Dinsey World!

This vacation has been so wonderful and so good for us. Everything was perfect. Perfect weather, perfect timing, things worked out just the way I wanted them to. It was all so amazing. I feel more relaxed and at peace than I have in years, like the well of my soul has been filled up. Three vacations in one might sound like a lot, but it was like the gift that keeps on giving!

We flew to Orlando Friday night, since our cruise would be leaving Saturday and we had to drive to West Palm Beach to get to the port. Immediately when we got there I felt the warm air and saw the palm trees and just felt so at home. I told Matthew this was my natural habitat, and he laughed that I was squeeing at palm trees he could barely see in the dark (it was 1:00 am). We picked up our rental car and then parked it in the airport parking garage to sleep (cheaper than a hotel...). Weren’t sure how that would work out, exactly, but it wasn’t so bad. Then we drove down to Palm Beach to board the boat. The boarding staff told us that President Trump was there that same weekend, although we didn’t really see any evidence of him.

The cruise was... well, free. Haha. It seemed to me we got what we paid for. I was expecting the food and entertainment to be better, and we aren’t really extroverted enough to enjoy things like raves and parties (plus the whole not drinking thing...), and all these hidden fees kept cropping up, but it was probably still worth it just for the transportation to the Bahamas, which was the real star of the trip. Actually, Matthew would tell you that the highlight for him was one of the performances on the ship. There were your usual dancers, a bad comedy act and mediocre magician, but they had these two cirque performers. One was an aerialist, and she was pretty good, but the other is a third-generation circus-family performer, and she was downright amazing. The first night, she started with five rings on the floor, and then she started hula-hooping them around her arms and legs and then multiples hoops at once and standing on one leg with the other up by her ear. She got five going around her waist and then one by one moved them up to each arm and her neck and then one down around her knees. It was crazy! Then for the last trick, she did about 16 at once so that it looked like she was hula-hooping a slinky. Then the second night, her only prop was a small table with two sticks on it (like the ones they spin dishes on) that had these grips at the top. She levered herself up into a handstand on them and then got onto one hand, and by moving her hand a little bit at a time and keeping the rest of her body still, she turned into like a revolving statue! Then she switched to one with a headstand (like, she had her head on a holder on top of this stick) and used her neck to rotate! It was so crazy. Matthew actually saw her on Monday as we were disembarking and went up to tell her how awesome he thought she was, haha.

Sunday we spent the day in the Bahamas. We actually got to go to fast and testimony meeting at the Freeport Branch, which was a really neat experience. The spirit was really strong among these humble people, and it was so great to be there with them. The the Branch President even gave us a ride out to Port Lucaya, where we had scheduled a dolphin encounter. We didn’t do the actual swimming with the dolphins because it was significantly more expensive, but we got to get into the water and pet a dolphin and give them the hand signals to do tricks, and Matthew asked if we could feed them a fish, so we got to do that. It was so amazing though to be up so close to the dolphins. I bought a waterproof camera on board the ship, and I was so glad I did. We got some really neat pictures. They also had their professional photographer there taking pictures of the dolphin kissing us on the cheek. I looked them up online and they are darling, but kind of expensive (even to download), so we’ll see, I guess. We got to meet three dolphins: Coral, Xzuma, and a baby, Sandy, who was only a year old! So she was smaller than the other two and still learning some of the tricks. It was adorable.

After the dolphins, we wandered around the market a bit. Because we hadn’t booked our dolphin experience through the cruise ship (it was a lower price but also allowed us the flexibility to go to church), we had to find our own way back. Taxis in the Bahamas are killer. But our driver on the way back asked if she could make a personal stop and said she would knock $5 off, so we were like, “Go for it!” Still cost an arm and a leg, but super worth it, to be able to go to sacrament meeting.

