Look forward to hearing when you’re able to write! Have all the fun.
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If you fall behind it is soooo hard to catch back up until you’re home! Now that I’ve tried (and failed) twice to live TR - I’m even more impressed by those that do it!
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Oy I feel this — I was fine on this as a young girl. Nowadays, in my 30s (and I think especially now that they made it 3D), it really shakes up my inner ear. 
Every time I walk into GE I shout to whoever I’m with, “We are IN the STAR WARS!”
I totally agree with this! I feel like you can look to the sides, away from the screens and you’re like, “oh right, I’m on a ride.”
I own this game and really need to learn how to play it…
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Day 10: Foodgasm 2022
The plan: Late rise, then bus to Disney Springs for a 10:15 brunch at Homecomin’. Then head to Animal Kingdom to hit some faves and explore a bit, then back to the resorts for dinner at Victoria and Albert’s at 6:50.
Ok, remember when I said the hurricane make us reevaluate things, this was a big change. We changed our park pass to Hollywood Studios the second they announced the parks we’re going to be closed on Wednesday and Thursday, so that we could do RotR again, a very high priority for us. Next, we canceled Homecomin’, to make room in our day a bit: hit some highlights of HS, do some shopping (I had my eye on the fertility idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark, my favourite movie ever!) and allow for me to make a sojourn to Disney Springs in the afternoon to get some replacement dress shoes that I forgot to pack.
RotR remains unbelievable. The fertility idol was sold out. 
We did wander around Galaxy’s Edge a lot more, taking in the theming. There was a great interaction I saw with a stormtrooper harassing some people that made me laugh out loud. Such a great space, and in the hindsight I now have, far richer and more detailed than all the Harry Potter stuff at Universal.
After a generally lovely time, we hopped the Skyliner to Caribbean Beach resort (just to see what it was like!) and then split up — L headed back to our hotel, and I caught a bus to Disney Springs to get some shoes. Disney Springs answers the question of “what if a mall was designed by theme park designers?” It’s surprisingly lovely, and since I wasn’t able to get my fertility idol, I instead wandered into Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar, had a Cool-headed Monkey, and took in the atmosphere. On my way out, I was given sage advice: go forth and make decisions; they don’t need to be good decisions. That’s, like, my entire existence. 
I was getting a bit peckish, and since we’d decided to cancel our Morimoto Asia lunch on Sunday, I popped by the Morimoto Street Food and got a pork bun and a dumpling, both were absolutely amazing. I wanted so much more, but I had to save myself for tonights epic feast.
Then, it was back to the hotel for a little R&R before gussying up a touch and heading to Victoria and Albert’s. I’ve had a number of fine dining experiences, including some excellent tasting menus in my life. This was absolutely up there with one of the best, in my top-5 dining experiences of my life.
The service was excellent, with servers that were both fastidious and personable, they laughed easily, realized that we were both laid back and funny, and immediately responded in kind. We ate very well and laughed very hard. There was also a harp. (Aside: I have a hypothesis about harp…ists? …harpers? …harpists? …harp players that is inappropriate to share here.)
I’m not going to detail the specifics of the meal, but I will say it was my first experience with caviar (and I’ll be happy never to eat it again), some of the best bread I’ve ever had, and constant surprises, where the food was never in the form I’d’ve expected it to be, never presented how I imagined, and was consistently excellent. Here is an excess of pictures to get across it’s form and scope.
Look at me, all fat, drunk and happy! An amazing experience, one that I heartily recommend if you have the means. It cost me the better part of a month’s rent, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. After that, it was back to the hotel to pass out into a food coma.
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Completley and utterly jealous. We get so few chances to even attempt V&A ADRs and have never been lucky enough to snag one. Glad it lived up to expectations.
Just because I’m curious - I thought jackets were required.
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Day 11: The Big Move
The plan: Get packed and drop off our luggage with the concierge for later pickup, then head to the Magic Kingdom to enjoy some highlights. Midafternoon sometime, go back to the resort, gather our things and catch a cab to Universal Studios to checkin at Portofino Bay around 4ish.
Phew! What a Disney whirlwind! We packed our bags this morning and did about seventeen double checks to make sure we didn’t leave something in the drawer or under a shelf. We checked out in MDE and hiked everything to the concierge to hold until the afternoon, when we were heading to Universal, and then took the boat over to the Magic Kingdom.
