DisneyWorld and Universal Studios November 2015

DisneyWorld and Universal Trip #2

Thursday  November 6th, 2015

Soo, what do you do when you have annual passes to a place in Florida and only got to use them on one trip?  You find a reason to go again!!  It worked out perfectly: there was an Optometry Conference at the Grand Floridian at Disney so we could do a few days there.  Then head on down to Universal Studios to use our passes.  We arrived late last night after a nice but bumpy flight.  Hopped on the Disney Magic Express and made it to the hotel.  Ahh, the Grand Floridian.  Such a beautiful hotel!   We bought our refillable mug and drank three hot cocoas before bed!  Animal Kingdom was on the menu today! It was wonderful to get to go there again since we had to skip it last trip. Mt. Everest was classic and so much fun with Jadeyn along. I had forgotten just how dark the backward trip was! So fun! Next the Kilimanjaro safari before it got too hot and the animals got sleepy in the heat.   Kevin had to head back to the hotel to attend a few hours of his conference (you know, the whole reason we came back to Florida!) while Jadeyn and I got to hang out at Animal Kingdom for awhile longer.  We watched the bird show with owls and hawks swooping over our heads.  Jadeyn even joined me to watch Nemo.  It is such a sweet and tender musical and I love it every time!  Jadeyn loved Dinosaur again and especially exploring the playground afterwards.  And then of course his favorite: the dig site!  We spent a good amount of time unearthing a giant dino skeleton!

 

We met Kevin at the Contemporary Hotel for dinner at the California Grill.  Tasty food there!  Then we headed to EPCOT to take advantage of the late magic hours.  EPCOT is celebrating the Food and Wine Festival and so it was crazy busy!  Fun to go around and try all the country's foods and also to people watch!  So we started out at 8am and made it until 10pm.  9.2 miles today!  We are definitely back on vacation mode!

Friday  November 7th 2015
So, what better way to start the day than a mad dash to compete in Toy Story Mania!? We caught the bus to Hollywood Studios and waited for the rope drop. This ride is so popular that it will usually have the longest wait times in the park almost immediately, but it's worth it. Waiting in line though, is pure pleasure. We become toys ourselves and everywhere we turn we see giant versions of our favorite nostalgic toys! Etch a sketch, Lincoln logs, massive monkeys above our heads linking arms, we are walking g on the squares of candy land and chutes and ladders. I am not quite the competitive type, but I have a reputation to defend in this game. Wow, by the end our arms were so exhausted from pulling the trigger, but when the scores were revealed, it couldn't have been closer: 142,900 to 14,3400! One more broken plate and Kevin would have beat me! So, he tried to make the excuse that be didn't have his 3D glasses on for half the time, but I still beat him! By the time we finished that one ride, its wait was 45 min! 

 

 Ready for one of the best rides in the park? Star Tours! Yay! We took our tradition photos of Jadeyn and I in front of the Tatooine Traders and Kevin and Jadeyn on the Speeder Bike. The giant Walker made shooting sounds and blasted steam out of its turrets this time! And, we don't think they were doing the Jedi Training because of all the construction for the new Star Wars land. Then off the fly to parts unknown. Okay, so we know them well enough to make a guess. We were right on both of the two adventures:
the icy world oh Both followed by the getting caught in the clutches of that 'bigger fish' in the underwater world of the Gunguns. Oh that ride is so much fun!
Across the park now for the rockin' world of Arrowsmith! One of Jadeyn favorite coasters now! He did still get a little nervous when he saw the stretch limo car in front of us blast off like a bullet! We loved it again, listening to his voice hollering in delight!
Starring Roles: a delightfully delicious tradition of ours: a double chocolate peanut butter cupcake and red velvet cupcake. Oh my, fingerlicking good!
One last right before Kevin had to head off to his conference (what a dutiful soul!) Hollywood Tower of Terror!!! Jadeyn still refuses to go on it after his first time two years ago terrified the socks off him, so we aren't pushing him. The fast pass worked beautifully and we took turns. After our rides, we both agreed that they had changed something: my ride was totally awesome and seemed longer with more lifts and drops. Kevin's was longer too but with a peak at the ghostly family in the middle making him thing the rude was over before blasting him straight up again to continue! Sweet!

