Avengers Assemble

A while back someone asked me if I was excited about the new Avenger's movie.  I smiled, and told them "yes, definitely."  That was a bit of an understatement.  Two months ago while looking ahead at purchasing tickets, I discovered Megaplex was hosting a marathon in anticipation of the Marvel blockbuster.  I'm no stranger to theater-hosted marathons, my first introduction to the phenomenon being the Hobbit marathon I participated in last December.  This, however, was on a completely different scale when one considers just how many movies contributed to the formation of Avengers!  The first, possibly more sane option involved the first Avengers, followed by Age of Ultron.  The marathon I'm speaking about, though, included all eleven contributing movies.  Believe it or not, this option was so popular that the first theater sold out two months in advance, and they opened up a second theater, which also sold out.  By the time I decided to go for it, there really was only one spot where I could get two tickets together.  (Luckily still pretty good seats.)  Anyway, here is a visual representation of my Marvel day.

First thing when we walked in, they gave us these helpful lanyards.  This served as a re-entrance ticket so we could leave the theater and return during our marathon day.  It also was a handy itinerary to keep all the films, and their order straight throughout the night.  Believe me, it was a long day/night, and I wasn't doing so well on the thinking straight part about halfway through it!

Coming off this kind of marathon you might be inclined to think that I would be completely burned out on all the Marvel movies.  While you are generally correct in this thinking, I find myself wanting to not only see Age of Ultron again, but wanting to go back and watch the other movies again.  This mainly stems from the fact that I did doze off during more than one movie!  I would, however, like to point out that I was present for every movie.  Go me!

 

I mentioned I bought tickets nearly two months ago.  That means I had time to find some sweet SWAG for my favorite Avenger.  In case you were wondering, yes, those are arch reactor earrings.  Originally I was trying to get my awesome brother to come, but the poor guy was right in the middle of finals.  I do, however, have a couple of awesome friends who wanted to get involved in this with me.  Also, like I've mentioned before about Comic Con, when you are this dedicated to something, all the other people surrounding you are automatically your friends!

Buckle up for the next 26.5 hours!  First batch of popcorn with my re-fillable collectible tin.

The day started out with me flying back to Utah from Florida.  That in itself was a long, sleepless night, what with maybe 1 hour sleep at the hotel in Florida, 2 hours tops on the plane, then another 3 in my bed when I finally made it home.  However, I started out strong by 6:30pm with the Avengers marathon re-fillable popcorn and drink deal.  Energy was high, and the theater was definitely decked out with balloons, props, and give-aways.  All the movie-goers were in their favorite Marvel gear, and loads of people were well equipped with pillows, blankets, and food.  I myself had opted to show up in pajama pants since this was basically an awesome version of a giant sleep-over.  (All the elements were there, junk food, awesome movies, bed-heads, that one random guy who fell asleep and started snoring…)

My awesome row-buddy Kyle and I trying desperately to stay awake!

An unexpected friend from the ward, Tyler.  He kept me awake and on my toes.  He, unfortunately, was several rows behind us.

There is nothing quite like enjoying a series like this with a whole collection of die-hard fans.  And believe me, in order to sign up for something like this you're either a die-hard, a massive movie fan, or you're crazy!  We all cheered, and gasped, and got excited about odd details including all the after-credit snippets tying the films together.  Also, by the way, apparently I never actually watched most of these post-credit bits (or I had blocked them from my memory).  It was super exciting to see them in a crowd full of people who understood from a comic book perspective the implications of characters like Thanos, etc.  (I don't read comics.)

First up was Iron Man, Hulk (the Edward Norton version), and Iron Man 2.  All excellent, especially since it's no secret that Tony Stark aka Iron Man is my favorite.  Also, contrary to popular opinion, I actually quite liked this version of the Hulk.  By then it was after midnight, all the surrounding good food places were closed, and I was getting a little worn/hungry.  As an unexpected bonus, we had a family with two exceptionally well-behaved kids in front of us who decided to cut out and head home for some much needed sleep.  That meant our row got to stretch out and use their seats as foot-rests!  Excellent.  By the way, we were in a side row of four next to the wall, and our awesome row stuck it out the entire night!

