Trip Report If you can see the floor, there's room for more- COMPLETED!

Let's see, I figured, I'd at least start updating about the road to Disney since, I'm sure once we actually get to Disney, my brain will explode and I'll forget all about this stuff...

So let's start:

Preface: Who are JZSquared?

I posted my pre-trip report way back in the Stone-age, so to save you all a trip, I'll just reintroduce myself [er ourselves?] to you?

Hi my name is Lyssa.... I'm not a robot without emotions, I'm not what you see... SORRY, 80S ROCK STUCK IN MY HEAD AFTER LISTENING TO IT FOR EIGHT HOURS STRAIGHT.

My better half [though personally I think that's debatable] is Justin.

We're both teachers from Houston, Texas. I teach special ed preschool [I have mainly autistic students] and Justin teaches the other end of the spectrum.... He teaches AP Computer Science and Calculus BC in high school.

This is us:

[though currently my hair is bright Cheshire Cat fuchsia...]

Since we're both teachers, we're really limited in when we can actually visit the world. We're basically limited to school breaks and summer breaks AKA when everybody else in the US also visits Disney, so it's going to be mad crowded whenever we go. We decided to join the craziest of the crazies and travel to Disney during the most-crowded time of year, New Year's Eve... I mean we could've gone over the summer, I suppose, but winter weather > summer weather, especially since it seems Florida is going through a big of a cold front [it is currently 43 degrees in Milton, Florida], which makes me happy [my NJ blood craves the cold... Justin's thin Texas blood, not so much.]

We also decided to road trip there because we both really don't like flying even though it's supposedly one of the safest things you can do... but we also really like road trips and seeing the US [our honeymoon was a road trip up the west coast, and down through the center of the US, so we hit Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Parks] and when we worked out the finances, really flying and driving were about the same price, so we decided to drive to Disney instead, plus that gives me the leniency to buy as many Starbucks mugs as I want and not have to worry about stuffing them in luggage and flying them back in a cargo hold of a plane.

Anyways, welcome to our trip, I hope you enjoy following along. Expect it to be corny and cheesy, hopefully entertaining though [This is my first trip report]!

 

[Lyssa]

I take it this was your first trip to WWoHP?? Will you plan to go back sometime in the summer?

As for my son, it all worked out for the best. He has autism and he now goes to a special education school that is exclusively for kids with Autism, ADHD, or Oppositional disorder and it's AMAZING. He's so much better off. Not that I'm grateful he was bullied, but we're in a much better place about it now that he's happy and where he belongs.

It was my first time and I'm sure we'll go back, I'm just not sure when, we're planning sometime in 2021, so I guess whatever works best for our schedules then LOL

I teach special needs students.

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 25: Hello Random Fast Pass, how are you doing?

[sorry for the delay, it was a very long week in school, and by the time I got home every day, I was too exhausted to really do anything except watch Netflix and play Fire Emblem, since those two activities don't require much brain power]

After we had our lunch, we were by Fantasyland. It was still rainy, gray, and cold, and our BOG lunch wasn't nearly long enough to dry us off or warm us up, and we didn't just want to stay there loitering because it was so crowded, and we wanted other people to have a chance to get tables since by the time we left, the line was out the door basically, and there were no free tables in any of the dining rooms.

Mickey's Philharmagic was right nearby, and it was indoors, and had no wait whatsoever, so we decided to go check that out.

We both liked it and thought it was cute.

We had a FP for Peter Pan that was coming up in like twenty minutes, so we still had a bit more time to kill, so we decided to take another happy little cruise.

The wait was about maybe 30 minute, which wasn't too bad, so we got on line, and we were moving merrily along the stand-by queue when we got the area, where they let the FP rides enter. There was literally nobody who had a FP, who was waiting for a ride, so the Cast Member just decided to randomly let Justin and I cut through the rest of the line. He lifted the rope that separated the two areas, and let us in, so we got a random fast pass basically for Small World since when that happened, we hadn't even been waiting for that long, so that was pretty cool. It was a nice and tiny bit of Disney Magic.

We really didn't experience a lot of Disney Magic on our trip, but that's fine, I'm not bitter or anything, we're just happy that the weather worked out in our favor, and we were really able to experience everything even with crazy holiday crowds.

[On a side note, I once read a book, I think it was the first book in Kingdom Keepers series actually, where all the dolls from It's a Small World came to life and tried to kill the narrators. I was totally thinking of that scene as we rode on our cruise and how horrifying that would be if it actually happened]

[I managed to catch both of our names]

After It's a Small World, it was time for Peter Pan

Since we used a FP, I didn't get a chance to check out the queue or anything, but I also wouldn't wait 80 minutes just to interact with a queue for a ride, and the wait never seems low enough to actually wait in line to check it out, maybe one day we will.

