Pages

Friday, March 18, 2011

Florida!...And the Images That Almost Weren't

I have so much to catch up on, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the honeymoon. Don't get too excited, I won't be sharing alll the details ;)

 When Corey and I got married, we really didn't have the time and money for a honeymoon, so we thought we would wait a year or so before planning where we would go. We decided we would take a week off to go somewhere while someone watched our little girl. This was before we had Kynlee so I had no clue how hard it would be leaving her for even a night, much less an entire week. However we both really wanted a vacation, and time alone.

I've been reading Harry Potter since I was in 6th grade (I know this doesn't sound like it relates, but I promise it does!). I read it in hiding until about senior year when I finally decided to come out of the closet with it, because I could no longer hide my nerdy side. When I met Corey he kind of just laughed at me and thought it was endearing that his girlfriend was a closet nerd when it came to books, and the Harry Potter world. When the 6th movie premier came out, I made him watch the trailer,  and he agreed to watch all the previous movies with me. Little did I know I was stirring a little Potter nerd inside of him as well.

He read books 4-7 (he wouldn't read the first three, and I told him he wasn't a true nerd because of it) in about three weeks. Sorry hubs, I know you were trying to hide it from people. Then we were among the first people to show up for the midnight premier of the 6th movie.

This is where all of this ties into our honeymoon plans. I found out that Universal Studios was planning on adding the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" to their Islands of Adventure. At first, I was skeptical because I thought a theme park dedicated to the series would be completely lame, but I kept seeing stories, and pictures about it, and became increasingly excited to the point where I made Corey promise we would go there some day.

Finally last November we decided to go ahead and plan a trip to Orlando to visit Universal Studios for our spring break. With the help of our AMAZING friend Martha, we were all set up for a week in a beautiful condo in sunny Florida.



{yes I took a long hot bubble bath surrounded by candles every night}

Leaving Kynlee for a week was so difficult, I missed her entirely too much, but I must say it was nice to have a week alone with Corey. I'm not complaining about the amount of sleep I got either :) I love Kynlee Bear, but child hates to sleep!


When we arrived at the gates to Island's of Adventure, I was filled with much anticipation. If you are a huge Harry nerd like I am, then I'm sure you understand. I was promised to enter into what looked exactly like the movies, walking through the streets of Hogsmeade, up to the front gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.




 When the gates opened, we sprinted (okay maybe a brisk walk/slight jog) to the Harry Potter section so we could ride The Forbidden Journey, which was hands down, the coolest ride I have ever been on. Even though we might have received a couple of points and laughs running through the park, we turned around and laughed at the people who didn't get there first and had to wait hours to ride it, when we only had to wait 5 minutes. So HAH!

The line for the ride takes you through Hogwarts castle, which was incredible. They went all out with every detail, trying to incorporate as much of the book and movies as possible.

{Sorry for the awful quality of these pictures, but I was in a very dark building, with my point-and-shoot, and I had to use flash...eck I hate flash!)

 {The door to Dumblebore's office}



{The sorting hat}

Then we got to explore Hogsmeade, it was just amazing. I felt like I was really there (except for the 80 degree weather, contrasting with the fake snow on top of the buildings. No complaints about the weather though!)














We ate at the Three Broomsticks, which was very cool. I'm not just saying this because I was eating at a restaurant from the book, but the food was soooooooo good. To top it off we tried the Butter Beer. I wasn't expecting to like something that was described as "butter beer," but we couldn't go to the World of Harry Potter, and not try it. We split a frozen one, and had to fight for the rest of it because it was the most delicious drink I have ever tasted, I don't even know how to describe it....we got one every day haha.




Harry Potter wasn't the only part of the park, but definitely my favorite. I love roller coasters, and Universal has a new one called the Rip Rocket (or something like that), and it was AWESOME! Not only do you get to choose your own music to listen to for the ride, its one of the best roller coasters I've ever ridden. The first part is the scariest, but I guess that is was makes it so different. Usually a roller coaster will take you up an incline, before dropping you.....well, this coaster takes you SLOWLY straight up a 90 degree incline...and there are no shoulder straps on it...scaryy!!! Well my favorite roller coaster, quickly became my most hated. Our last day there, our last ride if the day, it ate my camera :( I was so sad. Not going to lie, cried like a baby. All of my pictures were on it, and I couldn't get them back. I hate to say it, but nothing could cheer me up after that so we went back to the hotel to spend the rest of the day by the pool. Not to mention 3 days worth of walking around two theme parks did a number on my feet.

{The coaster that ate my camera}

Alas, there is good news. The morning we left, Corey told me to call the park's lost and found to see if they might have found my camera. I wasn't expecting them to have it, but I thought I would try. The guy on the phone kept describing things that sounded like my camera, and I got more excited with every "is it silver?" and  "is it a 10 megapixel?" then he said the magical sentence "is there a picture of a baby in a swing with striped leggings?" What are the odds that they would have my camera!?!? It was definitely beaten up, and I'm pretty sure it's unusable, but I had my pictures back, and thats what was important to me. As bad as that may sound, I will probably never go back to Harry Potter World, and I wanted to remember it forever.

Even though Harry Potter was the main reason for our trip, we had a great time just being together, and enjoying the warm weather. It was a great way to thaw out from Boone, aka the North Pole.





At the end of the week, we were so excited to get back to our little girl. I was sad that she learned how to say Mama while I was gone, but at least she didn't start crawling yet. Btw, I still haven't heard her say it myself :(



If you have no clue about anything that I described about the theme park, I'm sorry, but like I've said many times...I am a HUGE Harry Potter nerd. I'm also sorry if this was an extremely long, boring post...maybe if I had kept up with my blog and split this up while we were there I wouldn't have to apologize. Oh well, I will know next time!

(I had someone ask how "getting my butt back in shape" went. I will make a blog post about that soon!)

2 comments:

  1. Come on.. Who DOESN'T like Harry Potter?! Glad it was as good as what I've seen on TV. I only wish I could take my husband coz he is a bigger fan than me! But Orlando is a long way away from Brisbane!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, but it's so totally worth it :)

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...