By the time Thor started it was 1:30 am, and I noticed a trend of people starting to drop out.  The row behind us was empty besides one girl using all four seats to sleep.  A good amount of the theater started to clear out, and apparently people were lining the hallways outside taking a snooze.  Thor happens to be my second favorite Avenger, and I really enjoy those movies so I made it strong, but by the time Captain America started at approximately 3:40 am I was done.  I made it through the part where he actually becomes the Cap, then I basically fell asleep propped up on the wall next to me until Cap crashed the ship into the ice.

"It's nice to actually meet you.  I watched you while you were sleeping.  Er, was present while you were unconscious…"

As a matter of strategy, and just plain survival, many people were choosing their "least favorite film" to skip, and using the time to head home for a nap, shower, food, etc.  I had intended to do the same, but upon examination I really didn't have a single one I could bring myself to intentionally skip.  Besides, Captain America would have been the one I chose, and by the time I got a rough two hours shut-eye in-theater, I figured I'd made it that far and might as well stick it out!

The theater was well aware that two theaters-full of fans were likely to get hungry in the middle of the night with no nearby food venues open so late/early.  Therefore, they were kind enough to provide us with a breakfast buffet at 5 am, and 7:45 am between movies.  We were treated to french toast, eggs, bacon, cereal, and tots!  I hadn't planned on eating, but by 5am I was freakin' starving, and tired of subsisting on popcorn!  "This mortal form has grown weak.  I require sustenance!"

After the first Avengers movie we were a collection of over-excited fans.  Also, it dawned on me that it was now light outside, and we were only half-way through our marathon!  Seriously, the last time I had watched movies straight through the night to see the sun come up was college after finals week, and it was completely unintentional.  Also, in college we had then proceeded to fall asleep around 6am and nearly miss our 1:00 pm church.  Anyway, for some reason keeping up this long in a movie theater felt like a pretty monumental accomplishment!  

Next up in the marathon was Iron Man 3, a movie which many apparently considered their "least favorite."  Kyle cut out to get some sleep in his car, and I remained behind with two whole chairs to spread out on.  Besides the no-sleep thing (which I considered a minor inconvenience), the really difficult thing about this event was sitting in one place for that long.  For anyone who has ever flown on a plane, you will understand what I'm talking about!  Also, by that time in the morning our family row-buddies in front of us had made a return, meaning we lost our foot-rests.  Around this time of the day I really began to appreciate the wall next to me as a means of differing my sitting position, and felt pity for anyone without a wall!  Also, if I ever do something like this again, I'm coming better equipped with pillow/blanket, and perhaps some more substantial treats than a protein bar and popcorn.

By the time IM3 finished at 11:00am, it was late enough in the morning that restaurants were starting to open, and I left the theater for the first time since entering it seven movies and 16.5 hours prior.  (Oh my gosh, I just typed that out, and my head exploded a little bit.  I basically lived at that theater.)  I headed to Jimmy Johns, and I've never been so happy to see a sandwich in my life!  Seriously, my digestive system was very angry at me for all the junk food I'd been giving it.  Kyle returned for Thor 2, and the party resumed while I enjoyed my delicious sandwich.  As I mentioned, I love Thor, but I joked that I saw the whole thing except my favorite part, which I happened to doze off for.  

Lame.  I guess I'll just have to watch it again!  This event really made obvious which Avenger was my least favorite, since I managed to fall asleep again during Captain America 2.  Haha.  This was more intentional, since I was worried I'd doze off during Age of Ultron, and I only missed maybe an hour of CA2.  I also decided to take off after the Cap, and get an early dinner since the next film was the last before the new one.  This was a welcome break from the theater since I went to Zupas, and actually stayed long enough to finish my food.

As a random side note, the marathon included Guardians of the Galaxy.  Apparently that movie is part of the same Marvel universe, but only in the fact that they talk about infinity stones (the orb they are stealing from each other the whole time), and Thanos is the behind the scenes villain in both places.  As a side note, I freakin' love this movie!  I saw it three times in the theater, and didn't doze off once during this fourth viewing.  However, it felt strange to leave all our Avenger heroes for a film, and wouldn't have minded them cutting this one out.  After this movie, we were all in excited anticipation of the brand new Avengers movie coming up next.  Upon exiting the theater we were bombarded with a herd of new fans who had either shown up for the two part Avenger "marathon," or were just showing up for Age of Ultron.  What a bunch of light-weights.  We scoff at you and your one movie.  Haha.

