Day 5-- Everything Else!

For our last day, we actually let the kids sleep in a bit.  Then we ran around, once again packing lunches, but also packing up everything else since that had been our last night in our VRBO.  We got the van all loaded and then passed around sunscreen to all the kids while Craig drove.  Getting into the park was a zoo-- each step of the way (parking, bag checks, ticketing, plus the walking to and from each of these locations) was a crowded mess and for the first time the kids (and me!) fully appreciated how nice we had it getting there early each day.  Good work getting us moving, Craig!

We'd made a list of everything we either a) still hadn't done or b) wanted to do again before we left and Craig kept us on task.  There were a few rides at Universal that had been shut down on Wednesday because of the rain, so we started with those.  And Kendra and Craig were excited to watch the Street Construction Drummers, so we made sure we caught one of their performances.  Craig had absolutely LOVED the Bourne Stuntacular show, so we saw that again.  That really was super cool-- they used a hyper-realistic movie screen in the background and as the camera angle on that changed, the sets would move to match it-- it was actually hard to tell who were live actors and who were actors on the screen!  My favorite moment was during a car chase (yes-- they'd have cars moving on the stage and, again, the screen behind them would make it look like they were racing all over the place) and Jason Bourne leapt from his motorcycle and pulled himself up onto a street lamp, and as he pulled himself up the whole thing switched into slow motion so the actor was pulling himself up super slow and it looked so cool and must have taken a TON of muscle control!  It was wild!  We also saw the horror makeup show, which was hilarious.

I wanted to take pictures with the giant shark from Jaws , and once we were there, each kid wanted their own picture with it.  I think each of the kids' pictures sort of represent their personalities-- it's kind of amazing:

Bentley's a goofball

Kendra just wants to love on the giant scary monster shark

Ryder has to up the ante on Bentley's goofiness

Colton has to come up with something new, so he goes with nervously thinking about the shark

And Camille is going to fearlessly just poke at the shark

And, of course, one with the whole family

Then we had to ride the Hogwarts Express to Islands of Adventure so I could fully appreciate Platform Nine and Three-Quarters this time!  And it was super cool-- I'm glad I made sure we did that again!

(Please excuse the terrible camera work at the end-- apparently I can't stop filming without nearly dropping my phone...)

I love that Craig took a picture of me taking a selfie-- how meta!

And we got a picture of the Jurassic Park gates in the day time!

Once we were back in Island of Adventure, we rode the Jurassic Park river cruise which was super fun, and also the Hulk rollercoaster, which nearly had some of my kids blacking out (Camille did NOT ride this one-- I think she wouldn't have forgiven me if I'd tried to make her!).  We also rode Hagrid's motorcycles one last time.  That ride was pretty much everyone's favorite, but this was the longest we ever had to wait for it, and by the time we got off, we were all DONE.  Everyone was tired, their feet hurt (my hip was hurting-- what the heck?), and we were finally ready to head home.

While Craig took Ryder and Colton to buy t-shirts, I went and got one last brownie milkshake from the Chocolate Emporium (heaven!) for myself and for Craig.  And the kids got churros.  I'd wanted to get a picture of us with the Universal globe, but we were all too tired to trek all around the lake to get to it, so we settled for this shot:

It's back there!

And then we climbed back in the van, and began driving home!  We didn't have any sort of plan for the return trip-- we didn't know what time we'd end up leaving the parks or how long we'd be able to stay awake as we drove, so we just figured we'd play it by ear.  As it was, we ended up getting "dinner' at Buc-ees a little after 9pm, and then drove all night.  Craig and I alternated driving and sleeping, with Craig insisting that each driving shift get shorter and shorter so we wouldn't push ourselves too hard.  It was a tough call, because I have NEVER been a person who pulls all-nighters.  But I knew we'd get a terrible night's sleep cramming all seven of us into a motel room, so I figured if I wasn't going to get much sleep either way, we may as well go with the cheaper option!  

We pulled into our driveway right around 7:30am, so that's pretty good, if you ask me!  I was excited to get back to my own shower and bed.  And Craig was excited to make cinnamon rolls (it was conference weekend, after all)!  We tried our best to watch Conference (and we were very thankful we didn't have to be up and running things at church the following morning), but I will admit that a lot of the weekend looked like this:

And that's okay!

It was a wonderful vacation.  I'm so happy that everything went so well.  The only problem was that by the time we got home, I felt like I needed a vacation to rest up from our vacation!  Isn't that how it always goes, though?

Day 4-- SeaWorld!

I'd insisted that we spend a day at SeaWorld during this trip.  I hadn't gone since I was in high school and I really wanted to see the killer whale show and have my kids see it!  I was so excited!  I'd even paid all kinds of extra money* to do the VIP Orca Tour, and three of the kids had decided to spend their own money to do it, too.  Unfortunately, the day before, while I was standing in a line somewhere, I got a voicemail telling me that our excursion had been canceled, but I was welcome to either reschedule it for next week (impossible) or switch to a different tour (lame-- it's killer whales or nothing, as far as I'm concerned).  So that was a bummer.  But I was still excited!

True to form we got there before the park opened and as soon as we could get in, Camille and I hurried off to the dolphin nursery while Craig and the other kids went to ride all the roller coasters.  We watched the dolphins for a bit and then stopped by the shark aquarium, which was also very cool.  I wanted to see the killer whales, but that part of the park was still closed for another hour, so next we saw the sea lions and a bigger dolphin pool, and then we saved seats for everyone for the first dolphin show.  (We also stopped by the customer service desk to ask about my canceled tour-- I was worried that if I didn't check in or something, they would claim we didn't show up and keep our money.  But the lady at the desk assured me our money would be refunded, so that was a relief.)

They were throwing fish to the sea lions and this super creepy stork was hanging around trying to steal the fish.  The girl tossing fish had a pretty impressive throwing arm!

The sea lions were cute, but also extremely loud and smelly

I'm kind of proud of this picture of a hammerhead swimming over us!

Craig, meanwhile, had taken the other kids on most of the major rollercoasters at the park (there are five or six, I think?) and hurried through the shark aquarium, too, before joining us at the dolphin show.

(This is Ryder, but mostly I just love the scene behind him here!)

We didn't take any pictures of the dolphin show, but it was really fun-- just seeing those bottlenose dolphins leap out of the water and do flips is crazy impressive, and when they get six of them leaping perfectly in synch, it's just amazing!  If you're bored, you might want to watch the show on YouTube!

We tried something new this time around and got an all-day food pass.  We were hoping it would save us some money and make everything a little less stressful and more fun, but it didn't really work the way we wanted it to.  For one thing, the bracelets didn't work super reliably-- at the panini place, they couldn't get Bentley's to work at all and while they finally just let him have his food and told us to go to customer service to get a new one, it took forever while they tried to figure out what to do.  We also realized, too late, that there were a bunch of food booths that wouldn't take our passes, which was especially disappointing because they were doing a sort of food festival with international booths set up all over the park and it would have been fun to sample a bunch of them!  But we weren't going to pay more money for food after all that!  The other lame thing was that the places that did take our passes had insanely long lines.  At one point I just stood in line while Craig and the kids did some other stuff, and they joined me as I was getting inside the building, only to discover that there was still another hour wait to go.  It was ridiculous (although the food was pretty good!).  So I think we got our money's worth, but it didn't make us very happy or make eating any less stressful.  (Also, SeaWorld had a No Outside Food policy, unlike Universal, so we didn't bring snacks or lunch or anything.  But then they didn't even check our bags, so we totally could have just packed lunches!)  Anyway, I hate trying to play games like that, it's annoying.

