After arriving back to Port Canaveral on the morning of July 8th, we quickly transition to our three days in Orlando. After spending four hours exiting the ship, taking our shuttle back to the airport, and picking up our rental car, we headed out for our three day adventure in Orlando. We spent the first day visiting the American Girl Doll store and enjoying our hotel, the second day in "Harry Potter Land" (as I call it) at Universal Studios, and the third day at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. It was a fast and furious three days, but I am so grateful that we were able to squeeze this second leg of our trip in between the cruise and our visit to see Austin and Robbie and their boys. Here is a break down of our few days in Orlando...
July 8th:
After picking up our rental car at the Orlando airport, I insisted that we drive first to visit the American Girl Doll store in Orlando since we no longer have our own store in Seattle. I am trying to take Ella to a few of the AGD stores around the country while she still loves playing with this kind of doll. While the boys went grocery shopping, Ella, Lia, and I spent a fun hour or so walking around this store and checking out all of our old favorites and new releases. Here is Ella sitting in the awesome "throne chair" that I have never seen before at any other AGD store.
After purchasing a few goodies for future gifts for Ella, we met the boys in front of the store. We then drove to the Universal Studios hotel to check in since it was in the early afternoon by that point in time. Since our room still was not ready, we headed back out to eat a very late lunch/early dinner before returning to our hotel to swim in the large pool. We then got all of the kids to bed around 8 p.m. to get them rested and ready for our early morning the next day.
July 9th:
We left our hotel at 7 a.m. in order to catch the shuttle over to Universal Studios to take advantage of the early admission that hotel guests get as a result of staying in a Universal Hotel. Since we were just planning on focusing the two Harry Potter areas, it made my research a lot easier. Luckily, I was able to figure out a plan for the entire day and it really went off as smoothly as possible. We visited Hogsmeade in the first park where we went on the three Harry Potter rides before the lines got long. Here we are standing in front of the Hogwarts Castle with no crowds around us which is a pretty amazing photo to capture.
While we were in Hogsmeade, we hit all three rides before the long lines formed. I was amazed at how fast we went on each of the three rides, even with having to do "rider swap" for two of the three rides since Emmett was still too short for Hagrid's motorbike ride and the castle ride. Here are all four kids in the line at the castle.
On our way out of Hogsmeade, Ella asked to have her picture taken in front of Gladrags Wizardwear where Hermione's Yule Ball dress was on display.
Although I had been told that the line for the train could be almost an hour long, I was so happy to see that there was barely anyone there when we got in line to catch it before the park opened up to the general public at 9 a.m. Since this train is stationary in the LA park, we were so excited to actually ride a real train from Hogsmeade to Diagon Alley in the Orlando park.
The Hartland fam waiting to board the train.
Since the Hogsmeade in Orlando is identical to the one in LA, we were all excited to see and explore Diagon Alley for the first time. As we approached the entrance, the kids had to stop and make a "call" in the red, phone booth.
And we also had to make a stop by the purple, Knight Bus to talk to the hanging, shrunken head at the entrance of the bus who actually talks to you! It was so funny!
After making our way into Diagon Alley, we had to stop for a family photo in front of the Gringotts Bank before the plaza out front got extremely crowded with tourists. We then went on this ride two times since the line was only ten minutes long and Emmett is tall enough to go on it.
After riding the Gringotts ride, we decided to stop for an early lunch at the Leaky Cauldron when there wasn't any wait to be seated at a table. We all enjoyed eating British style food and absolutely loved drinking the Butterbeer. We seriously would drink this every day if we had the chance.
Holding up my butterbeer!
After finishing lunch, Ron left us to go ride one of the crazy, huge roller coasters in the park that the kids and I had zero interest in riding. Instead, we went to Ollivander's wand shop and entered through the "experience" entrance of the store. Luckily, Logan was selected from the audience to choose his wand with the help of the witch who worked at Ollivander's. It was so fun to watch him up front "trying out" several wands.
We then spent several minutes in the store while Ella and Logan looked around and chose their wands. Ella ended up choosing Luna Lovegood's wand and Logan chose Dumbledore's famous, Elder Wand. Since I knew how badly Emmett would want his own wand, I secretly brought Ella's light-up, toy wand (that I had bought for her at Ollivander's four years ago in LA) all the way across the country to give to Emmett when we were in the wand shop. Since he thought that I had just bought it for him right there in the store, he was so happy to get his own wand and to use it for the rest of the day.
