ORLANDO DAY 5

Tyler and I have really been looking forward to this day of our trip ever since we've been planning our trip because we are going to Islands of Adventure for the sole purpose of going to Harry Potter World. Tyler and I have developed a little bit of a Harry Potter obsession ever since we started reading the books together. We read the book (or audio book for me) and then we watch the movies. Logan likes the movies but hasn't gotten into the books yet. We tried to finish all the books before our vacation but we still have to finish the very last one. So you can see why we were looking forward to this part of our trip. More about Harry Potter later.

When we entered Universal, our first stop was Suess Landing where we rode our first rides. We passed up a few of the little kid rides so we could make it to Harry Potter world faster.

Then we were there with Hogsmeade standing right in front of us...

We strolled through Zonko's Joke Shop, Honeydukes and we ate lunch and had a butterbeer in The Three Broomsticks.  I was a little amused because they served food that seemed a little medieval like roasted potatoes wedges and drumsticks but it all tasted really good! The butterbeer especially...was much like a cream soda with sweet foam on the top! 

We also visited Olivander's Wand Shop where the girls picked out wands and I have no idea what they are going to do with them but it made them happy and maybe they will keep them and pull them out one day when they are bigger and they'll remember this vacation. Tyler bought Dumbledore's wand and Logan bought Hermione's.

While we were in the wand shop we also witnessed the book that Hagrid assigned his students for his Care of Magic Creatures class...The Monster Book of Monster's which would bite anyone who tried to touch it.  So why are my kids sticking their fingers in the cage???

The best part of Universal and my favorite ride our entire vacation was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey where we walked through Hogwarts Castle and then once we were on the ride it simulated flying around on a broomstick. There was a fire breathing dragon and a lot of spiders which was especially terrifying.  Only Tyler and I were able to ride this one but Logan and Zakk joined us on The Flight of the Hippogriff which was a roller coaster and Zakk thought it was so cool.

So after spending nearly all day in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we moved on!

Our next stop was Jurassic Park...

Logan said the Jurassic Park ride was her favorite ride the entire trip. Kevin went on this one with the girls and Zakk and I stayed  back and messed around in the gift shop.  When they got back they were soaking wet and Zakk had some new dinosaur toys which he managed to rip apart before we left the park. I think he thinks everything are legos.

Either Zakk is fearless or not very smart to stick his head inside a dino's mouth...or maybe he just smart enough to realize it's not real...I like to think the later!

Next stop was something like toon town or comic strip alley!  Poor Zakk...this is what he was doing all day at Universal because most of the rides were for bigger kiddos.

We did meet Betty Boop and saw Popeye and Olive Oil but the kids were like who is that. Then I reminded them, that's who I'm talking about every time we eat spinage.  They just looked at me like I was weird!

We finally hit the spot that Zakk had been waiting for all day.  Unfortunately, he was still to little to ride any rides but we did see a cool show and we met Captain America and Spider Man!

While Tyler and Logan were on this ride with daddy, Zakk and I were sitting on the curb waiting and all of a sudden there was a swarm of super hero's and villains!  After listening to the video, I'm not sure if it was Zakk who was excited or me...ha ha!  Although I am kinda confused because I thought Wolverine was a good guy? I guess I need to read up on my comics.  I guess Wolverine did walk away with the good guys...took me a while to catch up!

Just as we were heading to see Spider-Man, the girls got off the ride...because it broke down :( and we all went to see Spider-Man!

After autographs we surfed on out of Universal and headed to Downtown Disney for dinner and last minute souvenirs.

When we arrived at Downtown Disney, we had to feed the army so we ate at a seafood restaurant on a boat where we had crab legs. I can't believe it but my kids LOVE crab legs.

Then our next stop was The Lego Store just because Zakk wouldn't let us go by it without going in.  It was no different than any other lego store except for the awesome lego Disney and Superhero statues.  I mean seriously, these are all made of legos. It's so cool!

After the lego store we spent about an hour in the World of Disney store which is the largest disney store ever. It had multiple rooms filled with anything you could imagine. Most of the things you could get at the parks, you could also get here! This was the front of the store and Stitch actually squirted water out on the crowd.

We also stopped in Goofy's Candy Shoppe and I know I have this exact same picture of the girls from our first trip in 2008.

Goofy's Periodic Table of Elements and I'm sure he used these when he was scientifically concocting all of his candy!

Our theme park stretch of our vacation has come to an end which is very sad for me because I LOVE theme parks but next is the beach which was a wonderful change of pace.