2012 trip report - Mayhem and Meltdowns aka Travels with my Family and Other Animals

Before I start, I want to make it very clear that this is an old trip report - it is from 2012. I initially posted it on the Dis Boards but I don’t use them anymore. I’m just copying and pasting mainly.

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Introduction!

I’m Clare. I’m 37 (not any more sadly :joy:) and from Manchester, England. I’m a coaster junkie, and I love all the Disney magic too though we do tend to be a bit cynical here in the UK! My DH Steve is 35 and not into the magic or the rides, he just goes with the flow and was looking forward to the food! Oldest DS Sean was 17 when we left but turned 18 during the trip - he is a typical teenager who just wants to sleep, eat, play on the XBox 360 and listen to his ipod…this was not his ideal holiday :joy: And then there’s DS7 - going on 30 - Joe just wants to be a grown up and wasn’t all that open to magic and pixie dust. He was mega excited about the coasters though, despite never having been on one! I knew he would try anything.

My mum and dad, Mary (57) and Chris (61) love the rides but my mum has some problems with her legs and wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep up the pace. My brother John is 33 and ultra-cynical, he was strictly there for the coasters and didn’t have much interest in anything else.

And finally there is my sister’s family. Lucy is 35 and her husband Dan is 39. Neither of them are keen on rides but they were excited about seeing the World through the eyes of their very giddy children Bella 7, Faye 4 and Alex 2 (turned 3 on our last day). My nieces are princess mad and Alex is crazy about Spiderman.

Here’s the whole motley crew - names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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Our first trip to WDW was back in 1992 - my parents, bro, sis and me. My parents and bro/sis also went to DL in 1994 but I was busy giving birth at the time. Then in 2000 we went to WDW again. By now our family had expanded, Steve and Dan came too as well as Sean who was 5 at the time. In 2003 my mum and dad went on their own.

The idea for this trip started back in July 2010. Lucy and Dan were planning to stay on property this summer for 2 weeks to celebrate his up-coming 40th birthday. Since we had other things to celebrate - our 10th wedding anniversary as well as theirs, Sean’s 18th and my dad’s 60th birthday - we decided to get a villa and go at the same time. As it turned out, they decided to stay in the villa with us all.

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Where are you in the photograph? The suspense… .

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Travel/Arrival Day (Day 1)

I apologise in advance for the amount of words without pictures in this update!

Our first day was just a nightmare, it nearly put me off going to Florida ever again…but not quite :wink:

Our flight was at 9.15 from Manchester Airport and I had our alarm set for 4.30. I needn’t have bothered, we were all awake by 4am anyway! After a last-minute ticket, money and passport check my dad came to collect us and we all (me, Steve and the boys, mum, dad and John) got a minibus to the airport. We only live about 20-25 minutes from the airport and got there about 5.50am so there were only a few families in front of us - one of whom was Lucy, Dan and the kids. They had prebooked their seats. We hadn’t, we did manage to get 7 together but they were nowhere near them. They were near the front on the left, we were near the back on the right. However, I was quite happy about that as I had a feeling they would take a lot of entertaining :rofl:

After getting breakfast and doing a bit of shopping, it was time to board. Last time we flew to Orlando we were delayed 4 hours but this time we were all on board and ready to go at the right time…we didn’t actually take off until 9.45 but you can’t have everything!

So it was going well, but the flight just seemed to take forever. We were exhausted anyway from getting barely any sleep the last few days, and we could barely move in our seats - even I was cramped and I’m a shortie! We didn’t get any food until around 1pm and that was just a yoghurt and a mini muffin. The dinner was great though, we had it about 5pm and it was really tasty. We got a chocolate mousse for dessert that was probably the best I have ever had, no exaggeration! After the first couple of hours on the plane, I was thinking about how once we landed we had to go through immigration etc, and how long everything was going to take, and I was starting to regret coming at all.