Logan, Ella, and Emmett then got a big kick out of walking around Diagon Alley and casting spells on specific targets to create "magical" experience.
We, or course, had to go find the entrance to Knockturn Alley and check out the area where the dark wizards shop. We enjoyed wandering around the Borgin and Burkes store and found a really cool shirt for Lia to purchase.
The kids enjoying some tasty treats while standing in front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes store. After meeting up with Ron again, he took the three younger kids around Diagon Alley for about an hour to look for more places for the kids to use their wands while Lia and I enjoyed wandering in and out of several stores. It was the perfect way to spend part of the afternoon.
When we felt like we were done exploring Diagon Alley, we took the train back to Hogsmeade to spend an hour or so there exploring all of the shops that we didn't have the chance to look at when we were there early in the morning focusing on the rides. Ron offered to take the younger two children to go on some rides in the Dr. Seuss area while Logan, Lia, and I did some more shopping and bought ourselves more Butterbeer. We enjoyed catching two shows on the stage next to the castle: The Triwizard Spirit Rally...
and the Frog Choir. After meeting back up with Ron, Ella, and Emmett at the front of Hogsmeade, we treated the two younger kids to some Butterbeer ice cream before the four kids and I decided to leave the park around 4 p.m. Ron stayed behind to hit a few more large rollercoasters before meeting back up with us at the hotel. Since so much of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley are in the shade, we really did not feel the intense heat and humidity until the last few hours of the day. By the time we got back to the hotel at 5 o'clock, we were so grateful to be back in our airconditioned hotel room and out of that scorching heat. Our 10-hour day at Universal Studios was the perfect amount of time to see all of the sights and sounds in both of the Harry Potter Lands. Ron then took the three younger kids back to the hotel pool for a little dip before we went to a quick dinner at Applebees in order to get the kids in bed again around 8 p.m. for our marathon, 17-hour day the next day at DisneyWorld.
July 10th:
For a second morning in a row, we got up early and left our hotel room by 7 a.m. to spend the next 17-hours pounding out a marathon day at Magic Kingdom in Disney World. Since we were only going to spend one day in this park, I had high hopes of doing and seeing as much as possible. Although there were a few hiccups along the way, the day really went smoothly considering how much we managed to accomplish. We were able to go on nineteen rides in addition to eating a 1.5 hour long, sit-down dinner at the Be Our Guest restaurant and watching the fireworks show. The kids managed to survive a very hot and humid day in the 90s and Emmett was a trooper considering that fact that he skipped yet another nap on this trip and was forced to put in a very long day in extreme heat and humidity. I am so grateful that this day went as well as it did and that we were able to create so many memories in this beloved park.
I insisted on having our traditional family photo taken inside the entrance of Magic Kingdom.
A close-up of the Hartland fam in front of the Mickey on the hill.
Our family posing for the other traditional spot that I always request we take in front of the castle.
We started off the day by riding Haunted Mansion and It's a Small World while waiting for the time on our Lightening Lane pass to Peter Pan's Flight to start. Since I think that this is one of the cutest areas in Magic Kingdom, I got the kids to stop and pose inside Rapunzel's Courtyard for a picture before it filled with tourists.
Since there was never a Fast Pass for this ride at Disneyland, my kids have only ridden Peter Pan's Flight one other time.
We then took a spin around on the carousel which is always one of my favorites and usually has a pretty short line.
Since we refused to pay for a special pass for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, we decided to actually wait in line for an hour to ride this awesome roller coaster while we waited for our time to arrive for our Lightening Lane Pass for Thunder Mountain. Here are the kids and me braving the heat in this line. However, tragedy struck when this ride broke down about 25 minutes into our wait. After waiting another half hour for the ride to get fixed, we decided not to waste any more precious time hoping that it would get repaired while we were in line. Sadly, we left the line and headed over to the Dumbo ride. I am happy to report that after I spoke to four different sets of people and pleaded our sob story, I managed to get six, free Lightening Lane passes to use for this ride any time later in the day. We luckily used these passes to ride this coaster later in the afternoon before the storm arrived.
Logan and Lia ready to go for a spin on the flying elephant.
We then headed over to Frontierland to use our Lightening Lane pass for Thunder Mountain Railroad which is a favorite of everyone in our family. I absolutely loved going on this roller coaster with Emmett and hearing his happy screams and laughter throughout the ride.
We then headed over to use our Lightening Lane pass at Pirates of the Caribbean which is my all-time favorite ride. We also enjoyed taking our one shopping break of the day to buy some souvenirs at the huge gift shop adjacent to the pirate ride.