 

Just me and Jadeyn then to fill a few minutes. Well, back to Star Tours, right? This time, Wookie planet! Then something totally new: we got chased down by a Bounty Hunter in an asteroid belt. Then we escaped into the clutches of Darth Vader in the Death Star. Safely escaping, we returned the rebel spy! Waiting in the line is an experience all on its own surrounded by funny droids.  In line again! This time there was a 'slight malfunction' on loading the star speeders so it took a little longer. We got to fly in the pod races, and then got attacked in a battle by buzz droids. We shook them off and dove into the depth of Corriscant to escape them.

 

The bus ride back to the hotel took almost an hour for Jadeyn and I thanks to two wheelchair scooters, an unruly family and a girl who was blind, but we made it back with time left to hit the pool. We played in the Mad Hatter's spray and play area first and then moved to the Sandy beach. Pure white fine sand on the shore of the lake. Army barricades built with sea kelp to be washed away by the waves. Then off to the big pool to try out the slide.  Jadeyn joined Kevin at the vender exhibits and scored a nice set of marbles (not sure why there were marbles!?) Them Kevin had two more hours of class and we played at the hotel.

 

 Evening: Magic Kingdom. Holy smokes: its Christmas. A 40 foot Christmas tree greeted us and wreaths and garland, and giant nut crackers and Christmas music! Wow. And every inch of the castle was covered in perfect white lights. No kidding. Magnificent! Wow! We have always wanted to see Disney at Christmas. The Jungle Cruise was a riot at Christmas time! All the jokes were puns on Christmas, even the caged tarantula had a tiny Santa hat on! Thunder Mountain, a blast again, all our favorites. We had a unique experience. Kevin got Jadeyn an ice cream while I was at haunted mansion. Jadeyn ordered it, they said he was such a sweet and we'll behaved kid that he got a Mickey moment: ice cream for free! We had never heard of that before. It was so special. The greatest part was a little while later when we stopped by Gaston's for an ooey gooey cinnamon roll, the worker gave Jadeyn his own Lafrue's Brew 'on Mickey!' Two 'Mickey Moments' in one night!

 

 One of the coolest parts of the night came right outside Gaston's. The fireworks started and it get like we were in the middle of a battle! The stars blasting over the castle on one side and the massive regular fireworks on the other side of us. The concussion was amazing. After that we enjoyed some peaceful classic moments: Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, Goofy's Barnstormer and ended it with two rides on Thunder Mountain. Electric parade and then a close up walk around the Incredible Castle.  It was incredible to have the castle practically to ourselves.  Usually there are so many people everywhere that its crazy to get a picture without other people in it.  Tonight was totally peaceful and quiet at the castle.  Wow! It was midnight by the time we got back to the room. Jadeyn was out on my shoulder before we got out of the park.

Sunday November 9th 2015
Sleep in! Well, at least until 6:30. Kevin got one hour of class in before we headed to Magic Kingdom. Last night the wait was too long last night so we walked as fast as we could this morning to get there. What? Already 50 min?! You're kidding, but we had to do it. Turned out it was only 15! Nice. Then Thunder Mountain, another "Jingle cruise." Oh the jokes were classic. My favorite was at the very end when the skipper said: if u liked the trip, my name is Jenny, if you didn't, my name is Elsa, and you need to let it go!" Splash Mountain. So its 80 degrees, so we donned our rain ponchos that we are carrying, or do we just get wet. We decided to wing it and see if we get drenched. We love this ride. We even sing zippity do da to Jadeyn almost every night. Plunge on down and we actually escaped saturation pretty well! It was 10:30 before Jadeyn piped up that he hadn't had breakfast yet! Off to Gaston's for two giant cinnamon rolls: one for me and Kev. One for Jadeyn! So yummy. Gaston arrived just as we were finishing. No real fanatical ladies this time, but fun to watch. 

 

 After quite a bit more fun, we decided to switch gears and head to Epcot for the food festival. So many countries are represented even beyond the ones that are permanently there. We went from booth to booth to see what sounded interesting or might taste delicious. We made some excellent choices with... Yup we walked our legs off again all around the world. There were some breathtaking chocolate sculptures too! We had almost decided to go back to the hotel for a moments rest when we realized it really would only be a moment. Well, might as well go straight to Hollywood Studios for dessert!
Tragedy! starting Rolls closed at 4pm, we were 10 min late! So sad. So ice cream sundaes for dessert/dinner. Another Mickey Moment coming up! Jadeyn asked for extra hot fudge. Not only did they give him a separate cup of more hot fudge, but they gave him two brownies! Sweet!
imagination station,
Hollywood Studio Star Tours last run, Fantasmic light show, Osborne light show, packed bus
The Osborne light show. There is really no way to fully describe this experience. The workers escorted us around to the entrance so we could see it all at one in its glory. A whole two blocks of street covered in lights. Every square inch literally covered in lights and all coordinated to dance to the music! Completely overwhelming and magical! Then the snow started to fall and wow, it was a wonderland if Christmas.