The first orca show was at noon, and even getting there pretty early, the only decent seats I could find were in the splash zone.  I figured the odds were we wouldn't get wet anyway and plunked myself down where I had a nice view of the killer whales swimming around before the show started.  And Craig snapped this great shot right as it began:

I am enraptured

The show was super cool, but I have to say, it could be so much better.  They don't let the trainers get in the water with the whales any more, which I understand, but it means they can't do half the amazing tricks they used to do.  And even the stuff that they do have the whales do, they make a point of explaining that these are Very Natural Behaviors (or they're done for the whales' health) so don't worry, audience members, everything is fine here.  And I'm not gonna lie: that's dumb.  No one cares.  (Okay, that's not true, a few very loud protesters a few years ago cared.  But you know what?  Even those people would come watch the show as soon as they were done protesting, so I don't think they actually were bothered by it, either, they just wanted something to complain about!)  They also spent quite a bit of time showing a video about how great killer whales are, but it hardly told you anything about them, other than that they're apex predators and therefore we should not pollute.  It was fine, but I'm pretty sure it could be way better.

Because there wasn't as much for them to make the whales do, one of the things they did do was have a whale swim by just splashing everyone in the first ten or so rows.  We got drenched.  Everyone in the splash zone got drenched.  Craig was...  less than thrilled.  I thought it was pretty hilarious.  It was a beautiful warm day and we dried off pretty quickly!

These are our wet faces, I guess

People were getting hungry again, so that was when I held our place in line while Craig took everyone to some of the spots Camille and I had already visited:

Is that scuba diver is holding up a "Help me" note???

After we'd eaten, we went to the sea lion show, which is pretty stupid and slapsticky, and yet, still pretty fun.  Before it began, they had a very grumpy, sarcastic mime wandering around and he was honestly the funniest thing we saw all day.  Who knew?

Then we wandered around seeing all the animals we'd missed and riding a few more rollercoasters

The sting rays were a huge hit-- they really didn't mind being petted and they're just so soft and slimy-- who can resist?

(Not this girl!)

Kendra was especially excited about the manatees

I sent Craig and the kids to get dinner while I saved us seats for the final killer whale show, this time not in the splash zone!  I had EXCELLENT seats and had to keep fending people off.  So naturally, right as the show was starting, some lady in an electric scooter with a huge shade roof parked in the handicapped section, completely blocking our view of the shallow spot where the killer whales come out of the water in front of the audience.  Not only that, her husband stood for a chunk of the show, blocking even more of my view.  I couldn't believe it.  The show was still amazing (and it was nice not getting wet, especially at 8pm!) but it really was frustrating.  (Craig even asked her if the shade roof could be removed or put down or something, but it couldn't.)

And then the park was closing!  As we were heading out, Bentley managed to stomp on Camille's foot and make it bleed, so then she was very unhappy.  Fortunately we saw a few more dolphins at the nursery pool as we were leaving and that cheered her up very quickly.

*When I first looked up the price for this VIP tour, it was listed as $129.  So I asked the kids if they wanted to do it, and they all had to hem and haw for a bit before they made up their minds.  So it took me a couple days before I actually purchased the tickets.  And when I went to buy them, they'd shot up to $149!  I wanted to ask the kids if they were okay with this new price, but I didn't dare risk the price going up again, so I just bought them.  But I felt bad spending the kids' money without their express permission.  And then, as I was checking out, SeaWorld added taxes and "convenience fees" so now the tickets were $170!  Each!!!  And I felt even worse about the whole thing.

The good news in all this is when they did cancel, the kids didn't really care.  In fact, they were pretty happy to get their money back.

And then I got my refund a few days after we returned home and SeaWorld had kept $45 of it-- they weren't giving back all those convenience fees.  Even though everyone had assured me my money would be refunded.  Then I was seriously TICKED.  I tried calling about twenty times and the only time someone answered, she said she "wasn't authorized" to refund that money and the only people who could were all "in meetings."  You'll be shocked to hear that they never called me back.

I finally just called my credit card company and told them to reverse the charge.  I'm still so mad about that.

And I'm even more angry because I love SeaWorld but now I just feel like I'm in an abusive relationship with them and they're trying to make me hate them.  Why are they trying to ruin something that should be so great???

But still-- I just love those killer whales so much!!!!

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!

Day 2-- Volcano Bay!