We then stopped by lunch at Pecos Bill before continuing on through Adventureland to visit one of our favorites, the Tiki Room. We then walked through the Swiss Family Treehouse.
We stopped afterwards for a Dole Whip as a quick cool down.
After learning that the 3 p.m. parade (that Ella and I really wanted to watch) was postponed due to an impending storm, we decided to hop on the riverboat to cruise around the rivers of America to kill time while we waited for the weather to clear. Sadly, right as we sailed away, we saw the parade starting and it was too late to get off of the boat. So, Ella and I stood at the back of the boat and watched as many floats go by before we rounded the corner and lost side of the parade.
We then left Liberty Square and headed over to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to use our special passes that I had managed to snag earlier in the day. I am so glad that we decided to use them at this time as the storm that came a few minutes later ended up shutting down this ride for the next several hours. We then headed to Space Mountain to use our Lightening lane passes. Although this ride makes me a little sick, I was blown away by the fact that little Emmett absolutely loved it and immediately wanted to ride it again. When we walked out of Space Mountain, we discovered that the rain had started and it lasted for the next four hours from about 4 to 8 p.m. Although this was a bit of a bummer and something that we rarely have to deal with Disneyland, I am just so grateful that I remembered to buy cheap ponchos right before we left on our trip. These ponchos kept us pretty dry and helped us to not become wet and miserable for the rest of the night. We then rode the tea cups (which were still open due to being under cover) before heading over to Be Our Guest restaurant for our dinner reservation.
I had decided months ago that I wanted to take our family to this amazing restaurant inside of the Beast's Castle called "Be Our Guest." Since I have no idea if and when we will ever return to Disney World, I decided that now was the time to spend a little money for this magical, table-service restaurant. After getting up at 3 a.m. two months ago to secure our dinner reservations, the time had finally arrived. This turned out to be perfect timing as it allowed us to escape the rain for 1.5 of the 4 hours. We were seated in The Grand Ballroom section of the restaurant and enjoyed eating a delicious dinner in this incredible setting while it "snowed" outside.
The children's menu includes a dessert platter with the "grey stuff," a macaron, and an edible tea pot that they can paint. It was absolutely darling and fun to watch the littles paint away before eating their white chocolate tea pot.
After finishing dinner, we headed back outside and decided to put on our rain ponchos for the first time since it was still raining. We then spent the next two hours making our way through a series of rides with Lightening Lane pass times that were all within a few minutes of when I booked them. We started out with Tomorrowland Speedway which Emmett had been begging to go on all day long.
I got to ride in the same car as Emmett and he absolutely loved it! I wished that we could have ridden it a second time, but the line was too long.
We then rode the Barnstormer before visiting a family favorite, the Little Mermaid ride.
We then headed back over to Adventureland to ride The Magic Carpets of Aladdin before heading back to our favorite, Thunder Mountain. We had gotten a freebee Lightening Lane pass after the storm came a few hours earlier and cancelled our Tomorrowland Speedway passes that I had scheduled before our dinner reservation. This ended up working out for the best as we were able to ride the Speedway ride right after dinner and then use the freebee pass to go on Thunder Mountain a second time. By this time the rain had finally stopped which we were all so grateful for. We went on Thunder Mountain around 9 o'clock at night and it was so cool to see the park all lit up at night as we cruised around on this roller coaster.
After getting off Thunder Mountain, we had exactly ten minutes to make our way over to Main Street to find a place in the crowd to watch the fireworks show. This is honestly one of my favorite parts of the day and I am so grateful that my kids managed to brave the heat, the humidity, the rain, and the really long hours of walking to last long enough to see this amazing show.
After the firework show was over about 9:45, I managed to rally the troops one last time to go back into Adventure Land to use our last Lightening Lane pass of the day for the Jungle Cruise ride. In all my years of going to Disney parks, I have never gone on this ride in the dark, so it was cool to experience it for the first time like that. It was fun to finish off this marathon day in Disney World going on this classic ride. We headed out of the park at 10:30 p.m. and this was the picture I took of the castle as we made our way to the monorail. It took us a really long time to catch the monorail to walk to our car in the parking lot. We made it back to our car at 11:30 and back to the hotel at midnight--exactly 17 hours after we left this morning. We walked a total of 9.5 miles and I am so proud of the kids, especially Emmett, for putting in such a long day with little complaints! It was the perfect way to end our Disney experience and time in Orlando.