Animal Kingdom. Wandering through this incredibly green and lush park is really a treat. We decided that today we would just enjoy it all and really soak it in. That didn't stop us from going on Everest 8 times! Jadeyn finally really conquered his inner Coaster and circled us back into line each time we finished!! We loved the safari again bouncing over the ruts in the road. Lion King Wes so much fun and amazing as usual. 

 Dinner at Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge. We have never been to the lodge before and thought this would be the perfect reason to go. It was a beautiful African themed building, but the really cool part was the Savannah out back where you could watch the giraffes and other animals graze. Dinner was an African Buffet. It had a huge selection and we like almost everything we tried and some of it was pretty unique. Delicious desserts too but we were stuffed and had to roll out way out of there.
Buffet: in the bathroom, can a person really die from his belly exploding? Good cause I don't want to die, I'm only 7. What, were going to magic kingdom? I can't go on any rides, I'm doomed! When j and k's bellies were pooching out so much they thought they would explode, Jadeyn asked why moms wasn't poking out. He said it was because of those two humps. What are they even for anyway. We explained and he said ooohh, like zebras nurse their babies. That's weird.

Monday November 10, 2015

Off to Magic Kingdom. We had just a little bit of time to squeeze in some more magic before our final surprise of the evening. We explored the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, went on Jungle Cruise again, pirates, joked about doing the Tiki room(no way!) And finally made our way over to Tomorrowland for....drumroll please: the Wishes Dessert Party! Sweet! We sat on the terrace above all the crazy crowds, sipped sparkling apple cider and ate all the desserts we could eat! We got to watch the Electric Parade, the spectacular light show on the castle and the Wishes fireworks show! So special. It was a truly magical way to end a great day especially when Jadeyn finally fell asleep on our shoulders.

Tuesday, November 11th 2015

 On our way to Epcot today because the goal of the day was to make it into Test Track! Will we make it? We waited for the rope drop as we watched quite a few people go in early...how did that happen? Once through, Jadeyn practically pulled us through the crowds and we made it to find another 50 minute wait! No worries, we're doing it anyway! Jadeyn was so excited to build his own vehicle. Waiting in line wasn't too bad because of all the interactive stuff to do along the way. Jadeyn build his for speed and Kevin build his for off road and speed. Once on the track we blasted through obstacles, slid through bad weather and finally opened it up on the open road! So much fun and Jadeyn yelled and yelled. In the end, his car took top overall the other cars in our vehicle! He was so excited. Next? Mission Space! J wasn't too sure about this one, but I convinced him that he will breeze through it. Kevin sat this one out. We were briefed on our duties on the space shuttle. One Jadeyn saw the contraption, he understood how it worked and he was excited to go. The whole ship spins so fast giving you the centrifugal force of feeling like you are blasting into space.

 

 We hadn't spent a lot of time at Innoventions and it was really cool! We checked out the weather station and safety during hurricanes and blizzards. We got to design our townhouse and see how it held up. The other part we enjoyed was the Healthy Habits. We each were given an healthy assignment to battle against bad habits. We were hydration, healthy nutrition and activity. It was pretty fun to blast down and battle against the bad habits! Turtle Talk with Crush! Every time we have experienced a conversation with Crush we have laughed so hard. This Crush was awesome! All us parental units sat on the benches while our offspring sat sub level! His jokes were classic!

Behind the Seeds!! The last time we were at Epcot, we discovered that there was a tour here, and we were so excited to be able to do it! They took us behind all the plants and greenhouses to teach us the details of their discoveries an growing techniques. It was so cool to see the tomato plants wound around and around, some of them a good 15 feet long. Most of the plants are hooked into their hydroponics system and we saw the fish and the water dispersal system. One of the coolest details was their battle against the miner bug that lays its eggs inside the leaves and can take our a whole orchard! They discovered a natural solution by accident. A little miner wasp flew in and lays its eggs right inside the bug larva. Problem solved. Now the grow their own tiny wasps to take care of. We were really proud of Jadeyn for being brave enough to ask so many questions. The funniest was about how they bred a fast growing fish with a good tasting fish. He asked: did they make them mate? The tour guide was hilarious as she delicately answered and then gave us a thumbs up asking: are we okay with that answer parents?
The tour was totally worth it and was perfect for us!

We were pretty hungry by 2:45 when the tour ended so we wandered over to the countries and had former Mac n cheese with bacon, which actually had quite a kick to it, and raviolis at another country. We had about three hours before our reservations tonight and I guess we hadn't walked enough yet, so we decided to take a 'stroll' to Hollywood Studios. It took us on a path past a lot of the other resort hotels which were pretty cool to see. At HS, we were able to squeeze in a few of our favorites one last time: Arrowsmith! And then, dusk brought on the Christmas lights! We got to walk down the Osborne lights one more time and experience the magic. Wow!

We took to boat back to Epcot and on the way Jadeyn room a nap. We decided to let him sleep because we have carried him home so many nights, maybe a few minutes of sleep will help. We had reservations at La Hacienda right on the lake front where we would be able to watch the firework show on the water. Dinner was quite tasty and the show was great. We got to leave with the masses of people and pile onto the monorail with everyone. Whew! Big day today and a wonderful way to end our Disney trip!



Wednesday November 12th 2015 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
Waking up this morning I found myself singing to Garth Brooks: oh, I am sore in strange places! We have walked well over 8 miles each day, going from 7 or 8 am to 11 or 12 each night! After these 5 full days, we will need a tiny bit of downtime at Universal!
We are staying at the Royal Pacific this time which is just a little bit away from the Portofino we stayed at last time. It is beautiful! A Polynesian flair with incredible carved wood statues and solid stone elephant statues. So cool. Our room wasn't ready when we checked in, so, what to do but head for the park!

We love the feel of these parks, totally different than Disney, but just as fun!
Highlights of the day: Jurassic Park times 5! When we were here last, it was bring refurbished and Jadeyn was almost devastated about that. Now it's all brand spanking new for us, new and ready for us. We wore our rain ponchos so we could go over and over again, and we are planning on getting wet tomorrow. The dinosaurs were awesome, knocking our boat off tour into the restricted area. And the, the reason we came back to Universal: the T Rex! Before just his head growled above our boat, now it's his complete massive body standing above the boat and snapping at us before we plunged down! Jadeyn was exhilarated! 

.......Men In Black. Oh yeah, I still whooped Kevin! 249,000 to 223,000. It's nice to still have a bit of competition in me! Spiderman, a total classic and really fun. I think Stan Lee shows up in it in four different places. Transformers was great again too. ET made us smile, and we even gave code names for him to day at the end! Thrasher, Gru and Krylon.
We stayed at the park until 6pm then headed back to have dinner at the hotel club lounge. While there, wouldn't you know it, but Karate Kid had just started and Jadeyn has been wanting to see it. We continued watching it back in the room sprawled out on the beds. Great day!

Thursday. November 13, 2015

 To the park for the early entry. We took the awesome pathway along the river and went straight to Hogsmeade. Gotta get right on Forbidden Journey before the lines get long. Such a fun ride! It's one where you can just lean right into the picture and really be a part of the quidditch match and be flying right alongside everyone. Jadeyn did much better with the Dementors after having read the book. Whew! We spent a good amount of time this morning simply enjoying the Potter world and watching Jadeyn work on his spells.

The plan today is to get wet, really wet! So, we went around the park hitting whatever ride caught our interest up until lunchtime. The Simpsons ride was an absolute riot as usual. Neither Kevin nor myself grew up watching the Simpsons, but we have since watched enough episodes to really get the humor. Jadeyn on the other hand, was just like yesterday at Krusty Burger: I don't get it! Terminator is still a great classic! We forget every time we go on it just how enjoyable it is and loved sharing it with Jadeyn. Rip Ride Rocket: definitely on my top favorite coasters! That coaster flies and lets you sail right along with it! We left our seats a little loose so we could really catch air and fly. Mummy: Jadeyn still won't go on this ride and I am totally fine with that. We did child swap and had a blast. It's a pretty creepy ride and parts are whipping you around in the pitch black! Shrek 4D. So funny. You know, we started thinking about the hero's I. Universal compared to the Disney ones. Universal's are quite a bit more in the rebellious or mischievous side!
We had lunch at Mythos and wow, it was great again! I had the Bleu Cheese Crusted Pork with apple slaw and braised cabbage. Kevin had a Pad Thai shrimp and chicken. We shared with Jadeyn and added a spinach wonton wrap to the mix.
Ready to get soaked! We found a locker for our stuff and headed straight for Pluto's Plunge. Since we knew we were going to get soaked, and were prepared for it, we were able to totally allow ourselves to have a blast. We went on this ride three times in a row, each time getting to know the other people in our raft. We hooted and hollered and got soaked. Next, was Popeye and Pluto's Barges.   It's a round boat ride where usually whoever is the unlucky one gets soaked. As this ride progressed, it for wetter and wetter until, there wasn't any hope of having any dry spots left! Again, getting to know our boat mates was fun. And yet. We were saturated. One more time on Pluto then we had to figure out how to dry off a bit. I know! Dr. Doom' Drop tower! Yup, it certainly helped! Back to Diagon let for a hot Butter Beer. It hit the spot. Jadeyn made a special discovery. He could two secret spells! He was so excited to know about some that not many people even knew what to look for. At Hogsmeade, Kevin and I took turns on the Dueling Dragons. Back to Diagon and back again the other way right before park close. We make it to Escape From Greengot's. We practically had the place to ourselves. Normally teeming with people, the peacefulness was wonderful! Perfect was
to the night!
Back at the hotel, we enjoyed desserts at the Clubhouse. Yummm!



