America - Part Two, Orlando - Muggle Mayhem

Orlando....

25.10.17 - 27.10.17

The flight from LA to Orlando only took about 4 hours so it was a lot quicker than our previous 14-hour flight. We landed in Orlando around 9:30pm and didn’t get to our hotel until 11pm due to traffic and having to wait for our bags. Once we got to our hotel we were starving! Luckily for us there was a 24 hour Denny’s onsite so we headed over for some dinner. We actually really liked the food at Denny’s, it was our first ‘Denny’s experience’ and it was rather nice. Although, we overheard a man practically being yelled at because the ‘tip wasn’t a part of the bill.’ I will never understand tipping in America.

If you’re wondering why we only spent two days in Orlando, it’s because we’d already booked these flights but then decided we wanted to go to New York as well. We had also already booked the Disney World accommodation for the 29th of October. So we booked flights to New York for the weekend and spent two days in Orlando beforehand. Basically for these two days we went to Universal Florida.

The first day we decided to go to the Universal waterpark. We woke up super early as there was only two buses from our hotel that went too Universal and we didn’t want to pay for a taxi. The first bus left at 7:20am and that’s the one we decided to get. Of course as it was still pretty early in the morning we were freezing! It isn’t hot in Orlando in October but luckily for us once we got to the waterpark we realised the pools were heated.

(That's not us in the picture! There was too many people around to try and get a picture without anyone in it!!)

The waterpark was unlike any I’ve been to before. There were so many rides and not too many people – due to the time of year. There was hardly any queuing up which was good as when we’d get out of the pool the cool October air surrounded us and let’s just say we got VERY cold. The rides were great for any ages. There were rides for children as well as older people and of course rides for the adrenaline junkies!

We spent the whole day at the waterpark and then headed back to the hotel for dinner at Denny’s (Of course!). Unfortunately, as I thought the sun wouldn’t come out on the day I didn’t put any sunscreen on and got VERY sunburnt. Make sure to always put sunscreen on!!

The following day we woke up super early again as we had to get all of Universal Florida done before 4pm. This was because we had a flight to New York that evening. We brought front of line passes and Universal for sure, was one of the highlights of my trip to America.

I love rollercoasters as well as slow rides, I love just all rides in general. I think it’s because I simply enjoy escaping to the other worlds that the rides take you too. Universal had rides of all sorts and really knew how to entertain the people visiting. The Harry Potter section of Universal was amazing and actually felt like you were stepping into the book/movie. There was a real life Hogwarts as well as the ‘Hogwarts Express’ train that took you between the different sections of Universal. The park was huge and if we didn’t have the front of lines passes then we wouldn’t have been able to do the whole park in a day. I recommend giving yourself at least two days if you’re planning on visiting Universal!

As I mentioned in my last post my boyfriend doesn’t enjoy rollercoasters and refused to go on any with me. At Universal Florida there’s two main rollercoasters. The Hulk rollercoaster and the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. Of course there’s loads of other rollercoasters but I’m quite sure that these are the biggest. So I had to go on both of these alone – which I had no problem with! If you’re an adrenaline junky like me then I would definitely recommend these rollercoasters! They were so much fun and of course a little scary at times!

Since I wanted to go on the Rip Ride Rockit rollercoaster it put us a little behind schedule but not too much behind. We ordered an Uber which then took us to the wrong hotel as my boyfriend didn’t realise there were other hotels in the area with the same name. The Uber driver then refused to take us to the correct hotel which was about 10 minutes away. We had to get out the car and order a new Uber which took about 10-15minutes to get to us. The driver didn’t speak English and was confused when we asked her to stay outside of the hotel while we quickly grabbed our bags from behind the counter.

Luckily for us she waited and took us to the airport… There had been a car crash and the traffic was backed up for miles. At this point we were panicking as we had to check in baggage ect. Once we finally got to the airport there was a huge line to check in. At this point we only had 60 minutes until boarding. We asked security if they could do us a favour as our flight was leaving soon and if they could take us to the front of the line so we could quickly check in… security refused to help us out at all. But then they helped some rich lady go to the front of the line – it just shows if you have money you’re simply more important in this world.

Once we FINALLY checked in we proceeded to go to security. What a joke Orlando airports security is. The line was overflowing and hardly moving. At this point we were told it’d be about a 40 – 50minute wait. We for sure thought we’d miss our flight. Yet again nobody would help us out and we were exhausted. The line suddenly started moving as they had got a sniffer dog out and were letting people keep their shoes, watches ect on. While we were relieved we were finally moving we were a little concerned about them not actually checking people for harmful goods.
We got through security and ran to our gate... our flight had been delayed and hadn’t even begun boarding yet. It was a miracle!! Once we got on the plane there was no one sitting next to us so we were able to stretch out and have a nap.

After such a good day at Universal we were a bit bummed out we had such a horrible time getting to the airport and onto the plane. BUT we focused on the positives and were overexcited about visiting New York.

Check in tomorrow for my post on New York!
Thanks for reading.

Until next time,

Meliss