Day 5 - 1 September 2016 - Harry and Hermine

Hogwarts express here we come

Universal Studio's day with a distinct Harry Potter flavour beckoned, the journey now planned with confidence as we have just about got our bearings and we have already visited this site before for the city walk.

On that note when we went the first time and not knowing the scams we got stung for $30 for preferential parking, this time we opted for the $20 parking which annoyingly was actually closer than the preferential parking we paid a $10 premium for last time!!

We navigated around the park heading towards the Harry Potter area.

Taxi anyone?

Knight bus

The bustling Daigon alley.

Daigon alley

The 3D and rollercoaster combined rides along with blasts of water, hot and cold air were absolutely amazing and so realistic.  They call them multi-dimensional thrill rides - the first one was "Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts" - successfully completed although Jodie opted to "look after the bags" given the potential darkness!!

We took the Hogwarts express to Hogsmeade.

All aboard

Once at Hogsmeade the girls chose to ride the Dragon, (Simon was too scared!) choosing the green one as opposed to the red dragon. This was a fantastic twisty twirly rollercoaster which seemed to last a while. In usual Trudy style, moments from flaking out.......  the lack of oxygen due to the screaming, speed and upside down-ness meant she had to take a minute before exiting the ride so that her legs would work again!

We then proceeded to Hogwarts and we went on another multi-dimensional ride with Harry Potter on his forbidden journey out of Hogarts via the quiditch field. There are warnings that if you suffer from motion sickness - or a long list of other conditions - you should not ride/fly and it is understandable why as Simon was only moments away from..... This was an amazing experience and one which we hope to repeat before heading home, albeit this time Simon may opt to 'look after the bags' as he came off a little green around the gills!

Jodie again showed her skills at bag guarding!!

Hogwarts

Hogwarts

As the park began to give announcements out about a pending weather system arriving we started to make our way out of the park, but not before getting drenched on the Jurassic park river adventure ride - Jodie now an expert at bag protection, and rides on the Reign of Kong for Jenny and Trudy (not sure that one was really worth the wait!) - Jodie now had a deputy bag protection officer in Simon. The last ride of the day was by far the best rollercoaster ever (well according to Trudy anyway!)....... 'The Hulk' which Trudy & Jenny went on, Jodie had a headache and Simon had given up by then! Definitely another one to 'do' before we leave and Trudy managed to breathe the whole way round and walked off without a trace of feinting!!!

Hurricane Hermine 

The Universal Studio weather announcements turned out to be Hurricane Hermine (pronounced Hermeen in USA English) which hit during the evening and overnight.  It was downgraded to a tropical storm and nevertheless it bought the worst flooding for 11 years to the gulf coast.  Thankfully in central Florida where we are based there was no major impact other than a thunder and lightning storm and plenty of rain in the middle of the night.  BBC report here

More pictures can be found here