Disney World Trip Report, Day 3 - Islands of Adventure

Our family had been talking about going to Universal's Islands of Adventure for well over a year. My kids are at that age where they want to go on big rides. Our middle child, Julia, is a big Harry Potter fan (as am I), and had been asking to go see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for a long time. We figured lines would be shorter in October than next March when we'll be back in Orlando, so decided this would be the trip. Julia and I did some pre-trip planning like checking out Universal's website and reading some guidebooks. Plus, I got some great info from John Ludwick who has been there a number of times.

The plan of attack was to arrive before opening, head immediately to WWoHP (the abbreviation I will use to reference The Wizarding World of Harry Potter throughout this post), then hit the rest of the park. After that, we would head back to Harry Potter to spend some more time checking it out. I'd say the plan worked very well.

We woke up at about 7am and were ready to go before 8am. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I rented a car the night before. I also had bought the park passes online before leaving home so we wouldn't have to deal with that. I was a bit worried about rush-hour traffic, given it was a Monday, but it took less than 20 minutes. There are 2 large, 5 story parking ramps for both Universal and Islands of Adventure, and parking costs $15. When we arrived, they asked if we wanted preferred parking, which costs $5 more and puts you on 3rd floor, the same level as the moving walkways. If you are arriving early, I don't see a reason for preferred parking. We parked on 5th floor and took the elevator down to 3rd floor, then took the moving walkways towards the park entrances.

To get to the theme parks you must walk through Universal's CityWalk, an entertainment center similar to Downtown Disney. As you go through CityWalk, Islands of Adventure is straight ahead, Universal Studios to the right. It only takes 10 or so minutes to walk from the parking ramps to the park entrance. We arrived at the entrance gates at about 8:15, 45 minutes before park opening.

Everyone was queued up on the right side, but there are gates at the center umbrellas

NOTE: It seems people queue up at the gates on the right side of the entrance plaza, but they use and open all the gates at the same time. The far left gates were being used for Universal resort guests, who can enter the park an hour early. Otherwise, where ever there is an umbrella and computer monitor, that is a gate. We initially queued up on the right side along with everyone else. But one person, obviously someone who knows the park, went to one of the center gates, so we moved to the same one.

Hogsmeade

Hogwart's Express

They opened the gates about 10 minutes early, and it was a dash to WWoHP (well, maybe not a dash, more like a fast walk)! The quickest path is to go through Seuss Landing and The Lost Continent. That will bring you to Hogsmeade. It is so well crafted and detailed, you would think you are really on the movie set. I have never seen such attention to detail in any other theme park area (although Cars Land in California Adventure and the soon to open New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom may be at the same level). The village is set in winter, and some of the shops include Zonko's Joke Shop (items there include Sneakoscopes, Extendable Ears, Shrunken Heads and U-No-Poo), Honeydukes (where you can buy Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans), Ollivanders, Dervish and Banges, the Three Broomsticks for a meal and Butterbeer, and Hog's Head Pub.

Approaching Hogwarts Castle

After walking through Hogsmeade you will come to the gates of Hogwarts (topped by winged boars), then straight ahead to go inside the castle and the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride!

NOTE: If you have bags or other loose items you must place them in lockers before going on this ride and any of the other thrill rides such as Dragon Challenge, The Incredible Hulk Coaster and Jurassic Park River Adventure. On Forbidden Journey, there is a small pocket near the bottom of the ride seat that you can place sunglasses, cell phone or small camera. The lockers are complimentary for at least the ride wait time so it shouldn't cost you anything, but it does cause some delays and congestion as everyone tries to use one of the locker pay machines and get their stuff into a locker. I decided to not bring my DSLR; I knew we would be running around a lot and that I probably wouldn't have much time for significant picture taking. Plus, knowing about the lockers, I didn't want to deal with that. So all pictures in this post are from my iPhone and are quite the usual, pedestrian type.

Another NOTE: If you have a phone, sunglasses or other things in your pockets, I recommend putting them into the pocket in the seat. Half way through the ride I heard something rattling around in my seat. I reached down and found my new iPhone 5 sliding around! I was wearing cargo shorts and it had slid out of my pocket!

