So here’s where mom and I are after Day 1:
With 45 points. Not a bad first day.
We started with breakfast together in the Portofino Club about 7:30am. This was a nice spread and the food was good quality though the coffee was weak. (I’m a coffee snob and addict though). View from the club
We walked to the park around 8:30am for the 9am opening of USF and arrived about 8:45am.
We picked up our MUP card and went straight to HRRR all four of us. Mom and I picked Tom Petty Runnin Down a Dream and Friend successfully got Muppets Movin Right Along. Jaden didn’t make it in time. Mom and I got front row as it was a walk on.
The boys then left for the HE to IOA and Mom and I knocked out Production Central and New York getting a photo of the banana tree, riding Despicable Me (we weren’t the ones who hadn’t showered in a week), watching our final showing of Shrek, grabbed a photo with Donkey who had waffles for breakfast, grabbed a photo with Bumblebee who played “Because I’m happy”, rode Transformers and saw the old bumblebee, rode Jimmy Fallon which had no line so no colored cards, mom took a granola bar snack break on the benches in Central Park, we rode Mummy.
With 30 minutes to our lunch reservations we decided to knock out some scavenger hunt items in Diagon Alley so we asked the Kings Cross attendant how to find platform 9 and 3/4 to which she replied there is no such thing and we shouldn’t try walking thru walls as we could hurt ourselves. We met the Knight Bus driver and shrunken head and chatted and took a photo with them and the back of the bus, dialed MAGIC in the phone booth, spotted Kreacher, got dripped on by the Leaky Cauldron sign, saw the rabbit appear under Weasley’s hat, saw the dragon breathe fire, tried in gryffindor robe (wow those are nice and look good) and the mirror said I should rethink the color scheme at Madam Malkins, spotted Dolores Umbridge on the unicycle and the fireworks in Weasley’s.
5-10 minutes till lunch we met the boys for lunch at Lombard’s (had a nice 2 hour lunch with meh food and great conversation…fish was over cooked in my tacos and mom’s salad), boys had got soaked on Dudley’s and though they bought some pants for lunch they were lugging around wet pants so they returned to the room to drop those off and mom and I ventured back on a mission to defeat the boys in our little game.
So we rode MIB, spinning the opposing car, shooting Steven Spielberg and I got the bonus and solidly whooped my poor mom.
we then rode Simpson’s. I asked someone in the Simpsons area which game was the easiest to win a prize and they said the fishing game. Guaranteed prize so I won the small and earned me a Gingy. We grabbed a Oktoberfest beer after answering the phone at Kwik E Mart and inside Moe’s trying the Love Tester on the way to drink our beers outside at Duff Brewery after choosing our Topiary Duff we liked most. We spent about 2 hours just chatting and enjoying each other’s company with our beer. So wonderful. Mom is a Casanova and I’m Luke Warm in love. Mom chose the Queasy Duff topiary as her spirit Duff and I chose Tipsy.
Caught a photo with the Delorean and of Gary the Snail and rode ET. ET actually did not say our names so not sure what went wrong there.
It was about 545 and they were taking forever to do the ET photos so we snapped a quick shot ourselves and headed to the 6pm Bourne show which ended about 636.
We hightailed it to kings cross and made the train hopping off at 656pm. We walked as fast as we could to the Hagrids locker stuffing our bag into a locker super fast and made it into the line at 659pm. Posted 90 min wait, even broker down for 5-10 minutes when we were steps from the boarding and still only waited 43 min. Mom had never done the bike as we rode single rider last time so I let her have it and we go first row of the last train of the night! We started and finished our park touring with front rows of roller coasters on a high note with one of the best rides in the world and even better at night watching fireworks go off in both parks while we were in line.
Then we rushed to meet the boys at Bigfire. Mom got the lamb, the boys got a ribeye and a filet and I got the pork tenderloin. We all agreed it was well done. I wasn’t super impressed with out Brussels sprout appetizer or flourless chocolate cake (mom is gluten free so I shared that with her) but we all agreed the meat was fabulous as were the sides that came with. With the exception of the ribeye none of them were huge pieces of meat (TWSS) but honestly I can’t eat that much anyway. Given the quality I thought the pricing was reasonable.
We rode the boat back to Portofino serenading our boat driver along with the rock/pop hits such as Africa, Spice Girls, etc. I don’t think he was too amused but we didn’t care.
The boys conked out in the time I’ve written this as they also had a funfilled long day. Both said they had so much fun today at dinner. They said they rode Gringotts, the train three times, hulk, Dudley do right, Jurassic park river adventure, forbidden journey, King Kong, and mummy. I had wonderful convos with the boys and with my mom. Deep conversation and fun times. I’m pretty sure we’re stomping the boys but I haven’t seen their checklist yet. Maybe they can catch up tomorrow or it’s silly hats for them.
I’m so tired and still have stuff to do. Tomorrow is EE for VelociCoaster so I’m gonna hop off for now. As Tigger says TTFN.
