Gryffindor's on tour 2017 Day 8 Universal & RPR

[Excitedx4]

Today we were off for an overnight stay at the Royal Pacific Resort at Universal. My alarm went off at 6.30am and I really couldn't be bothered moving, I could of happily have had a chill out day today! Anyway I got myself moving at 7am to get showered and dressed and to wake everyone up. I was having a real hard time getting Evan out of bed and I did start getting angry with him, he was becoming a major PITA! Finally got him up and some food down him.

After my toenail finally fell off the night before I got my nail varnish out and just painted the skin so that it looked like I had a toenail from afar, it just looked too weird without anything there!

We were off in the car by 8am and arrived at RPR at 9am. The kiosks in RPR were broke and we were told that all the CM's in the parks knew this and we were to use our hotel keys to gain entrance to the rides.

We were in Universal by 9.30am, we headed straight onto Rip Ride Rocket and used the child swap as Jacob isn't big enough, Dave and Evan went on first, then me and Evan. We were on and off very quickly.

Next we headed over to transformers there was a bit of a queue in the express lane, we waited around 15 minutes, it was apparent the park was quite busy and it was very hot. We had a toilet stop and were all a bit peckish so we got a big chocolate Krispy treat and had it cut into 4 pieces as these are huge! We paid $3.95 and it put us over until our lunch. We also bought a universal refillable cup at this point too. I love the freestyle machines you get here.



Me and Evan went to meet the conductor of the knight bus, he was really in character asking Evan what house he was in but Evan had no idea what he was on about, it was really funny. I was like well I think I would be in hufflepuff but he is definitely in slytherin because he's not good! 😂😂

We went into Diagonal Alley for Jacob to buy a wand. At the end of our holiday in 2016 Jacob was desperate for a wand but he had spent all of his holiday money so I refused to buy him one, want to learn the value of money from a young age he had spent $300! Anyway the whole year he never forgot and it was the one thing he wanted to buy with his holiday money this year. It certainly taught him the value of money. Ollivanders was heaving, it is such a small shop and we could hardly move in there. The queue was long to pay but it went down really quickly. Jacob chose the interactive Harry Potter wand and it cost him $53.20. He was so happy with his wand.

We went over to ride gringotts, I went into the dreaded locker area where people think it is a meeting place for all of their families and congregate for reasons unknown to me :angry: send 1 nominated person you imbeciles!

It takes us 40 minutes from the entrance to Riding the ride, express pass my eye! It's still a brilliant ride though, I love it! Back out and into the dreaded lockers again, again it is absolutely heaving and this time in the middle of the lockers are a group of 5 girls all topping up their makeup! Seriously in the middle of the locker area, either do it outside or in the toilets or anywhere else but the busiest place on earth! And girls I hate to break it to you but in this heat it's just going to melt off your face anyway 😂😂

Jacob tries out a few spells around dragon alley whilst we all have a good look around and watch the dragon breathing fire.

We were all hot so we decided to head to Panda Express in CityWalk for dinner and a cool down at 1pm. We had 2x 2 entree plates consisting of shrimp, orange chicken, Beijing beef and sweet chilli chicken plus 2 sides of noodles, 4 waters and a Diet Coke all coming to $26.68. We all wolfed it down.

Feeling full and refreshed we walked back over to Universal and onto MIB. I won by 168,500 and Evan was absolutely fuming with his score of 13,000 apparently his gun was broken! He's such a sore loser .

Jacob and I went over to ride the Simpsons whilst Dave and Evan went off for the big rides. I bought myself some sick bands off eBay for 99p as the simpsons makes me feel queasy. These worked a treat as I felt fine! There was a little English boy on our ride sat next me shouting the whole way through, I love it, I love it, I love it. He was so funny I loved him! If you were dibbers we picked up the phone at the kwik-e-mart and we got apou, Jacob was howling!