It only took us about 10 minutes to get through the castle to the Forbidden Journey ride. I'm not going to give much away regarding the inside of the castle or the ride itself (I will upload photos of the castle to flickr once I get home and get through them all), but I will say they are both amazing!! There is so much detail inside the castle, I would consider it an attraction onto itself. The 10 minutes did not give us near enough time to explore and enjoy all the details in the castle. You will see and hear from a number of your favorite HP characters, and there are other great references from the books and films. The ride is an amazing mixture of motion simulator and roller coaster.

After coming off Forbidden Journey you are right next to Flight of the Hippogriff. This is a small roller coaster, but was OK and gives you views of Hagrid's hut. It also gives you a great up high view of Hogwarts - I wish I had my camera available to take a picture.

We then went on Dragon Challenge, originally called Dueling Dragons. It was re-themed as a Harry Potter attraction when WWoHP opened, and in the queue you will see items like the Flying Ford Anglia and the Goblet of Fire. There was no wait (it took us about 5 minutes to walk through the entire queue line). This is a major coaster with 5 inversions, and I thought it was a very jerky ride.

The back of Ollivander's Wand Shop

We came off Dragon Challenge back in Hogsmeade and next to Ollivander's Wand Shop. There is a small, 5 minute show in the shop where "the wand will choose the wizard." I've heard it is good, but the wait was over 45 minutes so we skipped it. In fact, this was the longest line we encountered all day! You can still get into the shop by going to the next door. My daughter bought a couple of wands, then we wandered slowly through the village, trying pumpkin juice and deciding it was time to eat, which we did in the Three Broomsticks. Again, the theming inside was meticulous. The Three Broomsticks is a counter service restaurant, but after ordering you go find a table and servers will bring your food to you. We had the choice between breakfast or lunch, and we all had breakfast meals. The meals cost about $16 and come with a drink (we got a couple of Butterbeers, which Anna and I both liked - sort of like cream soda topped with flavored whipped cream).

Outside the Three Broomsticks

Inside the Three Broomsticks

Jurassic Park River Adventure

After our late breakfast, we moved out of WWoHP and to Jurassic Park. I watched while the kids went on the Jurassic Park River Adventure. They said it was fun, and it was a great way to cool off! We continued in a counter-clockwise fashion and into Toon Lagoon, where Sam and Julia went on Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls. This is a high speed flume ride and the kids loved it. And just like the Jurassic Park River Adventure, they got soaked! One fun thing for observers, you can stand on the bridge, and for $0.25, shoot water guns at the riders, just to make sure they are soaked!

Ripsaw Falls

We next came to Marvel Super Hero Island. After WWoHP, we spent the most time in this area and did 3 rides: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk Coaster and Doctor Doom's Fearfall. Doctor Doom's Fearfall shoots riders 150' up into the air, and that's about it. Good for a quick thrill, but probably not worth it if the line is long (our wait was less than 15 minutes). The Incredible Hulk Coaster is bigger and badder (that is a word, right?) than Dragon Challenge. Again, I don't want to give too much away, but the ride starts with a bang and never looks back as you do a total of 7 inversions! There are some cool features that make this ride more than just another coaster - there are tunnels and trenches, and the ride makes a continuous roaring sound. The Islands of Adventure website says the ride is 2 minutes and 15 seconds long, but with all the loops, drops and turns it felt longer than that to me!

NOTE: This may be a good time to talk about motion sickness! First, I am not one to get sick on most rides - I love coasters, and going up, down, backwards or upside down usually doesn't bother me. The one thing I can't do is spinning rides - the "more intense" version of Mission: SPACE at Epcot leaves me with a headache for hours, and I will not ride the Mad Tea Party at Magic Kingdom unless I'm in control of the turntable! But Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk Coaster all left me feeling a bit woozy (I'm getting a headache just thinking about it). Sam and Julia both did The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk Coaster multiple times but once was enough for me. I did go on Forbidden Journey a second time just because it is an awesome ride. If you are prone to motion sickness you will want to avoid these 3 rides, but under no circumstance should you skip going through the Forbidden Journey queue! Once you get to the front of the line just ask a cast member to direct you to the exit.