I love how Tony always gives a peace sign for photos.  When you watch all the movies back-to-back you notice these things!  Also, I'm pretty sure this guy made his Iron Man, just like the real one!

Just kidding, throw it up there.

The break between movies was nearly 30 minutes, and we all seemed restless for the new one to start.  We refilled our freely-refillable beverages and popcorn tins, and checked out the awesome cosplayers and give-aways.  So exciting!  Also, Ultron was in 3D, and we kept setting off the alarm by getting our 3D glasses too soon, then going in and out of the theater.  

By the time it finally started we were cheering, mostly because it was the new one, but a little bit because we had actually survived a solid 24 hours of movies up to that point.  Imagine our dismay when the screen background was green, and the Marvel logo was pink?  As good-natured fans we joked and booed, and the problem was quickly resolved.  As an added bonus, we were also given a free movie ticket on the way out.  Megaplex, you guys are amazing!

The opening scene was slightly ruined for me with the stupid 3D glasses, but it was so fun having all the background movies right there.  It was so cool to see all of the Avengers assembled in the opening scene.  I admit the 3D took some getting used to, especially with my poor eyes all strained from the previous 24 hours.  It got much better as it went on, but I highly recommend not doing 3D if it's an option.  Anyway, I loved the film!  I loved the new characters, the action sequences, and I especially loved experiencing it with a theater-full of people I now consider friends!  Anyways, after all that I totally want to go see it again.  Anyone up for that?

As an added bonus, we were given a Certificate of Heroic Completion, and a medal!  Hooray.  Grand total: 26.5 hours, 11 movies, and 3 hours of sleep.

Update:  I liked it so much that I went back and saw it the next Monday in the DBox.  Awesome!!  Seriously, this was the perfect movie for DBox.  If you're not sure what that is, they have the chairs programmed to move along with the movie, just like a ride at Disneyland, but for the entire movie.  I've now seen it three times, and I'd probably go again, but only because I still have that free movie pass!

Magic Kingdom - Day 2

Tuesday marked our final full day on our Florida vacation.  We didn't really have major plans, so we got up somewhat early, and decided to head to the breakfast buffet.  I had almost convinced Rachel to head back to Universal, but due to the cost of a Taxi split between the two of us, we decided to instead purchase another ticket to Disneyworld.  Huzzah!

Remember how I mentioned we took a bus and a monorail before?  This time we decided to take the ferry across the lake to get to the park entrance.  I love ferryboats!

Tuesday turned out to be overcast and slightly misty.  It made for perfect, muggy weather to explore the park once more.  After just one day I had already gotten my bearings, and was much better equipped to navigate.  We started our day by snagging some electronic fast passes.  We had a slightly overzealous Disney worker trying to run our computer, and I instantly started street diagnosing her periodontal disease due to her severe halitosis!  We both agreed that our favorite rides were Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean, so we spent some time waiting in line for them.  We also got a fast pass for Autopia, one of the rides we skipped the time before.  There were all these weird bugs hoovering around Autopia, and the track seemed shorter than Disneyland.  Therefore, I wasn't all that thrilled.

Giant turkey leg!  Honestly, I think they were lying, and this was actually ham.  And it actually wasn't that great.

We also spent a good chunk of time checking out the princesses, and those attractions geared towards a younger crowd.  I most certainly got to meet Ariel!  For those of you who are not my parents, I watched Little Mermaid every day over and over when I was a toddler.  She was the Elsa of the 1980s at our house!  We also checked out Belle's storytime, which was not what I was expecting, and was kinda dumb.  Cute for five year olds, I guess!

Beast's castle!

Rapunzel's tower!  Honestly, this show's much better than Frozen.

