustrated. He headed to the food court. It was 11:02 and technically closed but the gates weren't fully down yet. So, John plead his case with the team member there and asked that he be allowed to purchase a few items out of the grab and go section. They took pity on him and and let him. Thank you to that team member!

*That was a wrap on our 2 big days a Universal Orlando. We were checking out the next day to head to the big house were we would stay with John's dad and siblings and their families. We are looking forward to the week we'd get to spend together! We were planning a day at Volcano Bay, EPCOT/Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom/Animal Kingdom, Clearwater Beach, and Kennedy Space Center. More about those days to come!

12/07/2023

Ready for our second day at Universal? Whew! I needed a little rest after it took some long to go through the first day!

Orlando day 3, Universal day 2

We got off to a rough start. All was fine at first. We were checking out of Royal Pacific and going back to Cabana Bay.

TIP: When moving from a Premier hotel to a lower tier hotel, luggage services will move your bags for you. Then when you get to your new hotel you just need to go retrieve them from luggage services.

We packed up and took our things, went downstairs and left them with Luggage Services then headed down GardenWalk to Islands of Adventure. We were determined to ride Hagrid's today! We arrived a little bit earlier than we did the day before but it didn't matter. Hagrid's was closed and they weren't even letting anyone in the queue. So that meant that on a busy Saturday everyone had 2 options for early entry, Flight of the Hippogriff or Forbidden Journey. We chose to wait it out for a bit on a bench with our extended family that had arrived around 7:15. Around 8:15 they started letting people in the queue! We thought, "Great! I'm so glad we didn't head farther into the park or to another ride where we'd then be stuck in another queue or have to walk all the way back to the entrance to the Hagrid's queue".

*We entered the queue, and then we waited, and waited, and waited, and... you get it. Games were played, convos were had, Bathroom trips were made, naps were taken... We spent most of our wait in the caverns where the cell reception is spotty, at best. By 10:00 we were in the the first of the last 2 rooms. My daughter got a weather alert on her phone. "Lightning detected with .3 miles of your location." We looked at the video forecast. It showed lightning storms until 2:00. And with that, we all left the line and hopped on Hogwart's Express over to Studios.

*Our plan was to prioritize the Borne Stuntacular, all the way at the front of the park. We made a call to go to Escape From Gringott's first, then to the 12:00 stunt show, then work our way around the park.

(SIDE NOTE: *All of the outdoor rides were closed due to weather but, fortunately, all but a few of the rides in Universal Studios are indoors.)

*Gringotts was fantastic! Again, more than I was expecting from a 4-D ride! My little nephew was hilarious... he was squeezing the life out of my arm through out the ride. At the end when Bill Weasley asks, "Is everyone okay?" nephew yells back, "NO!!!" But then as soon as we were getting off the ride he says something like, "That was fun! Can we do it again?" When my arm wakes up buddy 😉.

*We get our stuff out of our locker (because now that we're carrying a wand around we have to make stops at the lockers). And it's pouring rain and the sky is completely dark. We know this is not going to be a typical 5 minute Florida rain shower. So out into the rain we go. After all, we have a show to catch!

*No one is looking around at the sights; we just walk/run as fast as we can to the front of the park. So now, we are soaked! I should have brought some ponchos! I had looked for some at a dollar store near my house but without success and then didn't look again elsewhere. We had taken ponchos on our last Disney World trip and then never used them even though it was in the middle of hurricane season. Oh well! Lesson learned. Bring them anyway!

*We head into the Borne Stuntacular. Just before the doors open to enter the auditorium my youngest is all of a sudden have a bathroom emergency! The nearest bathroom is back outside and down the street by Today Cafe. We're told that we won't be able to get back in if we leave. So the two of us head out and hit the bathroom. A is also freezing from getting soaked and then standing in the A/C so we head to the Universal store and she finds the same sweatshirt that her sister bought but for Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw. (It was actually a really good deal at 50% off since they were clearancing this style.)

*Everyone loved the Borne Stuntacular! I heard all about it for the rest of the day! So if you have a chance to go be sure not to pass it up!

*We met back up after the stunt show and headed to Minion Mayhem because Rip, Ride, Rock it! was still closed. Minion Mayhem was more like the 4-D rides I was expecting. An auditorium type setting where everyone sits and watches the screen with 3-D glasses on. It was cute but the best part for me was when the Team Members were checking seat belts and asked us to put our arms up. Someone somewhere in the theater must have been struggling because they had to ask us several times. After the last time my BIL called out "My arm are getting tired!" It was hilarious!