The Hulk, with Hogwarts in the background

At this point it was about 1pm and we had done all the attractions we wanted to do, although we had not gone back to do a second walk through Hogsmeade or ridden WWoHP a second time. Before doing that we decided to have lunch at Confisco Grille, a full service restaurant with Italian, Mexican, Asian, Greek, and American inspired dishes. I found the interior to be somewhat strange; the wood and rock work plus stain-glass lanterns were wonderful, but the other decorations like cut-outs of Boris and Bullwinkle, a rubber floaty, and an anchor caught in a net, looked out of place. I realize the goal is to bring in elements of all the lands, but it didn't work for me.

But really, the decoration and theming are of secondary importance compared to the food, which was just average. I had the soup and salad combo - a house salad with potato leek soup. The salad was fine and I thought the soup was bland. My son had the tomato basil pasta. You could definitely taste the basil but otherwise bland. Anna wasn't very hungry so only had the onion rings appetizer. These were a nice, golden brown color and were fine. The best meal was Julia's trader wings appetizer with traditional buffalo sauce, which had a nice, spicy taste. With sodas and tip our meal came to $52.

We headed back to Hogsmeade going through Seuss Landing and The Lost Continent. In The Lost Continent we stopped to watch Poseidon's Fury, a special effects show that occurs in 3 different underground chambers. The show wasn't anything special but some of the special effects were good, especially the water tunnel.

Outside Poseidon's Fury

We took our time going through Hogsmeade, then went back to Hogwarts. The stated wait for Forbidden Journey was 30 minutes but it was probably only 15 or 20 minutes, and we only stopped a couple of times in the queue. I'm glad we went through the castle and did the ride a second time as I caught a number of details I missed the first time.

Behind Hog's Head Pub

By the time we exited Forbidden Journey and started the walk back to our car it was almost 4pm. I thought we accomplished everything we wanted; if I was ever to go back I would definitely bring my camera and spend a few hours taking photographs throughout the Harry Potter area. The only other tip I would give - if you really want to see the "wand chooses the wizard" show in Ollivander's, I would recommend going there first, even before Forbidden Journey. The show is only 5 or 10 minutes long; once you get out of Ollivander's I would think the line for Forbidden Journey would still be short, and in any case, having delays in the queue will give you time to enjoy all the details!

Previous Trip Report Posts:

• Planning for the Trip
• Day 1 - We're Finally Here!
• Day 2 -  Epcot, Food and Wine Festival

Disney World Trip Report, Day 2 - Epcot, Food and Wine Festival

Our first full day at Disney World saw me up early (8am, which for me on vacation is early!!). I quickly showered and got ready to go. No one else seemed interesting in going with me (i.e. they were all asleep), so I headed out with my camera (Pentax K-r DSLR) and went to my favorite park, Epcot.

One note on Disney transportation: I can't imagine the coordination that must take place to get buses where they need to be. About 90% of the time it works great; we get to the bus stop and within 5 minutes the bus we want is there. But about 10% of the time, the coordination isn't quite working right. So, if you are using Disney transportation, give yourself enough time to get where you need to be, especially for dinner or other types of reservations, and doubly especially if you're going from one resort to another - this will likely require you to take a bus to Downtown Disney or one of the theme parks and then hop on another bus for your final destination. If it takes 20 minutes for your bus to come, 10 minutes for each ride, plus some walking time, you

Morocco Pavilion

should plan on at least 70-80 minutes, and maybe 90 minutes to be safe.

On this morning, it was off a bit (but still not bad). I saw about 8 buses go by without a single one for Epcot. Disney says you shouldn't wait any longer than 20 minutes; I would guess it was 20-25 for me (my son said he saw 11 buses, at least 3 for the Magic Kingdom, go by one day while he was waiting for his bus). So I ended up getting to Epcot just after the opening time of 9am.

My plan was not to ride attractions; I love just walking around the park, especially early in the morning or late at night when there's hardly anyone there.

