We decided that today was the day we were going to step into the dark side and head to Universal Studios. We bought annual passes in the sale last year which were discounted and also had an extra 6 months on them. We didn’t activate them until our new year trip, so they don’t expire until June 2020, and worked out less than buying tickets separately for two trips (we’ll get three out of them at least) so it seemed a good plan. Because of that however, we had decided that we weren’t going to kill ourselves and planned a gentle few hours at the park just taking everything in with a few rides on the side.
As annual pass holders you get into one park early. At the minutes it’s Universal Studios so we got a Lyft there (with the trusty bubble bum booster seats!) and arrived by 7.35am. By the time we got to the park entrance it was 7.50am and as soon as we got into a turnstile queue, they started letting people in. Surprisingly Steve had nipped to the toilet and as we edged ever closer to the entrance he was still nowhere in sight. Right at the last minute he sauntered just in time to join us before we went into the park. Winnie pointed out that he should have gone before we left the hotel. I pointed out that he did!!!! There’s very little open before 9am but the plan was to do Minions, explore Diagon Alley then get the Hogwarts Express over to Islands of Adventure as soon as it started running to get a head start on the crowd there. We got on Minions immediately. Now I know that I am horrific with simulators that aren’t fully immersive and as this is just a screen you watch and jerk around in time with, I spent the whole ride looking at the floor to avoid motion sickness for the next hour. Unfortunately, Polly did not do the same and it seems that simulator sickness is another trait that the poor girl has inherited from me (she is a complete mini me in every way other than her feet…Winnie got that particular characteristic of mine hence ‘team brick-feet’ name we have!) Polly got off the ride and was whiter than Jack Skellington, even though we’d all taken motion sickness tablets. We gave her some water, but she still felt awful. We tried going to the toilet, sitting in a cool place (pure coincidence that it was Starbucks and Steve could grab a coffee!) but nothing worked. She asked to walk around so we went to Diagon Alley (which looks amazing incidentally! So much amazing detail!) and there she took a turn for the worse.
Luckily, they have huge family bathrooms, so we went in there together (Steve had waited by the Hogwarts Express!) The poor little thing was sobbing saying she felt like she had caterpillars wriggling in her tummy and she was never going to feel better. She tried to be sick, but nothing came up. We’d been in there about 20 minutes by now, so Steve came and rescued Winnie. We were going to head home but Polly said she couldn’t face the walk to the exit and was so sad. She kept apologising for ruining the day which broke my heart. I spent another 15 minutes rubbing Polly’s back (kneeling on a toilet floor wasn’t quite how I envisaged the morning but that’s the way holidays go sometimes. At least it was a nice, clean one!) and suddenly she said she was feeling better. The plan was to then head home but she insisted that she was now perfect again (clearly, I have magic rubbing hands!!) and wanted to stay in the parks. We weren’t entirely convinced as she’s the type of girl who’d say/ do something just so that she didn’t let others down, but we had a steady look around Diagon Alley, and all was good. We checked again and she said she definitely wanted to stay and slipped off with Winnie, so we knew she was fine.
By this time, it was 9.40 and the parks were starting to get really busy, which meant our plans to go on rides before the big queues went out of the window. It didn’t matter though as we were just glad to have Polly back to herself and decided to do what we could, and the rest could wait for another trip. We’ve also found that it’s really nice to have days where you do very few rides as you see so much more detail in the parks, so all set off happily to see where the day took us.
We got on the Hogwarts Express (such a fun train ride) to Islands of Adventure and went straight on Flight of the Hippogriff which the girls loved despite it being the shortest ride in history (don’t sneeze while you’re on it because by the time your eyes open again it’ll be over!!) We then had a wander through Hogsmeade before Polly told us that she needed food.
We decided to give The Three Broomsticks a try seeing as we were there, and ride queues were already huge. The girls were also really excited to eat in the actual pub from the actual Harry Potter books! We had 2 adult sized full English breakfasts between us and there was more than enough food despite no one eating the bacon…if it isn’t scrozzled for Team Doodle & Peg, it isn’t getting eaten!
After that we decided to head to the Jurassic Park area as they wanted to go and play in Camp Jurassic (a huge play area with caves, nets, slides etc) and go on the Pteranodon Flyers as they’ve been desperate to sit together on a bigger ride all holiday but until Winnie turns 7 it’s not happening, so this was perfect. They had a virtual queue system in place, so we picked up a return time ticket for 45 minutes later.
Whilst waiting, we went to look around the Discovery Centre which has lots of cool, interactive dinosaur-based things to do before heading back to the ride. It’s really short but the girls loved it and actually went on twice as we were given two return tickets in case they wanted to ride with us instead of each other. They’d spotted Toon Lagoon from the ride and asked to go and look around, so we walked that way around the park.
Queues were huge by this point and I honestly think if you are wanting to go on a lot of rides the Express Pass would be a blessing, but as we didn’t, we were fine. We saw a few superheroes and then walked to Seuss Landing. The girls spent forever in the book shop and ended up buying a book each to read by the pool. They then met a few characters including Thing 1 and Thing 2 which wasn’t planned but a nice treat, and then rode the carousel.
By this time, it was 2.30pm and as we’d been there since 7.30am we were pretty much shattered, so we decided to call it a day. We set off to leave (with Winnie stopping at every single prop for a photo making the already long walk seem even longer!) and got a Lyft home. I booked the car at the top of the stairs to the pick-up point and it was already there, so we had to run down the stairs dragging the girls and simultaneously blowing up the booster seats! We must have looked like mad people!
The ride home was quick and uneventful (the girls spent the whole time discussing how they are going to be duck trainers when they grow up. When Steve asked what they were going to train the ducks to do they both looked at each other like he was asking the most ridiculous question in the world and replied, ‘line up of course!’)
We got ready to sit by the pool even though the sky looked ominous, but only managed around 10 minutes before it closed for a humungous storm (we wouldn’t have bothered going out but our room is one of the last in the cleaning cycle and still hadn’t been done so we wanted to be out of it when the housekeepers got there.) The girls were quite happy sitting in the lobby and watching the random Disney programmes they have on the TV there. Mind you, who wouldn’t love sitting in a lobby as beautiful as the one at Animal Kingdom Lodge?
When we got back to the room, we told Polly about her birthday trip to Discovery Cove tomorrow which she’s very excited about! Another early start, so pizza picnic in bed and another early night for us.
Until tomorrow ❤️
Doodle & Peg Do Disney 