Universal Islands of Adventure

Besides hanging out at the Nick hotel (which is a vacation in itself), our goal after the Disney cruise was to get to Islands of Adventure to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (aka Harry Potterland). We had never been to Universal (being the Disney purist that I am), so this was truly an adventure. The other reason we hadn't been there was because I live in a family of roller coaster wimps! The only one that I have a shot of riding 'big rides' with me is currently too short to do most of them. But I was determined to ride some 'killer coaster' this trip, even if I was fairly confident I would be doing them solo.

Here's Mark and the girls at the entrance of the park:






Katie on some store prop wave:

Katie and I waiting for the park rope to drop:

So we headed straight for the Harry Potter section (along with 29 million other people). Here we are in Hogsmeade in front of the Hogwarts Express (this is for you Nannie Jane!)

Hogsmeade (notice the snow on the roof - too cute)

The castle at Hogwarts:

Emma and I waited in line to ride the smaller roller coaster called the Hippogriff where we saw Buckbeak. I am trying to culture her love of thrill rides:

The girls and I with the masses in front of Hogwarts castle:

Posing with my favorite Hermione dress:

The Owl Post:

This was the big Incredible Hulk roller coaster that I did the 'single rider' line by myself. It was huge!

Dr. Seuss carousel:

This ride is a little more Katie's speed:

We ran across the Cat in the Hat lunch show in a restaurant we stopped at for lunch. It reminded me of the old Disneyworld days when characters did random shows in restaurants and then you could meet and greet afterwards. (ah... the good ole days) Anyway, here was the show:

Then the characters walked around afterwards and you could take pictures. The girls with Thing 2 before:

... and after:

... with Cat in the Hat:

Katie and I were fascinated with the hand dryers in the bathroom. (and for all you Harry Potter fans, you gotta potty in wizardland b/c Moaning Myrtle is in there!)

I'm not real good at this section because I am not a big Marvel Hero person, but this was Wolverine (.... but I didn't see my boyfriend Hugh Jackman anywhere):

Emma playing on the Jurassic Park computers - making her Dinosaur genetic splice:

The girls and Betty Boop in the comics section:

Now.... Mark basically never asks to have his picture taken with any characters. We were on our way out of Universal b/c it was steaming hot and the girls were very tired. I had just taken the picture above of the girls with Betty, and I am turning to leave and I hear.. "wait, I want to take a picture" from behind me... what, you want to what.... oh... okay, big guy!

So here is Mark's one requested picture:

I personally , would have taken Ariel on the cruise before this girl, but... to each his own.

That kinda wraps up our vacation. Hope you have enjoyed it. I may do a wrap up blog next, and then move on to T-ball and dance recital. Later - I gotta go work on my scrap book now.

Off the cruise and on to the Nickelodeon Hotel

So... sad as it is, all good things must come to an end. The nice thing about this vacation is that it had a second part to it... the Nickelodeon hotel (which my kids love).

Here is our cabin TV showing our complete route:


Katie after she took her braids out:

Katie and Emma on Blue's Clue's thinking chair:

Katie and Emma with Blue:

The girls got air brushed tattoos by the pool. Emma:

Katie:

Emma and Sponge Bob:

Emma with Patrick and Sponge Bob:

Katie and Emma with Sandy Cheeks (we actually figured out where the characters came out from "backstage" and 'snuck' this quick pic with Sandy so we didn't have to wait in line. (Emma and I had waited 1/2 hour for Sponge Bob):

Katie with a slime shake by the pool:

I realized I didn't take too many pictures by the pool, or of our room. We had been here once before and I guess I didn't even think about it. I've got some pool videos up on my new You Tube page. Check it out! www.youtube.com/user/luvwdw25

Next post should be our day at Universal's Islands of Adventure.

Meeting the princesses and last night on the Dream

The last day of the cruise is an "at sea" day. Basically we had the whole day to play on the ship. One of the things on our to-do list was a meet and greet with the princesses. The characters seem very accessible on the cruise, but the princesses were a hot ticket for sure. This was one of those "psycho-Disney-mom" moments where we got there 30 minutes early and waited for about 45 minutes to see them. It was worth it!

Here is the line up:

Our first princess was Snow White. This is actually the picture I purchased from Disney b/c it came out really cute. (... and since each 5x7 was 10 dollars, I had to choose wisely! - don't even asked me what I paid for the one 8x10)

Belle: (this one cracks me up b/c it looks like Katie 'goosed' her)

Sleeping Beauty:

Princess Tiana - this is the main reason we waited in the long line. My girls have met all the princesses before, but never her. Katie told her that we were from Louisiana 'like her' and she was very impressed:

Ariel (without the fin):

And the "piece de resistance", Cinderella. This is the only one I got of all four of us:

That night we ate at The Royal Palace restaurant. Mark got a beef tenderloin:

Katie's dessert, the "Royal cupcakes":

I just wanted to include a few pics of the food. It was very 'fancy'.

We were seated each night at the same number table (so you didn't have to wait to be seated, you could just find your number), and we were actually seated with another family. They had two girls between Katie and Emma's age and were from Georgia. We had a great time hanging out with them each night, and the girls got along great.

Here is Katie and Emma with Jaycee and Lexie:

Also, on the cruise your servers stay with you each night, so they really get to know you. This is the girls with our head and assisstant servers, Sapto (he was from the Phillipines) and Modesto - and I forget where she was from, sorry). They were really wonderful with the kids:

I spent most of that night packing us up for the next morning. You had to have your bags packed and outside of your room by 10 pm. (this was stressful)

As I am wrapping up this part of vacation (the Cruise), I am realizing there are some 'random' pictures that I haven't posted. I'm going to go through those eventually and post them in a wrap up blog.

Castaway Cay and Pirate night (arrrrrgh!)

The 2nd morning of our cruise we landed on Castaway Cay, Disney's private island and this was probably one of our most favorite days. I realized that I didn't take that many pictures while we were there b/c we were busy, busy, busy! I did take some great videos, which are on my You Tube page now.

Here's Katie and I with the traditional morning picture:



Here's Emma in the morning, notice the braids are gone, and she's kinda curly:

Mark and the girls on the beach. We got snorkel equipment and life jackets. We also used these with our Sting Ray encounter.

We ate some amazing BBQ at lunch and ran into Chip and Dale after we ate:

Emma in her Mickey beach braids hat:

This was the beach area. It started out kinda overcast that morning, which made it nice and cool, but the sun eventually did come out:

We sat down by this shop where we got our snorkel equipment and checked in for our sting ray swim:

That night on the ship was pirate night. We actually went to the see the fourth pirate movie while we were on board. This was pretty exciting b/c we didn't think it was going to be playing since it had just opened that weekend. It was awesome!

They did a stage show which included our favorite, Captain Jack Sparrow. He repelled down from the top of this red smoke stack thingy (which I believe is not a real smoke stack thingy). It was amazing. After some song and dance they had a great pirate dance party. I didn't take any pictures or video from that night b/c I had left it in the room. The girls danced until after 11 pm, and we didn't sleep until midnight!

Okay, so I would never normally do this at home, but we did wear matching Mickey pirate shirts for this night. I was told that many people dress up (which they do), and I didn't want to worry about "costumes", but I did get a co-worker of Mark and I's to make these adorable shirts. Katie and Emma had their names on the back too - cheesy, I know!

Lastly, when we finally came back to our room (like, I said, probably around 11:45 or so), we were greeted with a towel monkey! Too cute. Gotta love Disney!