*We decided to head to transformers next but when we looked down the street we could see that Rip, Ride, Rockit! had people on it even though the app still said it was closed. So we call an audible and head to Rockit! By the time we get there the estimated standby wait time is 20 minutes. We jump in the Express Lane and waited about 5 minutes.

*The lesson here: refer to the app often but don't forget to also be aware of what's going on around you!

*Rip, Ride, Rockit! was super fun! I was stressed about picking a song I liked in time but in the end just went with one without looking too hard. I wish Peter Quill could've picked for me! (I listened to "You Can't Touch This". I know you're relieved to know!). Again, just like Velocicoaster, not having the shoulder harness makes this ride more intense eventhough, technically, this one only goes closed to inverting. The vertical pull to the top was a great build-up to the ride and a whole new feeling for me! I was also pleasantly surprised at how long the ride seemed! I love it when a coaster is longer than I expect it to be!

*By now we were hungry so we headed to Mel's Drive-In for lunch. Based on our experience at Three Broomsticks the day before we didn't even look at the mobile order option. It wasn't until we were almost to the door (had been in line for probably 30 minutes) that we realized there was a separate entrance for mobile orders so it would have saved us some time. This was really frustrating! I wish that the restaurants with mobile order were consistent in how it utilized it.

Other notes on Mel's: The was not a kid's menu to be found (neither in the app or posted inside the diner). So I ordered full-size burgers for each of my kids. Well, I came to find out after we had our food that there was a "secret" kids menu and I should have just asked. Darn it!

How was the food? I must admit, I wasn't super excited about a theme park burger because, let's be honest, they usually aren't very good. BUT I was surprised for the better, again! My burger was delicious! I also caved and bought a re-fillable freestyle cup. I figured we were using lockers now anyway for the wand so I might as well put a cup in there too. Now to be sure I get my moneys worth in diet Mr. Pibb (they don't have Dr. Pepper 😢).

*Now we're fueled up and ready to get back to the rides! We head to Transformers 3-D, Race Through New York with Jimmy Fallon, and The Mummy. Transformers was fun and very similar to Spiderman over in Islands of Adventure. Jimmy Fallon was okay and a similar set up to Minion Mayhem (I honestly enjoyed the line: looking at the memorabilia and watching clips of the Tonight Show better than the ride). The Mummy was an indoor rollercoaster with a few surprises. I was nervous that it would be scary with its content. I remember when Universal Hollywood used to have a walk through Mummy "haunted house" attraction. I hate haunted houses and I think that one scarred me for life.But Mummy the ride was full of good surprises, although I could have lived without the heat (I won't spoil it further).

*Here, we split up again with some of our group heading back to the hotel and some of us staying in the park to play. Those of us who stayed head over to E.T. Adventure. I love the nostalgia of this ride! E.T. is the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater. It was fun to ride through the sky on our bikes and be greeted by E.T. himself!

*Hagrid's had opened around 2:00, just as we predicted in the morning based on the forecast. We'd been watching the wait times which had been between 60-80 minutes. We decided to get as much done as we could while watching the forecast with another storm predicted around 8:00.

*We head into Springfield and stop for a Lard Lad donut and then decide it's time to get over to ride Hagrid's.

I'll let you know tomorrow if we made it on Hagrid's this time.
To be continued...

09/07/2023

Orlando day 2, Islands of adventure day 1, part 3

*Lunch at Three Broomsticks: The ambience in the dining room was fantastic. It really felt like we were in Hogsmeade. Our food was delicious. This was the first time we tried Butterbeer and my husband got the Pumpkin Fizz. The Pumpkin Fizz was good but my hubby couldn't finish it; just a little of it would have been enough since it was so sweet. Between the rest of us we split 2 frozen and 2 regular Butterbeers. Myself and 2 kiddos preferred the frozen, while 1 preferred the regular. I'd hear that you either love it or hate it when it comes to Butterbeer in general. We are in the LOVE it camp! Two things to note about our experience at Three Broomsticks:
1. The chairs are very short. My tall husband found this to uncomfortable and hard to relax in. It also makes eating at the table a bit tricky for the shorter kiddos.
2. If you have a dietary restriction (our is a gluten intolerance) then be prepared to wait about twice as long as the surrounding tables for your food. We'd been seated for at least 15 minutes before the chef came out to talk with us and then they went to start preparing our order. If I'd known, I wouldn't have even marked it on our order since it's not a severe allergy.

At least a few of us got a quick nap in while we waited!

