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Sunday, January 31, 2010

vacation - day 4.

The final morning of the cruise (Sunday, January 17), we had to be off the ship by 9am. So much for sleeping in (like you're supposed to do on vacation, right?!)... Mickey wished us well as we headed off.


Last view of our ship. Until next time, Disney Cruise Line!


We spent $150 (+tip) on a taxi ride from the port to our hotel in Orlando. We have since decided that next time we visit the area, we will be taking our own vehicle.


We arrived at our hotel and learned that the shuttle that we thought could take us to Universal Studios...only ran once a day. So, we walked the .97 mile to get there.


We started off at Universal's Islands of Adventure. They had several different "worlds" to visit, with appropriate epic music playing in each land. It put our own KC Worlds of Fun to shame.


Possibly the coolest ride ever, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-man is a 3D experience type ride that makes you feel as though you are careening down the city streets, being tossed around by some major villains, and getting swung through the skyscrapers on Spidey's web. It was awesome. We rode it twice.


Character photo opportunities abound, and we stopped by to visit Popeye and Olive Oyl.


Ominous clouds hang over the Dudley Do-Right Falls. We skipped over this ride at first, but came back to it later.


The next world we encountered was Jurassic Park. There are a lot of these photo spots in this area! Look at my sweet hubby toting around the camera bag for me. :)


This is what you look like after taking a trip on the Jurassic Park raft ride AND the Dudley Do-Right Falls. It was only about 65-70 degrees...so we were pretty cold!


Sad, sad, sad day. The Harry Potter world is in the process of being created. Here's what we could see of Hogsmeade. This world opens in May - just a few months from now. We were pretty bummed that we were so close, yet we didn't get to visit the world.


Here, we illustrate our disappointment.


In Seuss Landing, I got to meet lots of favorite old friends!! They were everywhere...we just had to wait in some short lines to get photos with them all.


The Grinch.


Sam I Am had no one in his line. I felt badly for the guy. I mean, really, without him, what use have we for Green Eggs and Ham?!


Thing 2 definitely stole my sunglasses off my face. They're balanced on his nose. Those crazy Things...


The Caro-Seuss-el was topped with Horton and surrounded by Truffula Trees.


The Circus McGurkus Cafe. We didn't eat here, as it was just amusement park food, but it looked really cool - inside and out!


Having fun. :)


We actually left the park for lunch...we went out into Universal's Citywalk area and had Moe's - Andrew's favorite.


When we got back to the park, we went back to the fantastic Seuss world to ride The Cat in the Hat, see McElligot's Pool, and more.


It's my store!! I was pretty disappointed, though. I asked the lady inside the store if they had any Gertrude McFuzz merchandise - and she said they did not have anything that even mentioned poor Miss McFuzz. Seriously. Gertrude is so overlooked. It's a tragedy.


We were able to catch a glimpse of Harry Potter's world through a knothole in a giant fence. I'm so excited about this place. We're hoping to go back sometime to visit once it's open...but who knows how long it might be until that happens.


Hogwarts from afar.


Modified teacup ride - superhero style!


To make a really long horrible transportation story short, we never found the shuttle back to the hotel and after walking there, ended up waiting another hour for a trolley that was supposed to run continuously to take us to dinner. Cedric wanted a photo. It was cold and I was wearing flip-flops, because, hello, it's Florida! The trolley eventually came...at which point we actually had to chase it down. Yeah.


We had dinner at Bahama Breeze. I'm not sure it was quite worth the effort we put forth to get there...but it was nice. After dinner, we again had to flag down the trolley to get back to the hotel. And then we had neighbors who spoke loudly in Chinese until about 2am. What a fantastic night!


All in all, the lesson we learned? Just take a car. Really.
Day 5 coming soon!

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