Universal day

Today, we spent the day at Universal Studios.  While I can get you around Disney World pretty well, I knew absolutely nothing about Universal before today.  And, my exhaustion was catching up with me and I spent most of the day really not feeling well at all.  

But these girls are troopers, and they found fun!

We walked through the Dr. Seuss area, and though we didn't stop and visit any of it, it was the cutest thing!  I would love to go back sometime and explore.

Truffula trees!

Sylvester McMonkey McBeem's Star On/Off Machine!

We made our way to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was pretty amazing.  There were people wearing robes and carrying wands everywhere.  (There are lots of things wands will interact with, and it's pretty neat.)  I sat in a pavilion area for most of the morning trying to feel better while the girls explored this area and rode the dragon challenge a few times.

Annah had a frozen butterbeer, which was really caramel-y and yummy. 

I'm only about halfway through the first Harry Potter book myself, so some things made sense to me, but most of the details were kind of over my head.  Annah is on the 6th book, so she was really enjoying the atmosphere.

We rode the Hogwarts Express from Hogwarts to Kings Cross.

It was so cool!  Probably my favorite thing of the day!

The platform at 9 3/4!

Found our directors having lunch at Louie's Italian Restaurant. Our lunch there was wonderful, and helped me feel a lot better!

This place is huge.  We did a lot of walking, and felt like we didn't get to see a fraction of what we would have liked to.

But we did see this!!!

Scooby and Shaggy!

While we were walking around, we came across the end of a Sponge Bob parade or afternoon street show.

This fish took a real liking to the girls.

The Men In Black were on the street.

We wanted to take a little time to let our food digest before the girls rode the Rip Ride Rockit rollercoaster...

So we looked up shows on the Universal app.  The Terminator show had a short wait and was nearby.  None of the girls had ever seen any of the Terminator movies, and it wasn't a great show.  Bummer.

As we were walking towards the ROckit, we found a Hello Kitty store!!!  I had childhood flashbacks!  The tiny little Hello Kitty Store in Glenbrook Mall was my favorite store when I was little!  I loved to go in there and look at all the cutesy little things!

This store was huge, and had multiple areas.  They were all adorable!!!

Kitty shaped doorways!

The floor!

The girls stood in line for 2 hours to ride the Rockit! I found a shady spot in a somewhat secluded area near the first aid station and rested.  I think I even fell asleep holding onto all our bags.  (That was one thing we definitely didn't like about Universal--You can't take anything on rides with you, and you have to wait in line to get a 1-hr locker, then wait in another line for the ride. So, I was the bag-watcher for the day while the girls went on rides.) 

We wanted to see the Harry Potter Diagon Alley area, but were running out of time before we had to meet the rest of our group for supper.  We explored a little bit and saw the phone boot for the Ministry of Magic.

And the Knight Bus!

We had a hard time finding the entrance to Diagon Alley, and then felt a little silly once we did...of course it would be hidden!

We did go into Weasly's Wizard Wheezes!

At Honeydukes, I bought Sylvia a chocolate frog and Caeden some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.  We also bought some butterbeer fudge for my parents. 

We so wanted to explore Daigon Alley more, but we were out of time and discovered we were going to basically have to RUN to get to the City Walk area in time for supper with our whole group.

We were having trouble finding Bubba Gump's, but we found Miss S and Mr. R, so we just followed them!

We waited outside Bubba's until each group was called.

I did go into the gift shop and bought Jeremy a t-shirt with his favorite Forrest Gump saying, "Stupid is as stupid does," and a magnet that is a map of the US with a little Forrest that "runs" across the country.  

There is so much fun memorabilia at Bubba Gump's!

The menu...

Each table has this license plate, and if you flip up the red one from behind, it says, "Stop, Forrest, Stop" and the server will stop at your table to see what you need.

There were tons of quotes from the movie on our table.

Bubba Gump's was good.  After, we all walked back to the bus and Mr. M handed out the silly chaperone-given awards to each student.  Several students went with parents to spend some more spring break time in Florida.  The rest of us got back on the bus for the long, long trip home.  We were actually really happy to sit down and rest and try to get some sleep.  Though we were all ridiculously tired and exhausted, we were all really happy and grateful to have had such a wonderful trip and so many unforgettable experiences.