This trip is actually happening

I first went to UOR in December 2018 with my sister and her son. My plan was if i liked it, i would upgrade the ticket and go back until my pass expired.

I liked it enough that I upgraded my ticket to an annual pass. My pass was good for 18 months, due to the promo UOR was running at the time. I then did a solo trip in February 2019, a trip with DH in December 2019, and one more trip in February 2020. The trip in 2020 was with my sister, her son, and two of our nieces. I had plans to go back one more time in May 2020, as the last use of my pass. I would then let it expire, and go back when Epic Universe opened.

Well, Covid happened, and the May trip was canceled.

My MIL and SIL had gone to Disney November 2019, and even though I had never gone, i was able to advise them on Fast Pass thanks to all the info I picked up on the forum.

Over spring and summer 2020, we (MIL, SIL, and I) had planned to have a family trip to UOR to go in December 2020. We still haven’t made it to Orlando all together. This trip has had 5 incarnations, each canceled for a different reason. These trips were supposed to be in December 2020, Covid cases were skyrocketing, February 2021, FIL had surgery and couldn’t be left alone for four days, December 2021, six weeks past my due date February 2022 still recovering from the intrapartum fetal demise, c-section, infection, and wound dehiscence September 2022 wrist injury for my MIL and tailbone bruise for myself .

In short, I’ve been through a lot in the past 15 months.

After February 2021, DH’s pass expired. As he is not a theme park fan, the trip slimmed down to just me, MIL, and SIL.

So right now, we are currently planning for December 3-7. We fly in late on Saturday night and plan to stay until Wednesday evening. Hopefully, this trip will happen, but 5-6 weeks ago, I hit my toe on the lane divider while swimming. And this morning, I twisted my ankle on the other foot. I don’t think i sprained it, but I did hurt it pretty bad.

I’m hoping this trip happens, and if it does, i look forward to posting about if anyone wishes to follow.

23 days and counting. . .

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I’m sorry for all your losses but February 2022 makes my heart break. I’m so so sorry. :people_hugging:

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I’m so sorry for your loss :people_hugging:. I hope you are able to go this time. You definitely need the trip. If your ankle/foot still hurts, get yourself an ECV.

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I hadn’t thought about an ECV for me. My MIL was thinking of renting one while in the parks. She takes long walks each week but is worried about the start and stop nature of theme park walking.

We’ll be staying at Hard Rock Hotel, so if we do get one from an external company, I don’t have to worry about buses.

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Thanks. I pretty much spent November, December, and January in a fog of denial about going in February. I had booked the flights in September, and the hotel rooms from the (second hospital) i was in at the APH rate while in the hospital. I so wanted to go. I canceled the flights two days before the departure date. It’s a good thing Southwest points bookings are so flexible.

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Great, thank you for doing a trip report! Of course we wish to follow :smiley:

Please don’t get hurt anymore, walk only on flat surfaces while preparing your feet for the parks. :wink:

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I was doing water park training when it happened. I’ve been trying to climb up the 100 step stairwell, and i missed a step on the way down.

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Hopefully when you reach the top of Krakatau, you don’t take the steps to get back down :slightly_smiling_face:

Unfortunately I will still weigh too much to do the drop slides I’m willing to do. So I don’t think I’ll be climbing to the top of the volcano. I hope I don’t have issues with the tube slides.

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For the group rides, you have the whole group stand on the scale at the same time. I saw lots of large people enjoying Volcano Bay, but not many large groups of large people.

The employees will tell you which seats to sit in if your group has a large size disparity. I went with one kid, and a few times we got paired up with another mom+child, and they would seat the adults across from each other. Don’t forget some of the four-person rafts can be ridden by groups of three.

Oh, wow…I really want this trip to happen for you! You deserve to go and have ALL of the fun!!

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My ankle is doing better. Still hurts when doing stairs, but i can mostly walk. I have a physical therapy appointment scheduled for Monday. I hope I can enough improvement to not need an ECV.

I also got to go swimming today. I only got 30 laps, which is less than my usual 40, but better than nothing.

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I’m so sorry. I hope you get to have the trip.

One week to go. We’ve arranged the rental of an ECV, and at the advice of my physical therapist, I’ve also purchased a cane. I will also bring the ankle brace I have.

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So. Two days ago. I am all packed (I think) except for food and my laptop. The laptop will get packed tomorrow afternoon, and the food will be packed just before leaving to the airport on Saturday night.

Here’s hoping I don’t do too much damage to my ankle next week.

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At the airport waiting for boarding.

and I don’t think I forgot anything at home.