This was a really nice morning, except for the fact that everything we wanted to do was down. Pirates, Big Thunder. We had a LL for BT, which turned into an anytime, but we never got to properly use it. We hit Haunted Mansion again, did the Swiss Family Treehouse (something I think is underrated, especially the views at the top!), grabbed the excellent corn dog from Sleepy Hollow, then Big Thunder reopened! Then a leisurely walk out of the park, picked up some souvenirs for a niece, and a final boat ride back to the Polynesian.
We picked up our bags, hailed a cab, and began a strangely long ride to The Other Guys. Some kinda traffic nonsense had us moving. very. very. slowly. I. wanted. to. die. After about 45 minutes or so, we pulled into Portofino Bay. We checked in, settled into our room, then I went to pick up the tickets for the parks and HHN.
I want to take a moment to share how much of a shockingly awkward process this all was compared to Disney. Everything was already hooked up for us at Disney: the park tickets, the reservations, the special event tickets, everything. I didn’t even need to see a human to check in. Sure, they were friendly at Universal, but I had to go one place, and then to another place to deal with the tickets, lining up each time and going through a bit of a rigamaroll to get everything sorted. THEN, I have paper tickets that I need to keep on me. I mean, I know there’s a culture of lanyards at Universal, and we got them, but compared to the magic bands, it’s just not even close.
In fact, I noticed that the main difference between Disney and Universal: anytime Disney could make a customer-hostile interaction pleasant and even joyful, they would. For example: fingerprints when you enter the parks. For both Disney and Universal, there are two steps: scan your ticket, then use a finger to validate you’re you. At Disney, tapping the Magic Band then lights up a fun ring on the fingerprint sensor, you put your finger in and it spins a green light when it’s done, with a nice little tone letting you know, and my magic band would vibrate and flash. SUCH WHIMSY WHAT I LOVE!! At Universal, some dude with an Office Depot branded barcode scanner scans your ticket, then points you to the goddamned Radio Shack fingerprint scanner. No lights, no sounds, no whimsy, just a shitty thing you need to do before getting into the park.
This extends to just about everything being more awkward and less organized. Lines for Butterbeer, mobile ordering, making restaurant reservations, everything is just a pain in the ass, and for the most part disconnected from the whole experience. Disney makes it easy and fun to give them my money, Universal deigns to accept it.
Rant mostly over. Probably.
All this is to say, we went into Islands of Adventure just to walk through it, not really go on any rides or anything, just take it in. L’s fandom is Harry Potter, so she was excited to see that and get a preview of what’s to come. We did end up going through Poseidon’s Fury, an experience that I really enjoy, for all it’s cheese. L’s comment: “well, that was just delightfully campy.”
Butterbeer is quite excellent, a highlight of the parks, hands-down. It’s basically butterscotch root beer, with a butterscotch marshmallow topping, and we both loved it. We got at least one every time we were in the parks.
We finished off with a mediocre gyros and falafel from Fire Eater’s Grill, then made our way back to the hotel for the night.
I want to note that we both felt the Disney Drop when we arrived, and we both surprised at how much because we were at Universal Studios! I expected it to be mild, at best, but I think the quality of the experience at Disney is just so high that everything just seemed… worse at Universal. That feeling passed, but it took a day or two.
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Jackets are recommended, but no longer required. I brought one with me, but it was so fucking hot that I just couldn’t even. How do Serious Businessmen Doing Serious Business survive summers in Orlando!?
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Granted that there may have been a breakfast in there that you didn’t mention, but I loved how your food report went straight from Victoria & Albert’s to corndogs.
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This is why I always start my trip at UOR. I do love aspects of UOR, but the parts of it that aren’t up to par with the overall experience make it a let-down if I go there after having been at Disney. If the entire experience was at the same level of Harry Potter, it wouldn’t be an issue for me to either start or end there.
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Beautiful sunset pic.
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I am a man of varied tastes. 
Breakfast, I believe, was at the club again, nothing to write a long letter to the pope about.
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We’re going to need you to go on at least one trip per year because you, sir, are hilarious.
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Well, my plan is to Galactic Starcruiser in early 2024, so you’ll get something. My Dominican trip next year will be far less interesting but also far more relaxing.
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My main example of this (also related to lack of magic bands) is the goat rodeo that is their ride photo retrieval process. I feel that even local amusement parks have better systems in place for getting your ride photos
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Day 12: Islands of Adventure, Mythos lunch
At this point, there wasn’t much of a plan. All I had specifically planned was lunch at Mythos.