Well, we got back from the Bahamas on Monday and it was like getting back from vacation only to discover we were still ON vacation! We spent the day at the beach in West Palm Beach before driving back up to Orlando. It was great, the water was so warm, and it wasn’t very crowded (because, you know, it was a Monday in February). I got pretty sunburned in a couple of places... I thought I had learned my lesson about reapplying on our honeymoon, but apparently not well enough. It was mostly fine though, since that was our only beach day and the sunburns were mostly in places covered by my regular clothing (and therefore safe from the sun on subsequent adventures). We got some advice from a friendly stranger at the dolphin encounter to get our little disposable waterproof camera developed ASAP (apparently the film gets ruined if it sits too long), so we did that, and then the drive to Orlando was really long, because traffic. We picked up Matthew’s wedding tux (which I had to admit was rather attractive, even if it did cost $300 to rent...) and checked into our hotel. It’s a great little resort, kind of between Disney and Universal (closer to the latter). Our room was huge and had a kitchenette, complete with silverware and dishes (which was good, since we’d bought cream cheese and bagels to eat for breakfast), and it had a Jacuzzi bath (plus a huge shower) and a balcony that was all screened in to keep out bugs. We went to bed early (or at least, I did; I think Matthew had to work some) to be ready for the first day of our three-day theme park blitz! (also: Disney!!!!)

Disney was incredible. Well, I should back up. We started out at Hollywood Studios on Tuesday morning. The hotel shuttle only goes to Epcot, so we had to get a bus to wherever we actually wanted to be (and back at night, which resulted in a few mad dashes...), but it left the hotel an hour before Disney opened, so there was plenty of time, and we were the first in line for the bus to Hollywood Studios. Matthew had had the idea to bring our little camp stool for me to use while we waited in line for things, which ended up being not only a lifesaver (for my bad foot/leg/back) but also a real conversation starter. We made some friends in line for that first bus. They were staying at our same hotel, and one of them had the same birthday as Matthew (though a few years younger).

So we got to Hollywood Studios about 10 minutes before opening, and got our tickets and everything. We decided we were interested in checking out Toy Story Mania, so we (and everyone else in the park that early) made a beeline straight for that ride to beat the long lines. Actually, I should pause to explain. Disney World has a new Fast Pass program where you book online in advance, but they only let you book three at a time, and only for one park at a time, even if you have a Park Hopper ticket. So I had managed to snag a Fast Pass for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (the first time I looked, there were none, but I checked back and finally found one), which is in Magic Kingdom, at basically the end of the day, which was worth it because that line hovered around 60-130 minutes all day long, but meant that we didn’t get as many Fast Passes as we otherwise might have, and we didn’t have any for Hollywood Studios. So we decided to hit up the rides with generally longer lines first to minimize wait times, and it worked pretty well. Toy Story Mania was fun enough, but I was glad we hadn’t waited in a long line for it.

Next we did the Rockin’ Roller Coaster featuring Aerosmith (yes, that’s what it’s called). Now, I’m not a roller coaster person, so I was nervous, but Matthew was excited about it, so I faced my fears. He was right when he told me there are no big drops, but I still have irrational fears, and he said he wasn’t sure, plus, it turned out that a big drop is not necessary make your stomach drop (or fly backward, in this case) if you can get enough horizontal acceleration... The worst part was at the beginning, and it actually wasn’t bad after that (what I like about Disney is that even their biggest rides take me no farther than the point where I can’t stand anymore), but I was a nervous wreck thinking something bigger was still coming. But Matthew had a blast. He was giggling the whole time, and when we got off, I was a little shaky and wobbly, but he was all ready for Tower of Terror.... Fortunately for me, the line was 125 minutes long already, so we skipped that one. We went on The Great Movie Ride, which ended up being kind of lame because I didn’t recognize a lot of the movies featured. Then we finished up that park with Star Tours, which was excellent, and the line was super short, so we would have gone twice except for some reason it made me a little motion sick, which was weird because I never get motion sick. It might have had something to do with the Darth Vader chicken and waffles (haha!) we had just eaten, though. Overall, Hollywood Studios didn’t really do it for me, though, so I was feeling a little disappointed as we headed over to Magic Kingdom and wondering if Disney World was really going to be as amazing as I thought.