Scratch that.

Forgot my school tie.

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The trip is over, and I got covid from it, so my regular activities are canceled. May as well try to right up the rest of the report.

Saturday night went according to plan. Due to the short timeline, DH drove me to the airport so we could minimize walking, and climbing in an out of the bus between parking and the terminal.

I had asked for a wheelchair to take me from security to the gate, but i saw several people were waiting. My gate wasn’t too far from check in, so I just walked. MIL and SIL got to the airport about a half hour after I did. We met up at the gate with 20 minutes to boarding.

Our plane was pretty full, but I was able to get an aisle seat not too far from the front of the plane.

We landed in MCO. Although I usually don’t need to, this time I did have to go the rental counter to add a second driver to the car. My SIL agreed to be the driver so I could be dropped off at the front entrance, which would minimize the walking distance.

We got to the hotel. Check in was easy. As it was close to midnight, we just went straight to the room. Food was put into the mini fridge, and we went to sleep.

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Sunday morning

I woke up way too early. I wanted to pick up mine and my SIL’s annual pass. However, we hadn’t gotten the scooter yet, and I didn’t want to walk to and from the front desk more than I had to.

So I waited until my family was up as well, and we combined the front desk trip with the grocery store trip. Got the passes, got the groceries, and headed back to the hotel. We picked up the scooter and went back to the room.

Learned how to use the scooter took a bit of practice. The hardest part was learning to use my left hand to hold the forward lever in place if I wanted to do something with my right hand.

Once at the park we split up. I wanted to get my absolutely fantabulous 18 month MyUniversalPhotos package activated, and my MIL needed to get her annual pass.

And the TM couldn’t find my package. I had the order number, but it wasn’t in their system. I had purchased the package in April 2020 (remember, we were supposed to be going in December) and the email confirmation was so old, the barcode images no longer loaded. The TM tried to sell me a package, but I said I already had one, and I refused to buy a new package that would only be good for a short amount of time when I had already paid for one.

I was sent to guest services to try and sort it out. They couldn’t help me, so we went pack to the photo place. At this point, I had started crying because I just wanted something to go right. They finally got someone higher up, who knew to look for the order confirmation among presales, and I was able to activate the package.

Finally, on to the rides.

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First up, Hulk. I pretty much ran to it. The family was happy to take charge of the scooter, and I left my things with them. (Including my phone. BIG mistake.) With the Express Pass, Hulk was a walk on. I rode it, grabbed my on ride photo, and went to find my party. Which wasn’t easy because I didn’t have my phone on me.

We met up and headed to Spider-Man. That was also a walk on with EP. After that we did JPRA. We passed by VelociCoaster, and decided to see if I could fit into the test seat. Using the “push down on the metal and lift yourself up a little” method, I was able to flash green. Posted wait time was 45 minutes, so I decided to give it a try, while the rest of the group ate lunch.

As soon as I got into the queue, an announcement came on that the ride would be down for a bit, but I decided to stick it out. An hour and 45 minutes later I got off the ride. I meet up with the group, and eat my lunch.

Missed a step here. After VelociCoaster, we headed into Hogsmeade for a bit. It was pretty crowded. As I weigh now more than I did three years, when I could not ride Hagrid’s, I didn’t even bother to try the test seat, as I thought I wouldn’t be able to ride. Instead, I tried the test seat at Forbidden Journey, saw that I couldn’t get it green on my own, and assumed I could not right that one either. We did go to ride Flight of the Hippogriph.

I wanted to see if the cart that was near the exit still sold keychains that I could get names engraved on. I wanted two more keychains, with DD’s and DH’s name on them, so I could have something representing the three of us together. The cart isn’t there anymore, but I did find the keychains in Filch’s. They said they did do engravings anymore, so I bought one named one, and one blank one in the hopes I could get it engraved at home.

We headed off to Seuss Landing. I think we did Cat in the Hat, and saw the Zax Passing. Then we did the Grinchmas Who-Liday spectacular. We enjoyed it a lot. I particularly like the grinch arguing with the narrator, and singing about himself. Then back to Hard Rock. I had wanted to go to Studios to watch the concert, but with my ankle and scooter, I decided against it. Maybe next year, I’ll be able to watch it.

Even though the parks were pretty busy with the Cheer teams, most of them did not have express passes, so the lines were pretty short.

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I’m so sorry you got Covid— I returned from our June trip at Universal with Covid, so I made sure to wear masks in the indoor queues and shows on our Thanksgiving trip. We were able to avoid it this time around.

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