Because we did a walking tour of Islands of Adventure the previous day, we decided instead to start at Universal Studios. We grabbed some breakfast at (the worst ever) Starbucks, then hopped the boat to Citywalk, and made our way into Universal Studios. I didn’t realize it at the time, but L feeling kinds unwell. We wandered over toward The Mummy, which I thought would be a nice introduction to the best of the parks, but it was closed, so we grabbed a seat and people watched for a bit.
We decided to mostly take it easy, as L let me know she wasn’t up for much, so we decided to wander about a bit and take it all in. During our travels, L was eaten by Bruce.
We headed into Diagon Alley, grabbed a butterbeer, wandered through Nocturne Alley and did some sightseeing, before hopping the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade and our imminent dining reservation. The HE window reallllllly hit L the wrong way, so we sat in a nook behind one of the restaurants and just sat for a bit until it was time to head to Mythos. It was nice to just sit and take in the theming. Despite my rant in an earlier post, the Harry Potter theming is excellent.
The time for Mythos was upon us, and I was pretty excited. I’ve been twice, and was impressed both times. While the food was very good (spanakopita dip and a pork chop, and we both had the Potion of the Gods), the service was just awful. When they went to seat us, they brought us to a table, realized it wasn’t ready, then told us to wait there (hovering over a family, eating) while they prepared a different table; our waiter was super short with us; when the food came they just dropped it at the end of the table, instead of putting it in front of us; they didn’t bring cutlery with our food and it took about 5 minutes to get someone’s attention to bring it. At least the drinks were the size of our head.
So, after a mixed experience for lunch, it was off to Olivanders to see the wand experience and to get L a wand! The show is super cute, and the girl they chose for the selection was just so politely excited it was really great. There was also a book that was very difficult to read. We went around a bit and tried to cast some spells with limited success for a couple of hours, traveling back to Diagon on the way.
At this point, we were both done with the day, so we head out of the park just as we were starting to think about dinner. we thought we might try and get into somewhere in CityWalk. We somehow managed to walk up to Antojitos and get in with a spot on the patio, which was perfect for people watching while we ate. The food here was really, really good, we got the nachos, fajitas and a new discovery for me, and my new favourite drink: horchata.
This was a really lovely way to end the meal, watching an ever-growing line of people being turned away because there was no more room at the restaurant. Our timing was perfect, and this was the close to our day. Filled with Mexican food, tired and happy, we made our way back to the hotel to pass out for the night.
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Right?! I didn’t get a single ride photo, it was all such a goddamned hassle. Disney wins big on that one.
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Day 13: Universal Studios, Toothsome dinner
This was another mostly freeform day. I booked Toothsome for dinner based on recommendations but otherwise it was hit the parks and go cat go!
First, an update to day 12: I don’t know how I forgot to mention this, but I rode the Velocicoaster and it gave me FEELINGS. L took one look at that beast and was like “yeah, that’s a hard, hard no from me. But I’m happy to wait here while you go.” So I handed her everything but my lanyard and made my way to queue for this very, very intimidating coaster. The theming on this is top-notch, including the conceit that it’s been installed within the raptor enclosure as a thrill ride. The line videos and animatronics are spectacular, extremely immersive and very funny, exactly what the rest of the JP section aims to be.
I have never been so terrified by a coaster in my life. The restraints made this feel like I was practically standing during the many airtime moments, and without a harness to keep me in place I genuinely felt like I was going to slide right out. I’m sure this is by design, and there’s no way it’d really happen, but the fear was real. I have never gotten off a coaster and been more afraid of it afterward, until now. L would have had a full system shutdown.
To be clear: I absolutely loved it. This is by far the best coaster I’ve been on, but I genuinely wasn’t sure if I’d ride it a second time. I wanted to, but just felt terror when I thought about it. And this frames today well.
We took the morning off, L and I doing some reading and playing games. After lunch, I got ants in my pants, so I went to explore the pools of Portofino Bay. This really is a pretty hotel, and the quieter pool played a big part of our vacation in the next couple of days.
L encouraged me afterward to head to the parks solo while she chilled for the afternoon, and then meet up by the entrance to US to walk over to dinner. I hit a few highlights: The Mummy, Spider-Man, and, as you probably guessed, Velocicoaster. It remained both excellent and terrifying in equal measure.