I had nothing to worry about. Magic Kingdom was like coming home to an old friend. I know it’s technically different than Disneyland, and some things are different, but so much of it is just the same, and it kindles so many fond memories, as well as the excitement of being there again. Speaking of things that were different, our first Fast Pass of the day was Space Mountain, one of my favorite rides at Disneyland. So we headed straight over to Tomorrowland and dinged in right on the dot of the beginning of our time slot. So, the first time I went to Disneyland, I loved Space Mountain—it’s a great Lara-sized roller coaster and it’s exciting because it’s in the dark. Then they shut it down for a few years, which was lame, but it eventually opened back up and hey! my favorite ride was back! What I didn’t appreciate, since I’d only been on old Space Mountain once before and with a long break in between, was how much better new Space Mountain is. That is, until I went on old Space Mountain here at Disney World and realized how lame it is in comparison! New Space Mountain has music, and there are more stars and planets and things. Old Space Mountain is just a roller coaster in the dark. The two-year shut down was super worth it.

We headed over to Fantasyland after that. See, here was my plan. I really wanted to go to Be Our Guest restaurant (it’s part of New Fantasyland along with Seven Dwarfs Mine Train). I initially thought I could make a dinner reservation when I bought our tickets about three weeks before the trip. How silly of me. Those reservations fill up six months in advance, I found out. So I kind of gave up on the idea for a while, but as I was looking up other restaurants in Magic Kingdom, none of them seemed all that appealing (menu-wise). Well, I knew that Be Our Guest served “Quick Service” for breakfast and lunch, so I thought, Still want Darth Vader chicken and waffles, but if we split that for like, a mid-morning small meal, we could eat a big lunch at Be Our Guest and then get snacks or split another entrée for dinner, right? So that was my plan. We stopped at a couple of rides on the way (the Little Mermaid ride was actually probably one of my favorites of the day—you ride in a clam shell and then they lower you backwards down into the ride with bubbles projected on the ceiling so it’s like you’re really going *Under the Sea* :D).  Well, we got to Be Our Guest and found out that even the “Quick Service” lunch is by reservation only. I was so bummed! You can’t even get into the castle to look around without a reservation, apparently. They told us we could try back in a little while to see if any walk-ins opened up, so we decided to try that. It meant we had to stick around Fantasyland and find something to do that would take about 20 minutes, and we ended up in this delightful little 3-D show that was basically Donald Duck running amok through all the 90s Disney musicals.

Well, predictably, no walk-ins were available when we checked back. We were hungry again by then, so we decided to try Gaston’s Tavern instead. I had looked it up previously, and they really only serve snacks, but it was better than nothing. We ended up splitting a ham-and-cheese-stuffed pretzel, and we actually stumbled that way upon a dining method that ended up working out well for us—basically, we just split an entrée at a different place every few hours. It seemed to save us money and time, and we got to try a bunch of different things.  So next we headed to Frontierland. Big Thunder Mountain seemed better than the one at Disneyland, and my little chair made me another friend in line—a native Floridian, as it turned out, and so we were talking about the differences between here and California. Then Matthew persuaded me to go on Splash Mountain. Now, I’d been on it before, and it’s not so terrible, I suppose, but big drops and getting wet are not things I generally enjoy. But Matthew loves both of those things, so I agreed to go. That ride is deceptively relaxing. So much of it is actually just a story-themed slow ride, and then a 50-foot drop. So I was nervous the whole time, anticipating the drop, but it was honestly almost enjoyable, haha. The picture of us on the ride that they take, though, was priceless. Matthew has his hands up and a look on his face that tells you he’s having the time of his life, and I’m screaming with my eyes closed and gripping the bar in front of me. Good times...

Next we headed over to Adventureland for Pirates, which they told us was closed but we could still wait in line. It must have opened up right as the guy was telling us that because the line moved normally the whole time, and it worked out great. After that we had a Fast Pass for Peter Pan’s Flight, which is always a classic, except for us the ride stopped right after Peter Pan says, “Here we gooooo!” *clunk* “This ride is stopped momentarily. Please remain seated.” By this time we were hungry again, and Matthew had mentioned earlier and brought up again that he’d always wanted to get a turkey leg. For some reason, he thought they came from Tomorrowland, but I was pretty sure they were from Tortuga Tavern, and since we weren’t finished with Adventureland yet anyway, we went back, and sure enough, I was right. He really enjoyed his turkey leg. I had some, since there was nothing else I wanted from that menu, and I can’t say it brought me the same pleasure, but it was protein.