Canadian Pavilion

I also wanted to do some photography. One of my favorite podcasts is the ISO5571 Disney Photography podcast (if you're into photography or Disney, I recommend giving them a listen). Listening to the podcast has given me some great ideas for photography locations and things to try. One member of ISO5571, Ryan Pastorino, loves monorail photographs - he thinks that if there is a monorail track in the frame there should be a monorail on it. I admit I hadn't really noticed the monorail beams before; yes, I knew they were there but since I wasn't photographing them I guess I just ignored them. But after listening to Ryan and the podcast, and getting back into photography, I immediately noticed the monorail beams at Epcot, and became a bit obsessed with trying to take photographs only if a monorail was on the track! I've included only a couple here (but have a few dozen in my photo library!)

Within a few hours my family had arrived, and by then the Food & Wine Festival was open. We first made a stop at the festival center in the old Wonders of Life pavilion. I loved this pavilion so any chance to go inside is a pleasure. We immediately went to the Ghirardelli booth to get our free sample of chocolate and try the Drinking Chocolate drink - a small cup of liquid chocolate that was fabulous!

Gardens of the United Kingdom Pavilion

We then headed to World Showcase and started eating! Rather than spread all the items we ate during the week across a number of posts, I am going to list them all here with the country and my rating (3 stars- do not miss!, 2 stars - excellent, 1 star - good). Please know, all the items are good so a 1-star shouldn't be taken as being bad or below average. They are all above average and you can't go wrong with any of them. I've also included pictures of the food if I have them - sometimes we were so hungry we forgot to take the picture before we started eating!

Location	Item	Rating	Image
Argentina	Grilled Beef Skewer with Chimichurri Sauce and Boniato Puree	***
Australia	Shrimp on the Barbie with Pepper Berry Citrus Glaze	***
Australia	Grilled Lamb Chop with Mint Pesto and Potato Crunchies	*
Canada	Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup	***
Caribbean	Ropa Vieja with Cilantro Rice	**
Cheese	Cheese Fondue with Sourdough Bread	**
Cheese	Trio of Artisan Cheeses	**
China	Pork Potstickers	***
Desserts	Yogurt Panna Cotta with Orange Cake, Raspberries and Pomegranate	***
Desserts	Lemon Custard Verrine with Blueberry Compote	***
Desserts	Dark Chocolate Mousse with Chili and Salted Caramel	***
France	Escargots Persillade en Brioche	*
France	Grey Goose Citron Lemonade Slush	**
Greece	Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki	**
Hawai'i	Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet and Sour Dole Pineapple Chutney and Spicy Mayonnaise	*
Ireland	Lobster and Seafood Fisherman's Pie	**
Italy	Ravioli di Formaggio All'emiliana	*
Italy	Cannoli al Cioccolato	**	Anna with the Cannoli
Japan	Spicy Hand Roll (Tuna and Salmon with Chili Pepper, Soy Sauce and Sesame Oil with Kazan Volcano Sauce)	**
Japan	Karaage Hand Roll ( Crispy Chicken Breast with Sushi Rice and Spicy Mayonnaise)	*
New Zealand	Lamb Meatball with Spicy Tomato Chutney	*
Poland	Kielbasa and Potato Pierogie with Caramelized Onions and Sour Cream	**
Scandinavia	Rice Pudding with Berries	**
Scandinavia	Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberries (that's a Margarita next to the meatballs in the picture)	**
Singapore	Beef Rendang with Jasmine Rice	*
South Africa	Seared Filet of Beef with Smashed Sweet Potatoes and Braai Sauce	**
South Korea	Lettuce Wrap with Roast Pork and Kimchi Slaw	**

Just a couple of notes on some of the above items:

•  The beef skewer from Argentina is great! Even my son Sam who doesn't eat a lot of meat liked it.
• I loved the Shrimp on the Barbie from Australia, especially the Pepper Berry Citrus Glaze!
• The Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup has long been a festival favorite, and I can see why. It was perhaps just a bit too salty but otherwise very good!
• Get the Trio of Desserts so you can try them all!

I'll keep this list up-to-date as we try more items during the week.

I had to leave around 5pm to go get our rental car. We needed it as we were going to Islands of Adventure the next day. Since we had the car we took the opportunity to go off property and stop at Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries for the week. Not too much, just some breakfast items, water bottles, Mountain Dew and milk. We got back to the room and called it a night.

In my next trip report we will head off to Islands of Adventure and Harry Potter World!

