Since we are in the cruise ship with no cheap and reliable Internet access, here are a few more fun pictures from Universal Studios Orlando…
Hey, that's me!
Universal Studios Orlando Fun with Characters
Author Archives: edwinandlisa
Florida Trip Day 11: Cruising on the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas
After a whirlwind week of road tripping and theme parking, Lisa and I take a short vacation from our vacation while on board the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas.
We were up bright and early at 6:30am and returned our less-than impressive Jeep Compass rental car back to the airport by 8:45am. There we caught our shuttle bus, which dropped us off at the Port Canaveral Cruise terminal by 10:15am. After the check in process, we were on the ship by 11:00am. Though our room wasn’t available to get into until 1:30pm, Lisa and I just hung out in the observation lounge reading and listening to podcasts. This is pretty much what we will be doing for the next week — just lounging and relaxing and doing absolutely nothing.
Here is our itinerary:
Sunday – leave Florida
Monday – day at sea
Tuesday – Labadee, Haiti. Royal Caribbean has rented out the beach areas for the exclusive use for their passengers. So we’ll be lounging on the beach on this day
Wednesday – Falmouth, Jamaica
Thursday – Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Friday – Cozumel, Mexico
Saturday – Day at Sea
Sunday – return to Port Canaveral and we’ll shuttle back to Orlando
Friends and family know how much we love to cruise. We unpack once for the entire week. We get a well-appointed stateroom. We have a ship full of great amenities. We get all that we want to eat. We get to go to new places and explore at our leisure. And it is a great bargain for all that we get. So yeah, we’ll be super lazy this week, updates to follow as we get Internet access!
In the meantime, my starting weight is 147.5 pounds and I have been fasting since the end of dinner last night. I predict that I’ll gain at least 5 pounds by this time next week…
Daily Expenses Ledger:
| $40.00 | Shuttle transportation airport to cruise terminal |
| $2.00 | Shuttle driver tip |
| $228.43 | Daily average for cruise fare, 2 people |
| $27.00 | Daily service gratuity for two on cruiseship |
| $297.43 | Total |
Florida Trip Day 10: Universal Studios Orlando Part Deux
Back to Universal Studios for more rides and shows…
First ride of the morning: Despicable Me Minion Mayhem … a very popular ride that has limited guest capacity, so the line gets long pretty quickly.
One more look at the roller coaster Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket; we rode it twice yesterday but skipped it today in order to get to some other rides
This Transformers ride had frequent delays during the day, and unfortunately we experienced a glitch during the ride where the audio cut out and we were returned to the start with no full ride experience. We had to return a few hours later to get the full ride experience
Diagon Alley — more scenes from today!
We finally had the Butter Beer, and it was delicious, as Lisa shows her approval. We went with the frozen version. Maybe next time we’ll try the original drink or the ice cream.
Curious George Goes to Town area
Hey, it’s E.T….that’s me!
Daily Expenses Ledger
| $73.49 | Hotel – Holiday Inn Express, average over 4 nights |
| $111.15 | Universal Studios ticket, average over 3 days for 2 people |
| $20.19 | Universal Studios souvenir |
| $6.00 | Laundry |
| $2.10 | Total Lyft cost after discount — otherwise it was $12.10 |
| $6.84 | Butter beer |
| $22.08 | Dinner Ponderosa Steakhouse |
| $10.02 | Gas |
| $23.92 | Walgreens sunscreen, wine, souvenir and grooming |
| $275.79 | TOTAL |
Florida Trip Day 9: Universal Studios Orlando
Universal Studios… Eh, been there, done that, this will be a short day. We’ll just take our time and get ready to return to Islands of Adventure on Saturday. Or so I thought!
Outside one of the entrances of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
You enter and are magically transported to Diagon Alley.
We spent our entire afternoon just admiring the architecture and detail into creating this amazing place
One of the newest rides is a roller coaster “Escape from Gringott’s”, and as you make your way through the line you go through the bank lobby and are “greeted” by these bank tellers — just like the movie
We had a late lunch at the Leaky Cauldron restaurant, and once again we were just blown away by decor and authenticity of what one might find in Harry Potter
Inside one of the stores
Triple decker Knight bus from Harry Potter
Inside the Knight bus
Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon keeping watch
Flying Fish Market Show
Scenes from the parade
Despicable Me was one of our favorite rides because they star the Minions!