We finally landed at Sanford at 6.55pm - 1.55pm local time and after all the formalities we went to get our rental cars. Dan was driving for their family and my dad was driving the rest of us. Of course, we had booked with Alamo who were way out past all the other companies. My dad eventually emerged from the office and we all went over to the people carriers to choose one, we could have whichever we wanted, there were about 6 I think. So standing out in the baking hot sun in a car park, my dad inspected every single one for marks, and made us take photos of every slight blemish on the white one he had chosen. Then we loaded up all our luggage, got in…and he couldn’t start it! He tried and tried but no joy. So we unloaded, and just moved it into the next car. We couldn’t be bothered by this stage to check it out, (which was unfortunate because whoever had it last had left it pretty disgusting in the back seats) all we cared about was if it started. Which it did :tada:

Lucy and Dan had got their car with no problems - they had got a free upgrade but they’d had to pay for a car seat for Bella because 7 year olds have to have one - we had been told Joe who is also 7 didn’t need one?? So anyway, we all set off out of the car park, but as we approached the booth, Dad realised he didn’t have the rental paperwork. So we had to get all the carry on bags out and check them, he was checking the floor under the seat and everywhere he could think of…and then it dawned on him, he had left it inside the white car we had tried first of all! So he sprinted across the car park to get it, another family were trying the car but they couldn’t get it started either or they would have been gone with our paperwork.

Finally we could get going towards our villa, but we had no idea it was so far! It took around 2 hours, not helped obviously by the fact we didn’t know where we were going. The journey was punctuated by my parents arguing if we were going in the right direction every 10 minutes.

When we got to the villa though, it was worth the wait! We were staying at Hampton Lakes off the US 27, and the villa was just lovely. It was huge - 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, games room, 25 foot pool, and decorated really nicely. (It was much further from Disney than I would have picked but my parents chose it). We all wanted to get in the pool, but the plan was to go to the supermarket and get groceries so we could relax for the rest of the evening. But Lucy and Dan went straight out to the pool, and changed the kids into their costumes. Of course, with his cousins in the pool, Joe wanted to get in too, so we let him. I was getting a bit antsy now, I am the first to admit that I can get a bit OCD with planning, but if we didn’t go shopping what would we eat for dinner and breakfast next day? And when would we have time to go again?

After almost an hour of me increasingly tetchily asking when we were going shopping, my mum and dad, me and Steve, Lucy and John went to Publix to stock up. We split the bill equally 4 ways, but to me, this is where going in a group can cause resentment. John doesn’t have a family but he put in the same amount as Lucy did for 5 of them. I bought a big bag of peanut butter M&Ms which we can’t get in the UK, and 2 days later without tasting a single one I discovered Dan had let Alex eat the full bag. I know it sounds petty but really there was a lot of tension in the group before we even left and any little thing was going to fester.

Anyway, none of us did get in the pool that day, after a massive dinner we were more than ready for bed. It was 10pm in Florida, but 3am at home so we’d been up 23 hours, it felt like 3 days. And we had a big day ahead of us…Hollywood Studios and hopefully a battle with Darth Vader!

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:joy::joy:

Far left in the Mickey T shirt. There are lots of photos of my family in my 2016 trip report WDW/UOR trip August 2016 - a long report!

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On the end

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Ooops took too long to press reply. Love reading a trip report, even when it’s 6 years old.

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Hollywood Studios Day 2

I was a little worried we might all sleep in after our mammoth travelling day, but no chance of that, me and Steve woke up around 5 and we heard Faye and Alex crying shortly afterwards.

This was the day that had given me sleepless nights - I was following the Unofficial Guide touring plan but it doesn’t include having to sign up for JTA and I knew if any day was going to go horribly wrong, it would be this one. Which was why I put it as early in the holiday as possible in the hopes that we might find time to come back if we needed to.

I had told the rest of the family the day before we needed to be at HS by 8.15 at the latest since it opens around 8.45, and they looked at me like I had 3 heads! I’m not sure why getting there early was such a shock to them all - in our 2 previous trips we were always an hour early for rope drop, often one of the first families to arrive. We had also discussed the plans before we left, and agreed that we needed to be at the parks a minimum of 30 minutes before they opened. But I guess that’s families for you :roll_eyes::roll_eyes:

We did see this beautiful view as we left the villa in the field behind us though.

Needless to say, we didn’t get there by 8.15. I was on pins watching the minutes tick down, I was so worried that Joe wasn’t going to get a place in Jedi Training, other than the coasters it was the one thing he was really desperate to do. By the time we’d parked up and walked to the turnstiles, it was 8.50, which wasn’t too bad, even though it was a 9.3 day and we could see thousands of people pouring into the park ahead of us.

Having checked the location of JTA signups with 2 CMs, I grabbed Joe and we set off at a very fast walk (after we were told off for running!) towards Sounds Dangerous. Everyone else was going straight to Toy Story Mania to get fastpasses and we were meeting up at Rock n Roller Coaster. I was expecting to see a queue snaking out of the door but there was nothing, as we got there a boy and his dad went inside, and they were the only people ahead of us. They signed up for the 9.20 show. There were 2 CMs, the first asked me if we wanted the 9.20 or 10.10 show and I asked if we could have a later one - 11 or 11.50. We were hoping to do RnR and TOT before coming back, and maybe TSM too. The other CM then took over, and asked very abruptly why we couldn’t do the 9.20 show since we were there already. I explained that we were meeting the rest of our family and had no phones (none of our phones were working properly, my dad could text and Dan could receive texts but that was it, it was a massive pain). She then told me I didn’t need to bring my family, all he needed was one adult. I couldn’t believe how rude she was being, she was looking at me in disgust and the way she was talking to me was very un-Disney. I said I needed to let them know where I was and though she continued to glare at me, she did allow us to sign up for the 10.10 show, which meant we had to be back at 9.40. It wasn’t what I wanted and I was worried that it would mean missing out on TSM if it clashed with the fastpasses but at least Joe would get to fight Darth Vader :tada:

We were back at RnRC just after 9 (we saw Tigger and Eeyore heading to the hat but didn’t stop as Joe wasn’t interested - I was insanely excited though!)

and the standby wait was 30 minutes - I wasn’t concerned though, I knew the others couldn’t be far away…

By 9.10 I was starting to wonder whether we had time to ride even if they arrived straight away…and by 9.20 when Steve, John and my mum and dad turned up and the wait time was 40 minutes, I knew we couldn’t. Instead of legging it through the park as fast as possible, my family had leisurely strolled, stopping to take in the sights and buy drinks, and when they got to Pixar Place, amazingly enough there was a huge queue for fastpasses - it goes without saying that I learnt my lesson from this and went for FPs myself after this! However, it did work in our favour to an extent, our return time was 11.15 and didn’t clash with JTA at all. None of Lucy’s kids were big enough for RnR (and she had said she wouldn’t consider taking any of them on thrill rides even if they met the height requirement) so they had gone off with Sean who won’t do coasters and they would meet us at TSM later. Mum, Dad and John got in line for RnR and told us they would make it to the show if they could.

We made our way over to Star Tours as Steve wanted to take some photos before we had to be back for JTA. We got there just after 9.30 and the wait time said 10 minutes, I just couldn’t risk it though, I wasn’t sure what happened if you weren’t back exactly 30 minutes before the show. So we took our photos and then went back. At 9.50 we saw mum, dad and John walk past the entrance towards the stage, they told us later that they had done single rider so they were back to see Joe. And still we were just sitting there… Children were still arriving for the show up to 10am so we could have done ST after all. Just after 10 we went down to the stage.

The show itself was brilliant, we had never seen it before. The Jedi master was really funny and he did his best to get the audience responding though that early in the morning he had a job on his hands. Of course Joe was put right at the back and we could hardly see him.

Some of the other kids in the show seemed a bit intimidated by Vader (mind you a couple of them were tiny!) and none of them seemed to know how to duck, but I knew Joe would be ready and up for the fight! After the Jedi Master told Vader he was underestimating the power of Joe’s frog socks (!!) he was off - it was a hard fought battle but Vader stood no chance against my little Padawan :stuck_out_tongue: His duck was perfect and he nearly took Vader’s head off at one point, he was giving it his all!

The Jedi Master said he sensed a high sugar level in him, but no, he is always like that :rofl: Anyway, the combined force of 15 padawans saw off the evil empire :hugs: Joe was delighted with his certificate.

The wait time for ST was still 10 minutes so we decided to do that while we were there since we were hopelessly off plan already! I don’t think it even took as long as 10 minutes to be honest. My dad was the rebel spy and we were all in hysterics, I was the only one who knew about it and I’d kept it to myself in the hopes one of us would be picked and it really paid off, Joe loved it! We all loved the ride, I think its been updated since our last trip (well its been 12 years, I think most things have!) and we thought it was much better. By now it was nearly 11 so we headed off towards Pixar Place to meet the others.

Coming up…having missed doing RnRC and TOT in the morning, would we manage to fit everything in??

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Hollywood Studios Day 2 continued

We arrived at Pixar Place a little after 11am, and saw a Green Army Man meeting and greeting - though Joe had previously said characters were for babies (because he’s so grown-up!) he ran over and gave him a big hug.

Lucy and the family arrived a few minutes later, they had been to see Muppetvision 3D and met some characters at the hat. We waited for the clock to tick over to 11.15 and jumped in the fastpass queue for TSM. None of us had ever ridden it before and I didn’t think it sounded that great - I couldn’t have been more wrong, we all really enjoyed it, though I don’t think we were that good. I would have liked to try it again but I didn’t want to get another FP when we still had the biggies RnRC and TOT to do. And there was no way I was getting in that line! I can’t remember the wait time but I think it was about 90 minutes.

After TSM Bella and Faye wanted to meet Woody and Buzz so Lucy, Dan and kids and my mum and dad joined the queue which was 35 minutes according to the CM. Joe didn’t want to, which I couldn’t understand when he had been so excited to see the army man but who knows what goes on in his head. So instead, me, Steve and the boys, and John took everyone’s tickets and went to TOT to get FPs. On the way we passed Starring Rolls, and I insisted on stopping for a cupcake! I got the butterfinger and John got the peanut butter, we couldn’t believe how huge they were, and they were so delicious! Joe had a strawberry parfait and Steve had a danish pastry, Sean wasn’t hungry. Then we ran to TOT for FPs with a return time of 1.45 - we were pretty pleased with that as we thought it would have been much later. On the way back we got an R2D2 popcorn for Joe - we forgot it would be salted popcorn though, yuk! In England popcorn is sweet. And we just got back in perfect time to see the family meeting Woody and Buzz. I would have liked to meet them too :slightly_frowning_face: When they came out, Faye asked if they could go home - Alex had already asked as soon as they got into the park that morning. The heat was killing them, even though they had a double stroller - which I think Bella spent more time in than either of the little ones since they are tiny and easily carried and she’s not, and she’s also lazier than them! we needed to find something to do quickly and ideally indoors, so we walked down the street to Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

The wait was short so we got in line - Alex promptly fell asleep in his dad’s arms but the rest of us enjoyed the show. It really perked Bella and Faye up, they had been so excited to see princesses and this was their first glimpse! When we got out some characters from Disney Jr were meeting - I think it was Handy Manny and Jake but my kids are well past that age group so I could be wrong. I know it was one of Alex’s favourites but the little guy was still snoring away so he missed out, and the girls weren’t bothered for them. We went for some lunch next at Rosie’s - mainly chosen because it had veggie burgers for Lucy. The lines were short even though it was about 12.30 or a bit later, but it just took forever to actually get the food. There was a big confusion over an order that kept coming out and nobody was there to get it. Part of a Brazilian tour group was waiting and they all kept passing over their receipts to be checked but it wasn’t any of them, then they all started hammering on the counter. It must have taken at least 20 minutes to get our food. Mum, Dad, John and Lucy & family had all been ahead of us and got their food quicker so they were finished or very nearly…and it transpired that the order they kept bring out was John’s, order 117 (its inscribed on my brain!) and he already had some food and was sitting down. I don’t know what had happened there but I was unreasonably cross with him for causing the delay!! The food was ok anyway, nothing special but fine.

I suggested that we all have a look round the shops while our food settled as we didn’t really have time for another ride before coming back for TOT.

Lucy and Dan had finished eating ages ago and so they went on first while we watched the kids and shopped. They were gone a long time considering the standby wait wasn’t long, I think it was 20 minutes though it could have been 30. Anyway, when they got back we still had 9 FPs (Alex being only 2 didn’t have a ticket to use) so they could have ridden again using child swap, or Sean didn’t want to go on so he could have looked after them, but they declined. Dan looked a bit green, I think maybe his lunch wasn’t as settled as he thought! Steve isn’t one for rides really but as Joe was doing it he felt he had to, he didn’t want to look a wimp in front of a 7 year old! So the 6 of us joined the queue while the others went down to RnR to get more FPs. It was 2.10 so we thought we’d easily have time to use the remaining 3 FPs afterwards. I have to admit, TOT isn’t my favourite, I’m not that keen on rides that go up and down, give me a coaster any day! But after a long wait (at least 20 minutes, maybe more) we got on, and I proceeded to scream my head off! Seriously, I was deafening everyone!! I really really enjoyed it, we also got to see the view from the top 3 times, I’m sure we only saw it once on our previous trips. Sadly after waiting so long to get on, it was past the return time on our remaining 3 FPs - we didn’t try to use them though we were within the 15 minute grace period, I just wish we had known then we could have given them away.
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We met up with Lucy and Dan and they gave us the FPs which were for 6.30pm. They told us that they were going to try for the 4pm Beauty and the Beast show and then go home, I have honestly never seen children so tired, they looked ill poor little things. Later we found out that 2 enormous tour groups got in line ahead of them and Dan said there was no point waiting as they wouldn’t get in, so they left about 3.30.

We decided to go to Muppetvision. As we got to Hollywood Boulevard the parade was just passing so we watched for a while. We got to see Remy which I was pleased about as Joe had asked before the trip if he could meet him.

We carried on after a few minutes, and on the way we stopped at ST to see what the wait was like as Sean hadn’t done it earlier. It was only 20 minutes so we did it - my mum and dad preferred the first time but I thought the second one was just as good. We didn’t get to be the rebel spy this time though! Then we went to Muppetvision where we only waited about 10 minutes. I was a little disappointed with the show if I’m honest, it was cute but I had remembered it being very funny and it wasn’t really - it had its moments though.

I knew Phineas and Ferb would be meeting at the exit and I really hoped Joe would want to meet them (its one of his favourite shows) and that it would persuade him that meeting characters wasn’t for babies. Well as soon as he saw them he grabbed my hand and ran to the back of the queue, he was so excited! They brought out hula hoops to entertain the waiting kids (the queue wasn’t bad though) and he had a go - he was delighted to find he could do it.

My dad and John had a try too, it was funny! We were about 6 families back when the handler came over and said rain was forecast in 5 minutes and they would do their best to see as many people as possible but they couldn’t guarantee anything…my heart sank, Joe would be so upset if he missed out. The rain began just as the little girl in front of us went over and we were really holding our breath to see if they stayed out - as soon as she started to walk away we were hurrying over! Joe loved meeting them, and we were in the nick of time, I think they saw one or at most 2 families after us.