I don't have much to say about Peter Pan except it's so short! Like it's crazy people wait 80 or more minutes just to ride a ride that lasts 2 minutes, if that. It's definitely one of the classic rides, and one that I clearly do remember from being little and visiting MK with my grandparents, and I enjoyed the ride. I just find it shocking how crazy long the wait for Peter Pan is. It rivals the wait for Space Mountain, and IMO, I think SM is the better ride. I wish they could invent a way to make the line go faster for Peter Pan.

After Peter Pan, things started to change at the park.

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 26: Whip it, Whip it good

After Peter Pan, the sun actually started to come out at MK. It didn't exactly warm up, but it wasn't raining, and the park was slowly drying up, we finally had a chance to dry. But of course, when the weather changed, so did the crowd at the park, and the park started to get really crowded.

Haunted Mansion didn't have much of a wait, and we were right by it, so we decided to ride it again.

I really think HM has one of my favorite queue's of all MK rides. It's just so detailed.

I was sad though because the person who got on line before us had gotten the red card... so if I had just been one minute sooner, perhaps taken one less picture, I could've gotten the red card, and pretended I was special.

I think another thing that makes Haunted Mansion so awesome is that the cast members really get into it. They're really into character. I bet it's a fun attraction to work at.

After HM, we decided to check out another favorite from DL, The Tiki Room.

I didn't get to see much of the little preshow they have before the actual show, it seemed as soon as it started, we were let into the show. But I thought it was a cute.

I enjoyed the Tiki Room, it was basically an exact clone of the one in DL.

After the Tiki Room, it was time for our dole whips.

I got the Dole Whip float because I have an unhealthy obsession with pineapple juice. Justin just got a vanilla soft serve because he doesn't like pineapple, which I can't understand.

I enjoyed my Dole Whip Float, but I struggled to finish it because I was freezing and it was so cold, and every single bite just made me colder and colder, so I'm sad to say I only ate about half of it.

After that it was time for our FP at Space Mountain.

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 27: This Chapter Won't Be Very Long

It was time for our fast pass at SM:

[and like the title says, this chapter will be VERY short because I have a trillion pictures of where we went to after this chapter and didn't want to put them in separate posts]

Space Mountain is always a good ride. We went to the right track again. I think I like the right track better, I have no idea why since I'm pretty sure the sides are basically mirror images of each other.

I remember being really little and riding WITH my grandfather in Space Mountain. Like we would both be in the same seat, and I'd basically be sitting leaning against his legs, and he always promised to hold me tight because I used to be so scared of the ride. I think there used to be four to a car but in two seats back in the 1980s, but I could be wrong about that. After all I was only like 5 or 6 when I was finally tall enough to ride SM.

Then we decided to watch Carousel of Progress again.

I think even Justin had memorized the lyrics to "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" by then and we were just singing it along with the characters and we had a blast.

This amused me greatly. I like the female robot on the bathroom.

Speaking of the bathrooms, I was reading about Disney history somewhere recently, and the loading car for the sky ride that used to exist at Disney World was right above this bathroom, when they closed the sky ride, they just razed it, and left the bathroom. If I hadn't read that, I don't think I ever would've known that was where the sky ride used to let people on and drop them off.

After that we decided to go shopping for souvenirs.

Justin bought some sort of Finding Nemo [or Dory, I forget] bath towel set for his mom because she really loved those movies. He also bought a shot glass because he collects shot glasses from places we travel to [and I accidentally broke one from Butchart Gardens, a few weeks back, and still feel awful about it] .

I bought this:

[not my picture]
I am obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and I just needed this.

In case you're curious, these are the flavors:

• Mad Tea Party Blend featuring Alice and The Mad Hatter
• Earl Grey featuring The Queen of Hearts
• Lemon Honey Chamomile featuring The Doormouse
• Chai featuring The Cheshire Cat
• Blueberry featuring The March Hare
• Papaya Passion Fruit featuring Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
• Pomegranate featuring Card Soldiers
• French Vanilla featuring The King of Hearts Mango featuring The Caterpillar
• Jasmine featuring Iris Mint featuring The Walrus and The Carpenter
• English Breakfast featuring The White Rabbit

I have yet to open it. Part of me doesn't want to because the set is just so pretty and such a collectible [for me at least], but the other part of me really wants to drink it because it's tea and I love tea, and it's Alice in Wonderland tea, and how freaking cool is that?