We rode Aladdin’s Magic Carpets and then bit the bullet and got in line for Haunted Mansion. Now, up to this point, it being a weekday in February, we hadn’t waited in a line longer than 30 minutes, between Fast Passes and frankly just small crowds. I was loath to break that streak, but for some reason the Haunted Mansion had a really long line, and we were still holding onto our Seven Dwarfs Mine Train pass, so I gave up on that dream (like my Be Our Guest dream...). It worked out though, because it started to rain while we were in line, and unlike Disneyland (where I still remember baking in the sun waiting for Haunted Mansion...), the line at Disney World is under an awning. The ride seemed a lot different than I remember, but I’m not sure if it really was or if I just don’t remember it very well (it has been kind of a while for that one, which is why I was willing to stand in line for it).

Then it was time for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train! We stopped at Small World on the way (Matthew described it as an “obligatory pilgrimage” lol) and I got to carry the wait times card—apparently the way they measure wait times is by giving these little red cards on a lanyard to people standing who are actually standing in line. I had no idea! I was actually really confused when the guy handed it to me at first. We actually didn’t really wait for that one though, it was mostly a matter of walking through what would be the line during a busier time of year (a lot of the rides were like that). Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was definitely all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a roller coaster similar to Big Thunder Mountain, but in the middle they take you underground for a slow ride through the dwarves’ mine, so it’s like the perfect marriage of thrill ride and immersive story ride.

By then it was about 7:30. The park closed at 8:00, and we had to be to Epcot by 8:25 to meet our shuttle. There was a light show being projected onto Cinderella’s castle that I wanted to stop and watch. Matthew was worried we wouldn’t be able to get through the crowds that would be leaving after, but I’d been snapchatting my sister everything we’d been doing all day (which actually really enhanced the experience for me; it was fun to share with her, especially since I knew she would love it so much), and I had to show her this. In the end, we compromised by moving back toward Main Street and then stopping to watch. And we made it back to our shuttle on the monorail with ten minutes to spare. It was a little sad to have to run away from Magic Kingdom like that, but fortunately the show ended at 7:45, so we didn’t miss anything, really.

So that was day 1. I had never tried to do multiple theme park days in a row, and I knew it would be kind of exhausting, so I got straight in the Jacuzzi, and we went to bed early again. Also, I’d been kind of futilely checking on Be Our Guest restaurant throughout the day (we’d checked for dinner walk-ins again while we were in Fantasyland for Peter Pan’s Flight, but no luck) to see if I could snag a last-minute cancellation, and when I opened up my app, THERE TOTALLY WAS ONE FOR 7:30 THE NEXT NIGHT!!!!!!! I freaked out. I could not believe I actually managed to get a dinner reservation! So I called our hotel shuttle desk to change our pick-up time (they have three different shuttles, and the last one is at 10:30—we weren’t sure if we’d end up waiting since dinner probably wouldn’t go that late, but it would be super worth it!!), and went to bed completely giddy.

Wednesday was the pinnacle of our vacation. I mean, obviously it was the midpoint, but it was also the BEST day. We were planning to do Animal Kingdom in the morning and Epcot the second half of the day. Our Epcot time would now be cut a little short because we had to get back to Magic Kingdom for dinner (squee!!!), but we would be using Fast Passes a little more judiciously that day. It was the same as the previous day, we got there a little before the park opened, but I was immediately swept away. There’s nothing like your first time at a Disney park, and this was absolutely magical. The park opened with a flock of brightly colored macaws sweeping across the Tree of Life and wheeling around over our heads while a voice on the speaker welcomed us to Animal Kingdom. I expected some parts of Animal Kingdom to be more or less pretty much a zoo, but it was so much more than that.

We didn’t head straight for the rides this time, since we had Fast Passes for most of them (there aren’t that many in Animal Kingdom anyway). We started out on the Maharajah Trail in Asia. Like I said, I was expecting just a regular zoo, but Disney goes above and beyond. The trails are fully decked out to feel like jungle ruins, the animals are so close—some of the enclosures don’t even have glass, just open air between you and the animals, and the ones that do, the animals are right up next to it—and they have cast members at each station that will tell you all about the animals. One girl got out an iPad and showed us the mating dance of one of the birds that was above us in a tree. It was so incredible!

