Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure- Wednesday

Wednesday-  For a lot of reasons, Universal Studios/ Islands of Adventure deserves its own post.  Our expectations for this day were the lowest based on the age of our kids, but it was without a doubt one of the very best days of the week! (Really the best single day if I'm not allowed to count all 3 Magic Kingdom days as one).

First of all, Ryan came through with a great connection!  A friend Ryan knows through work is always offering things that we can never actually accept (bring your family to my beach house in Myrtle Beach, for example).  But when he heard we were going to Disney World, he said Universal Studios is one of his biggest clients and he could get us free tickets.  This sounded great, and I was a little afraid it was too good to be true.  I wasn't too worried about it, though, because if it fell through we would just have an "off" day at the resort.  A couple of weeks before the trip, it really became too good to be true.  Since he himself would be in Orlando that day, as well, Ryan's friend had arranged for us to have his good friend's "Executive Pass" for the day.  Meaning free access to both parks, free express pass (skip all lines), free valet parking, and some sort of merchandise discount, he thought 10% (turns out it was 35% off some stores and 50% of others).  And he totally came through!  We met him in his swanky hotel lobby Wednesday morning like we had planned, and not only did the pass do everything he had said, lots of people looked at us like we must be important.  Ha!  It was quickly going to our heads. ;)  Truth be told, Universal wasn't as busy as Disney, so lines wouldn't have been an issue either way.  But instead of waiting 10 minutes for rides, we were waiting 2 minutes, and that was still fun!

The highlights for us were...

-Walking in the atmosphere was great, and there were all of these fun places to stop and take pictures.  Everyone was in a great mood, weather was perfect, so we took advantage of the chance to play and take pics:

Anderson spotted this on the way in and was all about it!

Brady rocking the two-year-old "happy face" ;-)

Per Anderson's request.

I'm always optimistic for a good family photo...  we try.

Dimples!

Brady loves to ride on animals! He was excited!

Like the big boys 

Drums!  Happy boy.

Love the real smiles we got in this one!!

-Briefly visiting the Marvel area.  No rides for the little guys here, but plenty to see!

They let you use your own camera, but all you get is a green screen.  Ha! Still cute. :)  And Spider Man was super nice.

 - The Dr. Seuss area.  We started out with the free play/ water area, and the boys would've stayed for hours if we let them.

There were quite a few fun rides in this area, too.  One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat, a cute carousel, and then a train ride that for some unknown reason Brady wasn't tall enough to ride.

We rode this one a lot :)  As you can see, not busy!

My mom went a little crazy in the souvenir shop (35% off!) and got all of us cute shirts that Anderson was very eager for us all to change in to.

This is after a yummy Mexican food dinner at City Walk, but you can see our shirts, more or less.

We had lunch at a fancy restaurant called "Myths", I think.  Compared to Disney prices, very reasonably priced.

Brady's animals went with him for most of the trip, including this lunch.

Then we headed to Hogsmeade in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  It is AMAZING!  I didn't take many pictures, but my mom got some good ones on her phone.  I guess we had put our camera away at this point, which is too bad.  It looked beautiful and so realistic, and you could buy wands among tons of other things from the books and movies.  I can't wait to read the books with the boys when they are older and then go back.

 We took the super realistic train from Hogsmeade (in Islands of Adventure) to Daigon Alley in London (Universal Studios).  You can only do this if you have park-hopper tickets.  Woo hoo!  :)  We sat in real train cars and the windows were ridiculously realistic screens so it looks like you're driving through a scene in the movies; you see characters and all.  Even the door to our train had a screen so it looked like characters were walking by, peeking in, frogs got loose and hopped on the door, etc. So cool!

Once in Diagon Alley, we did decide to give the adults a chance to ride the Escape from Gringotts ride.  This was an awesome ride.  The only problem was, Dad and I stayed with the boys in the middle of the (quite crowded, but beautiful) street while Mom and Ryan rode the rather long ride.  The boys were all desperately trying to nap; meanwhile, the amazing-looking dragon on top of Gringotts lets out a reallly loud roar and fire every 10 minutes or so making it REALLY hard for my super-tired boys to nap.  I was a little cranky about this.  Especially because with all of the intro to the ride, it took almost 30 minutes.  And I had both my mom and Ryan's phones, so if we had left the super-loud area, who knows when we would find each other.  We did our best and the boys kind of slept.  Once we reunited, we moved the boys to a much quieter area and my parents stayed with them while Ryan took me on the ride.  It was amazing!

This is inside Gringotts, where normally the line would be.  There was a bit of a line, but not nearly like it gets during busy weeks.

Going about their business...

 After the boys woke back up, we watched the show with the animal "actors" (it was a little disappointing for sure.)  It was starting to rain, so we started thinking about heading back to Hogsmeade (we wanted to ride the train again).  The evening turned out cooler and foggy but the rain didn't last long.  Here's Hogsmeade at night.

