Day 5 - Islands of Adventure morning
We were saying goodbye to French Quarter this morning, if only for a while.
It was an early start again, we were in a Lyft at 6am and on our way to Hard Rock Hotel!
There was nobody waiting at check in so it was a really quick process to get our temporary room keys that act as express passes. We left our bags at Bell Services and headed off down the walking path to Islands of Adventure for early entry. Or at least we tried! I was not impressed to discover that security wasn’t open yet, or that there were quite a few people ahead of us. This didn’t happen last time! The woman behind us was tickled to see we were both wearing the same Harry Potter top and asked to take a picture with me. I should have got one too!
At 7.02 security finally opened - bags go through a scanner and people go through the metal detector. We hurried across CityWalk past Universal Studios to Islands of Adventure, where I was incredibly annoyed to discover there were already a lot of people waiting. We were second in line last time when security was already open at 6.45.
I was even more annoyed when the tapstyles finally opened (not sure what time as no pic!) but the TM wouldn’t scan my ticket in my lanyard. The full QR code was showing but he made me take it out anyway - it was a printed ticket. And of course I couldn’t get it out of the lanyard, it was pretty wedged in. Joe was furious 
Once we were through it was a free-for-all to get to Hagrid’s or Velocicoaster. They don’t walk you back anymore which surprised me since they still do at AK. So we walked with purpose to Hagrid’s, had our bag in the lockers and were in the queue by 8.03.
We never stopped moving, it was a short wait. I insisted on having the motorbike this time as last time we only managed to ride once and Joe had the motorbike. It was noticeably more thrilling than the sidecar!
Next we hustled to Velocicoaster. The posted wait was longer than we wanted to see - I think it was up to an hour - but I trusted that it would be less. And we hadn’t been as close to the front for Hagrid’s as I’d expected so we were getting here a bit late. It ended up about 30 mins and it’s not too bad a queue to wait in, at least when you get indoors.
Wow!! What a ride! Terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. Joe immediately told me it was his new favourite.
There was no way we were getting back in that now even longer line to ride it again though! It was back to Hogsmeade for us to ride Forbidden Journey. I love Hogsmeade!!
I love this ride but you’d never know it from the photo. They take it while you’re under a gigantic spider.
It was 9.30ish now and we were starving so we went to the 3 Broomsticks for breakfast. This was such a long wait! I had pancakes and Joe had a full English. We both had butterbeer of course.
After breakfast we headed through the Lost Continent and Seuss Landing towards Superhero Island. I was surprised that Joe suggested we ride Cat in the Hat but he does know I have a soft spot for it.
The whole land is so cute!
We stopped at Hulk next. They never announced a breakdown but the line definitely stopped for quite a while. We waited 25 minutes. It’s a horrible queue, so hot and noisy! But the ride is amazing. I bumped into same shirt woman in the locker area, she seemed happy to see me again.
We then wandered down the street towards Spider-Man.
Joe saw Dr Doom though and wanted to stop there. It’s an ok drop ride ride but not worth waiting for. Luckily it was a walk on with express pass. And we were sat on the side that looks out over the park.
Spider-Man has been a favourite with our whole family since the first time we rode it. Even Sean my oldest son loves it and he doesn’t do rides. It’s so much fun!
Our next stop was the comic shop - it’s pretty good but Joe didn’t buy anything this time.
And then we carried on through Toon Lagoon - neither of us wanted to get soaked so we didn’t do the rides and we skipped Kong too, the wait is disproportionate to the quality of the ride.
But we did stop at Jurassic Park River Journey. We were sat well back so we didn’t get too wet on this.
Finally we were back where we started in Hogsmeade.
We were going to catch the Hogwarts Express to London and see what adventures awaited us there!
