Day 13 – Orlando Trip Report, September 2018

Here was our basic itinerary for the day:

• Morning Park: Hollywood Studios for extra magic hours
• Afternoon: Disney Springs for a lunch reservation at House Of Blues @ 13:00
• Evening: Universal
• Fastpasses: Alien Swirling Saucers (9:50-10:50), Tower Of Terror (10:50-11:50) & Rock’n’Roller Coaster (11:50-12:50)

Day 13 – Sunday 16th September 2018

This morning we woke up better prepared than last Sunday for extra magic hours at Hollywood Studios – we debated even leaving our bags behind but when we arrived at Studios we realised we’d probably be okay keeping them with us. Again we arrived at security around 7:30am however the crowd level today was much lower – still busy but nothing compared to the last time. We did a quick scan to see which line was moving quickly and broke off into two lines then joined the security queue. We were inside the park by 7:45am and joined the mass heard heading off to Toy Story Land. The queue for Slinky Dog Dash was currently weaved along the outer railings but that’s only because they hadn’t opened the full queue yet. Just before 8am, the queue opened and we flooded in. We had around a 20 minute wait to ride Slinky – must better than the 90+ minutes it was by the time we got off it. Slinky is definitely one of my new favourite rides at Walt Disney World. After riding Slinky we decided we’d do Toy Story Mania (TSM) one last time as it’s one of mum’s favourites, she won this time, although I always think she has the advantage of playing on her own vs me & my sister playing. After TSM we headed over to do Rock’n’Roller coaster as it’s wait time was still low, then we decided we would have a bit of a sit down as it was very warm again today. We went to the Trolley Car Cafe (or Starbucks) and used some of our snack credits on strawberry açai refreshers for me and mum and some muffins/croissants to have as breakfast. We grabbed a seat in the old outdoor seating area outside Starring Rolls Cafe and enjoyed cooking off a little. Once we’d finished our mini picnic we went back to Toy Story Land to do Alien Swirling Saucers – I still think it’s fun, and then we headed over to do Star Tours (twice) as it was still only a 10 minute wait (basically a walk on). Then it was time for our Tower Of Terror fastpass followed by using up some more of our remaining snack credits on some ice cream and then using our final fastpass on Rock’n’Roller Coaster. I could feel the sadness welling up inside of me, knowing that this was almost the end of our Disney portion of our holiday but I did my best not to tear up.

We headed straight from Studios to Springs for our reservation at House of Blues, it was a little tight but we made it to the restaurant bang on our reservation time thanks to some sprint walking from the car. Again House Of Blues was somewhere we’d eaten the last time we visited Walt Disney World and we enjoyed it so much we decided to make a return visit. I had the pulled pork sandwich which was the best bbq I’d had all trip followed by the skillet cookie, one word: huge. It was a yummy final meal in Disney, followed by some shopping in World of Disney for final souvenirs and Ghirardellis/Goofy’s Candy Company to spend some of our remaining credits. We didn’t manage to spend them all and still had snack credits left over, so my advice if you’re on the DDP is don’t be scared of using your credits!

Then we said goodbye to Disney and headed over to Universal. We had booked to spend the final two nights of our holiday in the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal so we could get the express pass and early Harry Potter access benefits seeing as though my sister is about as big of a HP fan as I am Disney. If I’m honest we didn’t really need to express pass for most stuff however it was nice to basically head straight to the top of most lines. After checking in we headed straight into Universal Studios as Halloween Horror Nights was on and so the park closed earlier than normal. We went on the Mummy, Men In Black and then Gringotts before getting the Hogwarts express over to Islands Of Adventure. We rode Forbidden Journey, explores Hogsmeade then wandered through the park to Superhero Isle to do Hulk and then a bit of shopping. Flagging from our already busy day we decided to finish up there and just order some room service for dinner because we were on holiday after all.

Have you visited Universal before? Do you have a favourite ride? Let me know by dropping a comment below, until next time…