We'll see if I'm still debating on it in a few weeks.

Then we decided it was time to go take a voyage on the Jingle Cruise, which was a new ride for both Justin and me.

 

[Songbird76]

Chapter 26: Whip it, Whip it good

After Peter Pan, the sun actually started to come out at MK. It didn't exactly warm up, but it wasn't raining, and the park was slowly drying up, we finally had a chance to dry. But of course, when the weather changed, so did the crowd at the park, and the park started to get really crowded.

Haunted Mansion didn't have much of a wait, and we were right by it, so we decided to ride it again.

I really think HM has one of my favorite queue's of all MK rides. It's just so detailed.

I was sad though because the person who got on line before us had gotten the red card... so if I had just been one minute sooner, perhaps taken one less picture, I could've gotten the red card, and pretended I was special.

I think another thing that makes Haunted Mansion so awesome is that the cast members really get into it. They're really into character. I bet it's a fun attraction to work at.

After HM, we decided to check out another favorite from DL, The Tiki Room.

I didn't get to see much of the little preshow they have before the actual show, it seemed as soon as it started, we were let into the show. But I thought it was a cute.

I enjoyed the Tiki Room, it was basically an exact clone of the one in DL.

After the Tiki Room, it was time for our dole whips.

I got the Dole Whip float because I have an unhealthy obsession with pineapple juice. Justin just got a vanilla soft serve because he doesn't like pineapple, which I can't understand.

I enjoyed my Dole Whip Float, but I struggled to finish it because I was freezing and it was so cold, and every single bite just made me colder and colder, so I'm sad to say I only ate about half of it.

After that it was time for our FP at Space Mountain.

I'm with Justin....no pineapple for me. Blech. You can have my share.

 

[Songbird76]

Chapter 27: This Chapter Won't Be Very Long

It was time for our fast pass at SM:

[and like the title says, this chapter will be VERY short because I have a trillion pictures of where we went to after this chapter and didn't want to put them in separate posts]

Space Mountain is always a good ride. We went to the right track again. I think I like the right track better, I have no idea why since I'm pretty sure the sides are basically mirror images of each other.

I remember being really little and riding WITH my grandfather in Space Mountain. Like we would both be in the same seat, and I'd basically be sitting leaning against his legs, and he always promised to hold me tight because I used to be so scared of the ride. I think there used to be four to a car but in two seats back in the 1980s, but I could be wrong about that. After all I was only like 5 or 6 when I was finally tall enough to ride SM.

Then we decided to watch Carousel of Progress again.

I think even Justin had memorized the lyrics to "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" by then and we were just singing it along with the characters and we had a blast.

This amused me greatly. I like the female robot on the bathroom.

Speaking of the bathrooms, I was reading about Disney history somewhere recently, and the loading car for the sky ride that used to exist at Disney World was right above this bathroom, when they closed the sky ride, they just razed it, and left the bathroom. If I hadn't read that, I don't think I ever would've known that was where the sky ride used to let people on and drop them off.

After that we decided to go shopping for souvenirs.

Justin bought some sort of Finding Nemo [or Dory, I forget] bath towel set for his mom because she really loved those movies. He also bought a shot glass because he collects shot glasses from places we travel to [and I accidentally broke one from Butchart Gardens, a few weeks back, and still feel awful about it] .

I bought this:

[not my picture]
I am obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and I just needed this.

In case you're curious, these are the flavors:

• Mad Tea Party Blend featuring Alice and The Mad Hatter
• Earl Grey featuring The Queen of Hearts
• Lemon Honey Chamomile featuring The Doormouse
• Chai featuring The Cheshire Cat
• Blueberry featuring The March Hare
• Papaya Passion Fruit featuring Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
• Pomegranate featuring Card Soldiers
• French Vanilla featuring The King of Hearts Mango featuring The Caterpillar
• Jasmine featuring Iris Mint featuring The Walrus and The Carpenter
• English Breakfast featuring The White Rabbit

I have yet to open it. Part of me doesn't want to because the set is just so pretty and such a collectible [for me at least], but the other part of me really wants to drink it because it's tea and I love tea, and it's Alice in Wonderland tea, and how freaking cool is that?

We'll see if I'm still debating on it in a few weeks.

Then we decided it was time to go take a voyage on the Jingle Cruise, which was a new ride for both Justin and me.

You could drink the tea and save the wrappers and box as a souvenir...best of both worlds.

 

[amjt660]

Chapter 25: Hello Random Fast Pass, how are you doing?