The one thing we didn’t do very well with Animal Kingdom was schedule the Fast Passes. I had failed to realize that Dinoland is on the other side of the park from Africa, so I had us (with my advance booking) on a Dinosaur ride, then the African safari, and then another Dinosaur ride. So we ended up doing a lot more walking than we should have... But we actually didn’t wait for a single ride or show at Animal Kingdom at all. Well, the Fast Pass line for the safari was randomly long, but we walked into the A Bug’s Life 3-D show just as it was starting, and after our second Dinosaur Fast Pass (the ride broke down while we were in line, so they gave us vouchers to come back later), we saw the Festival of the Lion King, which was so amazing. Matthew and I were probably more into it than anyone else around us, haha. We danced to Hakuna Matata, sang along with Be Prepared, and I got a little teary-eyed at Can You Feel the Love Tonight. They had this woman dressed as a bird doing aerial dancing. It was awesome. The safari was ok. It was probably the least unique feature of the park (like, similar to what you could see and how close you would get in a zoo otherwise), but there were so many babies (because apparently spring time in Florida is February...)!! So that was fun. We also walked right into the bird show, which was neat. They had cast members out in the audience to handle the birds, so they flew right up to and out over us, which was neat. The last stunt went a little awry when the bird saw something interesting in the audience, jumped down, and started running around under the benches people were sitting on. Haha, the poor trainer was bright red, trying to call the bird back and telling kids, “No, don’t feed him, please.” But they got him back on track eventually.

Once you’ve used your initial three Fast Passes, you can get more, so I got one for Expedition Everest, which is another mountain roller coaster. I was pretty nervous for this one because the pictures made the drop look pretty big, and I read somewhere that it would drop you backward. But again, I knew Matthew wanted to do it, so I faced my fears for him. It turned out I had nothing to worry about, and I think if I did it again I would enjoy it a lot more (it’s actually pretty much Disney World’s version of the Matterhorn), but at the beginning of the ride, they crank you up an enormous hill, and about halfway up I had the heart-stopping thought that they were going to drop us down it backwards, and I started freaking out a little. As it climbed even higher, I began to realized that that was not going to happen, but I still was a little freaked out not knowing what to expect (I know, I’m a wuss...). The non-Fast Pass line was 60 minutes, so we didn’t go again that day.

Next we went over to Dinosaur (like the movie), which was pretty fun. Disney World doesn’t have Indiana Jones, which I thought was kind of confusing until I rode this one, since it’s very similar, except you get T-Rex roaring in your face. Good times. Oh, we also had eaten (earlier) at this delightful little restaurant called Pizzafari. I was drawn to the menu (when I was planning the trip beforehand) because they had different kind of flatbreads with things like shrimp on them. We tried the Mediterranean one, which was basically a cross between Greek salad and pizza, but the restaurant was all decked out with bright tile mosaics of the animals we’d been seeing. But after Dinosaur, it was getting closer to 2:00, which was when I’d thought we should start heading over to Epcot, but we had one more thing we wanted to do, which was Gorilla Falls, and that was another zoo trail like the Maharajah one earlier. It was much the same. There was a bird guide you could pick up in the aviary that made Matthew very happy. We saw baby gorillas and silverbacks and also walked in on a couple of zebras, *ahem* having a little too much fun, if you know what I mean...

So then we headed over to Epcot. The previous day, on our way out of Hollywood Studios, a cast member had asked if they could help with anything so I asked where the bus to Magic Kingdom was, and I found that very helpful, because there are about 600 buses running around Disney World (which, by the way, is HUGE; the parks themselves are a manageable size, but the distance between them is crazy! it’s like, 20 minutes by bus to get from one park to another!). Well, I wanted to find someone to ask on our way out of Animal Kingdom, but Matthew thought we could find it ourselves (since we’d come in on the same bus that morning). He was wrong lol. We ended up walking for about 5 minutes in completely the wrong direction and missed the bus by about 100 feet, so we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. Lesson learned...