We finally took the plunge on Splash Mountain!  It was different that Disneyland because the logs had rows instead of single riders.  This was actually extremely beneficial because it helped prevent us from getting so waterlogged.  Because it had been rainy that morning, Rach and I had come equipped with rain gear.  I had been carrying around my umbrella, and Rach had a poncho.  She wore her poncho for the ride, and I was only slightly jealous of her huddling under the thin plastic as we splashed our way through the ride.  It did its job well, and when our ride came to a standstill right next to a particularly splashy waterfall for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to pop my umbrella.  The ride overlords disagreed, and quickly made an announcement correcting my wrongdoing!  Haha.

Rach in her poncho looking slightly skeptical!

Having a blast on Splash Mountain!

We finished our day by picking up a few last-minute souvenirs, which were really mostly treats.  Because Rach needed to be back for closing ceremonies, we took a taxi to Olive Garden for some much needed "healthier" sustenance.  We then proceeded to devour it back at the hotel!  We were pretty famished by that point.

Rach headed to her closing ceremonies, and I took the opportunity to jam out and dance around the hotel room!  I also made a brief foray down to the hotel hot tub with my book, only to have it rapidly fill up with high schoolers.  (Our hotel played host to most of the Utah DECA, as well as several other states, so there were a lot of teenagers around.)  I packed my crap, and when Rach got back we attempted to get a little sleep before getting up around 3 am so we could head downstairs and catch a shuttle to the airport.  Seeya later Florida!

Epcot Day of Food!

Rachel and Ashley's day of food!  ~Said in Janice's voice~

Monday was our day spent at Epcot, and the tour of the world.  The poor ignorant person I am, I always imagined the park was all housed within the giant, iconic golf ball dome.  Not so.  There is a ride inside the golf ball, but it's pretty low key.  The main attraction of Epcot is beyond the dome, and consists of several different "countries" arranged around a big lake.  As implied earlier, Rach and I took the day to sample a host of different foods from each country, and it was fabulous!  Rachel and I actually went to the park just the two of us, instead of bringing along our two student friends.  Epcot lent itself to a much more laid-back experience of wandering between shops and restaurants, with only a couple actual rides.  Each country consisted of a collection of shops, food vendors, and random Disney characters from the specified countries.  The other cool thing was that all of the Disney employees were actually from the countries they were working at!  You actually feel like you've traveled to another country.

Starting our tour around the world we first visited Canada.  We checked out the O Canada 360 degree film featuring Martin Short.  This was amusing to me because I distinctly remember being forced to go to one of these films in Disneyland as a child.  I also remember throwing a fit about it!  Haha.  It was fun to go back as an adult and actually appreciate how cool of a film style this actually can be.  I also decided I would really like to go check out Canada sometime, even it it's just back to Niagara Falls.

Fish and chips at an English pub?

England came next with its British invasion shops filled with tea, biscuits, Sherlock, and The Beatles!  Of all the places, England is probably number one on my list of next vacation.  I was disappointed I didn't find a British flag to purchase!  Next up was France.  We started our food tour at France with all kinds of delicious amuse bouche's, quiche lorraine, creme brûlée, and mousse au chocolat.  Yum!  France was also home to a couple of princesses.  We missed Belle and her Beast, but we did get to meet Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.

She was such a perfect princess.  She also explained that fairies did her hair with magic!

Next up was Morocco where we got to meet Jasmine and Aladdin.  Other than waiting for Agraba's royalty, we didn't spend much time in this land.

After Morocco was Japan.  I picked up some delicious sushi at one of the food sample carts.  We wandered up and down the shopping area, and I contemplated purchasing a kimono.

Next came American adventure with a giant bandstand and BBQ joints.  We kinda just breezed through this area, and went straight to Italy!  Italy was another area just full of delicious food.  We enjoyed pasta and this delicious limoncello custard dessert.  We loved Italy's food so much, we ended up coming back later for dinner.

After Italy came Germany.  Rachel was pretty interested in a bratwurst, and I took some time to ramble through the shops.  I ended up purchasing a beer boot for Blake!  (I'm assuming he'll drink butterbeer out of it?)  I actually used to buy souvenir shot glasses for him whenever I'd go to random airports, since he seemed to be collecting them for a while.

 Next up was China.  Call me ignorant, but it felt very similar to Japan, even in the shops.  While browsing the shops we actually bumped into some of our DECA kids!  I also got to sit and watch some fabulously talented Chinese acrobats.