Me and Jacob went over to E.T and the CM was really funny about letting us through the express pass not believing us about the broken machines at the hotel. I was not impressed at all basically being made out to be a liar after paying quite a bit of money to stay there. Anyway we were let on eventually. As we got off the ride we were walking out and Jacob shouted "omg mum that ride was sick" I started laughing and saying to another English family he's got low expectations and they were laughing because they thought he said something else (sh*t) 😂😂😂 we all had a good laugh about it!

We met Dave and Evan at 4pm and decided to go to the hotel for a rest before coming back tonight. We were allocated a ground floor disabled room so not much of a view but it was fine. We had an hours sleep before refreshing and heading out to the Hard Rock Cafe for some tea.

We were seated quickly and it was quite funny because they had congregated all the people in wheelchairs all together it was like the wheelchair corner! Both me and Dave had the club sandwiches, Jacob had cheeseburger whilst Evan had pizza. It was all very nice and came to $47.93 plus $8 tip.

After our tea (cos we're from up north ) we went back to Universal as we were doing islands of adventure tomorrow and headed for minions

We were on the ride within 10 minutes and really enjoyed it, the sick bands were definitely helping as this made me sick last time too. We came out and had a boogie with the minions.

We separated again to do the mummy and jimmy fallon before meeting up for the firework spectacular. Spectacular it was not, in fact compared to Disney it was spectacularly rubbish 😂 And some of the scenes they show during it are definitely not for young viewers!

We got one last refill and left, the water taxi was heaving so we walked back to RPR and headed straight to bed as we were shattered!

I couldn't believe we had done a whole day at universal and it stayed dry, it always rains on us at universal, it seems we have finally broken the curse.

[mouselover22]

Great day! Jacob looks very happy with his wand

[JanetteP]

Another great day - never thought about getting sick bands - I miss all the simulator rides as they make me feel so sick - definitely going to get some for our next trip.

[Excitedx4]

Originally Posted by JanetteParker

Another great day - never thought about getting sick bands - I miss all the simulator rides as they make me feel so sick - definitely going to get some for our next trip.

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They really made a difference to me

[Goldia]

Your toe nail injury does sound horrid, but because I managed to skip this day at least I have the spoiler of knowing it's not too bad as I've already seen the photo from later (not sure how I got out of sync!). Anyway, your panda express food looks yummy to me.

[Excitedx4]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Your toe nail injury does sound horrid, but because I managed to skip this day at least I have the spoiler of knowing it's not too bad as I've already seen the photo from later (not sure how I got out of sync!). Anyway, your panda express food looks yummy to me.

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Haha yes it was all fine. Panda Express is amazeballs!

[CoasterQueen]

Just showed my husband your photo of Jacob with his wand and it has brought tears to his eyes lol. He is such a softie A picture of sheer joy. I absolutely agree that it does not hurt children to learn to wait for something that they really want it teaches them that you cant have everything-he will cherish it so much more now.

[i love jack]

As if you’d be trying to blag your way into ET out of all the rides
I also need to try Panda Express

[Mortimer Mouse]

I'm following your trip with interest as we're also doing a more relaxing non-disney trip this year, with a stay in RPR.

[Excitedx4]

Originally Posted by mouselover22

Great day! Jacob looks very happy with his wand

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He was very pleased and plays with it at home a lot too. Thanks for reading.

Originally Posted by CoasterQueen

Just showed my husband your photo of Jacob with his wand and it has brought tears to his eyes lol. He is such a softie A picture of sheer joy. I absolutely agree that it does not hurt children to learn to wait for something that they really want it teaches them that you cant have everything-he will cherish it so much more now.

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What a lovely comment! Thank you for reading and commenting.

Originally Posted by i love jack

As if you’d be trying to blag your way into ET out of all the rides
I also need to try Panda Express

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I know yeah ET the thrill of all rides Panda Express is fab, and 1 tray feeds at least 2 of you!

Originally Posted by Mortimer Mouse

I'm following your trip with interest as we're also doing a more relaxing non-disney trip this year, with a stay in RPR.

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Brill when are you guys heading back over?