We were pretty beat from our long day yesterday and another early day today, so we headed back to our hotel a little after 8pm
I really thought that our day at Universal Studios would be short and that we’d be back to the hotel by early evening. Well, I was wrong. Even though we arrived right at opening, we did not finish touring the park during our 11 hours there! There was just too much to see and do, and as a result, we will be returning tomorrow instead of going back to Islands of Adventure.
Thoughts:
- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios features Diagon Alley, and I actually liked it more than the Hogsmeade Village at Islands of Adventure. There are just so many nooks and crannies to explore, and I just can’t get over the fine details.
- We were rained on once again during the afternoon thunderstorms, although yesterday’s lasted almost twice as long. Fortunately we were both enjoying the indoor areas of Harry Potter and never really got wet.
- There are so many great shows and performances throughout the day — dancing, singing, acrobatics, percussion performances and more — this is the area that Universal Studios wins hands down versus Islands of Adventure.
- The rides were a great surprise because we haven’t been on any of these new ones. In the past, they were all good but rather ho-hum, but now they are worth two or three rides. We rode Gringotts three times and the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket twice. We would have ridden Despicable Me another go-around but the wait had already ballooned to an hour’s wait — probably because it is the first ride that you see when you enter the park.
- 12 hours seems like a long time to spend at a theme park, and it is but it isn’t because there is always something more to see and do. We did not get to all of the attractions at Universal Studios that we wanted to do, so we will be returning again tomorrow to finish those off as well as ride some things over again!
Daily Expenses Ledger:
| $111.15 | Universal Studios ticket, average over 3 days for 2 people |
| $21.82 | Dinner at Leaky Cauldron Universal Studios |
| $2.00 | Hotel tip |
| $2.10 | Total Lyft cost after discount — otherwise it would have been $12.10 |
| $137.07 | TOTAL |
Florida Trip Day 8: Universal Islands of Adventure
This is the day! The day that Lisa finally gets to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. And Edwin gets to ride rollercoasters!
Hogwarts Castle, daytime
Hogsmeade Village
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey — before you reach the 4D ride, you wind your way through the castle and the details are just incredible
Sorting Hat
Hulk roller coaster — I got to ride it twice!
Suess Landing
Jurassic World
Lisa gets her grub on near Wimpy’s Burgers inside Toon Lagoon
Hogwarts at night
We spent 14 hours at Islands of Adventure.
Longest wait: 75 minutes at Skull Island: Reign of Kong. This is the park’s newest attraction, just opened this year. It is a 4D ride. We waited in the single rider line and it was the slowest line ever! But at least it was not in the hot sun and the wait is typical for this time of year.
Shortest wait: 0 minutes — at the end of the evening, we rode the white water rafting ride Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges. At one point, we stayed on the same raft for three consecutive rides because no other park guests were interested in getting drenching wet at that time in the night. Yep, we were totally wet, but it was worth it!
Butterbeer: didn’t have a chance to try it out yet, but we plan to return on Saturday because we have a three-day ticket.
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey: this ride is amazing, and we rode it twice, but man we were queasy afterwards due to the all the dizzying motion. Our stomachs needed a few hours to recover before we felt that we could eat again!
Our hotel is a little over an maile from the CityWalk passenger drop off / pick up area, and normally we would just walk that distance, but in the morning we wanted to have a little more time at breakfast so we utilized Lyft to get us to the park. Later in the evening, being soaked in our wet clothes, we didn’t really feel like making the long walk back to our hotel sloshing around in our shoes. We utilized some Lyft credits that Lisa had so the total cost came to about one dollar each way.
Daily Expenses Ledger
| $73.49 | Hotel – Holiday Inn Express, average over 4 nights |
| $111.15 | Universal Studios ticket, average over 3 days for 2 people |
| $24.00 | Universal Islands of Adventure Dinner |
| $2.05 | Total Lyft cost after discount — otherwise it was $12.05 |
| $210.69 | TOTAL |