Norway was the next land on our tour, and I think it was the inspiration for the Frozen castle.  The iconic Elsa and Ana were absent, but they did promise a whole new expansion that I'm quite certain will adopt many characteristics from Disneys new popular franchise.

Mexico was one of our favorites since Rach and I both love Mexican foods.  We tried out some tiny tacos from a food vendor that were delicious.  Within the Aztec pyramid that dominated the Mexican landscape there were Dios de los Muertos themed shopping carts.  There was also a boat ride following the Three Cabelleros. 

After shopping around Mexico, we had completed our tour around the world.  We then headed back towards the golf ball for a couple of our rides.  Within the ball was the Spaceship Earth ride, a slow-moving train-type ride that explored the evolution of human communication.  It was historical and somewhat interesting, but not exactly what I'd call a ride.  Next up came Mission: Space.  Themed after astronaut flight school, when picking the line you waited for, you had to choose Novice or Advanced.  With no prior knowledge of what that even meant, of course we went for Advanced.  It turned out they put you in a spaceship cockpit, told you to fly it, then launched you off to Mars.  The trick was you actually experienced a good deal of G-force as you launched from the surface of Earth, hyperslept through the trip, then re-entered the atmosphere at Mars.  It was awesome!  However, it was certainly not for the faint of heart, as it actually did give me a bit of vertigo.  Pretty sure I'm not cut out to be an actual astronaut!

The next ride for us was Test Track.  This was put on by Chevrolet, and they actually had a car lot-esque display of new vehicles you could sit inside, including a Camero.  This was especially fun for me since I've been gifted with several brothers who are obsessed with fast vehicles!  With this ride you used your electronic ticket/card to design your own car prior to boarding.  You got to pick engine, tires, and the aerodynamics of your body design.  The actual ride was a car that ran you through a series of "tests," including a high-speed chase around the track.  It was a blast!  By the end of it, you got to see just how well your vehicle would perform based on your designs.

All my delicious food samples.  Kabob and falafel from Morocco, and manicotti, lemoncello, and procuitto with cheese from Italy.  Fancy food fest! 

After this ride we determined we would stick around for the fireworks and light show at the end of the evening.  This meant we would pick up delicious sample foods, and stake out a good place from which to view the fireworks.  We ended up on the bridge overlooking the lake with a box full of goodies.  After the light show we headed back to our hotel after walking nearly seven miles in a day!  I probably should be embarrassed about how much our trip centered around food.  Meh.  We ate all kinds of weird things at the strangest times possible, and we were either starving, or stuffed the entire time!

The Magic Kingdom - Day 1

Saturday April 25th was our day for the Magical Kingdom of Disney.  Our day started out early as we had a couple teenaged enthusiasts who insisted we get there the moment the park opened.  I willingly got up by 7 am, and drug myself through a shower.  After a slightly later start than was initially planned, we made it onto a shuttle headed to MK.  Within the Disney property there are free shuttles that will take you to the hotels and parks, which was a good thing because the property is enormous!  From our hotel we took a twenty-minute bus ride and a monorail just to get to the park entrance.

We made it!

I didn't realize prior to going, but Disneyworld is divided into four distinct parks: Magic Kingdom, Epcot center, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood.  We only made it to two of the parks during our adventures.  Magic Kingdom is most similar to Disneyworld with several distinct differences.  I was having the strangest sense of deja vu.  My family and I are regular visitors to Disneyland, and therefore know the park pretty well.  Disneyworld was similar enough that I knew which rides were my favorites, but different enough to confuse me.  Seriously, so confused!

Disney World is much more tech savvy than it's older cousin.  Tickets, fast passes, photo ops, even money were all electronic, which made navigating the park much easier in ways.  Fist stop was to pick up some digital fast passes, then we jumped our butts onto the first ride of the day - Space Mountain!!

I began noticing differences from Land immediately.  First of all, the lines themselves were much more interactive.  In an effort to make waiting in line with hundreds of strangers less taxing, Space Mountain had fun little shooting games in the line, similar to Galaga.  (They thought we wouldn't notice.)  This theme was present in pretty much all the lines, but I liked Space the most!

Get ready for a lot of Avenger's references!  Sorry, not sorry.

