Hanny wasn’t feeling great, but the Bay was calling and we must go.

Parking was again in the Universal garage and we boarded busses to get to the park.  We were quickly admitted just as it was opening.

We seemingly took the long-way-round to get to an off the beaten path spot to chill.

We quickly hit our Tapu Tapus for the Krakatoa water coaster and then did some smaller tube rides.

I tried an Island drink and they give souvenir glasses (plastic) with most beverages!

We broke into groups.  Or not.  Some lay around.  Some we barely saw.

When our credit card did not link with our bands (though it had for two drink purchases earlier) it temporarily looked like we’d not be eating all the food we’d ordered!  Thankfully Stewart had his credit card on him!

My first few bites of Mahi Mahi sandwich had me wondering if I’d be able to finish it – it had a very fish-like taste.  But then it suddenly worked and it was A-MAZ-ING!

Katriel ordered an adult burger with bells and whistles.

The park was fun.  After getting properly soaked, we decided to leave for dinner. 

Aye carumba!

Tonight we ate some pasta and sausage at the rental.

Breakfast: same.
Traffic: same.
Arrival: same.

They do a great job of getting people through security.  I do like the set up here.

Some requisite photos.

We headed directly to Transformers.  Which made zero sense to me.  But we checked it off.

Then Fast and Furious.

Which also made zero sense.

Then Gringott’s again.  Because it was fun.

We tried out the Hagrid’s motorcycle.

John found me a hot Butterbeer.  Stewart and Noelle went to do their own touring.

Met Jaws.

Girls found some Toothless merch.

Street performers.

Visited Simpson area.  Marie is a closet Simpsons fan.  Oy.

She, Hanny, and I went to Bumble Bee taco mans.  Our lunch was –meh-.

Everyone else ate inside Fast Food Boulevard and had good things to report.  We all had lunch together.

We watched Animal Actors as a group.  Then some of us went into Dream Works Destinations.  And it wasn’t as good as we would have liked it to be. 

Some rode Woody Woodpecker. 

Then we went to ET.  And then we had a split up again.  We were trying to get to a show on time, but ice cream took longer than we’d expected. 

Look at the size of it.  $5.  It was worth it.

We watched the Bourne Stunt Show.

Then some went to a Monster Movie Make-Up, while the girls and I went shopping and to the mini-parade.

Marie got some sweets, while Nigel and I walked over to Rip Rocket.  I chickened out.

Tab bought donuts – and gave one to Nan when we got back.

We ate some snacks and watched a Vlog to helps us understand the nuances to Tapu Tapu at Volcano Bay.

It was another early morning, yummy breakfast, and long commute.
But we were at the entrance of Universal Studios Orlando before it opened.

We headed directly to Gringott’s in the back of the park, which was easier said than done.  Our group picked the wrong way to walk, got somewhat separated, and had no idea what we were looking for…

We finally figured out way in through the wall and made our way to the first ride.

It was awesome, and my family didn’t even understand the storyline.

Our plan said to then ride the train to IOA for Forbidden Journey (we did yesterday), Hagrid’s (currently a 220 minute wait!), and Flight of the Hippogriff (which is more or less a kid coaster).

Instead we opted to ride a few things on the UOR side to knock stuff off tomorrow’s list.

First was the MIB ride (oh – man – lame)

Poor Noelle lost her shoe!  They were able to get it back within 15 minutes.

The Simpson Ride

was the worst ride of the vacation.  Good Grief.

We rode the train over.

11:43AM

And got lunch at Three Broomsticks.  It was delicious.

Nine of us got in line for Hagrid’s.  It said 120 minutes, and ended up being 81 minutes.  Very much worth it for such a good ride.

We had some Butterbeer.  Some tried cold and others tried frozen.

We opted not to ride the train back, and instead left the parks and stopped by our vehicles to grab our swim gear for Volcano Bay. 

3:24PM

It was hot.  Feet were hurting.  People were tired.  We pressed on, knowing there was water coming.

The park wasn’t too busy.  It was a good trial run for our VB day later in the week.

I asked my message board friends for dinner ideas.  Bubba Gumps was originally the plan, but we would have had to go back through the garage, and security, to get to CityWalk.

Instead we drove about 10 minutes to Giordano’s and had a nice sit down pizza meal.

Chicago style.  We did NOT need three pizzas.  Nan treated, and we took a bunch home.

And had ice cream before bed.

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.

IOA 5/16 (touringplans.com)

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.

The drive from the Savannah airport to Universal Studios Orlando was decent.  At that hour of the night, the traffic had lessened, and God allowed us to move smoothly, although at a slower speed had just John been driving (I am more timid).

I was all but exhausted as we pulled in to Cabana Bay at 1:06AM.  I pulled up under the awning and left my car to start the check in process.  Thankfully, the lobby was vibrant, if not subdued.  It didn’t feel like we were there in the dead of night.  Multiple Team Members were at the counter and there was another family checking in, and a dad with sons getting some upgrades to their passes.

John arrived just as I was heading to the counter for our check in.  The Team Member, Amanda, was lovely.  She asked if our flight had been delayed and we gave her the Cliff Notes version of our trip.  She sweetly waived our parking fee (which would have needed to be for TWO cars now) and asked a peer to add notes to our map as she disappeared.  When she returned she had some free drink vouchers for us.  She didn’t need to do any of those things, but how nice to feel seen.

Parking was hard to find that late in the night, but I scored a spot close to the building.  We got Noelle and Nan in to the first of the two rooms we could locate.  We mistakenly thought our room would be right next door, but then located it on the rear of the building, directly behind the first room.

Once John had found us (his spot was further away), we got Marie and Tab into their room with Nan and Noelle the other six of us headed to our room.

It was cute.
But at that point…

We got Johanna and Katriel’s bed made up (borrowing a pillow from the first room).  And we were lights out by 2AM. 

I woke in the morning and tip toed to the bathroom and back to bed.  I had no idea what time it was, but normally a very early riser, I was afraid to reach for my iPhone, etc., and wake other sleepers.  It wasn’t too long before I decided maybe I should check.

It was after 7AM. 
I started to get myself around and saw a text from Marie saying they, too, were up and getting ready.  Slowly we all rallied and emerged into a new day.  The same day?  What day is this?

It was warm and sunny.

We dressed in swim gear, and packed up our day bags.  We also put all our belongings in the cars except what we’d need to change into dry clothes.  Sunscreen in hand, we headed to find breakfast.  (Remember, I’d left my two eggs bakes in the big van).

We did a bit of exploring on the way to breakfast.  We saw the bowling alley where I had hoped we would bowl 10PM the night before.  So much for splurging for a hotel…
C’est la vie.  We were alive.

We went to Bayliner which was a glorified food court.  Many different options (like stations) provided different opportunities.  The sticker shock on food prices hit us like bricks.

We had to eat at separate tables, but there would be enough togetherness this week and that a big group reality.

Marie had a salmon and caper sandwich.

I had a croissant with eggs and bacon and cheese and was happy a fruit side was an option over fried potatoes.

After breakfast, we looked around a little more and shopped in the big Universal store. 

And we headed for the pools.
It was a quiet day and we easily found chairs by the pool with a slide.  Despite our official check out at 10AM we were allowed to stay for the day. I’d originally planned to visit our hotel pool and then later visit another resort’s pool.  At this point, less was more.

Free iced drink and reusable cup.

Kids swam and sunned and enjoyed lawn games.

As lunchtime approached we went to the Hideaway Bar by the lazy river side of the park.  We cut through the lobby and Bayliner.

This restaurant told us they couldn’t accommodate food allergies.  Ugh.
So John and Stewart went into Bayliner where they were able to hook him up with Fettuccini Alfredo and chicken.

Marie, Tab and I had shrimp tacos.  I got fruit again!

Johanna loved her cheeseburger with a side of apples.

Tab got fries with her tacos.

I believe these are Noelle’s chicken nuggets, and fries.

We stayed on that side of the resort to use the lazy river, and we mingled with some of the locals.

I started getting the occasional, “How long are we going to stay, Mom?”  I was weighing the value of more swim time (at the $$$ hotel) vs the value of settling in to the rental (there had been little sleep) when it started to sprinkle. 

So we started a gentle process of packing up to go.  First we went back through the lobby and visited the stores a little more.  Then we cleaned up our lounge chairs and changed into clothes.  Then I went and got our other free drink (Starbucks!) before finally moseying to the vehicles. 

Look what they do!  Clearly we had missed that the night before.

We decided to get some dinner on the way to our rental house.  GPS indicated it would be almost an HOUR to get to the rental.  This was NOT how it was supposed to be, but as we found out day in and day out – the construction project on the I-4 exit by our rental made traffic a nightmare.

We went for CiCi’s Pizza.  Which is not very wonderful.  But it was very affordable.  And it solved the “what to eat” question for the night.  We had to be at the rental by 6PM for our grocery delivery slated for between 6PM-8PM.

We made it to the rental, and I sent Tab in with my phone to grab some photos before we trashed the place.

Nan’s room.

Johanna’s and Katriel’s room.

The bathroom they would share.

John’s and my room.

Marie, Tab and Noelle’s room.

The girls’ bathroom.

Stewart’s and Nigel’s room.

The boys’ bathroom.

Groceries arrived by 7PM and it was funny what did not come… but whatever.  We’d make it work.
Because we were alive.
And exhausted.
And adventure was calling early in the morning!