Then the time was upon us for dinner at Toothsome. I was excited, but didn’t know what really to expect, except that they had great milkshakes and were all steampunk themed, something I’m a fan of aesthetically. It was… fine? I had a Peach Smash, L had the Chocolate Cherry Mule, and we started with the Potato Croquette, followed by a May Contain Bacon burger and a Tour de France burger. The drink was excellent, the food was fairly tasty, but nothing particularly special. For dessert, I had the Triple Chocolate Bread Pudding and L ordered the Black Magic Milkshake, which was very fun.
I’m not sure what I expected, but I feel like the whole place felt frenetic and there wasn’t anything particularly special about anything, the decor, the food, though the milkshake was a hit.
A mostly quiet day, and a bit overfull from dinner, we went back to the hotel for the night to watch some TV and pass out early. This reminds me: at Disney, the TV was set properly, without smoothing or anything turned on. At Universal, this was not the case, and totally ruined the enjoyment of anything we watched. Doesn’t anyone at Universal care how movies look? Grr.
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I’m noticing a grimness in my reports that is much more front-of-mind than it was at the time. Hindsight has harshened my criticisms of Universal a bit, but note that in the moment everything felt amazing and fun and exciting. Neither of us are actually upset at the time or money we spent at Universal, not at all.
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Day 14: Halloween Horror Nights
The plan: HHN is totally new for both of us, and given that we’ve only got one night of it, we got ExpressPasses. We’re going to hit Volcano Bay in the morning, and maybe nap in the afternoon to get the late-night energy we need!
At this point, we’d not actually ridden any of the Harry Potter rides, partially because we were unlucky with timing and the rides were down whenever we had time/space opportunity. So, we decided to rope-drop Islands of Adventure today and get on Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure.
As someone who loved and mourned the loss of Duelling Dragons, I’m really impressed with what replaced it. The queue was great, and even included some Easter eggs for those of us who knew what it once was. We waited about an hour, our longest by far, and probably the shortest the line was all day. As a motorcycle fan, L took the motorbike position, and I was in the sidecar. I wish I had a photo of her, as her face was pure joy. With the exception of how cramped I was in the sidecar, I loved the ride. It’s the best use of the drop gimmick I’ve been on, and because neither of us knew what to expect it was a total surprise. I’d hoped that I’d get a chance to do the motorbike in a subsequent ride but never got the opportunity.
We then did Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The queue for this is gorgeous and really makes good use of projections and screens. The moving portraits were very convincing. I was able to squeeze into the car, and off we went through the most harrowing and nauseating experience of our trip. I feel like the design of the ride is super clever, but between the 3D and the motion, it made us both feel like we were going to throw up. We both needed some time afterward to just let the nausea pass, and decided against doing Escape from Gringott’s as it was also described as motion simulator,3D/4D. I don’t think we’d have enjoyed it at all.
Nevertheless, we took the HE back to Diagon Alley to get a good photo of the dragon fire. I wish you could see the Live Photo version of this shot, it looks great!
We wandered around a little bit, and decided that the FJ really put us off riding anything else and thought we might hit somewhere in CityWalk for lunch. We went to Margaritaville. I got the fried chicken, it was alright but a very large portion. We then headed back to the hotel to nap in order to prepare for Hallowe’en Horror Nights.
I was feeling a little off all day, but I chocked it up to the unsettling ride this morning and generally being excited for HHN. We unwisely decided to get to Universal Studios around 4:30 to line up during the transition to HHN, in the sun, with no good place to sit and no shade. We baked in the sun for over an hour before making our way to Legends Collide. I was feeling worse, but that was mostly because of sitting in the sun so long, I thought. I unwisely had forgotten to get some water, so I was really thirsty, too. No matter, I’ll drink something after we do this first house.
I barely remember the house, because by the time we got out I felt really, really bad. We got some cold bottles of water and found a quiet place to sit and nurse them. The smell of deep fried food was inescapable and every time it wafted by I felt worse, like I was going to throw up. Finally, I told L that I was really sorry but we need to leave, right now, that this wasn’t as simple as being dehydrated or a little motion sick. I basically walked trash can to trash can, stopping occasionally to let my stomach settle from the walking. Literally as soon as I got out of the park I popped, luckily into a nearby trash can. It was really bad, and some kind cast members got me some paper towels to clean myself off a little.
This was almost certainly some food poisoning of some kind, I’m not sure if it was from the chicken at lunch or from dinner last night, or even a bit further back, but I managed to hold it together on the boat ride back to the hotel, where was watched another movie made to look like a soap opera and went to sleep.
I didn’t even get to see HHN at night, the sun was still up when we left. I’m so disappointed, I really was looking so forward to this. Stupid meatsacks, being all fragile.
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