Tuesday, July 14: The Best of Universal
Today was the final day on our Universal tickets, and we certainly made the absolute best of it! Thankfully, Geoffrey was feeling completely back to normal, so we packed our stuff and headed straight back to Epic Universe for one last hurrah.
We kicked off our morning in the Isle of Berk, using one of our remaining Express Passes to catch a second flight on Hiccup's Wing Gliders. We really do love the layout and speed of this coaster, but the lap bar restraint digs into my and Katelyn's legs in a super awkward and slightly painful way. Yikes!
Next, we cashed in our final priority Express Passes at Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry and had another absolutely flawless ride. For lunch, we decided to try out Pizza Moon in Celestial Park since we had heard rave reviews about it. Geoffrey opted for a classic Caesar salad, while the rest of us shared two of their artisan pizzas:
The Nanarossa: A fresh mix of classic tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, creamy stracciatella cheese, confit tomatoes, and fresh basil.
Pizza Lunare: A white pizza with roasted garlic béchamel, a specialty fromage de lune cheese, ricotta, crispy pancetta, garlic confit, and a striking purple celestial ube crust!
Both pizzas were incredibly fresh and absolutely delicious. We can totally see why this spot gets rated so highly- this is definitely not your standard, generic theme park pizza!
After lunch, Geoffrey, Katelyn, and I decided to take the shuttle bus back over to the original Universal Studios Florida campus, while Grant decided to hang back at Epic to watch The Untrainable Dragon live-action show one more time.
The three of us headed straight for the Single Rider line at Revenge of the Mummy, and we practically walked right into the launch station- it was fantastic! Katelyn and I even lucked out and ended up seated in the exact same row. As we exited the ride, we were greeted by a massive Florida downpour. With crowds of people blocking the exits to avoid getting wet, we decided to just jump right back into the Single Rider queue, and rode it a second time with absolutely zero wait!
By the time we walked out the second time, the downpour had downgraded to a gentle summer rain, so we trekked over to Diagon Alley to ride Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. Right as we arrived, the sky opened up again. The kids dashed straight into the Single Rider line while I stashed our bags in the lockers and met them inside. The line moved beautifully, and we were on the ride vehicle within 10 minutes. Even though we used the Single Rider line, we managed to get loaded onto the exact same ride vehicle, just split across three different rows.
This turned out to be an absolute blessing in disguise: just after the final scene of the ride, our train got delayed on the tracks. We sat there, delayed, for about 5 to 10 minutes - they even turned the emergency light on - before the ride system finally pulled us back into the unloading station. The team was incredibly apologetic about the delay and offered everyone a complimentary re-ride for the inconvenience. Those of us who wanted to go again lined up near the Child Swap room and were buckled back into a fresh train in less than five minutes!
Grant arrived at Universal Studios just as we were finishing up our double run on Gringotts. Our primary mission for the evening was to conquer Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, the only major ride we hadn't managed to get on yet, but due to the persistent lightning storm, it was still closed. Instead, we met over by E.T. Adventure to take another ride on our favorite classic Universal dark ride. After our bike flight to the Green Planet, we took one more spin through Men in Black: Alien Attack while waiting for the weather to clear out.
Once we stepped out of MIB, it looked like the storm was finally breaking. We took the Hogwarts Express over to Islands of Adventure to position ourselves for when the coasters reopened. We squeezed in a ride on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, and then, finally, the coasters reopened, and we jumped into line for Hagrid's! It was the absolute perfect ending to our Universal week.
Once the parks officially closed, we headed over to the NBC Sports Grill & Brew for a great dinner before heading back to our hotel to rest up for the Disney leg of our trip!
Wednesday, July 15: Magic Kingdom
This morning, we woke up, packed up our things from our Cypress Palms timeshare, and loaded everything in the car. We drove over to Disney's Wilderness Lodge to meet up with Teri and Damien for lunch at Whispering Canyon Cafe. It happens to be Disney's Annual Passholder Appreciation Month, which means a select handful of table-service restaurants offer a 40% discount on lunch from Monday through Thursday. It was an incredible deal!
