DisneyWorld Days 6 & 7: Universal and Home

Our last day of the trip we actually headed out of Disney and to the world of Harry Potter! We went to Universal Adventure, mainly because my mom and Mackenzie are big Harry Potter fans. And Kaitlyn likes it too, so yet another day at theme parks for our family!

Harry Potter had 3 rides and I have to say that Hogwarts and the ride inside was very confusing. You had to enter the line for the ride to actually go in the castle and it created quite the problem because the way the attendant at the gate was explaining it didn't quite make sense. Just tell us that either way you go this way and you can either ride or not ride but that it's the only way to see the castle! 

Anyway, so here is Hogwarts:

Inside was pretty cool. All these pictures on the wall moved - the pictures inside spoke and moved on every one! 

The ride itself I could have done without. This was the main ride and honestly it would have been okay except it was a bit like a simulator and though you were only slightly moving what you saw with your eyes was very intense and made me completely sick! I preferred the small Harry Potter coaster outside instead. Then there was a really big coaster outside that no one in our group cared to do.

Then we spent considerable time in Seussland! 

After lunch we headed around the rest of the park. The little ones really enjoyed the playgrounds everywhere so we found another one while we waited on Mike to finish a call from work. This one was a big ship (from Popeye). Ashley had fun climbing on the wheel and then swinging on these ropes.  Unfortunately she first took off her shoes, then her socks. When no one else was looking, Kaitlyn apparently stole her socks and hid them somewhere, only one of them went completely missing. The ship was over this river raft ride and I'm pretty sure after searching forever for the sock that someone through into the water. So she had to go with one sock off for the rest of the day.

Speaking of over the river ride, the kids had a lot of fun at the top of the ship shooting water onto unsuspecting riders going by down below. It WAS pretty funny. Just as some of them think they escaped the waterfall without getting wet, something from up above starts landing on them! It was funny. And a little mean. But hey, you know what you're signing up for when you get on those things.

In fact, there were lots of water rides but we weren't really prepared and it was getting late in the day. The problem was once the sun went down it would be really cool, and if we were wet it was going to be freezing and we still had dinner in Downtown Disney to go to. Do we or don't we? Some of us finally decided we'd rather do that than sit there and watch. We had wasted a lot of time and felt like we hadn't done very much in a while. So the brave few of us decided we would get the LEAST wet on the log ride.

I'm telling you this thing felt so much steeper and higher than it looked! Everyone was impressed that NaNaw rode and the little girls too! So did Mackenzie but she didn't like it and didn't want her picture taken afterward. We actually dried rather quickly and had no problems being cold. In fact it felt really good and was really fun!

Then we rode these dinosaur flyers. It was so neat but I'm pretty sure the shortest ride (with a very long line) that I've ever been on in my life. Still it was really cool and glad we did it.

Last playground! Then Ashley lost a SHOE - and this place was enormous! Kaitlyn, after being in trouble for taking the socks, happened to be the person who finally found the shoe so I guess she redeemed herself. A sock we can do without but a shoe? That's kind of a problem.

When it was time to go we had to search high and low to round everybody up. When Ashley sees me and I tell her for the 10th time it's time to go, I quickly get to see this:

She turns like a lightning bolt and runs off! Joy.

We headed out after that for our last dinner in Florida and returned that night to the towel elephant and friends:

Some last shots of our hotel. Here was the view from our walk from our room to the main building and lobby.

And the water wheel outside the restaurant. Goodbye Port Orleans Riverside!

And for the flight home. Sad to leave but happy to go home all at the same time.

And that concludes a most memorable and amazing trip! When I first got home I was glad to just be able to rest and catch up on things, but now that I've caught up and keep looking back at the photos, I'm sad it's all over. Maybe we'll have to go to Disneyland (again) in a few years!