Disney World is already so expensive, and they make it so much less expensive to add a 4th or 5th day, so I COMPLETELY get why a lot of people do just Disney.  We had a really fortunate circumstance otherwise we weren't planning on Universal at all.  With all of that said, it is such a shame to be so close to Universal and not experience it! When we go back one day and our boys are older, I want to do 3 days at Disney and definitely 2 at Universal.  In a lot of ways they're doing things that Disney isn't.  I guess Disney doesn't have to improve as much because as it is, they were definitely the busier of the two (although the folks at Universal said we had picked the perfect week and it would be a lot busier the following week when "Christmas" starts there.)

Anyways, I can't say enough about what a pleasant surprise our day at Universal was.  Ryan must never lose touch with our new favorite friend. ;-)

DISNEY WORLD!! Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday

Our trip to Orlando with my parents was completely wonderful!

We didn't really know what to expect- 8 month olds, 2 1/2 year olds, and 4 year olds can be a little unpredictable, and this trip was going to be unlike any other vacation the boys had been on.  We really tried to manage our expectations (although it's hard to get the adorable "I've waited my whole life to see you!" or "I'm too excited to sleep!" Disney commercials out of your head.)  I honestly didn't know if the boys would particularly like the rides or the characters, but the four of us adults were sure we would make the most of it.  We didn't plan ahead too much (only 2 meals reserved) because we wanted to be flexible and make it work for the boys.   We had been talking to Anderson and Brady about our Disney trip for the last few months, and Anderson especially shared in the anticipation and excitement of the upcoming trip.  I loved seeing him excited about it!  Throughout the whole trip, Anderson would lead us in "WHO WANTS TO GO TO DISNEY WORLD TODAY?!!.... ME!!!"  (and Brady, who truly LOVED being there, fulfilled his toddler duty and consistently yelled back, "NO!")  I love a lot of these pictures, but they truly don't do justice how happy the boys were (most of the time).

Sunday

We woke up early Sunday morning to catch a flight around 8 am.  Thanks to a sleeping baby and some handy electronic devices, the flight was short and sweet.  The highlight by far was right as we landed, Brady exclaimed, "We're flying too low!".  A lot of us giggled and "ahh"ed at his adorableness, so he was instantly embarrassed.  But it was so cute!

We made it out of the airport, grabbed fast food, unloaded luggage at the (very pretty!) resort, and headed to Magic Kingdom.  We took the ferry in...

As soon as we made it actually in to the park, we saw Pluto was signing autographs.  So Ryan and I ran into the Emporium and picked autograph books for each of the boys (yay for grandparents holding our spot in line!)  We made it back in time for some photos with Pluto.

Anderson was a little nervous around the characters, especially at first.  Brady loved "to say hi to them." :)

Now that you can plan ahead 3 Fast Passes for each day (plus add one once yours are all used up), waiting in line was never a big deal.  Our Fast Passes for Sunday were Buzz Light Year, the racecars (both boys' favorite ride of all), and It's A Small World (which they also both really enjoyed). The boys were both super brave when it came to rides.  If they were tall enough (about 41" A and 39" B), they would ride it.  They almost always asked to ride it again, too. 

Happy guy!

We made the most of this first, half-day: took some castle pictures...

And then booked it on over to the Contemporary Resort for our first Character Dinner at Chef Mickey's.  It was a big buffet with pretty good food.  The value was definitely in the attention from the characters.

Monday

We went back to Magic Kingdom for a full day, this time.  We rode lots of rides.  Some were the Haunted Mansion (although the boys didn't love this one), Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise (my least favorite), Aladdin's flying carpets, Goofy's Barnstormer (a quick little roller coaster- made me scream!), and of course the race cars again.  Also we got each of the boys their ears.  Anderson LOVED his and even wore them to bed Monday night.  Colby humored me and wore his a lot, which we all loved.  Brady occasionally tolerated his (although he definitely picked them out.)  Here are some highlights from Monday...

I really wanted a good family picture... Why does getting 5 smiles have to be so tough?!

Before we left, Ryan and I got each of the boys their main souvenir, a super-movie-like Buzz and Woody.  We were probably as excited as they were.  Grandma and Grandpa took the boys and their new Buzz Lightyears to see the real Buzz.

Tuesday

Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios.  We were ready for a slower-paced day with more shows for the boys, who were staying up late but not sleeping in.  We went to the Frozen Sing-along, Disney Junior Live, and rode Toy Story Midway Mania (loved!).  Anderson was suddenly really into seeing characters, so we spent about an hour getting autographs and photos with different characters. This went really well until it didn't. ;)

There was a big climb and play Honey I Shrunk the Kids area, and space to just run around and play was really good for both boys.  Both boys enjoyed it in the morning and then Anderson spent at least an hour in there while his brothers napped.  It was a little stressful supervising your child in a busy place full of caves and nets to climb in  and out of, but as long as we paid attention, we usually knew where he was.

After Brady's nap, we wanted to be sure and go see Lightning McQueen and Mater (since Brady is really into the Cars movie lately.)  This was a good idea, except Anderson fell asleep waiting in the line to see them.  This is how he felt about us waking him up for a picture... oops!

Brady and Ryan were happy to see the Cars...

At night, the Streets of America section of Hollywood Studios was decorated beautifully for Christmas!  We walked through the streets and headed over to the Fantasmic Show.  Some Disney stock photos mixed in with our own here...

So this  is what it looks like

And the (pretty scary) laser show: