Universal Studios - One More Time!

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS (3rd time in a year!!)

Saturday,  January 30, 2016

We tried so hard to keep this trip a secret. Jadeyn had no idea about it at all except that for some reason we had a count down block going for something. Finally, the night before we left, he discovered the suitcases in the back seat and figured out a major clue. Even as we headed out of town, he thought we would only be gone for the two day weekend! We arrived at the, airport and he was really confused. It was awesome to mess with him! On the plane to Orlando! The flight was quite nice and uneventful. We got a lot of reading done and Jadeyn got some of his homework done too.  At the airport, all the Departure and Arrival signs were in blue and orange stripes in honor of the Broncos who will be playing in the Super Bowl next week!

When we landed, it was still a secret until we got to the black car service and of course had to tell the driver to take us to the hard Rock hotel. He says to Jadeyn: hey, you're going to Universal? Surprise is out, but Jadeyn was still so excited.
We decided to try out the Hard Rock Hotel. Now we will have stayed at all three major hotels on the waterfront. (All within a year!) Our take on the hotel: nice enough, fun, really close to the parks, awesome pool, but really not quite our style with all the clubs and Rick memorabilia. But, you really can't beat how close it is to the parks!
Right after we checked in, we headed straight to Universal, went straight past all the other stuff and immersed ourselves in Diagon Allley. And Butter Beer! Oh a sip of heaven!
Sat night: Antojitos Dinner!  We have been impressed every time we have eaten at Antojitos.  Very nice quality food and excellent presentation.  The best part of the dinner however, came when we heard a tiny "clink" sound over top of the restaurant noise.  Jadeyn's tooth fell out right onto his plate!!  It was one of his bottom teeth!  What a way to start a vacation!

Sunday January 31, 2016

Today was the last day of the Potter Expo.  It is a huge convention that travels around the world and here at Universal it is an especially big deal.  Looking around the crowd, we could really tell that something big was going on.  We usually see a fair number of wizards wandering around, and an even greater number of Moguls walking around with wands, but today it felt like every third person in Harry Potter Land was decked out!  A ton of Gryfindor, Slytherin and even a few Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.  Earlier in the week Hermione had been there and today it was Neville Longbottom's day.  We went to one of the special lectures and sitting there among a few of the set designers and special effects guys was a guy of about 26.  Kevin recognized him as Neville.  No way, when he was in the movies he started out at 11, but yup, it was him.  The one section that we missed out on that we wished we could have seen had about a 60 minute wait.  There was complete sets and costumes, props and scripts from the movies. Way cool. 

We knew that we had so many days here that we really took our time to explore all the small details of the park.  At Seuss Landing, Jadeyn led the way through the play area and we did all the activities to make the crazy creatures pop out.  We even played tic-tac-toe on one creatures belly!  We tried not to get soaked on One Fish Two Fish.

 

Lunch at the Three Broomsticks was quite tasty.  Jadeyn and Kevin both had the fish and chips and I had the Cornish Pasties and Garden Salad.  Mine was little biscuits filled with shredded beef.  Jadeyn and Kevin's was a huge platter of breaded fish.  We really didn't think that Jadeyn would be able to eat an entire adult platter, but he proved us wrong!  For dessert we had a jar of clotted cream.  Sounds nasty, but it was a delicious custard! 

Jurassic Park here we come!  Beautiful weather, so why not get wet?  We sat back on the 4th row where we thought we wouldn't get as soaked, but wet we got! 

Dinner plans...humm.  At the Hard Rock there is a nice restaurant called the Kitchen where celebrities and celebrity chefs often visit to play around.  We took a look at the menu and thought: wow, these appetizers look great, we'll have to eat here a few times.  Then we looked at the main courses and nothing really hit our fancy.  Time to get creative: we ordered two appetizers to share and went straight to dessert!   For dessert? We had the 2.5 pound 14 layer chocolate heaven!  It was so huge!!  and so delicious!!

Monday February 1, 2016
On our last two trips to Universal, HogsMeade had been open and hour before the rest of the park for early entry, but this time it was Diagon Alley!  Awesome!  We started out our morning tradition of heading straight for Escape from Gringotts!  I still can't get over the detail of this place! Wow!  We couldn't have asked for better weather on this trip too!  We his mid to high 70s every day until the last two.  Amazing.

