Catch up on our Disney Recaps here: Disney Travel with a Newborn | Disney Part One
I know the post title says “Disney World,” and the first photo is from Universal Studios, but you know what I mean, right? We had never been to Universal before and decided that since the girls are both old enough to ride pretty much everything, we would spend one day there during our trip. My mom kept the littlest girls and we headed out for a day of roller coasters.
Let me preface this by saying that we only bought tickets for one of the two parks. We could have done a dual pass for the day, but our trip was already more expensive that we’d planned and with only a single day to devote to Universal, we were worried we wouldn’t couldn’t fit it all in. This meant we only saw half of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and we weren’t able to ride the Hogwart’s Express, BUT our day was full and I’m not sure how much more we could have done.
Harry Potter was obviously our biggest priority, so we headed straight for that portion of the park when we arrived — we were not disappointed! The attention to detail is perfect and Diagon Alley is such an immersive experience. This was definitely our favorite part of the park and we spent the majority of our day there.
Josh sat the Gringott’s Bank ride out — he doesn’t do virtual simulations — and said that watching the entire street duck for cover, every time the dragon breathed fire, was well worth his ninety minutes of solitude!
Here is where I tell you that between Harry Potter’s world and the Red Rockit Roller Coaster at the very front of the park, we were pretty disappointed. I felt like every ride was simulated and I just wanted a dang roller coaster. I’m not sure we would spend this money a second time unless we could do both parks and fork out the extra money for a fast pass that skips all of the lines in the park. I’m glad we did it and we had a great day, but looking back I think we would have all preferred another day in Disney.
Speaking of that red roller coaster, Sophie was just too short to make the cut. It’s funny because she made me promise before we left our car, that I would make her ride everything that she was big enough for, even if she didn’t want to. She was so brave and wanted to do everything the big kids did, but was worried she would chicken out!
While she was getting her face painted, I took these two big girls on the biggest coaster of their lives. Molly is the youngest of my cousins — we have a significant age gap between the oldest (me!) and youngest of our crew — and she and Ella have always been very close. We’ve told her that she has to join us for every Disney trip and she hasn’t turned us down yet. They were both a nervous wreck about riding this, but it was so much fun. That drop puts you face down on the fall and it is intense. You also get to choose a sound track that plays right in your ears for the entire ride!
Our next day was supposed to be our rest day, but since we lost our first day in the parks, we spent this one at Hollywood Studios. We got up super early to be there for rope drop and as we were pulling into the parking lot, I realized I left my camera charging on the dresser in our room. Whomp whomp. Josh volunteered to go back and get it, but I decided to let myself enjoy the day and take a few photos with my phone instead. THANKFULLY, my sister had her camera and snapped this adorable family photo as we arrived.
We headed straight for Toy Story Land when we arrived and despite the fact that it opened six months ago, it’s still a bit of a mad house. They divert street traffic into a single direction, making the line for Slinky Dog Dash so long, but we committed to doing it first, knowing the line would only grow longer. We waiting two hours for our first ride, but the line never got under a three hour wait for the remainder of our day and we all LOVED it!
With big kids, we were able to stay in the parks every day from open to close. Polly rolled with the punches and slept and ate whenever necessary. It’s such a small park, so we didn’t have to rush to get everything in, but we did have to wait a few hours for the Fantasmic! show that night — ice cream and burgers helped to keep everyone happy until it began.