That early in the morning we practically walked onto the ride, which was awesome!  Space Mountain and Indiana Jones are my favorite rides in the park, and since Indy didn't have a presence at World, we made it onto this ride several times throughout the trip.  I also had a good time figuring out where the hidden camera within the ride was.  However, they had an irritating trend in Florida of needing to go to a booth manned by an employee to actually view your photo, so you couldn't plagiarize your shot for free.  Seriously, I'm an expert at making dumb faces for in-ride cameras, and I disapproved of where they placed the one for Space.  It was right around a turn so you're not even looking at it - whose bad idea was that?

The original plan was to spend only one day at Magic Kingdom, and one day at Epcot, so our goal was the same as at Universal - do all the things!  We took advantage of our fast passes, and hopped one of the busiest rides - Seven Dwarves mine ride.  It was basically a princess-themed Big Thunder Mountain, and I definitely would not have waited 30 minutes, much less the 90 minute stand-by line.  We did make it onto several of the old classics, including Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Big Thunder Mountain.  Much to my chagrin, I was also forced onto It's a Small World.  I harbor a deep dislike of that ride and it's ridiculously catchy tune.  In all good fun I texted my brother, "I'm being forced onto the bloody 'It's a Small World' ride.  I'm dying inside."  It really wasn't so bad, but my brothers and I have too good a time making fun of it!

Because Pirates is probably my third favorite ride, I did notice when the entire section of floating through the bayou, the watery drop into the darkness at the beginning of the ride, and the ascent back up the hill at the end had been cut.  Sorry World, California does it better!  Also notable by their absence were Indiana Jones, and the Matterhorn.  Although to be fair, I think the Matterhorn made its home in Animal Kingdom.  Overall Disneyworld was roomier and therefore less crowded, but I still think I favor Disneyland!

Within the park there was a growing trend of little girls dressed up a princesses with their hair in fancy up-dos with glittery makeup.  These little humans had made a visit to the Bibbidy Bobbity Boo salon, a place for miniature costumes, hair, and makeup.  We randomly stumbled upon a pirate themed salon for little swashbucklers, and for some reason the nice lady helped up select our pirate names!  I will now be known as Charlotte Tackrash.

Or perhaps some form of knight?...

At some point during the day Rach and I split off from our teenage accomplices to do some shopping.  They were interested in riding Splash Mountain, and with the 'wet shoe Dudley Do-Right disaster' fresh in our minds, we decided to skip it.  Rach has a two-year-old daughter, so we had a blast looking at miniature princess swag.  Side note, I can definitely tell she is a mother, because any cute toddler or infant was an instant draw for Rach!  It was really entertaining for me, and also very obvious what a different stage of life I'm in right now.  Namely not thinking about kids at all, while that's the number one important thing to her.  We also ran into some cute characters, including the wicked stepmother and her daughters from Cinderella.

After running around to all kinds of rides we took a brief break to check out Tom Sawyer island.  This is something I rarely do, and it was actually pretty fun to check out the random foot trails, as well as just sit in a less crowded area.  By then all our feet were basically destroyed!  Haha.  Seriously, we'd sit down at the hotel at the end of the day, then realize how sore our poor legs were once we tried to stand up again.

We ended up leaving the park a little early in order to get to the opening ceremonies for the DECA competition.  It ended up being this massive event with something like 18,000 high schoolers.  It was so packed that we had trouble even moving around the conference center, much less keeping our group together.  As a part of the event the kids were all given swag related to their particular state, and throughout the weekend they worked on trading with each other.  These included pins, some form of headgear, and something that lit up - like a fairy wand or lightsaber!

It was hilarious, because the hot items included literally anything from Canada!  I too got in on some trading, but I ended up giving most of my swag to the students.  It was a blast, but it did take forever to get a bus back to our hotel at the end of the evening.  Ah welcome sleep!