*After lunch we headed into Ollivander's to watch a wand ceremony. It was a fun experience even though our kids weren't chosen (secretly I was glad we weren't chosen because I was worried about feeling obligated to buy the wand that chose them). Ultimately, K did buy a wand but not one specific to a character. When the wand shop worker described the type of person that her wand would work best for it was spot on!

*We had good timing with our visit to Ollivander's; it poured! We didn't have such good timing the next day but that's for tomorrow!

*Hagrid's shut down due to the storm and, unfortunately, it never reopened! Lesson here: For any ride that's important to you, be sure to ride it early in the day because you never know when or if it might shut down. There's always a risk that it may not reopen. This is true for any theme park and especially outdoor rides!

*We spent some time doing some spells around Hogsmeade (and found that several of them were not working; disappointed due to the amount you spend on an interactive wand).

*At this point my husband decided he was ready for a break. So he headed back to the hotel and retrieved our luggage, got our new room keys, and rested. When they printed our activated room keys the front desk stated that our temporary Express Passes may quit working BUT we didn't have a problem. Our original EP's continued to work.

*We headed to watch the frog choir (so cute). The show is only about 10-15 minutes so it didn't use up a lot of time but was fun to experience.

*The kids were itching to go ride Forbidden Journey again so we hopped in that Express Pass line since we were in the area still.

*Then we headed over to Seuss Land. In Seuss Land we rode The Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, the Caro-Seuss-el, and The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride!. I wasn't expecting the water squirters on One Fish... and my daughter made sure to position us correctly to get the maximum shot! Each ride was cute and fun but my favorite was the Trolley Train ride. It takes you trough a couple story rooms and the elevated track also goes up and down (not just flat).

*We were keeping an eye on the clock. We wanted to ride the Hogwarts Express over to the Studios side and back and stop for an ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour. Since the Studios park closes an hour before Islands of Adventure we knew we needed to give ourselves enough time to catch the train back. At this point we were still hoping that Hagrid's would reopen and we'd be able to catch it before closing.

*So off to the Hogwarts Express! We didn't have much time in Diagon Alley. Two of the girls decided they'd rather have frozen Butterbeers than ice cream so we made a stop at the Hopping Pot and then Florean Fortescue's. We stopped for a moment to watch the dragon atop Gringott's Bank breath fire and then headed back out to the train so we were sure to be able to catch it before closing.

TIP: In King's Cross Station, you want to be sure to have someone from your group (or make friends with the people behind you in line) hang back to video everyone walking through the walk to Platform 9 3/4. The opening where the effect is is painted black but to see the effect you have to watch from back at the luggage rack.

*For anyone not familiar with it, the Hogwarts Express doesn't just take you between the parks but also tells a story. All of the "windows" are actually screens. You can see Harry, Hermione, and Ron peek in the widows, Hagrid fly by on his motorbike, have an encounter with the dementors, etc...

*The kids were hoping that if Hagrid's hadn't reopen yet (it hadn't) that there'd be time to squeeze in both a ride on Velocicoaster and Hulk. But, based on the posted wait times, even with Express Pass there was only time for one of them. We decided that since we'd done Velocicoaster twice already that we'd make our way to the front of the park and do Hulk again.

*I will say that we all enjoyed Hulk more the second time around. I'm not sure if it was because we knew better what to expect or because it was at night, or both. It was a good way to end the night!

*We then left the park and headed back to Royal Pacific via the Garden Walk path. At night, the entrance to the path is somewhat easy to miss so be mindful of where you are heading! We may or may not have needed to backtrack.

*While we were on our way back to the hotel, my husband ordered us some dinner from Tuk Tuk Market at Royal Pacific. It was delicious! We shared a Wok Bowl and a cheese pizza. They were relatively inexpensive and more than enough food for the 4 of us to share.

*I didn't get any pictures of our room because it was late and we were tired. It was very nice and felt upscale compared to Cabana Bay. However, with the roll away for our 5th person, the room was very tight! Also, there wasn't a tub, which wasn't a problem for getting ready in the morning. I actually preferred just the walk-in shower but I would have liked a tub to soak my feet in at the end of the day. So, I made due with soaking my feet with some epsom salts in the sink. My kids and husband thought it was funny!

Overall, we had a great first day! And were determined to get on Hagrid's the next morning!

08/07/2023

In case you are wondering if it’s time to book your next dream vacation, the answer is “YES”!

07/07/2023

Orlando day 2, Islands of adventure day 1, part two

I was really looking forward to Velocicoaster yet I was still surprised by how much I liked it! It was really fun and full of thrills and twists and turns. It is not one that I would pass up! If you have the opportunity to ride it you definitely should! And even better, it’s even easier to ride it now since it’s now included in Express Pass! It was not when it was first opened.