After It's a Small World, it was time for Peter Pan

Since we used a FP, I didn't get a chance to check out the queue or anything, but I also wouldn't wait 80 minutes just to interact with a queue for a ride, and the wait never seems low enough to actually wait in line to check it out, maybe one day we will.

I don't have much to say about Peter Pan except it's so short! Like it's crazy people wait 80 or more minutes just to ride a ride that lasts 2 minutes, if that. It's definitely one of the classic rides, and one that I clearly do remember from being little and visiting MK with my grandparents, and I enjoyed the ride. I just find it shocking how crazy long the wait for Peter Pan is. It rivals the wait for Space Mountain, and IMO, I think SM is the better ride. I wish they could invent a way to make the line go faster for Peter Pan.

After Peter Pan, things started to change at the park.

If you want Peter Pan to go faster just do what Shanghai Disneyland did
Boats with two rows
Double the capacity and approx half the wait time

Max

 

[Lyssa]

I'm with Justin....no pineapple for me. Blech. You can have my share.

But pineapple taste amazing

You could drink the tea and save the wrappers and box as a souvenir...best of both worlds.

True, that's probably what I will end up doing

If you want Peter Pan to go faster just do what Shanghai Disneyland did
Boats with two rows
Double the capacity and approx half the wait time

I think that would be an amazing refurbishment to do

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 28: A Jingle of a good time

First of all, I've never ridden Jungle Cruise, in any shape or form, so this ride was completely new to us. Even better was the fact that the ride was still Christmas themed, so it was Jingle Cruise

I have to say, I really enjoyed all of the holiday refurbishments that overlaid this ride They really went all out and in an extremely cheesy way, which made it even better. I love corniness, I grew up in a family, where we would have punning competitions, and to this day, my father and I drive my mother insane sprouting the best er worst puns we can think of. So this is definitely a me ride.

I think the wait was stated to be something like 40 minutes, but we probably only waited about twenty minutes, if that.

I'll just let the picture rides tell the rest of the story:

Our skipper was pretty funny, and she was really into it, which made it a lot more fun. I think she even made fun of me from being from New Jersey, by telling me she was sorry when she asked where I was from. [and how the heck was I in Disney just a month ago, it seems like we were just there, yet it's been a month since our trip] Gee... I've never heard that one before

But we both enjoyed that ride a lot. We both loved how incredibly cheesy it is. The holiday overlay just made it better.

Coming up, Justin wanted to go on a magic carpet ride.

and GO EAGLES!!!!

 

[Lyssa]

It's not like I forgot about my trip... Just real-life got super busy. February/March are really busy for me because I have a lot of IEP meetings and such Let's see if my memory still works after two months away from Disney! [and yesterday was our three year wedding anniversary, woot! We had an Alice in Wonderland themed wedding]

Chapter 29: The Laughing Place

After our Jingle Cruise, Justin really wanted to ride on Aladdin's Magic Carpets. He just sort of has a thing for rides he can torture me on.
Exhibit One: The Teacups, spinning it so bad that the ride almost ended in divorce
Exhibit Two: The Magic Carpet ride, so he can try to make us go really high up and make me even more sick.

I'll never ride Dumbo the Ride... When I was 6, I rode Dumbo with my grandpa, and the ride broke and we got stuck on it for probably maybe 5-10 minutes, but to my 6 year old mind, it seemed like hours. Aladdin reminds me a lot of Dumbo, however, Justin was a good sport in letting me plan a Disney trip, and surely my thirty-something [but a kid at heart self] could handle Aladdin.

The coolest thing was, I GOT A RED CARD FOR ALADDIN, I mean that surely made the ride worth it.

I was playing Fire Emblem Awakening on line, and a random kid looked over my shoulder and told me he played that game and he loved it and my team looked good. So that was a nice recognition for being a nerd.

Aladdin's wasn't too bad. Not sure if it was worth waiting 30+ minutes for, but it didn't break down, and I didn't get stranded in the air, so yay for that?

Next up was a hot date with Captain Jack Sparrow since we were right there and it didn't really have much of a wait.

We enjoyed watching Jack "Make it Rain" as Justin would say.

Next was the hunger pangs, so we wound up at Pecos Bill.

Ugh Pecos Bill was probably the worst dining experience. It wasn't really that the food was bad or anything [I mean Freebirds in Houston does Mexican way better], but just the people there. People were rude, shoving past people to claim seats, saving tables upon tables for friends and just being really obnoxious when you asked if this seat was taken. Eventually we found a tiny table in the corner that we could eat at, but it took a long time to find that table, and by the time we got a table, our food was pretty much cold.

