Travis, my brother & I hit up Universal Studios: Islands of Adventure park on Wednesday last week. We don’t think it was worth the $90 some dollars, but we still had fun. There is actually two parks at Universal. Islands of Adventures has Harry Potter world, Dr. Seuss Landing, Marvel Super Hero world & The Lost Continent. (I think I’m missing a world in there, but I can’t remember what it is) And then there is the regular Universal Studios park which has behind the scenes movie tours, sets, and rides. I’d recommend going to that park, since you get more out of it.

Every time we go somewhere like Disney or Universal, my Dad gets these awesome touring schedules (no idea where) which tell you when to go on each ride, so your wait times are less and you can get more done in a day. As long as you follow them, they work wonders. They work so well, that at Universal Islands of Adventure we were done with all of the rides by 3:30 in the afternoon, so we could do whatever we wanted after that. And the longest we waited in line was 10 minutes, even for the Harry Potter ride. (Which was awesome, by the way.)

I’m not a fan of Harry Potter. I haven’t seen more than a half hour of each of the movies, and I’ve never picked up the books, but Travis is a fan. This is the only reason we went to Islands of Adventure, to see Harry Potter world. After being there, it makes me want to read the books and watch the movies, because it was awesome. The picture below looks like the buildings are just a backdrop, but they are real buildings.

They should have just made a Harry Potter theme park, since it makes everything else in Islands of Adventure look not as cool. Everything was just way over the top and awesome.

The Lost Continent looked pretty neat as well, but I thought the main attraction there, Poseidon’s Fury, was boring. They shoved so many of us into one room that I couldn’t even see what was going on.

Some things that are worth seeing there are: Harry Potter World, Hulk Coaster, Spider-man 3D, Sindbad Live Show & All of the water rides. Before we left I grabbed a Christmas Ornament (I’ve been collecting these for places we go… for now, my collections always change) and then I grabbed a Minnion from Despicable Me for one of my cousins since they didn’t come to Universal.

Since we were done with all of the rides by 3:30, we left the park around 4 and went back to the house to drink, relax & watch movies. These next two photos I should have thrown into Monday’s post, but I’m going to just put them in here. I never realized in Florida that they would have so many gecko’s running around. These things were everywhere! There was always at least ten of them hanging out by the pool at any given time.

And one of my favorite things that I got to see while in Florida, was the hot air balloons in the morning. I’ve always wanted to go up in one, but they are around $200 a person to do so. I was probably just as happy to see them floating around.

Tomorrow, I’ll wrap these vacation posts up with a little about Daytona Beach & Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Posted on May 24, 2013 - 12 comments
 Filed Under: My Life

We went to Epcot on Monday, October 8. It was a pretty dreary day out, and it even started raining when we got to the World Showcase but we still had fun. It was a group of 11 of us so we did all of the rides first, and then went to the World Showcase once we were done. It must be uncommon to have a large group that wants to stay together at Disney, because every time a ride attendant would ask us how many, and we’d say 11, they’d do a double take, or ask us again. My Uncle even made up a cheer about the number 11 so he’d remember how many we had with us, ha. One of the coolest things about Epcot is the big ball, of course.

Travis got a really awesome close-up picture of the ball so you can see all of the triangles. It is now the wallpaper on my laptop. I never would have thought about taking a picture like that.

When we finally hit up the World Showcase, our first stop was at Mexico where Travis and I ran to the first Margarita place we could find. I got a Wild Berry Margarita and Travis got a beer. For some reason, I didn’t think about getting a straw, so it took me a long time to get this sucker down before I finally grabbed a straw. We tried to sneak our drinks onto the boat ride in Mexico, but we failed. So Travis and I stayed back while the rest of the family went on, and then they held our drinks while we went on. Weirdest ride ever, by the way…

My brother was sick for most of the trip, but he did manage to drink a beer with Travis in Norway, where we discovered that they sell souvenir mugs for a few dollars more. Travis ended up with a Germany & a Norway mug, we didn’t know about them back in Mexico and the UK didn’t have any.

At China, while the rest of the family went inside, we hung out on a bench so Travis and my brother could drink their beers. See that guy in the yellow? Looks like a typical tourist, but that’s my Dad leading the pack.

Here is the big ball from the other side of the park. No blue sky in sight though. Thankfully, this was the only dreary day we had while in Florida, besides the night we arrived.

& here is Germany, even though I didn’t have a chance to go into any of the buildings.

Travis and I in front of the ball while in Germany. Two beers in hand, of course.

Just relaxing in Italy, while Travis finishes his beer from Germany.

Delicious ice cream in Italy, which is already melting as I grabbed this shot.

We were going to watch the fireworks show, but about a half hour before it started Travis had to use the bathroom and we were hungry, so we got out of our seats, and headed for the restrooms. The line was super long, so Travis didn’t come back out for at least ten minutes, and then we stood in line for food for another ten minutes. When we walked back to where our family was, we couldn’t get thru the crazy crowd. There was people EVERYWHERE & we just couldn’t navigate thru to even find them, so we started to walk away from the crowd. While doing this, I was holding a beer, and a woman out of no where comes running with her child in hand, and crashes right into me. The beer went flying in the air, did a couple flips and then crashed right into the pavement. The woman didn’t even stop to apologize for running right into me, she just kept running. So after that, we waited for the fireworks to end and the crowd to disperse and then we met up with the rest of the gang before heading out. I grabbed this shot right before we left.

I’d love to go back to Epcot. I really wanted to buy a drink in Italy and go in more shops, but there is only so much time in a day. Hopefully we’ll go back again soon. Tomorrow I’ll bring you Universal Studios: Islands of Adventure.

Posted on May 24, 2013 - 18 comments
 Filed Under: My Life

Well, I’m back. I don’t even feel like I went on vacation until I look back at the pictures and then I’m like… oh yeah, I did that. I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I should have, but I’ve rounded up a few of the ones that I did take to show you guys. I’ll probably do three or four short and sweet vacation posts, and then we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program blogging.

Last Friday, October 5th, we left Pennsylvania around 1:15 and headed towards South Carolina so we could spend the night at a hotel, and split up the driving. We ended up getting stuck in DC traffic for 3 hours, and only got to the hotel around midnight. The following morning we drove the rest of the way to Florida and stopped at St. Augustine lighthouse on the way to our rental home. The walk up to the top of the lighthouse was horrible. I thought I was going to keel over, but I made it to the top and the view was so worth it.

After the lighthouse, we all drove to the rental house. We got there pretty late and it was already dark out, so I didn’t bother taking any pictures of the inside or outside. The next morning though, we spent most of the day at the house swimming, and just hanging out. The only picture I took of the house though, was one for instagram, so I’m sorry about the quality.

The rental house had an enclosed pool and spa, which we took full advantage of.

And I loved how you could look down into the living room and kitchen from the second floor. Makes it so easy to communicate with your 10 other roommates or throw laundry down.

The same day that we made it to Florida, we found out that Space X was going to be launching a rocket from NASA. Cape Canaveral was only about two hours away from our rental so we headed out to see the launch. It’s nothing like an actual space shuttle taking off, but it was still pretty cool to see and hear. It looks like the sun is out there in the water, but it’s actually the rocket taking off.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Epcot pictures!

Posted on May 24, 2013 - 16 comments
 Filed Under: My Life