Epcot was interesting. A lot of the rides were much more educational than other parks. I guess that should be unsurprising. We went on Spaceship: Earth, which goes up into the dome, and Living with the Land, which is kind of neat, they take you through their biodome and show a lot of innovative food-growing methods. We had a Fast Pass for Soarin’ Around the World. Soarin’ Over California is my favorite ride at Disneyland, and I knew this would be similar but not the same. It was neat *flying* over Tahiti and the pyramids and polar bears, but I found it slightly less immersive than California. A killer whale *splashed* us at one point, but no water was squirted in our faces, and I noticed it the most in Africa, but when we flew over warm places, the air stayed cold... But it’s still a really fun ride. Nemo was fun, and at the end, they have digital projections of the characters over actual aquarium tanks with the real animals in it. Awkwardly, Nemo, Marlin, and Dory were practically in the jaws of a (real) shark, haha, but it was cool to see the sting rays and the turtle in the next two tanks.

Frozen Ever After is the big ride at Epcot. I had decided not to chase this Fast Pass because there were long enough lines at Animal Kingdom, which I knew we’d be at in the morning, that it wouldn’t have saved us any time, even though we ended up standing in line for 60 minutes at Frozen. It was also pretty worth it, though. It was a neat ride; you pull up to Elsa’s ice castle in a boat, and then right as she gets to the big part of her song, it whooshes you backwards toward the next thing, which was a pretty magical effect. After Frozen, we did a very quick tour around the rest of the World Showcase. It was getting closer to our dinner reservation (!!!) and we still had a couple rides in Future World we wanted to get to, but I wanted to at least get a glimpse of the World Showcase. Epcot’s lake is ridiculously enormous. Like, I don’t understand why it needs to be that big. We saw Belle but didn’t have time to stop (that’s kind of Becka’s thing anyway).

We got back just in time to use our last Fast Pass before we had to head to Magic Kingdom. It was for the Test Track, where you design a *car* and then the ride is designed like a test track, so you get to ride through it, but it tests your car digitally (you ride in a generic ride car). I let Matthew design the car, and he created a giant orange truck (he painted it with a flower design for me) that came in second (against the cars designed by the other two riders in our group) on 3 out of 4 metrics (power, efficiency, and like, weather-proofness; third on responsiveness). After that, we ran out of time to do Ellen’s Energy Adventure featuring Bill Nye, which Matthew was disappointed about, but I was ok with, because it was TIME for BE OUR GUEST!!!!

Well, we got on the monorail, running a teensy bit later than we expected but still in good shape, and then between the parking stop and Magic Kingdom, it BROKE DOWN!!! So suddenly we all had to get on the ferry going across to Magic Kingdom, which would have been kind of neat, except that I was starting to freak out a little, because I didn’t know how long they would hold our reservation when they have people asking for walk-ins all day long. So we got on the ferry, and Matthew took all my stuff so that I could skip the bag check on the way into Magic Kingdom and straight run to Fantasyland. This is in the midst of that same light show from last night, since we didn’t even get to Magic Kingdom until after 7:30, so I was like, dodging strollers (I think I kind of pissed one lady off) and weaving in and out of people. Actually, it might have been better with the show going on, because they make everyone watching it get off the walkways, so they might have been more clear than otherwise. But I made it, and it wasn’t too late, and they said they were actually running late, so we ended up waiting for a table until about 8:00 (only 15 minutes though, at that point). By the way, if you have a reservation at Be Our Guest, regular theme park hours do not apply. So if you do an early breakfast reservation, it actually gets you into the park early, and if you are having dinner, you don’t have to leave when the park closes.

It was good to wait a few minutes, actually, to recover from the running (Matthew was only a couple minutes behind me and we were both covered in sweat, haha). But then, they called our name, and the hostess escorted us into the castle. And it. Was. Incredible. She gave us a short tour, pointing out places to take pictures after our meal and where to meet the Beast (who doesn’t appear for breakfast and lunch but greets guests at dinner). The restaurant has three dining rooms: the ballroom, the West Wing, and the gallery, which has pictures of scenes from the movies, and also some bonus *scenes*. I had a moment of panic when I realized that we might not be in the ballroom for our meal, but then she said our table was in the ballroom, and guys, it was so magical. “Tale As Old As Time” was playing as we walked in (which was a coincidence, I realized later, as the soundtrack cycled through the orchestral score of the whole movie), and it has the chandeliers, and the ceiling (although no grand staircase), and our table was right by the windows, which had a forest scene and digital snow falling outside! The hostess said we were free to look around the other rooms after we see our server, so in between courses we went to the gallery and the West Wing.