I got chicken nachos, they were okay, nothing to write home about, but I'm also spoiled and live in Texas, where our TexMex and Mexican food is amazing. Justin basically ate the entire toppings bar and was more than happy to make a meal out of that.

After that it was dark enough to ride Thunder Mountain.

We had another negative experience on this ride. There was this family in front of us... a daughter, a son, and their father. And the girl couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 and had a potty mouth that rivals mine and she was screaming, spitting, hitting her brother, punching her brother [even in the family jewels] and cursing, and the brother was antagonizing her and egging her on, and dad just stood there and did nothing. We had to wait behind this obnoxious family for forty something minutes and it was agonizing. We were so happy when the two tracks went their separate ways and we could separate from them.

The ride was still good [it's better in the dark] and we still enjoyed it. But man was that family obnoxious. I would hope a kid of mine never acted that way, but if s/he did, I'd grab them and we'd leave the ride and even the park for that sort of behavior.

After Big Thunder was the first of like five rides on Splash Mountain.

Mind you, it was probably around 40, edging into 30 degrees by the time we started to ride Splash Mountain, so the ride was pretty much vacant. There was absolutely no wait, we walked on every time, and even got to ride twice in a row, once, and we started having fun with our ride pictures:

On our fifth ride, right at the "laughing place", the ride just stopped working. The boat in front of us shot up the hill and we assume they made it down the mountain without a fatality since there were no ambulances or sirens or anything that we heard. However, our boat just stopped and the hill dried up, and all the lights came on:

The birds kept laughing at us:

They kept on making announcements about how the ride was having difficulties and they expected it to start shortly.

Spoiler alert: It didn't.

After thirty minutes, cast members came in with crowbars and had to get us out of the ride vehicle.

Boats were just stopped back to back.

This is the only "behind the scenes" photo of Splash Mountain I got before they asked us to put our cameras away, and then we got escorted through the backstage area.

The backstage area really wasn't magic in the least. It was literally like being in the back of a warehouse or factory. There were a bunch of gray buildings.

They gave us a fast pass for our troubles:

And right as we got escorted out of the ride... The fireworks started:

[to be continued, I'll remember this time, I promise]

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 30: Lots and Lots of Fireworks

First off, here's a pic I forgot I took, a selfie of J and me when we were stranded on Splash Mountain for thirty or so minutes:

You can see the line of boats that just wasn't moving and all of the lights on in the ride.

Now here are tons of fireworks pictures. I'm not @fractal , so they're not awesome by any means, though I did take his advice and use a trash can as a tripod and they came out decent. One day they'll come out better. I need to learn more about exposure and ISO I'll get there.

We stayed by Splash Mountain to watch the fireworks since the show had already started while we were stranded in Splash Mountain, and our view was decent from where we were.

Since we didn't really see the show I don't really have an opinion on the show, BUT FIREWORKS ARE PRETTY!!! I enjoyed hearing all the Disney tunes and was totally bursting out in song and singing alone and probably embarrassing Justin... But that's what Disney is for anyways

It was our last day in a Disney park [the next day we were off to Universal], so we decided to use our fastpass to ride Space Mountain since that's Justin's favorite ride and it'd be nice to be able to skip the line.

We passed the castle on the way:

I'm just so happy when we went that all of the Christmas decorations were up. Christmas is my second favorite holiday [Halloween is the first] and I just loved seeing all the parks decorated for Christmas it totally made the trip more awesome.

Space Mountain was our last ride of Disney. After we rode, we caught the bus and went back to the hotel since we had to be up early for our VIP tour of Universal. I was sad to leave Disney.

[I miss walking this much every day!]

Next up is Universal, which I'll post about since I know people are Harry Potter fans and that was really the only reason I wanted to go to Universal.

I miss Disney. I'm sad we probably won't be able to afford to go back for a year or two. But at least by the time that we do go back, there will be a bunch of new things to check out there

anyways, to be continued

 

[fractal]

That's a cool pic inside Splash Mountain.

Nice job with the fireworks shots! Really like the one by Tom Sawyer's Island and also like the castle shot.

 

[Lyssa]

That's a cool pic inside Splash Mountain.

Nice job with the fireworks shots! Really like the one by Tom Sawyer's Island and also like the castle shot.

Thank you very much Coming from you that means a lot since you're the photo pro

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 31: Two parks, one day

On Thursday, we woke up relatively early. We had a VIP tour for Universal Studios for both parks in one day, and we had to be there pretty early, but there was the promise of breakfast and coffee, which somewhat motivated me. It was sort of bittersweet, however, as we walked over to Justin's car, en route to Universal Studios, and we drove past all the Disney buses, knowing that I'd never see Disney again till my next trip, but on the more positive side OH MY GOD HARRY POTTER!!!!

I am the biggest Harry Potter fan-girl, probably not in the world, but I love Harry Potter so much. I read the first book when I was a Freshman in college at Kutztown [though it had come out like two to three years before that]. I came home for Thanksgiving break, and my dad handed me Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone and told me to read it. I told him I didn't want to read a stupid kids book. My dad promised me I'd like the book, and my dad and I read most of the same books [and we both have the speed-reading gene, let's put it this way, I tend to read 200+ books a year, and I usually finish at least 1, sometimes 2, in a day. It was great when I was in college and had tons of books to read for class, but it also sucks... like when you're waiting an entire year for a sequel to a series, and then you finish the book in one day, and you're just like... well <insert bad word here> now I have to wait another <insert another bad word here> day to read the next book]. So I begrudgingly agreed to read Harry Potter. Well I loved it, I read the next two books on the rest of break, and then the first weekend back at college, I bought the fourth book. [and later enacted revenge on my father for making me obsess over a series by introducing him to Percy Jackson].

I went to all the midnight premieres of all the movies with my friend Craig. I'm a slytherin on Pottermore. [Though I think I'm more of a slytherclaw, depending on what's going on in my life, at the time]. I even participated in online Harry Potter sorting communities, where random people sorted you based on an application you filled out, and you either got squibbed [not me of course] or sorted into a house. I was sorted into Ravenclaw on that. And they even had their own common rooms and Hogsmeade weekends. I even Role-played Mad-Eye Moody on twitter for the longest time [I think I still have the twitter name, but I don't remember my password]. So Harry Potter was an obsession for me, I even dabbled in writing fanfiction for it for awhile.

Anyhow when we planned our Disney trip, I knew it might be one of my only chances to visit Harry Potter Land. I also knew we only had one day to visit both parts [Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley], I also knew it was going to be CRAZY crowded [and an all CAPS crazy doesn't even begin to do the crowds justice, it was bad!] So that's why I decided to book us a Universal Studios VIP Tour. I was already with my wand and my Gryffindor scarf... My parents went to Universal last April, and I told them I wanted a Slytherin scarf [I had a Ravenclaw one to that, prior that Craig got me] and they got me a wand, but they GOT ME A GRYFFINDOR SCARF, even though I had texted them Slytherin. My dad says that the Gryffindor scarf was probably in the wrong area because he looked for a Slytherin scarf and the sign said Slytherin, I don't believe him, but whatever, back in my early HP days, I wanted nothing more than to be a Gryffindor because Harry Potter was a Gryffindor [though Luna Lovegood was a Ravenclaw and she's my favorite!], so I still graciously accepted my scarlet and gold scarf.

So we drove to Universal, the VIP tour came with free valet parking,which was nice, so we let them park our car, and we headed towards Universal.

It was the first sunny day we had really seen the entire week we had been in Florida. It was still pretty cold, probably the mid 40s, high 30s in the morning, but THERE WAS SUN!

[Universal like Disney still had their Christmas decorations up, and while they had some cool decorations- Hogsmeade was decorated for the holidays and Dr. Suessville was decorated for the holidays, Disney definitely does Christmas better]

The first thing we did, was go to the VIP Tour building, sign in, show ID, and get our VIP lanyards:

. The tours start at different times and they were running a little bit behind, so we had maybe 20 or so minutes to kill before our tour started. The VIP Tours come with Universal Express Pass, which is like FP, but not as cool as FP, nor does it work as well as FP, but it's well-meaning, at least. In the morning, when the park wasn't really crowded, it was pretty useful, but it really just cuts waits in half.... So like a 60 minute wait would be a 30 minute, but by the afternoon, some rides had over 200 minutes wait, and the Universal Express wouldn't have really been that helpful- every ride would've been like waiting for Na'Vi River Journey, but in the morning, it was useful.

We decided to ride Transformers, since it was right there, and barely waited more than 10 minutes for it with our EP.

It was okay? It was a 4D ride. In fact, probably 80% of Universal's Rides are some sort of 4D ride, and after awhile, when you ride them all in a row, they sort of seem the same and aren't as excited as other rides, but since this was our first 4D ride of the day, it was pretty cool.

After the ride, it was time for our group to eat breakfast. The VIP Tours come with a free breakfast, a day meal plan [so you don't pay for any food while you're on the tour] that comes with a quick-service meal and a snack, the EP, and you get to walk on every single ride and not wait in a single line all day, so totally worth it, especially if you're coming on an insanely crowded time like during Christmas vacation.

We also got their version of a "Happy Anniversary" pin:

We had about twelve people in our group. There was Justin and Me, a family of 3, a woman and her two daughters, and a family of four. Justin and I were the odd twosome. Our group leader was a woman named Katie. She was super nice.

The first ride we rode as a tour group was ET:

We went in through the exit ramp [as we did with all rides] and walked right on the ride. The ride has technology where they program your name into a card [like the one Justin is holding] and as you leave the ride, ET shouts out "Goodbye Justin" [or whoever]. I didn't really hear ET calling out our names, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, I was too busy trying to take pictures on the moving ride.

ET was actually the only ride I remembered from going to Universal when I was like 11.

[ET land looks like a fun place to live]

The ET movie always used to give me nightmares when I was little. There's that one part when ET gets sick and turns white, and when I was little it always used to scare me.

After ET we walked right onto The Simpsons Ride:

The queue for the Simpsons Ride, at least what we saw of it, was definitely on par with Disney queues.

As 4D rides go, I think The Simpsons was probably one of the best done ones and probably one of our favorites. It was a 4d ride of basically an amusement park trip gone wrong, and all the special effects we really good, and it really did feel like you were riding an actual ride.

After Simpsons, we toured the Men in Black facility. There's this one area of the queue, that looks like MIB Immigration headquarters and even has the alien secretaries. We got to walk around there, and selfie with the aliens, and even got to sign our name was visiting species:

[I signed the wrong date at the bottom :/ but 2018 was still a new concept to me at the time]

[You can see my magic wand]

As rides go, MIB was similar to a faster and quicker Buzz Lightyear. I didn't bring my camera on it for those reasons, but I enjoyed it, and I kicked Justin's bottom when it came to scores in MIB, which makes up for him always beating me in BL and TSMM. Justin was quite salty about it too.

After MIB, it was finally time for Diagon Alley...

The question is... did it live up to my expectations?

 

[ferbtones]

Loving your trip report.

Just a note.... my daughter has the initials MGM after the studios, then they changed the name.

My favourite Disney character is Alice. I have the teapot and cup set for my daughter.

And I love slytherin. Snape is my fave Potter character.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

Loved your entire TR so far! Love that you saw Treebeard in Pandora! I'd much rather visit Hobbiton!

I love WWoHP! It's sooo fun. The stores are tiny though! I can't wait to see if you liked it!!!

 

[Lyssa]

Loving your trip report.

Just a note.... my daughter has the initials MGM after the studios, then they changed the name.

My favourite Disney character is Alice. I have the teapot and cup set for my daughter.

And I love slytherin. Snape is my fave Potter character.

@ferbtones that's soo cool all of that and thanks for reading and I love Alice, but the Cheshire Cat is probably my favorite from that movie

Loved your entire TR so far! Love that you saw Treebeard in Pandora! I'd much rather visit Hobbiton!

I love WWoHP! It's sooo fun. The stores are tiny though! I can't wait to see if you liked it!!!

@ScarletBegonias Hobbiton would be an amazing place to visit

and Thanks for reading

 

[Songbird76]

My MIL made me a Ravenclaw scarf for Christmas. Pottermore says I'm Ravenclaw, but I feel like I'm a RavenPuff. Poor DD was the only one in our family who DIDN'T get Ravenclaw....she got Hufflepuff and as she's SOOOO much like me, we both consider ourselves Ravenpuffs. DH and DS are straight up Ravenclaw.
We're planning a trip for next Summer and I think we'll get a HP package deal so we have several days and can do the big things in the morning before it gets too busy.
So the VIP tour isn't just HP, right? I can't wait to read your WWoHP part!
Just out of curiosity, were you ever on a HP site called the Leaky Cauldron? I was on the Contest staff there, and I wrote for the Quibbler for a while. There was a thread there for celebrations and one for complaints...just daily stuff, kind of like the chit-chat-chit-chat thread here. They took those threads away after a while when some people got a bit too personal with the info they shared, and some of us started our own forum just for the non-HP chat and I met up with a group of them a few years ago and we did the Studio Tour in London, went to Lacock to see filming locations, and 2 of us walked around London visiting all the famous HP places....Kings Cross Station, Tottenham Court Road, Charring Cross, etc. It's amazing to see all the stuff with other super fans...if you have any Potterhead friends, I recommend it.

 

[Lyssa]

o the VIP tour isn't just HP, right? I can't wait to read your WWoHP part!
Just out of curiosity, were you ever on a HP site called the Leaky Cauldron?

