An Unexpected Journey - Chapter 4

[davealsop]

An Unexpected Journey –Chapter 4

Wednesday August 29th

Ten years ago this day my youngest son Jack was born. Today he was celebrating his birthday in a place that I could only have dreamt of spending a birthday when I was 10.

We were all up early and seemingly more excited about his big day than he was as we had to wake him up!! After opening all his cards & presents we headed off to Walmart where we said he could spend some birthday money on WWE figures – he was like a kid in a… err.. big supermarket that sells WWE figures.

Once we were spent up we headed off for birthday breakfast buffet at Golden Coral as we had a busy day ahead. Jack started off on sausage and scrambled eggs and before we knew it had moved on to chocolate cake, ice cream and candy floss – at 10am for breakfast!?!?!?! Well, when else would you ever be able to do that and get away with it other than on your birthday?

Bellies full and moving on we headed along the 192, onto the I4 and up to Islands of Adventure. We did visit IOA in 2009 but it turned out to be a bit of a ‘damp squib’ as it rained most of the day and most rides stayed closed; we were hoping for a better day today.

First stop was Cat in the Hat which we enjoyed and it put us all in a jolly mood. Next we headed round to the The Amazing Spiderman (which is now in HD!). We snaked quickly through the Daily Bugle offices and on to the vehicle. I love this ride as it’s so much more than ‘just a simulator’ and sits right up there with The Simpsons as my favourite overall ride – I didn’t really notice the HD upgrade though….

We headed ascross to Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges (our first ‘first’ today and there was no queue) and really enjoyed it. I think for me it pipped Khali River rapids and once again, we all got soaked. Tip: never wear denims when you know you are planning to do water rides…

Wet already we thought we should get Jurassic Park in (our 2nd ‘first’) to give us time to dry off. The queue was quite long but moved quickly and the woman in front looked at me, still dripping wet from the Popeye ride, and said “Am I going to get that wet or are you just sweating heavily!!!”; I didn’t quite know how to respond…

Anyways, we eventually set off on our tour. After the inevitable ‘oh no, we’re going the wrong way and heading in to the deadly Raptor enclosures’ moment it went dark and we climbed up the ramp. Narrowly escaping the jaws of the T-Rex – but at a cost of plummeting 50ft into the water below and getting soaked for the 2nd time in half an hour we were free again – and wet again…..

Our next stop was the Harry Potter World which was in some ways was interesting as they were almost finished building it last time we were here in 2009 but at the same time not massively exciting as (Gasp, Shock Horror!) none of us are really big HP fans. I’ve tried watching the first film twice and fell asleep both times (don’t turn me info a frog for this please!).

The sets are very impressive I must say and we also tried Butter Beer – which I quite liked. We then thought that, seeing as we were passing through we would try the ‘Forbidden Journey’ ride. A whopping 40 minute wait passed reasonably quickly and I liked the very realistic holograms as we passed through the various dingy rooms. After tripping over a queue management bollard on my way to the cart thing we were off…

By the end of the ride all I can say is WOW! Whether you do or don’t like Harry Potter this ride is amazing! It seems to combine the best parts of Spiderman and The Simpsons, magically mix them together and multiply the fun factor twice over. I still doubt I will read the books or watch the films but I would definitely ride this again!

Time was flying, I was still soaking and we still had the icing on the cake to come…. After doing all Jack wanted to do in IOA we headed back round to Universal to do Men In Black, Despicable Me and The Simspons rides again (as Jack was in charge of the day and he loved them all). The time now was around 7.30pm and we were planning on grabbing some proper dinner but had ran out of time. We grabbed a BK Burger ‘to-go’ from City Walk and headed down to the nights finale – The Blue Man Group show….

We got decent seats inthe theatre, enjoyed the warm up and waited in anticipation for the show to start. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the show but, if you do go to Orlando any time soon and can afford it (the tickets are expensive) then go see it – it’s just fun with a capital F! It’s wacky, funny, clever and very energetic and loud. The do about 2 hours on stage and it was worth every cent.

A fitting end to a special day – one birthday I guess Jack won’t forget in a hurry….