Friday November 14, 2015
Wow! Did we ever sleep in; almost 7:15 by the time we rolled out of bed. Nice! Breakfast was quite nice at the club and then off to the park. Our goal was to get to the Raptor experience right when the whole park opened, but dang it: the experience didn't open until 10am! So...we went on Buckbeak's ride and checked out the shops. Humm, what to do with the remaining few minutes? Jurrasic Park three more times! Yay!
The raptor Experience was incredible. We were the first group, so the raptor hadn't even come out yet. Her name was Roe and she was 8 years old. We couldn't believe just how life like she was. She would listen to her trainer, them disobey and he would have to call her attention back again. Wow! So cool!
Minion Ride. Oh, so many smiles there! We actually got to sit together! We've been on this ride probably 8 times and always were split up!
Rip Ride Rocket again, but this one trying out the secret code for extra songs. You hold down the main logo for 10 seconds, then enter your song number that you had to look up before you got on the ride. I think I might have entered mine wrong because I didn't even recognize my song. Had an awesome flight though. But when I got off, I ran out to Kevin and Jadeyn and begged to go again! So much fun!
....
We had a scoop of ......ice cream in Diagon Allley. We did Curdled Cream this time. It had a cream cheese type flavor to it. This year we have had ice cream from there three times and, yeah, the flavors are very creative, Jadeyn hasn't liked any of them!

Minions, Rip Ride twice, lunch back at hotel, street breakdancers, Forbidden Journey, and Greengot's Bank, ice cream, mini golf!
...Highlight of the night: we did miniature golfing on CityWalk! Pretty cool. We did the "aliens" themed side and it was so clever. The course was hilarious with all the aliens and then downright tricky. Some places would drop you in a hole and end up somewhere totally different, or drop your ball into a contraption that transported it up a spiral thing to move it to the next spot. The hardest had the hole on a rotating floor!



Saturday November 15, 2015
Final full day. Wow, we have filled every day so full and have come home wiped out every night. Every day of this trip we have logged over 8 miles, even on our half day! Pretty awesome. Today was actually the chilliest day we have had. It was only going to be a high of 78,but it was the light breeze that kept the goose bumps coming for the first few hours. Heading to the park today, we had a few goals. Have a butter beer and go on Jurassic Park. Unfortunately, there were really long lines for the drink (meaning 25+ people!). So we wandered through enjoying the park and discovering new things for Jadeyn. We took him up to Popeye's ship where he could use the water blasters on the unsuspecting people on the raft ride. Remember how cold it was? Well, these people hadn't gotten saturated yet, so they really hollered when we got them! Fun! We watched the Raptor Encounter for a little bit and were still so amazed by it. In the Dinosaur Discovery Center Jadeyn got a special experience. There was a new baby raptor hatching from her egg. It was very realistic. They said that one of the witnesses of the birth gets to name the new baby. Jadeyn's hand shot up so fast. He got to name her Thrasher (of course) and even got a birth certificate with his name on it too! He was so proud! 

