Universal Studios

Since the boys had a four day weekend this past weekend, I thought it would be a great time for us to head to Universal Studios in Florida so we could check another thing off of our bucket list. The only down side to going was that Camden would miss his final cross country meet. He got up early and attended all the cross country practices however due to one of the meets being cancelled due to weather, him having soccer games and now our trip, he was not able to run in a single meet. He said he would much rather go to Universal, so did not seem upset about missing it. Our flight departed Hobby Airport at 5:55am, so we were up and at 'em pretty dang early. But, that meant that we were able to check into the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel and then head to Universal to start riding roller coaster rides all before noon.

Staying at one of the Premier Hotels allows you to get free unlimited express passes, which allows you to skip the regular lines of all rides, except for Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. We found that to be such an awesome thing to have since we hardly waited in lines. For those rides that had 90 or 100 minute waits, we may have only waited 15 minutes or so. Since Hagrid's didn't utilize the express pass, it always had such extremely long lines (anywhere from 90 - 180 minutes). Our first day there, the ride was shut down for maintenance, however we got extremely lucky because as we were walking by the ride, it opened back up. We hopped right in line and only waited 20 minutes to ride it. It was a very fun ride, so much so that one night we waited ~90 minutes to ride it again!!!

We had a great time doing all things Universal. Camden opted to leave his phone at the hotel and Shane and I basically only used ours to look at the Universal app, so we really enjoyed the good quality time with no phones, just time spent together. At one point while in line, Camden looked at me and said, "I love you mom!" Maybe, just maybe I am doing something right for him to enjoy spending time with me (perhaps it is all the rides. . . .)

 Day 1 pics:

Leaving the hotel heading to Universal on the ferry.

We are ready to ride!

Hogwarts Castle

Dr. Seuss Ride

Jurassic World

On the ferry heading to Universal
City Walk to eat dinner

Day 2:

The view from our balcony

Minion Blast

Jurassic Park River Adventure

Velocicoaster - a family favorite

Tasty shakes at the hotel for dessert

Day 3:

Leaving Portofino for the final time (the 
white circle was our room)

We ended up riding this 6 times

When we booked the vacation, the Portofino only had availability the first two days of our trip. So halfway through our trip, we packed up and took an Uber to the Aventura Hotel where we would stay our last two nights. When we checked in, they asked if we were celebrating anything, and since Shane's birthday was the day before, I told them we were celebrating his birthday. They asked me to let them know when we were in our room and they would send something up. After spending the morning at the park, we headed back to our hotel to let our feet rest and to watch the Alabama vs Texas A&M football game. I let them know we were in hotel and much to our surprise, a friendly robot delivered a gift certificate to use in the food court in the hotel. 

Casen taking out the surprise

The Hulk at night

Hogwarts castle at night

Day 4:

This was the day we were supposed to go to Volcano Bay, the water park, however it was a cooler, slightly rainy/overcast day and was not conducive to being in bathing suits and water all day. So we decided to head back to the parks instead. We no longer had our express pass, so we took our time and looked at all the things we had not taken the time to previously see and enjoyed the day. 

Waiting to take Hogwarts Express Train Ride

Camden had to have the Green Eggs 
and Ham tater tots

We headed to Sapphire Falls
for chocolate shakes

The view from our room (which was on the 
15th floor)

Day 5:

Since our flight was not until 8:11pm, we had the majority of the day to spend at the parks. The boys wanted to get a wand in Harry Potter world and see what kind of magic they could conjure up. We spent a lot of time in the wand shop making sure they each picked the perfect wand.

Posing with their new wands

Camden used magic to make it
rain around Casen

Drinking butter beer

Gringott's dragon spitting fire

Our final ride of the trip

This morning came really early since we got in late, however we had a great time with many good memories made. Now to start planning our next trip . . .