*After Velocicoaster, we headed back through the Jurassic Park part of the park and headed over to the Jurassic Park river ride. That was a fun one that our girls had never experienced. My husband and I had done this ride at Universal Hollywood before it was changed to the current version. It was fun to go through that one again and everybody enjoyed it. One note about it, my husband is about 6’3” and he was originally seated in the front row of the boat but had no legroom. He really was squeezed in there and the team member put down the lap bar as my husband was expressing that he didn’t fit. They release the lap bar and told him that there would be more room in the third or fourth row. And since it was only us and two other people on the whole boat, he went and sat back in the third row where he had enough legroom.

*TIP: So if you have someone tall with you make sure that you’re sitting in the third or fourth row on the Jurassic Park river boat ride.

*After that, we did a little shopping looking for a hat for my husband to wear that day and also wandered through the comic strip area of the park. One thing we were discussing as we walked through is where we might go for lunch. We hadn’t made any decisions yet and didn’t come to a conclusion either.

*We then met up with our extended family that was also in the park that day. And headed to the Spider-Man ride. Spider-Man is a 4-D dark ride and we really enjoyed that one too! Once again, I was impressed with the ride, even though the car didn’t go up and down it did surprise you with some quick turns and spins. Also, the 4 dimensional elements of the heat and I think we got sprayed at least once or twice too. The ride was very well done, and again, lots of attention to detail.

*From there we headed over to the Hulk coaster. My kids had watched several YouTube ride along videos of Hulk and were very excited to finally get to do this ride for real. They had determined before riding any of the rides that Hulk would be their favorite. Spoiler alert! It did not end up being their favorite, although they did enjoy it. It was a little bit of a rougher ride than we were expecting. The adults got off and all felt like our brains had been scrambled a bit.

*Most of the adults in our group needed to take a little bit of a break to recover after Hulk so the kids and I headed over to Storm Force Acceleration, which is a lot like the tea cups at Magic Kingdom, and also over to Doctor Doom’s Fearfall. Fearfall is a tower ride where it shoots you up fast and then bounces back down more or less. Both rides were really short and were one and done for us. We’re glad we did them so that we could say that we had checked them off the list but they weren’t ones that we would wait in a long line for.

*By now it was getting pretty hot and we decided it would be a good time to go do the other two water rides in the park. I had heard that Bilge Rat Barges and Dudley Do Right‘s Ripsaw Falls get you soaked. Those reviews were not kidding!!! 💦 I love a good raft or log flume ride and I was not disappointed! These were among the best raft and log flume rides I have ever been on! When I was seated next to my youngest daughter, on the raft ride, I knew I was in trouble because she is a magnet for water on any water ride. But no one was really safe on the raft ride. Everyone got soaked!!! In the attached photo, my nephew was pointing out the one tiny dry spot he had left but before we could get a picture it had disappeared! 😂 We headed straight to Ripsaw Falls next and it was great! It had at least 4 drops with one “roller coaster” type where you go down, come back up a hill, then drop again without needed to be pulled up the incline. I would definitely ride both rides again.

TIP: Bring ponchos to reduce how wet you get if it’s a concern but know that it won’t keep you water free.

TIP: Bring flip flops or other water type shoes to change into for the raft and log rides. There are lockers you can stash you’re things in to keep them dry.

TIP: I was trying to carry as little as possible around the park with us and knew my husband would be wearing his good sneakers so instead of packing around a second pair of shoes I purchased waterproof shoes covers that he could carry in his pockets. They worked pretty well and he was glad his shoes weren’t soaked.

*Once we finished the water rides we went to ride Velocicoaster again. This time with a hands up challenge. Velocicoaster was already thrilling! Going hands up on it takes it to a whole other level! If you really want to get your heart rate going, this will do it!

*From here our group decided to split; our family that we met up with went to go take a break back at the hotel while my husband, kids, and I decided to stay and keep playing. The plan was to meet up later for an evening ride on Hagrid’s.

*By now it was well past lunchtime and everyone was feeling hungry. I thought that by mobile ordering that we’d be able to pick up our food via a shorter line/mobile order counter. Well this is true at some mobile order locations we came to find out that it was not true at Three Broomsticks. So we actually wasted time by mobile ordering before we got in line.

TIP: So, if you’re planning to eat at Three Broomsticks, go get in line first and mobile order while you wait to be seated. This line to be seated was the longest line we waited in all day!

Stay tuned, more on how your day continued to come…