Previous Trip Report Posts:

• Planning for the Trip
• Day 1- We're Finally Here!

Disney World Trip Report, Day 1 - We're Finally Here!

My first blog post on our trip to Disney covered the planning we did for the trip. This post finally gets to the good part - arriving at Disney World! As I mentioned in the first post, our flight left at 5:55am. That meant getting up at 2:30am (I think I should reconsider my insistence on starting our vacations as early as possible! Ha, that will never happen!).

Note, I am adding a number of photos throughout these posts. But I'm doing very little processing on them at this point. Once I get home and spend a little more time with them, I'll upload them, plus probably more, to my flickr account.

We had no issues flying through Chicago and arrived in Orlando at 12:30pm. We hopped on the Magical Express bus and headed to Saratoga Springs. I had checked in online a few days before arriving, so we just had to receive our welcome package and keys, and go to our room to drop off our carry-on bags.

 
We were all pretty hungry so decided to walk to Downtown Disney for lunch. We ate at the Wolfgang Puck Express (in the marketplace), and I think we all liked what we ordered - I had the Chinois Chicken Salad (an Asian salad with cabbage, crispy wonton strips, cashews, chicken and a ginger/sesame honey dressing) and my wife had the meatloaf sandwich. Two of my kids had the large order of the baked Macaroni & Cheese (which I found bland but they liked), and one had chicken tenders.

After spending time in Basin smelling the different soaps and using salt body scrubs (only on our hands; they seem to look down on trying to use the body scrubs on your entire body), and walking around the Marketplace, we headed back to our room to relax for a couple of hours before heading to the Magic Kingdom for the night.

We had to make a stop at will call to pick up our annual passes, then it was through the gates and to Tomorrowland to pick up fast passes for Space Mountain and ride the Tomorrowland Raceway. We had dinner at Cosmic Ray's, then went to Carousel of Progress and rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.

You may have seen a picture that I tweeted showing my score - 999,999! Now, I might really be that good. On the other hand, it might have been a defective score computer. But I have the photo of my score, and I won't be ashamed to show it off if necessary!

When we came out, the Wishes! fireworks show was just starting. One thing you should now, I love fireworks. I prefer Illuminations at Epcot over Wishes!, but it's still a great show. So even though our fast passes were ready for Space Mountain, I insisted we watch the fireworks. As soon as the fireworks were over we hustled over to Space Mountain. And I may have made a mistake at this point. We saw that the standby line was only 30 minutes, and we had about 50 minutes before our fast passes expired. We figured we could go quickly through the standby line, do the ride, and then use our passes to get a second quick ride.

It seemed this plan was working well. The queue didn't stop until we were only about 3 switchbacks away from the loading point. But one thing I've noticed with Space Mountain is that they seem to allow a large number of fast pass guests to proceed compared to regular guests. There are also 2 sides to Space Mountain, and the fast pass guests take up 1 side, plus they will allow them to come over to the other side. So what should have been about a 15 minute wait grew to close to 30 and we still had to traverse the last long line behind the wall to get to the front of the queue.  It was at that point that a voice came across the PA to state the the ride had experienced a temporary malfunction, and the work lights came on. Now I'm really kicking myself because if we had done the fast pass line we probably would have been done by this point. We waited for almost 20 minutes and were just about to give up when the lights went off and the remaining folks in queue cheered. A number of people left during the maintenance so it only took about 5 minutes to get to the front. And as usual, it was worth the wait! But I'm a bit concerned about the maintenance of the ride, as this is the second trip in a row where the ride shut down while we were in line (the previous time the ride went down for an extended period and everyone had to leave the building).

When we came off the ride the fast pass and standby lines were very long (well past the fast pass distribution area), so we decided it was time to leave. We took a final ride on the People Mover (one of my favorites!), then headed out. We got back to our hotel at about 11:30pm.

The next post will cover our first day at Epcot and the Food & Wine Festival!

Disney World Trip Report: Planning for the Trip

I thought it would be fun to journal my latest trip to Disney World. Yes, this may be a bit off-topic from a Pixar-related blog. But Pixar is owned by Disney, and Pixar continues to have a growing presence at the parks. So I think some posts can be justified! Our family (my wife Lynn and our 3 kids, aged 13, 14 and 15) will spend a week at the Happiest Place on Earth. In this first report, I'll cover some of the planning we did for the trip.