And we ran to the nearest shop for shelter as it was quickly becoming torrential! Luckily with P&F and the Muppets in there we were in our element, we bought loads :slight_smile:

When the rain eased off we headed over to Indy for the 5.30 show - I knew we probably wouldn’t get to see all of it but I thought I had heard they will still do the first scene which is what happened. It was good but over very quickly! Then we went to do the Great Movie Ride. I had forgotten what a stinker it is lol, but we didn’t wait long and I liked seeing Mary Poppins and Wizard of Oz scenes, they are 2 of my favourite films. It was more or less time to do RnRC by now, so we went there. When we got there, Steve said he couldn’t face it, he was just too scared. We had 11 FPs and Sean wasn’t going to ride either so the 5 of us got to ride twice in quick succession, and we walked on both times.
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I really wanted to see Fantasmic! but the weather was still bad, it was windy and still threatening rain, so we reluctantly made the decision to leave. It had been a long day and we had done almost everything we wanted to so no complaints.

On the way home we missed our exit so it took a little longer to get home than we thought, we stopped and bought some fried chicken on the way home as we couldn’t face going out or cooking. We had an early start again to look forward to…we were off to Islands of Adventure!

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Wow! You achieved so much on the first day…I’m not surprised the young ones were pooped!
It’s funny remembering running for the paper FPs…
Loved the pic of Joe nearly taking off Darth Vader’s Head! :joy:

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I think it was the heat and maybe a bit of jet lag, they were ready for bed after breakfast!

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We had that same jedi master once long ago! He was really good.

Here he is in 2011: https://MaverickImaging.zenfolio.com/p612560236/e6c3eb709
And another with him in the background with my son battling: Maverick Imaging | Hollywood Studios 2011

It’s a Small World After All…Or something like that…

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He made the show!

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Yah - I think my son did it 3 times and he was far and away the best Jedi Master we had. Really made it fun - I probably should try to watch it again sometime as it is kinda’ fun, but without my kid in it I usually just glance that way when I walk by…

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Gotta love a heckler in a trip report!! :rofl::rofl:

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I am not heckling…I want to identify with the author😜.

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Loving the report. Glad I never tried to go in a big group…family or not. I would lose my mind. Also glad that by the time we went in '15 they had FPP. I can’t imagine doing the extra walking just to get a time to come back later…:grin:

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This trip was the last straw :joy: I quite enjoyed running for FPs.

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Islands of Adventure Day Three

So after a great (but tiring!) day at HS, our next port of call was Islands of Adventure. We were really excited about this one, we are all big Harry Potter and superhero fans and there are some amazing coasters too!

After missing rope drop at HS, I wasn’t at all confident that we would make it to IOA on time as it was opening at 8am but we did it! Well almost…we parked up just before 8 but its a long walk to the turnstiles through CityWalk. As ever the rest of the family were a lot slower than us, even though I kept telling them the queue at Forbidden Journey would be huge and we needed to get moving. But we were in for just after 8.15.

Lucy and Dan (and kids obviously!) headed for Seuss Landing while the rest of us kept going through the Lost Continent to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. When I first saw it…wow! Words can’t describe how fantastic it felt to be in Hogsmeade, it was just how I imagined it. There were moving posters, and Gilderoy Lockhart’s books in the window of Flourish and Blotts, and too many other amazing details to list. But we were on a mission…to Hogwarts!!

When we got there, the wait was 45 minutes but we joined it anyway as we weren’t expecting it to go down at all during the day. We had forgotten that we would have to put our bags in lockers, so as we got into the castle we were directed to the right. We found the lockers really easy to use and they only delayed us by a minute or 2. As we rejoined the queue, a cast member kept shouting that there was a single riders line and the wait would be only 15 minutes. We ignored him at first, but then I remember that you can’t see the people on the ride with you. I was slightly concerned about Joe riding alone, but after a quick discussion we decided to go for it, left the main queue and headed up the stairs to the left. This meant missing out on seeing the inside of the castle - but as we got straight to the front of the single rider queue with no line at all and were all on the ride in less than 5 minutes, I thought it was a fair trade! The ride itself was brilliant, though that first time I didn’t have a clue what was going on, I just knew it was lots of fun! We unanimously decided we had to do it again. You exit into the gift shop which connects to the lockers, you can walk straight through and the stairs for single riders are opposite so it was really easy just to get back on - and no wait again :slight_smile: The second time I definitely understood what was happening more so it was even better.