After lunch, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom for our official first Disney day! We started out with Grant, Geoffrey, Katelyn, and Damien riding Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This was a Damien's first ride on this coaster, but he agreed to give in a try under one condition - he had to ride right next to Katelyn. While they braved the mine train, Teri and I headed to Tomorrowland and rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover three times in a row—the Cast Members let us stay on without even getting off!
Next, we caught the newly refreshed Country Bear Musical Jamboree stage show and then took a boat through Pirates of the Caribbean. While waiting, we had checked into the digital queue for the brand-new Disney Vacation Club (DVC) Member Lounge in Frontierland, and our number finally got called. The lounge was nice and offered the standard complimentary soda machines and snacks, but the seating wasn't super relaxing (stools!) and the space itself was relatively small. I guess the stools kept people from not staying as long. Plus, having to check-in and wait an hour to be called up wasn’t quite as seamless as other DVC lounges, but it’s still a great, air-conditioned perk to have access to.
After relaxing in the lounge, Damien decided he was brave enough to try Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, again, only if he could sit with Katelyn (are we noticing a pattern here?). The coaster just recently reopened after a massive refurbishment where they re-tracked the entire mountain, and wow, you can absolutely tell! The ride is noticebly smoother now; it feels like a completely different coaster. Damien ended up loving it! Next, we headed over to drop down Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, with Damien only agreeing to try it if... you guessed it... he could ride alongside Katelyn once again.
We had received a notification while we were in the DVC lounge that our studio was officially ready over at Bay Lake Tower at Disney's Contemporary Resort. Grant used this window to run out to the car, grab all our perishable refrigerator groceries from the trunk, and bring them up to the room. That is easily the absolute best thing about staying at the Contemporary, the dedicated walking path means you can stroll back and forth to the front gates of Magic Kingdom in just a few minutes.
By the time we finished splashing down the bayou, Grant had walked right back into the park. It was about 9:45 PM at this point. While regular park hours ended at 11:00 PM, tonight was a dedicated Extended Evening Theme Park Hours night for Deluxe Resort guests, meaning we Benedict's got to stay inside the park until 1:00 AM! Teri and Damien decided to head out after Tiana's, so we said our goodnights, and then Geoffrey, Katelyn, and I met up with Grant outside the Haunted Mansion.
Once the daytime crowds cleared out, we went on an absolute tear through Fantasyland, riding "it's a small world" and Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid. By the time we made it over to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the extra hours had officially begun and we had to start scanning our room keys to enter lines. Pooh actually ended up being our second-longest wait of the night at a whopping 15 minutes!
Next, we hit Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. They have completely updated this ride with brand-new, detachable blasters that come right out of the holsters (just like the Disneyland version—yay!), along with new digital laser targets that make aiming so much easier. Plus, the entire queue has been deep-cleaned and refreshed, and it no longer has that weird, stale smell! Double win!
Afterward, we hit Space Mountain, which was a literal five-minute walk-on. That low wait time was the only reason I agreed to ride it, and I still immediately regretted it because it was so bumpy and painful for my back. To burn a little more time before our strategic late-night run at TRON, we walked over to ride Peter Pan’s Flight, and we still had enough time to squeeze in a second ride on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!
Finally, we zoomed back over to Tomorrowland and stepped into the queue for TRON Lightcycle / Run at exactly 12:55 AM. We managed to hit almost every single major attraction in the Magic Kingdom today, despite not even stepping past the turnstiles until 3:30 in the afternoon! We missed a couple of minor things, but all in all, it was a wildly successful day. We left the Magic Kingdom just before 2:00 AM.
We walked the path back to Bay Lake Tower, unloaded the rest of our luggage from the car. From our balcony, we can see Tomorrowland and the castle!
Please don't ask what time we actually turned the lights out and fell asleep!
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