Christmas Unwrapped, part 4

We spent our fourth day at Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure. It was the most crowded and so we spent the whole day there. I think we got home at like 11 that night, but I don't think my family got home until 1 a.m. and we were there when it opened. That's why this was our last amusement park while we were in Orlando. At this point we were all so exhausted but this was definitely the highlight of the trip! I'm pretty sure it was everybody's favorite park.

We spent the first three hours standing in line for the Hulk ride. I wouldn't say it was worth the wait, but it was a pretty awesome ride. I would say comparable to the Rockin Roller Coaster for sure.  After that, we spent some time in the Dr. Seuss park and Carson was in heaven! He was big enough to go on all the rides and he loves Dr. Seuss. I think he went on the Cat in the Hat ride at least 6 or 7 times through out the day. We went to Jurassic park, working our way over to Harry Potter. We were hoping that if we waited a while, then the Harry Potter park wouldn't be so busy but we almost missed our chance to go!... more about that story later...

Reese thought all the dinosaurs were pretty awesome and Carson could identify most of what we saw but he could only go on one ride, the Pterodactyl Flyers.

  

At this point, we made our way over to the Harry Potter park and found out that you had to go clear back to the other side of the park and get a special ticket that would allow you go inside the H.P. park at a specific time.  So we got our H.P. tickets and right after we got ours (we had to wait like 4 hours before we could go in), they started turning people away because they were all gone. They were telling people to come back the next morning, pay another day's admission, and see if they could get a ticket in. Needless to say, there were a lot of really mad people! You'd be walking around and everyone was talking about how mad they were and how ridiculous it was. I'm sure they got a lot of complaints! It was really lucky that we got in! Come to find out talking to some other people in our hotel that they next day, they ran out of tickets by 11 a.m.!

Ryan and I actually had even better luck and found two tickets on the ground for an earlier time. So we actually went twice. We got in right before the sun went down so we were able to get some pictures. It.Was.Awesome! Just like the movies, totally made you feel like you were there!

Walking into the park...

Tons of people! It was shoulder to shoulder. You couldn't stop you just had to keep walking so sorry for the blurring pictures. It was the best I could do while pushing a stroller! They had all the shops like you were in Hogsmead. I didn't get pictures but there was Ollivanders, Flourish and Botts, Hog's Head, and a bunch of places to buy remembralls, broomsticks, wands, owls, robes. Everything!

And this....

was the best ride ever! Hands down the coolest ride of the entire trip! If you go to Orlando, this is the ride to spend hours waiting in line for! (and we did but not until later because we had the kiddos with us) But we went on the Hippogriff ride because Carson was big enough for that one. I think he went on that one about 5 times too. He's at such an awesome age for stuff like this because he gets it and he's not afraid to go ecstatic about it! When he loved a ride, he couldn't contain himself. He would scream/yell himself hoarse and start shaking from excitement. When we were standing in line, he couldn't not dance around and sing. It sure helped him to sleep good at night! :)

We ate at Three Broomsticks and had pumpkin juice and butter beer. 

Carson had a hard time sharing the butter beer... :)

The castle was awesome! They had it decorated just like Hogwarts. They had taking/moving pictures on the wall

There were classrooms set up just like in the movies and occasionally Harry, Hermione, and Ron would show up.

And right before you got on the ride, you got to have a little chat with the Sorting Hat

I think we waited in line for over two hours. By then it was like 10:30 and I was not feeling good. I could barely stand, I felt like I was going to pass out and throw up. But it was so worth it because the ride was amazing! It was like Soarin Over California and a roller coaster all in one! I'm bummed that we only got to go on it once but we did get the Elder wand as a souvenir so that's not so bad. The best part though is it has totally made my family Harry Potter nerds now! They weren't that into it before but the next day they bought all the shows and are totally hooked!

The next day, we were all really tuckered out so we decided to skip Sea World and just hang out at the hotel and go swimming. And the last day we were there we got a 3D ultrasound and found out we were having a girl and that was just the perfect ending to a great trip!