Once you've been to Hogwarts, Arkansas just isn't the same.
And don't get me started on the most magical place on Earth.
Dylan and I arrived in Florida three hours later than planned. Our plane's left engine wouldn't start so when we did arrive I was thrilled to land alive and with Dylan still in tow. We had the most amazing travel day together.
We got to Disney's Halloween Party just after dinner and enjoyed our favorite rides with no lines!
Dylan wore his Halo costume but Dane was too hot to wear his. We came up with characters that Dane could say he was when someone would ask who he was supposed to be (i.e. college student, tourist, army man on leave). Randy and I wore our silly hats and was stopped all night by other party goers asking where we got the hats and telling us they loved them.
We found that it doesn't matter how fancy your costume is, if it isn't unique no one will care about it. We saw some really nice costumes but they were all so overdone by many people. Back in 2007 when we went to the same event Dane and Dylan wore homemade Mario and Luigi costumes because you couldn't buy them anywhere. We had tons of compliments on their costumes that night. This year you can buy those costumes in stores so there were lots of people dressed up as Mario and Luigi so it wasn't as unique anymore. Dane said he wanted to go rip the hat off one kid and say, "That was so three years ago." I just told him, as usual we are always ahead of the trends. ha!
Disney at Halloween is a lot of fun. I would love to go during the Christmas season with the boys.
On Friday and Saturday we enjoyed Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Universal Studios is actually our favorite parks. Randy can't get enough of the roller coasters.
We LOVED the Harry Potter addition.
This is Hogwarts where the main attraction is inside.
The Village was totally cool too!
You can't miss the wand shop where the wand picks you!
This is the evidence that I was actually on the trip.
When you are in the village you can't miss out on the Butterbeer!
Amazing!
We did spend time in other areas of the parks.
Dr. Seuss Landing (not Disney) is the happiest place on Earth if you ask me.
The comics section of the park is always fun!
And then there is the Jurassic Park area...
where I reached a new level of embarrassment.
I actually ducked away hoping no one would know that I was his mother. It's a long story and not very interesting unless you were there but bless his heart he was so funny. Funny because he appeared to have an IQ of 80 for a few moments.
What I love about Disney and Universal is not that there are a bunch of cool rides but because everything is such an experience. I love the motion simulators, the 4D, the roller coasters in the buildings so you don't know how high off the ground you are and that the rides have stories. You don't just hop on and 30 seconds later get off.
This is the only ride I almost bailed on because of my fear of tight, dark spaces. I am soooo glad Randy and the ride attendant talked me down. When you go to these places never read the warning signs! You won't ride anything if you do.
As you know eating is a very important part of our vacations. We hit Margaritaville on Friday for lunch. The boys love it when the volcano goes off. I love their chopped salad and turkey burger. On Friday night we started to go to Pat 'Obriens. Randy and I ate at this restaurant chain in New Orleans back in 2005 and loved it. But we weren't impressed when we ate at the one in Mexico so we thought we'd give this one a try. We sat down, ordered water and read the menu. I didn't seen anything I wanted to order and there were so little options so we left. Dylan was so appalled that we would do such a thing.
Instead we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. The boys loved it there especially now that they have seen the movie Forest Gump (television version). We had to explain that Forest was not a real person when we were finishing dinner. The boys loved the Forest Gump trivia and we went through the questions before the waitress quizzed us so we impressed her with the right answers!
Dylan told me after dinner that he was glad we were mean to the people at the other restaurant. ha! I have never seen the kids eat as much as they did on this vacation.
Hard Rock Cafe was on Saturday. It is the largest Hard Rock in the world.
The boys don't get excited about famous musicians but they did like seeing the guitars and stuff.
The last night we sat by the pool at the hotel and the boys swam together playing in the water using their imagination and I wanted to freeze time so I could enjoy it longer. It was a perfect ending to our mini vacation.