After our second ride we moved on. I was going to do Dragon Challenge with my parents and John but Joe was too small so he was going to do Flight of the Hippogriff with Steve and Sean. We were shocked to see the wait was 60 minutes for FotH but we shouldn’t have been I suppose since the other rides have height restrictions, its the only ride families with small children can do. They decided they would still do it and we went to Dragon Challenge where the wait was posted as 5 minutes. We couldn’t believe it, and checked with the CM but she confirmed it. In fact it was a little longer, only because it takes nearer to 10 minutes to walk through the queue! It was another walk-on, in fact some coasters were going with empty rows. We chose to ride Hungarian Horntail first which we all remembered as being slightly less exciting than Chinese Fireball (from when it was still Duelling Dragons). Still a very good ride though. Because the queue was so short, we only got 30 minutes free on the lockers here, so we moved our bags before riding again as it was just over 15 minutes when we got to the entrance again. It was still a walk-on and this time we rode Chinese Fireball - definitely the better coaster, one of the best I’ve ever been on. This time when we left we spotted the way to get back in the queue without exiting altogether which saved a few minutes, and we did Chinese Fireball again of course.

It had been about 45 minutes so we weren’t expecting Steve and the boys to be out but we found them just starting their Butterbeers outside the Hogs Head, their wait had been 35-40 mins. We nipped in to get some too. OMG it was delicious. We all had regular except Steve and it was so good - he liked the frozen too. There was no queue in the Hogs Head but the lines at the carts were enormous - though it would have been worth the wait :slight_smile:

The next step in the touring plan was Hulk, though by this time we were way off track, I think we should have been there nearer to 9 than 10.30. The wait was 40 minutes I think, again Joe wasn’t tall enough so he went to explore with Steve and Sean. We looked at the single rider line but the wait was 30 minutes so we didn’t think it was worth it. Unfortunately though, we were sandwiched between 2 big tour groups clapping and chanting…the noise was horrific and when we reached a part of the queue that was over a barrier from the single rider line, we ducked under and joined that. It didn’t end up saving us any time - we got in exactly the same place as we were in anyway - but it was quieter and cooler! Hulk is another good ride, I don’t like it as much as DC though.

We met up with my boys, who had been meeting superheroes! Joe had a great time, they really interacted with him - he was wearing a Hulk T shirt, and Steve got a picture of Green Goblin pointing to it and holding his nose “Hulk stinks!” :joy: He had also met Dr Doom, Wolverine and of course Spiderman! The heroes were still out so we rushed to see Captain America, Cyclops, and Storm and Rogue. They all chatted to him and suggested poses he could do for our photos, they were really good.

Heroes all met, we went over to Spiderman but the wait was a whopping 80 minutes…we just couldn’t do it. There was a single rider line but I couldn’t let Joe go on his own on his first ride when he would be in a vehicle with strangers. So we skipped to Dr Doom’s Fear Fall. As mentioned, I am not keen on rides that go up and down, and I remembered this one being quite stomach-churning. But if Joe met the height requirement (we thought he was maybe a 1/4 of an inch over it) I knew I would have to do it, he was already so disappointed about missing out on Hulk and DC. Well he was more like an inch over, and the wait was 20 minutes so we all joined the queue except Sean, he couldn’t face it. The line went quickly, I think it was probably 15 minutes, but the ride wasn’t up to much, my stomach was hardly churned at all - after TOT the day before 1 big drop and a couple of small ones seemed like nothing.

We then went for lunch at the Captain America diner, the food was fine and we had no problem getting tables, we were definitely ready for a sitdown.

Coming up…would we get to ride Spiderman? And why did we get home so late?

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Joe is so little!! But you haven’t aged a bit!

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