I used to visit the leaky cauldron site a lot, but I wasn't really active there, but I was always on it. I was a part of a community on LiveJournal called "Hogwarts Elite" and then a part of another one for awhile called Hogwarts is Home, also on LiveJournal

And yes, the VIP tour is for all parks, not just Potter land

Justin is also a Ravenclaw he was sorted as one as Pottermore

And we're thinking of going to London in a few years and I def want to do all things Potter

 

[Lyssa]

Chapter 32: Unleash the Dragon

The first thing we did when we got to Diagon Alley was pass by the Knight Bus

I really wanted to talk to the shrunken head and ask it what Hogwarts house it used to belong to before it became a shrunken head, and tell Stan that he really needed to work on his occlumency skills because the Death Eaters were just using him, but I didn't really have any time to chat with him.

Then we went to visit Kreacher:

Then it was finally time to enter Diagon Alley.

So sure, we did enter Diagon Alley and I felt like I was at Woodstock. There were people everywhere. There were so many people that we could barely move. It was like the worst kind of mosh pit. Like that time I went to a Nine Inch Nails concert at the Electric Factory and they packed us so closely together that I almost got choked by a guy, who was well over six feet tall and totally rocking out to Sin. Needless to say, after that occurrence, I did my first and only crowd surfing experience, and it was to escape the massive chasos known as the mosh pit.
DIAGON ALLEY WAS A HUMONGOUS MOSH PIT [minus the awesome rock music]

I could barely see anything, I could barely move.

Now, going to Universal Studios/Disney during Christmas break, I mean I knew it would be crowded, but I couldn't anticipate the size of the crowd we saw at Diagon Alley. At Disney you could actually move around, at Diagon Alley, you were stuck.

At least I got some pictures:

We didn't get to explore Diagon Alley, at all, it was too crowded.

To say I was disappointed, at the time, was quite the understatement.

There were huge lines out the door of every single shop. There were so many people that you could barely get around. I'm slightly claustrophobic and I was on the verge of having a panic attack because there were so many people there.

Our tour guide let is straight to Gringotts, and it was like walking through a jungle, having to bushwhack your way through plants and trees, only the plants and trees were tourists.

The line for Escape from Gringotts was over 300 minutes. You could see Black Panther, and still have time to spare while waiting in that line.

Luckily since we were on a VIP Tour, we didn't have to wait in line, I don't even think I would have the patience to wait in a 300 minute long line, I don't think my gameboy 3ds battery would last throughout the line since I'd be playing constantly.

The ride was pretty cool. It was basically a steel roller coaster, a dark ride, and a 4d ride combined in one. You felt the heat from the fire, droplets of water, as the effects of spells wore off as you went further down into the vaults.

Would I wait 300+ minutes for it?

NO WAY.

Don't get me wrong, it was an awesome ride. I'm just not a patient person. And look at it mathematically... 300 minutes for this ride, 300 minutes for the Hogwarts ride, 200ish minutes for the Hogwarts Express equals approximately 800 minutes, that's like 13 hours. The park is open from approximately 9am to 9pm during the winter months. That's about twelve hours. So you couldn't even ride more than 2 rides if you came at the peak of popularity such as during Christmas time. That's just not worth it to me.

Diagon Alley was a cool place, and I really wish we actually had a chance to check it out, and to experience it. But we just didn't. The themeing in the area was amazing, I really felt like I was in Harry Potter land, however I didn't get to experience Harry Potter land. I wanted butterbeer, I wanted Earl Gray and Lavender ice cream, I wanted to adopt a pygmy puff. I didn't get to do any of those things because of how crowded it was.

Oh well, at least I was "making" butterbeer at Starbucks before it was cool:
Line the cup with caramel drizzle
Ask for the creme frapachino base
3 pumps of caramel syrup
3 pumps of toffee nut syrup
Whipped Creme
More Caramel Drizzle

[That combination tastes way better than the smoked butterscotch frap they sometimes offer]

In retrospective, I don't know if I would say I was completely disappointed. I wasn't. I knew what I was getting into when I decided to travel to Florida during Christmas Break. Knowing what I was getting into is why we decided to pay the extra for the VIP tour. We wanted to at least ride all the rides and do as much as the park as we could without getting frustrated and angry because of how crowded it was going to be. I'm glad I at least got to see Diagon Alley and ride their flagship ride. Maybe one day we'll actually be able to visit when everyone else in the world isn't visiting at the same time and then we'll really get to experience it.

Anyhow after our quick trip through Diagon Alley, it was off to ride more rides, rides not of the Harry Potter nature.