Our second day was also the hottest of the week, so we spent the day at Volcano Bay, Universal's water park.  We didn't take many pictures since we didn't ever want our phones to get wet.  (Three.  We took three pictures.  And two of them are this same group selfie:) 

But it was a fun day and the weather was great.  

We got Camille to go on a couple of the slightly scarier slides, but when we tried to get her on the harder raft ride (the one that goes high up back and forth on a U-shaped bowl before going down the tubes) she was very nervous.  We kept reassuring her that it was very safe and pointing out that every scary ride she went on, she liked.  Right as we got to the top, she was watching as a little girl fell out of her raft and then Camille was done for.  She burst into tears and I sent her right back down the stairs and said we'd find her at the bottom.  Poor traumatized Camille!  (The little girl who actually fell out of the raft was fine, by the way-- her family just pulled her right back in!  And the lifeguards were all shocked because they'd never seen that happen!).  But Camille did a bunch of the other stuff and still had fun!

We had to take a break at one point so that Bentley could sign up for housing!  (This was supposed to have happened a couple weeks earlier but then BYU changed the date on us, which was super annoying.  This was NOT what we wanted to worry about while on vacation!)  But we made it work and he has his dorm all assigned-- 220 Budge Hall, in Helaman Halls!  My little cougar!  

The park closed around 5pm, so we headed home, got everyone showered and cleaned, and then went out for a late dinner at the Olive Garden.  We hardly ever go out to eat with just our family, but it was really nice just hanging out chatting and eating.  Even if we didn't take any pictures of it!

Day 1-- Islands of Adventure!

This all started because we realized that it might be our last chance to take the whole family on vacation.  Bentley will be at BYU in the fall and the next year he should be serving a mission and you just never really know what will happen after that.  So we decided we should take advantage of this time.  Plus, our kids were finally old enough to appreciate Harry Potter World, which they definitely weren't the last time we went to Orlando, back in 2016.  

We surprised them with this decision right after Christmas break, and let the little kids see plenty of videos about Universal Studios to get them excited.  We were all packed and ready to leave Saturday night, so as soon as we could leave church, we sped home, changed out of our church clothes, loaded everything into the car and we were off!  The drive down went smoothly, but since we'd left so late, we didn't get to our VRBO until a little after midnight.  When we got up in the morning (Craig had us all up at 6:30 and packing lunches), the kids were thrilled to see an alligator in the lake.  Good times!

Nice view other than the creature waiting to kill you. He's that speck in the water right above the balcony.)

At the entrance

We were inside the park before the rides were open to the public, just waiting for the rope to drop.  And then the wildest thing happened-- I looked around and suddenly realized I was seeing my friend Crystal from Manassas (it turned out her husband was right in front of me)!  If I'd tried to, I couldn't have planned something like that!  So we said a quick hello and then raced off to our separate rides and never saw each other again the whole week.  But it was still a fun hi!

Hi, Crystal!

Our first stop was Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure but we did pause briefly to take pictures with the Hogwarts Express!

The line was long, but this ride was so fun-- definitely our favorite!

I feel like giving you a list of everything we did probably isn't all that interesting, so I'm mostly going to post a crap ton of pictures from here on out.  Commentary to be provided whenever I deem necessary!

Every now and then this raptor would move and rattle the entire cage-- it was awesome

And I love everyone's scared faces here!

Hogwarts Castle!

This photo-op with Blue was hilarious:

I took Colton and Camille around while the bigger kids did some of the scarier roller coasters with Craig (Colton was perfectly happy riding all the scariest stuff, but it was nice of him to hang out with Camille once in a while!)

Butterbeer!

The dragon on top of Gringott's Bank was pretty amazing!

Colton got chosen to participate in Ollivander's wand demonstration, which was pretty much the cutest thing ever (especially since, at age 11, he's the same age as Harry Potter in The Sorcerer's Stone).  So then he HAD to buy himself the wand-- it chose him!!!

I love that I look totally excited to ride on the Hogwarts Express

There it is breathing fire!

We ended our first night by getting milkshakes from the Chocolate Emporium.  They were all amazing.  Like, seriously amazing.