Ready for  a Men In Black challenge!!  Here we go!  So, have I not played this recently and smoked everyone?  I was doing terribly!  We went three times and I could barely beat 250,000.  What's wrong.  Oh yeah, you don't have to pull the trigger at every shot, just hold it down.  Well that made a difference!  Kevin and I both broke 400,000 this time!  Yay!  Then suddenly Kevin blew me away with 620,000!  Wow!!  We collaborated and shared our secrets and tried to get the highest possible!

Back at the park we explored the Simpsons area.  Jadeyn just still doesn't get the Simpsons and sarcasm, but Kevin and I laughed so hard on the ride!  My favorite phrase from the ride is the very beginning introduction where the scientist says: What about the leakages and the crackages, who knows what could occurlulate!  We had lunch at Krusty Burger, sharing a Chicken Waffle and a Classic Krusty Burger.  Actually quite tasty.

 

After lunch we came home and hit the pool! It's a really nice one with a zero entry, sand everywhere and a great slide. We made Jadeyn practice his swimming too and challenged each other to contests.

Ready for a night on the town.  We got all dressed up and walked in the perfect 75 degree evening to the Portofino to for dinner at Bice's a really fancy Italian restaurant. Wow, what to order. It was a tough choice. Kevin got the veal shank, I got a ravioli dish and Jadeyn shared with us. We glanced over the menu: there were some 600 to 1100 dollar bottles of wine! It was a beautiful evening for a stroll around the lake and dinner was delicious!


Tuesday February 2, 2016
So, what do you think has been happening back at home while we have been enjoying sunny Florida?  This morning we got the email and call from the Elementary school announcing that due to the 12+ inches of snow that fell during the night, they are calling a  SNOW DAY!!!  Woohoo!  So, it looks like Jadeyn is missing one fewer days than we were planning!  Funny thing is, on our trip to DisneyLand a few years ago, there were two days cancelled due to the flood! 

 

We woke up to find everything encased in a mystical layer of fog.  It was quite a different view from the crystal blue skies we had been used to.  Luckily, it burned off by 10 am and once again it was a perfect day! We had breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron and I really had a fun time asking Jadeyn over and over again: where are we eating.  Hearing him say The Leaky Cauldron with several teeth missing was adorable!  Delicious traditional breakfasts with hot butter beers!  

 

We enjoyed ET and Woody Woodpecker roller coaster and then Jadeyn discovered what was tucked away in the corner back there: a ball park.  Covered in nets, with pulleys and ladders and thousands of balls to collect and send through the vacuum shooters.  They even had an automatic shooter that really let 'em fly!  Day spend at Universal. MIB over and over. Challenging to get the highest score. Simpsons and laughing every time.

We were able to do the Raptor Experience again!  This little Raptor was quite feisty today.  She really barked and growled a lot and even nuzzled in to Kevin's hair!  So...Tuesday evening, no dinner plans, the park closed around 7pm, what should we do? Let's go to STAR WARS!!!  We'd love to see it a third time!  This was the same theater that Kevin and I saw The Matrix II way back in 2004.  We got a large popcorn, loaded up the butter and settled in for another great ride with Star Wars!


Wednesday February 3, 2016

 Today is to be our wet day! The weather was supposed to rain on us, instead it was 80 and sunny! We started out the morning in Diagon Alley for the early hours and wouldn't you know it! Gringott's was down. The line wrapped all the way around the while Alley and out the brick wall! So glad we didn't have to stand in it! Instead we enjoyed our butter beer and wandered through shops and found a ton of stuff that we had missed before. Once the park opened, we went back toward the entrance and enjoyed some tastey pastries for breakfast. The wind had really begun to blow and Jadeyn entertained himself by shooting out a small straw from a big straw against the wind! The rest of the day we spent most of the day at islands. Transformers, Shrek, rip ride rocket, etc. 