The menu at Be Our Guest is, of course, French cuisine. We had mussels for our appetizer, which Matthew and I had both last eaten in Belgium and France, respectively. I ordered lamb for the main course, and Matthew took our waiter Tony’s recommendation for braised beef. Guys, it was seriously the best lamb I have ever had. And the potatoes that came with it were equally amazing! And for dessert, of course, we had “the Grey Stuff,” which was appropriately “delicious!” We were right at the edge of the ballroom where we had a perfect view of everything. The napkins were red and folded like roses. The Beast walked across the dining area about every half hour and they would say, “Announcing, your host!” We went to greet him after we finished, and he was bowing to all the ladies and shook hands with the men. It was all honestly one of the most magical experiences of my entire life. We’re calling that our Valentine’s Day, because seriously, how could you top it?

When we finished, the park was actually still open for Extra Magic Hours (which is for guests staying at the Disney resorts). We couldn’t have gone on any rides because they were checking wrist bands (and because dinner did end up going till about 9:45, with meeting the Beast and all), but everything was still lit up, and it just completed the experience and the magic of it all. So we kind of meandered our way out, forgetting that the monorail (which was back up again) closed at 10... we actually just missed it, so we had to take the ferry again and then a bus from parking to Epcot. It was another mad dash, and we were worried we wouldn’t make our 10:30 shuttle, but we did, with about a minute (but only a minute) to spare, haha.

So, after Wednesday, we still had half our vacation left, but I knew that nothing else would be quite that magical, even Harry Potter World (ironically). At first I felt kind of bad, because it was Matthew’s birthday and it seemed like that should have been our best day, but we still ended up having a nice time. It was good to be at Universal for his birthday, actually, because it has more of the big thrill rides that he likes (although I was not willing to face my fears that much—I know my limits). But the big thing was really Harry Potter, of course. Matthew decided he wanted to use his birthday money to buy an interactive wand (mostly for me, because he’s just that kind of husband), so we went to Diagon Alley and hit up Ollivander’s first. We got a reed wand because it’s for people who are good with words, haha. But there are places all over the park where you can use the wand to make effects happen, like making something light up or produce water, that kind of thing. You have to do a certain movement for each one, and sometimes you have to kind of figure out where the sensor is looking (...), but the wand comes with a map, and there are markers for most of them. It was pretty fun to do some *spells* though. There were also park staff around to help people figure out the hard ones. Some of them were dressed up pretty legit. I saw one older guy who just randomly shuffled up to one and pulled out his wand, and it was actually pretty realistic.

So we wandered through all the shops in Diagon Alley. We got hot butterbeer and iced pumpkin juice and rode the Escape from Gringotts ride. Universal has really gotten into the virtual reality stuff. Whereas Disney has built everything up with animatronics, most of Universal’s rides have screens on the tracks where the action will play out in front of you before you move onto the next segment. It was interesting but kind of increased potential for motion sickness (Matthew this time). We rode the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade, which also had a digital screen instead of a window, which kind of surprised me, but it’s very much a ride, not just a form of transportation.

Hogsmeade was the better part of HP World, I thought. There were more rides. I was going nowhere near the Dragon Challenge, but Matthew came back from it looking windswept and like he’d had a good time. There was another neat VR ride inside Hogwarts castle, which was also very cool just from the outside, and a small roller coaster called Flight of the Hippogriff, which I did go on. There were no big drops, but still more centrifugal force than similar rides at Disney (and than I expected). It was fun. I also bought a chocolate frog at Honeydukes (for an exorbitant price, but we had brought sandwiches so that we could spend money on treats...).