Living in Minnesota, most of our trips to Disney World happen during the winter to get away from the lovely, freezing weather that seems to stick around 6 months out of the year. But there are a few occasions that may cause us to book at a different time of year. For instance, last year Epcot hosted the Pixar Weekend in May, and so it wasn't hard to talk Lynn in spending a long weekend there (not to mention it was during the Flower & Garden Festival, another great occasion to visit).

But probably my favorite, non-winter time to visit is mid-late October during the Food & Wine Festival. First, the crowds are on the lighter side. Second, the weather is usually wonderful; the humidity and temperatures have moderated and it's usually mostly sunny. Finally, it's the Food & Wine Festival! We love to eat, especially when we can try out appetizer-sized portions from a couple dozen countries across the world at our favorite park (Epcot). This year, the kids had 3 days off of school in mid-October for conferences so it came together nicely to spend a week there.

We are Disney Vacation Club members, so always stay at a Vacation Club resort. My favorite DVC resort is the Boardwalk Villas, but given this was a last-minute trip, the only place we could get into was Saratoga Springs. We've never stayed here so I'm excited we're staying here. While not as convenient as Boardwalk, it's nice being able to walk to Downtown Disney. But wow, it's a big resort! I'm still trying to get my bearings, but we're on the end of the resort closest to Downtown Disney and it only takes us 10-15 minutes to walk there.

As for tickets, we are coming back in March for another week-long vacation, so buying annual passes was the most economical. We usually get the regular APs, but just as I was getting ready to buy the passes, DVC announced members could buy premium annual passes for only $399! OK, easy decision! And the kids are excited because access to the water parks is included in the passes, and we've never gone to either Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach.

Next big decision is dining, i.e. Dining Plan or not. In general, I am not a fan of the dining plans. We don't usually do a lot of sit-down restaurants, and with the popularity of the dining plans it's pretty important to make reservations. I dislike this because it forces you to be at a specific location at a specific time, and I don't know where I'll be when I make the reservation weeks or months in advance. We like to keep our plans flexible. And for us, it seems we end up with extra food and credits. This causes us to use credits on the last day on items we probably don't want, and so it doesn't seem cost effective. Plus, sit-down restaurants take up a lot more time than counter service dining; we'd rather be on rides than sitting in restaurants. Instead, I would rather plan a couple nice sit-down meals, use our villa kitchen for breakfasts and then do counter service meals while touring the parks.

The counter service plan is more our style, but still for some reason we don't use all the credits. We are also spending a day at Islands of Adventure, so that would have been a whole day not at Disney so I'm sure we would have even more extra credits.

OK, so we have the hotel reserved, park passes and eating figured out. Next, transportation. I don't know about you, but I like my vacations to start as early as possible and end as late as possible. On this trip I think I nailed it! Our flight from Minneapolis left at 5:55am, and we won't be getting home until almost midnight. These also happened to be the lowest cost tickets I could find. It wasn't perfect, as we had to make a stop in Chicago both ways, and we're flying different carriers. Having different carriers isn't a big deal, and in October I don't see much change of weather-related delays flying through Chicago.

We always use Disney's Magical Express. It's great to be able to get off the plane, walk right onto a waiting motorcoach and be transported to our resort without waiting or hauling luggage around the airport. It does require a bit of extra planning, as it can take 3 hour for the luggage to arrive - we pack shorts in a carry-on so we can change when we arrive. But I think the convenience is worth it. When it comes time to leave Disney, we can get our boarding passes and check our luggage right at the resort. We won't have to deal with our luggage until we get back to the Minneapolis Airport - more convenience!!

This turned out to be a longer post than I expected, but I know I skimmed some of the topics to try and keep the length down. If you have questions, or would like me to go into more detail on anything in this, or any of the future posts, let me know in the comments! My next post will highlight our first day at Disney!

Other Trip Report Posts:

• Day 1 - We're Finally Here!
• Day 2 - Epcot, Food and Wine Festival
• Day 3 - Universal's Islands of Adventure and Harry Potter!