universal | McAllen Family Adventures

First day at Universal Studios.

Sophie is the Author today.

Day 4

Yet another early start at 7am we quickly hopped out of bed and got ready for a new day.

We decided against using the shuttle to the park so we grabbed an Uber and finally got to Universal studios as soon as we got in the park we all realized we hadn’t had breakfast. After looking around for a while to find somewhere we ended up just getting some Starbucks we finally got in the park and very quickly we saw many things we recognized like SpongeBob characters and the Back to the Future car.

After we mapped out a route we made our way around starting with saving ET’s home planet and the moving on to the Simpsons area where we rode through Krustyland and had a drink at Moe’s tavern.

After that we made it to #12 Grimauld place after we took a few pictures and seeing Kreacher in the window we went through the wall and into Diagon alley right away we saw a dragon and Weasleys Wizard Wheezes.

We thought we would look around first before getting

anything but that plan quickly changed when we found butterbeer ice cream so after we ate that we decided to go to Olivanders we looked around but decided to wait to get a wand.

Once we looked around the rest of the area we decided to look in the other areas too, we went to the other end of the park so we could work our way back so first dad and I went on the Rip Ride Rockit Roller coaster but Dad didn’t have the best experience with it because the belt was pushed too tight and he couldn’t breathe the whole time after that “near death experience” we went on the Fast and the Furious and the Return of the Mummy ride.

After all of that we finally made our way back to Diagon alley as we finished off the day by going through the Gringotts ride but it was already a 70 minute wait then when we finally go to the front of the line it broke down and we had to wait another half an hour but in the end it was really fun we finally got back to the hotel and decided to just grab some pizza across the street and bring it back to the room.

Editor note: all tuckered out after nearly 12 hours in the park! Ate and slept!

Day Three.

The travel has been pretty taxing and the kids have been too tired to write up their adventures on the blog for today so here is what we got up to.

Early rise in Destin for the kids who went out for a walk along the beach whilst Carol and I got ready. They got some good pictures of the sunrise and some of the birds on the beach. The drive from Destin to Orlando was our longest yet.

The trip through Florida was interesting as we were passing through the remains of Hurricane Michael. It was incredible to see the destructive force of the wind through that area.

The roads in Florida do have a Toll system so we had to stop off to get a toll pass in order to make sure we were not held up. $4.99 for the transponder then $10 for the tolls themselves as a minimum. It’s worth doing this though as it saved us at a full hour of drive.

We stopped at our first family Waffle House for breakfast. It was fine. Quiet and the food was cheap and cheerful so we did not mind.

We had a few brief rest stops and stopped in Tallahassee for lunch (ended up buying Publix fried chicken which is the best supermarket fried chicken I have ever had).

Orlando is what we expected in a lot of ways and we were staying on I-drive which is obviously a major tourist trap. Our hotel was only 5 mins from Universal. We stayed at the Avanti Palms hotel resort which was cheap and convenient and had a nice pool.

For our first day we had travelled a long way so we did not want to brave any parks that day, so we headed to Disney Springs for a wander and something to eat. World’s largest Disney store and a huge Lego store also. Lots to see and live music all over the place so worth a visit as it is free to wander round.

It was packed as we suspected, and we ended up going to Planet Hollywood. I figured if we were going to spend a fortune on food (Disney is always expensive) then I would at least have an experience with it.

Planet Hollywood had some excellent stuff in there from the original R2D2 through to the door from Titanic which could easily fit two people ;-). Kevin’s sled from Home Alone is also in there. That’s one of our favorites as a family so it was nice to see.

Expensive meal but it was quite fun for the kids however we were all done in so an earlyish night was had by all and we were all giving it big z’s by 10.30pm