We came back for lunch and Jadeyn and I hit the pool. The water was nice and warm. It made it so it felt warmer in the water than out (at least if you are wet and out of the water). We had a ton of fun playing volleyball with a beach ball. Jadeyn came up with a game. It you touched the red side, you were Sith, if you touched blue, you were Jedi, and yellow was a Bounty Hunter. Pretty clever. We even went out to the beach of the Lagoon to play. Jadeyn especially enjoyed the ducks that kept landing a swimming g around us in the pool. He loved going under and watching their webbed feet!
About 15 minutes before we were going to get out of the pool Jadeyn suddenly started hollering. Somehow, a bee had gotten on his hand and was struggling to survive and stung him right on the palm. Poor guy! I held onto his little hand to keep him from touching it and we waded over to the lifeguard. He did really good with Jadeyn and put on his blue gloves to pull the stinger out. I know it had to hurt pretty bad but Jadeyn played bravely until we got out. At the park Kevin and I enjoyed The Mummy and Rip Ride Rocket, then finally got Jadeyn an icee so he could ice his palm a bit on it too. 

Men In Black. I really do think this is one of my favorite rides here. Kevin. Thinks it is hilarious because I normally am not competitive. What can I say! We went through once and then Kevin popped out another little known secret about the park: you can ask for a behind the scenes tour of the Men In Black facility! He asked our ride attendant who said: sure, do you want to do it now? We were escorted through a few doors where we waited for our official "man in black" complete with the sunglasses. He took us to a few rooms and finally out to the immigration floor where "Bskrgd and Bob" were. We got to sit in the funky chairs and even sign our names in the immigration log book! So cool! Then, our guide told us some of his favorite scoring secrets. The biggest secret was to look for the pug dog and shoot his collar. Next to shoot our own transponder instead of the one in the car opposite to us. We just had to go again now! We asked for the "pug side" and did our best. I scored 415,000! No way!!! We couldn't tell if the pug helped or not, but the transponder did along with us deciding to aim at a target and keep shooting at it instead of constantly switching around. (We still let Jadeyn get the 100,000 bonus at the end!)

Back at the park after dinner, we donned our rain ponchos for a night trip down the river. Awesome! Another butter beer, and then enjoyed a few more night rides before the park suddenly became filled with people. There is a concert tonight of somebody we hadn't heard of before and as a result, the park closed at 7pm. We people watched all the concert goers and finally had a peaceful walk home. We grabbed cookies and milk at the lounge and ate them in bed before sleep. Whew, another full day.


Sunday.  November 16, 2015  
Ahh. The last day of our vacation. Normally the last day is filled with travel to get back home and not much fun. Not today! Our flight isn't until almost 4pm, so there was plenty of time to enjoy the parks again. Up and at 'em early to pack everything in our suitcases, grab a quick breakfast and drop our luggage off at the front desk to hold for us. Then, off we go. We figured that in all the days we have been here, we have only taken the boat twice, so we hopped on and enjoyed the river. We started again in Hogsmeade for the early hours and did everything we wanted: Forbidden Journey, and all the spells for Jadeyn. Then we caught the Hogwarts express to Diagon Alley to do the same. One last ride on Escape from Gringott's was interesting. There were quite a few people in line and there must have been a breakdown or delay because it took awhile. But it allowed us to get to listen to the banter between all the paintings in the walls. Normally we go through the line so fast that we miss a lot of it. It was great especially when somebody leaves his painting and joins another painting! We wandered through Diagon and did spells, bought two butter beers (a hot for me and regular for Kevin and Jadeyn!) Jadeyn really relished the idea of knowing a secret spell that most people didn't know about. We also loved watching the fountain that randomly shoots out water and were dying to see it soak someone!
We each had a request for today: Jadeyn's was Gringott's and Minions, Kevin's was Rip Ride Rocket, and mine was Men In Black. We fit them all in! We really wanted to take the tricks we learned yesterday and top yesterday's score of 415,000! We came close: I got to 343,000 twice! So here are the secrets that worked: shooting the pug's collar supposedly did something for us, but we're not sure what, finding a single target and shooting it until you can't see it any longer, and finally, shooting your own transponder instead of the one on the car in front of you. Awesome! Minions was so much fun again and really made us laugh! The last ride was Rip Ride Rocket. We did express pass child swap and both rode it within 10 minutes! Brisk walk back to the hotel where we took the black car service to the airport. That means the trip really is over. What an incredibly memorable trip! Wow! We figured a very conservative estimate of the miles we walked was 72+ miles!?! We did a minimum of 8 miles on each of our 9 days and some of the Disney days were a lot more! Every mile was a memory!
We had about two hours to kill at the airport and Jadeyn and I filled them with getting all of his homework done! We did it! He finished up his test during the first part of the flight and then could kick back the rest of the flight.