For lunch we decided to head to Hard Rock Restaurant and split a meal. We've gotten smarter realizing that there is no way we would all be able to finish three meals. Rock and Roll surrounded us, music videos entertained us and the food was nice: pulled pork sandwiches and chicken twisted Mac and cheese. Funny thing though, the waitress forgot Kevin's drink even after we reminded her, so Jadeyn reminded her again. She felt so bad, she gave it to us for free! Nice! J had made a paper airplane and had a blast sailing it into the wind on the way home.

Home to get our rain gear, and then the Jurassic Park! We went four times in a row and Jadeyn had one tiny dry spot left! Such a great ride. Well, we were already wet, so let's go to Pluto's Barge. Soaked from head to toe except for the places where Kevin and I had our jackets. We love this ride so much and its even better going on it with dry people who have no idea how wet they are going to get!

Here's where the only sad thing happened. Jadeyn saw a water sprayer and decided to jump and splash and was having so much fun when his feet went out from under him and he completely face planted on the cement. We were already wondering if he was going to lose another tooth on this trip. Blood was really pouring out of his mouth and he was so worried that his tooth was gone. It was still in there, but his lip was already swollen up like a duck and he was spitting blood. Poor guy. We got him some ice and headed back to the hotel to change into dry clothes. 

Kev and I hit Rip Ride Rocket a few times, then the evening was spent at Hogsmeade. It's so beautiful at night! All the lights go on in the tiny windows, even up high. We took the time to look in every one and discovered a cello playing on its own, a quill writing and all sort of other hidden wonders. We went on the Griffin ride several times and got awesome views of the park at night. Then, one last ride on Forbidden Journey and the park closed. Wow, how fun! We had snacks for dinner and off to bed!

Thursday February 4, 2016

Ready for the next surprise of the trip for Jadeyn: Legoland! We got to see his happy dance again!! We caught a taxi to the bus stop and waited under a Lego themed little building until it was time to load.  It was about an hour's drive to get to LegoLand but it was worth it to see how excited Jadeyn was.  Jadeyn and Kevin spread the map out and plotted our course through the park to maximize our time there.  The second we got off the bus, we raced inside to his all the best rides first.  Jadeyn is tall enough to do every single ride in the park.  Only one ride (a leg hanging coaster) was closed which was pretty disappointing, but the rest were all awesome.  Everything is awesome! (Hahaha, is the song stuck in your head now?)  Legoland is really something special. Scattered all around the park are amazing life sized Lego sculptures: Jeeps, wolves, dinosaurs!  So cool!  The Star Wars section was magnificent of course.  Whole battle scenes laid out in amazing detail.  You could study them for so long and still find awesome little tidbits you missed!   

 

At lunch we had an interesting experience.  We went into a food place and tried to order three different things only to find out they were out of all three things.  Humm, not to good there guys.  The lady behind the counter felt so bad that they weren't prepared, she told us to pick out three ice creams for free!  We were headed immediately for the Lego show, so she wrote a note on our receipt that said "Family of the Day" and told us to come back after the show for dessert!  On top of all the Mickey Moments, now we have had a Universal and a LegoLand moment!  We picked out three Dove Chocolate ice cream bars!  The show was hilarious and unique. It was all out on the lake with water skiers and jet skis.  Yes, Lego men were waterskiing!  It was a pirate themed show and was actually quite funny! 

 

 

LegoLand was built on land that used to be a botanical garden, so they left a huge portion of the park as a garden and wow, it was beautiful!  Typical lush green of Florida but with some massive vines and variety of trees.  In the very center was an 80 year old Banyan tree that covered about 200 square feet.  It just kept going and going with all its massive limbs/trunks/vines creating new trees all around it.  It was magnificent.  Circling overhead we had seen a few really large birds that sounded like falcons.  We finally saw one up close enough to see that they were Peregrine Falcons!  One had a nest at the top of one of the massive trees too!  Jadeyn was also so excited to see two small alligators in the ponds too! 