At that point, we’d exhausted most of HP World’s offerings—it’s just not a very big part, and a lot of it is shopping—so we moved on to Islands of Adventure. We waited in line for a King Kong ride that was broken down, but enough people gave up that were ahead of us in line that it actually moved pretty satisfactorily, and I think we probably didn’t wait much longer before it started up again than if the ride were operational and all those people had gone ahead of us. Count it a win. Matthew did some big coasters in the Marvel section, and we did another VR Spiderman ride. Almost every ride we went on at this park (besides the roller coasters) was VR based. It was kind of amazing to me, since it’s a relatively new technology, right? So what was Universal like before that? *Shrug* I was happy that Matthew didn’t want to do Jurassic Park because that drop is too high for me; I didn’t enjoy it when I went to Universal with my family 10+ years ago.

We made our way around Islands of Adventure back to Hogsmeade, where it was a little less crowded than earlier in the day, so we were able to do the spells a little more easily (there were often small lines for them), and then we rode the Hogwarts Express back to the Universal Studios park. We got some ice cream from Florean Fortescue’s and then we went to the Mummy (I was nervous on that one too and had to keep telling myself, *It’s an indoor roller coaster, it can’t be that bad* and *you enjoyed this one last time, it can’t be that different*. I was right on both counts, it was fun. We finished up with a 3-D Shrek show and caught the tail end of the Mardi Gras parade, which was fun. The shuttle for Universal left later in the morning (but there’ s not as much traveling as Disney) and later in the evening, so we had plenty of time, which was a nice change. Our friends from the first day (the one with Matthew’s same birthday) were also at Universal that day, so we saw them again on the shuttles, and much “Happy birthday!” “You too!” ensued. Also, we’d done pretty well with our 3-day blitz, but by that time, every step hurt, haha. Fortunately, it was just normal hurt, and my bad leg/foot didn’t give me much trouble, thanks to the camp stool. They actually didn’t want to let us bring into Universal, but Matthew explained that I need it for a medical reason—he’s right, but I tend to forget to think of it that way... it was a little bit of a pain because they don’t let you take anything on the rides (unlike Disney, where you can apparently take anything smaller than a stroller) and the stool didn’t fit in the lockers they provide (although putting it in a locker would have defeated the purpose when standing in line), so we had to ask the staff to hold it for us and pass it to the exit. It was mostly fine—Harry Potter staff were all totally cool about it, but the Mummy staff got a little weird (fortunately that was our last one).

We totally used our in-room Jacuzzi every night, soaking our sore muscles, haha (truth be told, that was the deciding factor for me when I was booking the hotel... so worth it), but my body, at least, surprised me with its resilience. I think I was just so energized by doing something I really loved, and so I just didn’t notice the strain as much. It was that way with sleep and hunger too, lol. Matthew had a rough first day, but loaded up with Powerade and snacks for the second and third days.

On Friday it was really nice to get a day to relax. Matthew’s friend from law school got married on Saturday, so we had the rehearsal dinner Friday night (Matthew was a groomsman), but we spent the day taking advantage of some of the activities included in our “resort fee” (which is basically just a tricky way to charge more money in Florida...). So we did mini-golf (Matthew won, but I made a pretty decent showing) and took a pedal-boat out on the resort’s big lake. Those boats are not as fun as they look, to be honest... I’ve always wanted to do one, and it was kind of anticlimactic. Plus it was a little breezier that day (a shocking 67 degrees—up to that point, it had actually been unseasonably warm even for Florida, mostly in the upper 70s/low 80s, so perfect).

Friday night and Saturday were all wedding. It was really fun to see Matthew’s friends. Each wedding we go to makes me feel a little more like I actually know them, so it gets progressively more fun. :) The wedding was beautiful. They’re such a fun couple. Neither of us had been to a Catholic wedding before. There was a lot of standing, but also a lot of singing (a soloist sang Ave Maria and Panis Angelicus and stuff like that), which I actually quite enjoyed. The reception was a big old party, of course. I was pleased to discover that my feet and legs had mostly recovered, so dancing was actually feasible, haha.

This vacation has been good for my soul. It’s the first trip I’ve taken in a long time that I don’t feel went by too quickly. By Wednesday, it felt like we’d been there forever—in the best way possible—and would never have to leave. I feel so rejuvenated heading back into real life. And I even have Matthew bemoaning the cold (which means he’s starting to embrace the warm) with me. ;)