Sunday came as a welcome respite from the constant tourism we had experienced thus far.  As a DECA advisor, Rachel was assigned to work at a booth for most of the morning, which pretty much left me to my own devices.  That meant I slept in, took a nice long shower, and sat out on the balcony reading!  I was planning on heading down to the hotel lobby to get some lunch, but was dismayed to discover they were only open for breakfast on Sundays.  I decided to try out the restaurant at the neighboring B Hotel, which was some kind of American cuisine.  When Rach got back from advising, we decided to venture over to Downtown Disney.  It ended up being a short walk away from our hotel, and we had fun browsing through the random shops.  Admittedly we were a bit disappointed by the shopping selection, but we did enjoy a delicious dinner at a Mexican joint.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing, hanging out on the balcony, and reading my book.  What a lovely day!

Harry Potter Land - Universal Studios

Growing up in the 90's, the release of new Harry Potter books and movies became a huge part of my teenage years, college, and even a little bit of dental school!  Seriously, my best friend Zach and I went to at least one midnight showing of Deathly Hallows in Omaha.  Also, hanging out at midnight to buy the newly released Potter installment so I could binge read it in the next 48 hours was a highlight for me.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like Harry Potter!  Haha.  For some reason I decided to re-read all the books starting last summer, and Harry Potter movies were the series of choice for my Christmas vacation.  All pretty good timing considering I finally made it to Harry Potter land this year!

I had a lot of related items on my bucket list...

This was all part of my Florida extravaganza with my best friend Rachel.  We spent Friday, April 24th hanging out at Universal Studios which, of course, is home to the wizarding world of Harry Potter!  Our DECA group was housed at a hotel within the Disneyworld resort that has shuttles within Disney's property, but in order to get to Universal, we had to find alternate transportation.  We ended up splitting a Taxi between the four of us that decided to go that day.  It ended up being Rachel, me, and two of her students that went on Friday.  The rest of the group headed to Magic Kingdom for the day.  This was actually the highlight of the trip for me, since my major motivation for coming was really just to get to Harry Potter Land.

Universal Studios is divided up into two separate parks, Islands of Adventure, and Universal Studios.  Since none of us had actually been to the parks, we depended almost entirely on my park Ap to figure out where we wanted to go.  It ended up being extremely useful because it included a map with GPS, and ride wait times.  We managed to put together a pretty good strategy in order to make it onto all the rides we wanted in a single day.  We started around 10 am, and ran around until 6 pm.  All in all a very successful day!  We employed all sorts of tactics in order to make it onto as many rides as possible, including single rider lines, and splitting up our group to catch the rides we were most interested in.  Universal has a unique concept of rides in which they provide free for an hour lockers for any loose items (purses, merch, etc) prior to your ride, meaning we made lots of locker stops along the way.  This also meant that most of the rides were more geared to adults, with the rides being much faster or "rougher" than those normally experienced at Disneyland.

Welcome to Islands of Adventure!

Um, I think this was old timey cartoon land?

Basically Universal is a giant movie theme park, so I freakin' loved it!  We started out in Islands of Adventure and made a giant loop.  First was the land of Marvel comics.  We skipped the Hulk roller coaster due to the long wait, and first ride was the Accelatron, basically the tea cup ride.  We then jumped onto the Amazing Spiderman 3D ride.  Next up was old cartoon land, and we jumped onto Dudley Do-Right's falls, a ride very much akin to Bear River rapids.  This was a disappointment in that the line was ridiculously long, and we ended up getting soaked in the process!  Poor Rachel's shoes got completely ruined by getting so wet.  Therefore she was less than excited to get on the next ride with me, Jurassic Park!

That's right, we made it into Jurassic Park!  I was pretty excited about this particular land since it's one of the iconic rides you always see on the commercials, as well as all the hype around the new Jurassic World movie.  One of the guys and I jumped on the ride, which was another water tour type ride that gets sidetracked into dinosaur mayhem - just like in the movie!  You end up going down a big drop right as a T-rex is coming after you.  I loved it!  According to Rach (who watched from the sidelines), the drop apparently kicked up a huge wave of water, but I actually stayed pretty dry.

Not too wet after our prehistoric trip down the waterfall!

We walked around until through the iconic park gates we saw a familiar castle!  We had finally made our way around to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts castle.  The Hogsmeade section of Potter land included three different rides, but the main attraction was the shops of Hogsmeade, and the butterbeer!

Definitely worth the hype!  It tasted a lot like rich cream soda, and I will be working on making some at home for my next Potter marathon!