 

More rides!  There was one ride that was themed as an Egyptian pyramid type of ride, but you shoot little targets all the way through!  Tons of fun, and yes, we went several times to try and better our score.  There was a whole section with "girl legos" that Jadeyn wasn't too happy about, but I made him go on a horse ride that actually was pretty unique and intense!  Ready for the Lego Chima part?  We had decided to bring our rain coats and pants in case we wanted to do the water ride.  It was so nice and warm that we talked ourselves out of being dorks and didn't wear our rain pants.  Well, we got soaked!  It was a boat ride where you shoot various targets, other boats and people on the sidewalk, but each target you hit makes some huge water cannon shoot back at you.  I think we went about 6 times, cause after all, we were soaked anyway!  

 

We went to the Lego building place next and Jadeyn built to his heart's delight.  He made cars to race on the ramps, built structures to withstand the shaker table, and then he got to build a Hero Factory out of any parts he wanted.   One last fun thing about LegoLand: we saw two sweet little stray cats there!  We had found one outside of Jurassic Park a few days ago and thought that was pretty unusual, now we found two more!  One was so friendly too and let us pet her!  Back to the bus and home.  What a day!


Friday February 5, 2016
Well, you know Jadeyn lost a tooth on the first day of the trip, why not another?  His front tooth was so loose already and even looser from his face plant on the cement.  Kevin took a look at it and Jadeyn was willing to have him pull it out.  It came out without Jadeyn even realizing that he had yanked it!  Nicely done!  Now he is officially really growing up.  Front tooth gone!

We spent the morning following Jadeyn around using his wand all over Harry Potter world and getting good use out of it.  And a few more butter beers, a few more rides on Gringotts, Forbidden Journey, Flight of the Gryffindor!  We had lunch at one of our favorite spots: Mythos.  Men in Black next and again we topped out records.  I scored 743,150!!!!!  Okay, Kevin says I can only count it as 643,150 because I got a 100,000 bonus at the very end and he said that I had to take it out.  But, nice going!! 

We knew that the spectacular weather couldn't hold out the entire week and sure enough, by evening the drizzle started coming down.  We donned our raincoats and continued enjoying the day.   We had dinner at out on CityWalk at Vivo Italian.  Wow, I know I am easily impressed with good food, but this was really really good!  Our server was delightful too and adored Jadeyn.  My lasagna was the best I've ever had and everyone's food was perfect.  By the time we finished dinner, it was down pouring outside!  We were happy to have our raincoats and to be only a ten minute walk from the hotel.   Hard Rock might not exactly be our scene, but you can't beat it for the location.  We have been back and forth from the parks to our room so many times because it is so close. 

Saturday  February 6, 2016

Our last day of the trip. We had decided that this trip we were really going to focus on relaxing and enjoying ourselves. I think we really succeeded! However, checking our walk logger, we have averaged right at 7 miles each day! Today, as we stepped outside it was at least 10 degrees warmer than yesterday! Yay! It was still chilly enough to wear a pullover, but the sun was out. Nice!
We took our time getting to the park this morning because Saturdays are always so much busier and might as well take it easy. We still got there for the earlier hours, but this time took a turn on Despicable Me! We actually got to sit together! First time in over a year we didn't get split up! Yay! We love this ride. The minions are hilarious and there is so much heartfelt love between the girls and Gru. So sweet. Afterwards, we headed to Islands for some breakfast at an awesome pastry shop. We each got something we thought we would love, and then cut them in 3rds to share. At least that was the plan. Jadeyn quickly decided that his chocolate muffin was much more to his liking than Kevin's French toast muffin or my cream cheese pastry. He devoured his in his usual way: picking it completely to pieces and licking up all the goodness! 

So, we needed to finish off everything we wanted to do at Islands while we wandered around. Jadeyn and I spun through the xcellerator. When we checked out Pluto's Barge, we saw people shivering and going through the $5 family drier. They were hardly wet! Their hair was completely dry! What's up with that? I asked one of the workers who told us that they don't turn on the waterfalls and sprayers until it gets over 65 degrees! Funny!

