Day 3-- Universal Studios!

We spent our 3rd day by beginning at Universal Studios (as opposed to Islands of Adventure, our starting point for Day 1).  We quickly learned that most of the rides here are sort of like Disney's Star Tours, where you're riding in a car that moves and shakes a little but you're mostly stay in once place watching a movie.  I'm okay with a little bit of that, but it got tedious after a while.  (Especially if the ride was based on something pretty lame, like The Fast and the Furious, or Jimmy Fallon, or the Minions, or generic non-specific Spider-Man since who knows who owns the rights to that!)  But the kids were having a blast, which is all that really mattered!

At Number 12 Grimmauld Place, where you could occasionally see Kreacher peeking through the window

Inside Gringott's, waiting in line.  We'd ridden it on our first day, but somehow had scored fast passes then, so this time we were taking our time and really appreciating all the banker goblins!

Getting ready for the Despicable Me Villains ride

This day was also very rainy.  That was annoying, but what was worse was that once you were soaked, you'd go inside a building and freeze because the A/C was blasting!  It was a bit rough.  We got ice cream at Fortescue's and my choice (sticky toffee pudding) was okay, but not amazing, and then I accidentally knocked my cone onto the wet, puddly ground.  So that was a bummer.  It was definitely starting to feel like the middle-of-vacation blues!

The good news was that, thanks to the rain, the line was much shorter to take the Hogwarts Express back to Islands of Adventure, so that was nice.  Unfortunately, I was cruising along so quickly that I didn't notice people vanishing as they passed through the wall onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters!  Craig filmed it-- you can see me blithely eating goldfish crackers as I walk through the wall!  What a waste!

It was so nice just to sit down once we got on the train!  (And no, I'm not really asleep.  I'm actually taking the picture!)

Craig got us a reservation at Mythos, and it was also nice enjoying a real meal.  Too bad we were freezing the entire time!  

Bentley loves pulling funny faces with his food

By the time we finished eating the rain had mostly stopped, so we were fed and happy!  And all the lines were still pretty short, so life was good again.

Look at those lack of crowds!

Colton practiced his spell work a bit!

Even though she was still very nervous about scary rides, I managed to convince Camille to ride Flight of the Hippogriff (and she loved it)

I loved this photo op so much:

And we stopped to get a picture in front of the Jurassic Park gates.  We'd tried to get one the first day, and some guy saw Craig's BYU shirt and insisted on taking it for us (he grabbed Craig's phone out of his hands just forcefully enough that I was honestly poised to chase after him if he made a run for it with Craig's phone (is that even a thing any more?)), and then he didn't even get the sign in the picture!  So we were more successful with Craig at the helm.  Of course!

While Colton and Camille and I were waiting at the King Kong ride for the others to join us, she was getting nervous (again) so I asked the line workers how scary the ride was.  The one lady assured it wasn't scary at all, but that the line itself might be.  She told us to come and find her once our whole group was together, and then when we did, she gave us fast passes for a different ride and took us around the back of the line so Camille didn't have to see the scary part (and we didn't have to wait)!  So that was nice of her!  (And then we could ride Hagrid's motorbikes without waiting for two hours!)

So the day ended on a very good note, even if it felt a bit wilted and sad in the middle!