Hogwarts Castle - also the entrance to the Forbidden Journey ride.

Within Hogwarts castle was the ride the Forbidden Journey.  This was more of a 3D interactive ride, as well as a bit of a roller coaster.  I could probably best describe this as a more exciting Soarin' Over California ride.  It took us through the castle grounds, and through the castle as if you were flying on a broomstick, and involved all our favorite characters!  I loved it.  I skipped the other two rides, and instead headed to the Three Broomsticks for some delicious British food.

The entrance to Three Broomsticks, one of the two pubs in Hogsmeade, this one most famous for its butterbeer!

The attention to detail was amazing!  I actually felt like I was in a magical British pub.

Honestly this was my favorite part of the day.  I got to sit back for a moment and enjoy English fish and chips with a frothy butterbeer while completely surrounded by Harry Potter's world!  I'm such a book nerd…  We spent some time in the shops picking up merch, then we boarded the Hogwarts Express to ride from Hogsmeade over to Diagon Alley.  While riding the Express you actually cross from one park to another, but in the meantime they had fun videos on the "windows" showing the British countryside, as well as shadows of students passing in the corridor outside our doors!  We eventually disembarked in King's Cross, and found ourselves transported to Universal Studios London.

Phone box!

The entrance to Diagon Alley, just like in the movie, wasn't actually marked.  It was a very unassuming entrance that opened up to a fantastic alley of authentic Diagon shops.

A view down the alley with the ancient white dragon perched atop Gringotts.  She would apparently breathe fire occasionally, but I never saw it.

Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, the twins joke shop.

The eccentric stacks of wands inside Ollivander's wand shop.

We spent quite a while exploring the shops.  Unfortunately they were completely packed, making shopping a bit cumbersome.  However, we did get to explore all the magical items, including a wide array of wands!  Diagon Alley had one ride, Escape from Gringotts.  That's right, we got to ride to the underground vaults within Gringotts, and make our escape from the goblins and Voldermort!  Yet another fun roller coaster employing 3D videos.  It was fantastic!

Inside Gringotts.

Us and some of the goblins… not the kids, the old guys behind us!

Headed down Knockturn Alley!  Once again, true to the books you actually had to hunt this area down.

After our ride we visited Knockturn Alley, then decided to leave the magical world of Harry Potter to check out the rest of Universal Studios.  It was getting on in the afternoon, so we quickly made some decisions about what we still had time to fit in.  We caught a ride on Revenge of the Mummy, which I loved!  The Mummy was literally my favorite movie for nearly a year back when I was in eighth grade, not to mention all its sequels, so I couldn't help be entranced by Brendan Fraser's cameos in the ride.  Our last ride was Hollywood Rip Ride, which basically was an awesome looping, upside-down roller coaster set to whatever music you wanted to choose.  Best of all was the completely straight-up ascent up the track right out of the gate.  We went in the single rider line, but we still ended up being in line for nearly an hour.  That was the longest we had waited in line all day!  Anyway, I selected ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'" for my thrilling coaster ride.  It was awesome!

Exhausted and footsore, we managed to meet up again and called it quits for the day.  This was mostly because they were kicking us out of the park for a graduation event, but we were pretty well done.  One of our girls had broken a shoe, and poor Rach still had soggy shoes from the stupid Dudley Do-Right ride (seriously, skip that one)!  We hobbled our way out of the park, deciding to stop off at a delicious sounding Mexican joint for some much needed food (and Diet Coke).  It was seriously the best food I'd had since… well the Three Broomsticks that afternoon.  Haha.

Basically everyone fell asleep on the nearly 30 minute cab ride back to the hotel.  Luckily by then the hotel had opened up all our rooms, and Rach and I were able to get into our shared room.  After walking what my phone claimed was like 9 miles, and only about 7 hours of sleep within the last 48 hours, I was wiped.  Poor Rach was trying to put together our plan for the next day, but after showering I just wanted sleep.  I vaguely remember her talking, and I made some kind of response to her prodding.  She had to go to an advisor meeting, and by the time she got back I was out for the night.  Yep, I'm basically useless without sleep!

What a fabulous, magical day exploring the world of Harry Potter!