Over to Diagon Alley. Wow, it was a mad house! Wall to wall wizards and muggles. Such a difference from the last few days. We decided to save Gringott's until evening, but enjoyed a hot Butter Beer! We tried our hand at Men In Black again. Kevin was determined that we could top my high score! Such a fun competition! We went over and over trying to see which aliens give the mist points and other strategies. A few times our fellow car mates were blown away by our high scores! And then one more time on the Simpsons. Although Jadeyn only gets a few of the jokes, he really likes the ride. Disney is the picture perfect park, while Universal is the rowdy, irreverent older brother! 

What to do for lunch? We want to go to Antojitos for dinner, so we went back to the hotel to polish off our leftovers. Fettuccini Carbonara and the remaining , 3/4 pound of our giant cake! It feed all three of us three times! Now that's a great dessert! 

The rains really started to come down so with raincoats off, we headed back. The rain thinned the crowd only slightly, but the white shrouded marshmallows of people wearing the plastic Universal rain ponchos were everywhere. There were a few scattered Star Tours or Disney Princess ponchos scattered around! 

Jadeyn lead the way to the Jurassic Park play area and we climbed and climbed up the ropes and investigated the caves. It didn't matter that the mist and water splashed us everywhere since we were wet already! 

Dinner at Antojitos. Back again where we started. Yummy mole enchilada and a kind of tortilla lasagna. Both were tasty and Jadeyn surprised us again by piling the salsa on every chip!
Mardi Gras parade.  So today marked the beginning of the Mardi Gras week celebration at Universal.  There was going to be a huge parade, but with the rain, we weren't sure what would happen.  Well, the show definitely went on. You know, parties just aren't our scene, so we were a little iffy on fighting the crowds to see the Mardi Gras parade. Well, we were once again impressed. The floats were amazing and so colorful and the people all decked out in their bright costumes smiled and danced away completely ignoring the rain.  Impressive.  They threw out bead necklaces of course and Jadeyn really got into it.  By the end of the parade, be had over 50 necklaces draped around his neck!

We had about 30 minutes left to absorb all of Universal until the next time around which probably won't be for many years yet.  We wandered through in the dark loving the feeling on nighttime in the park and did our final ride on Gringott's.  These three trips to Universal this year are ones certainly to never forget!

Sunday Feb 7th, 2016

SuperBowl Sunday!!!

The plane ride was such a unique experience.  More than a 3rd of the people on the plane were decked out in full on Bronco gear!!  Go Broncos!  As we boarded there were smiles and jokes all around.  Even the stewardess came on the intercom and said: your pilot is a Panthers fan, so I don't know if we'll make it in time for the game!"  Another time, during a safety announcement, she whispered at the end: go Broncos!  And the whole plane erupted in cheers!  Fun team spirit! 

We arrived at Shawn and Stephanie's house straight from the airport to watch the game.  Kevin's parents, Jessica and Stephanie's mom were all there too.  And so was the new baby!!!  Welcome Jaxson Ray Cottrell.  He is a tiny chubby delight of a baby.  The delivery went well and he has been a good baby ever since doing all the things a newborn should do: sleep at all the wrong times, cry, sleep, poop, and be cute.  Stephanie is doing well and Austin and Chloe and proud big siblings.  It was great to catch up, hear about the baby, tell them about our awesome trip and then sit down with fingers crossed for the game.

 

Remember 2 years ago at the Super Bowl where the Broncos humiliated themselves against the SeaHawks?  It started with the opening hike flying right over Manning's head and all down hill from there on.  Ending at 48-8.  Ouch!  This one went so much better.  All season we had been hearing that the Broncos have the Number 1 defense and at times they really showed it, but not in the last few games.  Well, they took over this game!  Forcing turnovers, running turnovers for touchdowns, rattling the Panther Quarterback in ways he has never felt before.  It was great.  So many times we cheered so loud forgetting that there was a newborn in the room!  So, in the end the Broncos won 24-10!  Yay!!  It was a great end for Manning career.  The comparison of the two QBs was so drastically different that it was a really good example of sportsmanship.  When we lost so terribly two years ago, Manning still stood up in a suit and tie and answered the media's questions even after the humiliating loss.  This time, the Panther's QB hung his head, wouldn't look at anyone, answered with one and two words and finally walked out of the interview.  Wow.  Good role model.  Anyway, great game, great thing for Colorado and a ton of fun!