Islands of Adventure Day Three continued
It had been a very busy, fun morning! But we weren’t sure about the plan for the afternoon, which began with us riding Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges, then Dudley Do-Right’s Rip Saw Falls. We had done both these on a previous trip and got absolutely drenched, literally wringing out our clothes and some of us even having to buy new T shirts for the rest of the day. It was very hot but it had been cloudy with the odd sprinkling of rain, not enough to take cover from but enough for us to wonder if we would be able to dry out… It didn’t take long for us to decide to skip these!
Instead, we walked through Toon Lagoon to get to Jurassic Park for the River Adventure, which although it is another water ride, none of us thought you got very wet on. We stopped on the way to watch a few flumes plunging down at Dudley Do-Right, and were definitely convinced we were right not to bother! When we got to Jurassic Park, the wait was 50 or 60 minutes, but having already skipped 3 rides I didn’t want to miss another so we joined the queue.
It didn’t take anything like that long, we only waited about 30 minutes and I enjoyed the ride…right up to the big drop where we got completely soaked! So much for getting less wet on this one, we were saturated! Luckily the clouds had gone and the sun was beating down from a beautiful blue sky, so we figured we’d be dry in no time.
We were supposed to do Poseidon’s Fury next but it seemed silly to walk past the 8th Voyage of Sinbad to get there (especially in wet squelchy shoes lol) and the next show was 15 minutes away so we joined the crowd waiting to be let in.
Then it started to drizzle. I wasn’t too concerned since there were still no clouds overhead, I assumed it would just stop as it had been doing throughout the day. Umm, no 
Out of nowhere thick black clouds gathered and rain hammered down on us. We couldn’t get much wetter but still, we weren’t delighted! We hoped it would be finished by the time we got out of the show though. The show was a bit silly but entertaining enough, and we started to dry out. Not that it did us any good, as after the show we discovered the weather was if anything worse. Joe put on his yellow Mickey poncho which we had saved from 12 years ago when it was Sean’s, and kept going.
We did Poseidon’s Fury which might have been good if you weren’t very wet and cold, but we were totally distracted by trying to stay warm! I’m sure usually the air con feels great but not on this occasion…
We thought the rain would have stopped by now but it was still torrential. We wandered back through Seuss Landing, checked out a couple of shops, and went on the Cat in the Hat ride which was a 20 minute wait. I love this ride, the Cat in the Hat is one of my favourite characters, and I enjoyed browsing through the gift shop too. It was still raining, and we were getting a bit downhearted, so we headed back to the Hogs Head for a Butterbeer to cheer us up - I got regular again and it was just as yummy second time around 
We couldn’t face going outside in the rain with our drinks but there are only a couple of tables in the Hogs Head area as the rest are reserved for people getting food from the 3 Broomsticks. We stood for quite a while, then a woman sitting with her husband and daughter called us over to their table where there were a few spare chairs. It turned out they were English too, my mum was chatting away with them like they were old friends in no time! After our Butterbeers we looked through Honeydukes and Zonkos - Honeydukes is good but expensive and far too small for the amount of people looking round, Zonkos was absolutely rubbish though it did sell some of the T shirts which was good because the main shop Filch’s Emporium was too jam-packed to look around in at all since it was also the exit to Forbidden Journey.
As we were leaving Joe asked if he could buy a wand but I said no (mean mum!) since he has already got 2 at home. He really begged though, so I told him if he still had the money and still wanted one when we came back the next week, he could have one.
We walked back up to the park entrance to check the wait time for Spiderman since it was the only thing we wanted to do that we missed - given the weather we hoped lots of people would have left and lines would be short but they were still long for all the rides and Spiderman was 70 minutes. Knowing we were coming back, we made the decision not to bother. We were wet, cold and fed up, and just wanted to get back to the villa where we could get warm and dry.
That was easier said than done though… Unbelievably, we missed the exit for the 192 again! We kept going down the I-4 until we saw the exit for the US27 but we had no idea which way we needed to go. My dad picked one and off we went, for miles and miles. It was pitch black because of the rain and there was nothing around apart from when we went through one town. Eventually we decided we needed help and stopped at a petrol station. And…we had come about 30 miles the wrong way! We turned round and finally got back to the right place. We kept going past our exit though in search of somewhere to eat, and found an Applebees just near the local supermarket. The food was good but the portions were huge! We all left about half our food - except Joe with his hollow legs who not only polished off his own adult meal, he also ate quite a bit of mine, my mum’s and Sean’s. We had left IOA at about 6.30 or a little later, and finally made it home after 10.30pm, exhausted and still damp. Lucy and Dan were already in bed and we were not far behind them.
Next up…our day at Animal Kingdom - would the weather improve for us? We really hoped so!
I know this happened quite awhile ago but I’m dying to know if the weather improved for AK!!
” I suggested Lucy and Dan should get them all FPs while we were there since the return time wasn’t too far off, and then we all decided to get them except mum and dad - my mum really hates being in wet clothes and she didn’t want to risk it again, I think she was actually the wettest of us all.
It was nice to have a sit down too!
I hated it on our last visit, and had already warned all the children not to sit at the back of the seat! Alex sat on my knee and instantly fell asleep, but it didn’t seem to upset the other children at all, and since I had taken my own advice and didn’t get stabbed in the back, I enjoyed it a bit more myself this time! We got to FotLK a couple of minutes before they opened the doors for the 4.30 show and were seated in the giraffe section…I was pleased but Joe really wanted to be in the warthog section, he loves Pumbaa! We all really enjoyed the show and were singing along throughout.
But I noticed that the Dream Along With Mickey show was due to start at 6,40 so we thought we may as well go there.
This was their only princess sighting the whole day since Lucy and Dan hadn’t taken them to any of the meet and greets. During the show I made a decision that afterwards I would take Joe on Space Mountain - I knew the queue would be huge but I needed to find a way to salvage the day for him. When I explained this to everyone else, my parents and John said they would do it too, but we needed to eat first.
I stopped the others and told them that me and Joe were riding it regardless, I had promised and I couldn’t let him down. Steve and John said they would ride too, and we said we would meet up outside the Town Square Theatre after the fireworks as we were going to miss them.
We got him a drink of water and he fell asleep on the way home. We eventually got back to the villa just before midnight - what a day!!
Mum wanted to take me to hospital, she said she’d never seen anything like it, but I couldn’t mess up the plans and I hoped I could just get some antibiotics from the pharmacy on the way. So Lucy and Dan made a picnic - they had decided not to waste more money getting meals in the parks - and we set off. The pharmacy in Publix hadn’t opened yet though, so I just got some antibiotic cream and hoped it would do the trick.
When we had saved the world, we rode Maelstrom - the wait was 25 minutes which I know is long, but we didn’t really want to fast pass it because we’d have to come back. While we were in line, we saw mum, dad and Sean getting off. Then we went and took pictures with the troll in the gift shop, and wearing Viking hats, and also got Joe’s passport stamped. 1 down, 10 to go!
We didn’t enjoy this mission as much, it was mainly outside and there wasn’t much shade, we were hot and miserable. We got it done though, and got our 3rd passport stamp too. We had a quick look at the exhibition.
I was so annoyed, if we had been here at rope drop we would almost certainly have got to ride it, and this was our only day at Universal Studios. Luckily when we got out, Sean was waiting - he hadn’t wanted to explore on his own. So at least we didn’t have to wait for him to come back to us.
