5:51AM
I’d had my alarm set for 5AM to insure we’d be fed and ready to get out the door for 7:30AM. Marie and Noelle were also up very early.
By 6:45AM most everyone was eating or had eaten.
The girls were raring to go!
We left the house by 7:40AM and decided to gas up. When we stopped, Noelle hopped out to clean the bugs of the window as Stewart pumped the gas. Speaking of Noelle, she was a God-send for helping me understand the many bells and whistles on this very new vehicle. It had more tech than all my phones, computers and cars put together!
Traffic was horrible. This is going to be a long week. We finally got to the UOR parking garage and got ourselves through security and on to City Walk.
Sigh – there is Toothsomes… maybe next time?
Our arrival time was exactly at park open (so much for rope dropping), but we began our touring plan immediately.
First up was the Incredible Hulk Coaster. Katriel has been talking of nothing else for the last few weeks. And just as we were preparing to queue she decided she didn’t want to go on. She walked back toward Nan, who also wasn’t riding. As soon as this news made it to my ears (I was leading), I turned on my heel and asked her if she was sure she wouldn’t regret skipping Hulk. She lifted her head, dropped Nan’s hand, and came with me.
We all loved it.
From there we went to Dr. Doom Free Fall, then back to Storm Force Acceleron.
Dr. Doom was lame, but Storm Force was delightful!
We scooted further into Marvel Super Hero Island which was fabulously decorated.
We were in line for Spider-Man by 10:00AM – 1 hour after park opening.
And off by 10:30.
We were ahead of schedule and not at all ready to eat, so we went on to our next goal of Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls.
Did we get wet?
We sure did.
11:17AM
Message board friends were strongly encouraging me to make sure we stopped and ate before lunch crowds developed, so we headed to Captain America Diner. We had a learning curve with using mobile ordering for such a large group, and navigating food allergies.
My salad was excellent!
The theming throughout was fantastic.
From there we figured we’d do the other water ride – Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges. It was preposterous how wet we got…
12:27PM
Some had decided it was enough water for one day, but the rest stuck with the Touring Plan and went to Jurassic Park River Adventure, which was thankfully, no where near as soaking.
Nan and Katriel visited the Discovery Center while the rest of us went to Velocicoaster.
It was a wild ride, for sure!
While we were in line for the Velocicoaster, John had gotten a call about the van. Ah. Yes. The van. REALITY… boo. He got some paper and a pen from Nan and tried to find somewhere quiet-ish to talk to the garage.
Pteranodon Flyers was down (Nan and Katriel had looked into it) and we were so far ahead of schedule, we decided to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
I was exceptionally nauseated afterward. Whoa.
John still hadn’t met up with us. Stewart and Noelle went exploring. The rest of us queued to meet Blue – the Velociraptor. We waited about half an hour, which resulted in John, Stewart, and Noelle ending up catching up with us.
And capturing what I am fairly sure will end up our Christmas Card photo.
Nan, Johanna, Katriel and I skipped Kong…
And headed back to the Discovery Center outdoor play area. It was voluminous!
It was nigh on supper time and it seemed wholly unlikely we’d find a safe meal for Stewart at Thunder Falls Terrace. We hoofed it over to Seussland and Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoo-Pendous which supposedly had something for everyone.
It did not. It was closed. All it had was seats and AC. So we ordered food from Blondie’s and then headed back over to Toon Lagoon to eat.
We got there as they were prepping our sandwiches, so we were able to add more toppings than the app had suggested were available.
And that’s where I ate a sandwich on vacation. (So – everyone thought it was yummy! great!… me – I’m like, “It’s. a sandwich…”
We did a bit of shopping as some of my offspring demonstrated a little theme park fatigue.
The last thing on our list was Seuss Landing.
Our second longest wait of the day was for the ride about the Sneetches: The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! We also rode The Cat in the Hat. We skipped One Fish, Two Fish, because it was basically Dumbo. And the Seuss carousel is closed for refurb.
And then we left around 7:40PM.
Not going to lie. It physically pained me to leave before park closing. – No one was actually complaining; though I had gotten some carefully worded, “What time do you think we will be leaving?” questions since before dinner.
I don’t know when my kids became wimps lost their vivre for amusement parks. They don’t get it from me. And even John is wholly in-the-moment when we get to these places. He and I fully ascribe to Theme Park Math. Theme Park Math takes the cost of the ticket divided by how many possible hours you could tour a park. Every minute we aren’t getting a return on our investment is lost money. But, since the only thing on our Touring Plan that we didn’t do were Poseidon’s Fury and The Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts Castle we decided to cry uncle and head back. We did still have a hour long ride back. John and his car stopped for a tub of ice cream.
Other than hearing that the garage could not fix our van and we had to make arrangements to have it towed elsewhere, it was a very good day.
Dayspring Disciples 