#florida2018

Officially, my last day in Florida was yesterday. However, my flight didn’t get in until 9:30 this morning, so I classify today as my last day in Florida. We started with a lazy morning at the hotel and checked out to go shopping at the Premium Outlet Malls.

My mum, dad and sister all brought something from there. I didn’t as I spent too much money at the parks (I regret nothing). The malls were amazing, with a lot of sales on, even though it was already an outlet mall (so everything was already discounted). 

We left for Orlando International Airport at 3:30 as our flight wasn’t until 8pm. However, this got delayed due to maintenance. Once we were up in the air, I decided to be exciting and get sleep. I slept for a solid 5 hours on the flight. Once I woke up, I decided to watch Mrs. Browns Boys on my phone. Everyone was looking at me weirdly as I was laughing my heart out at it.

This post may seem dull, but to me I had the least exciting day as it was the last day of our holiday and everyone was ready to go home. I was ready for bed and needed sleep as I have work this weekend (fun :))

That’s all for my Florida Trip, but keep an eye out on this space where I will be writing about new and old exciting things that I will be doing.

So I might have forgotten to post about the other days, so I'll do it in a jiffy with a picture of that day, which will be my highlight.

We got early access to the Wizarding World and it is worth it. If you are like me and a huge Harry Potter fan, then definitely do this. Early Access is only available for those staying on an on site hotel, like we were. Get in early as well, for when the park opens for you guys. That way you'll only be waiting 70 minutes instead of 220 for Escape From Gringotts. This is an amazing ride. I can understand why it had such long wait times. The ride is a 3-D rollercoaster through Gringotts bank, I won't spoil too much though.

We started off the Sunday by meeting our Dad's cousin for brunch in Lakeside, at a small restaurant called Fresco's. I had devilled eggs. We then went shopping for a bit and had dinner at Denny's. We went into the park in the late evening and I got a picture with the mystery machine, a highlight for me.

On New year's Eve, we went to the parks and went on King Kong, Skull Island. That was pretty cool, but it could do with some more 3-D effects and thrills. It is a 3-D ride where you go through skull island on a truck driven by an animatronic, freaky. We then went to Toothsomes Chocolate Emporium. I had waffles with bananas and maple syrup on them, and an Espresso Buzz (a coffee freakshake). We then headed back to the hotel for dinner.

On our second to last day (New Year's Day) we spent it at the parks again. We saw the amazing Hogwarts light show. It was awesome. My favourite part was the Ford Anglia destroying all of the snowmen on the castle.

I didn't take any photos yesterday. But we did go to Volcano Bay the water park, just to experience the water park.

It was an amazing week that went way too quickly, and I'm already planning my next trip back. Disney maybe?

Today I barely got any sleep. I'm also posting this a day late on barely any sleep again (sorry). We had an average day, with nice weather.

To kick start the day, we went to our on site Starbucks to get a coffee and some breakfast. My mum was happy as they served a good strong English breakfast tea. I had a flat white with a chocolate croissant. My sister had a iced tea thing with a breakfast muffin. Their breakfast muffins are sweet unlike the typical British ones.

We also purchased some refillable cups, where I had decided to try to new drinks, as I couldn't see Dr. Pepper. They were Pibb and Hi-C. I thought that Pibb tasted like Dr. Pepper a lot, so I was happy to find a new found drink. We also had a look around the shop where we found a cool Christmas tree. A Harry Potter themed tree.

We then had an outting to Walgreens, which is a mini supermarket, like a tesco express or mini sainsburys. We went there for water, drinks and snacks. I struggled to pick snacks, as I was spoilt for choice. I ended up going for the traditional BBQ Pringles. When we came back to our room, it was all made up for us.

We went back to the hotel room where we sat up there for a bit before heading down to collect our park tickets. After we got our park tickets, we decided to walk to CityWalk and have a look around there. I got a shot of the hotel's sign from the path we were walking on.

We reached CityWalk and had a look around some of the shops. Piq was one of them and they sold lots of cool geeky things. We also stopped for donuts from Voodoo Donuts. They are shaped like different things, like a Voodoo Doll (which my mum had) and have catchy titles like Eight Mile (donut with M&Ms, which I had). We then used our park admission to go into the main studios park.

We had a wonder around and saw a cool hat store. Next to the cool hat store was Scooby Doo and the gang. Scooby Doo was a big part of my childhood, so seeing them and the Mystery Machine brought back some good memories. We then wondered a bit further until we saw two awesome parts of film history.

Yes these are the back to the future train and delorian. This made not only myself, but my mum very happy as well, as she loves the back to the future films. We headed towards Diagon Alley, but we couldn't even get in because it was too crowded. So we headed towards the exit of the park. On the way we got slushies and water from a beer stand. I got a frozen coke which was really good.

We walked back through CityWalk towards the other park, and stopped off in two more shops, Island Shop (clothes shop) and the Universal store. I purchased a Hufflepuff lanyard ($12) to keep my room key and park ticket safe. I have a habit of losing things.

We then entered Islands of Adventure, where we went in their shop. I purchased two more items. A Hufflepuff hoodie that I have been eyeing up for 4 years ($65) and a Hufflepuff t-shirt, quidditch themed with 07 on the front underneath Hufflepuff and Diggory on the back ($36.95). We left the park and headed back to the hotel via the complementary shuttle service.

We rested in the room a bit more, before my dad and I were sent on a coffee run. There I also replaced my room key card, as they all had different designs on. My old card had ET on it, and my new one had Harry Potter on it.

For dinner we went to the Atomic Tonic, an on site restaurant. They had tons of options on their menu. I had a 10" Pepperoni pizza to myself. It even came in a pizza box.

To finish the night, we just went back to the room and watched some TV. I ended up switching the channel to the Camping World Bowl, which is college football, to see what it was like. It was cool to watch.

That's it for today's blog post (even though it was about yesterday). Join me for tomorrow's blog post tonight, as I didn't think anything through.

Hey guys,

I've gone to Florida for a week 😁 (hooray). So here's a summary of what happened today.

We left for the airport at 8am and got to Gatwick Airport just after 9am. We got through security and went shopping in departures. I was kept happy as their was a Harry Potter shop and I decided to purchase a chocolate frog card (the card was Rowena Ravenclaw). We then headed to the V-Room which was a room for people who had booked their holiday through Virgin Holidays. They had a full cooked breakfast on offer and teas and coffees as well as a free style Pepsi Machine.

Our flight was at 1pm and it was just over 8 hours. We flew on a Boeing 747 and it had tons on offer. I ended up watching a couple of movies, with Solo: A Star Wars Story being one of them, and tons of soundtracks. I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack. The food was amazing. They came around with drinks and snacks (cheese and chive pretzels) followed by lunch. I chose the pasta bake, which came with a cold pesto pasta pot for a starter and a Gü pot for dessert. Later they came around with afternoon tea and they served a Cheese and Tomato sandwich with some chocolate and crisps.

After landing, we got to Orlando at around 5:15 and got through security. We then had to find our hire car, by Alamo. We chose a Chrysler and hit the road to our hotel.

Our hotel, Cabana Bay Resort at Universal Orlando. The hotel is a fifties/sixties retro style resort. They even have retro cars out front of the hotel, like a Woodie. The service we have received so far is by far the best and most amazing. The food is also amazing. I had sushi and Lay's crisps, Barbeque flavour, Lay's are like Walker's crisps in the UK. My sister and dad had a mushroom and kale flat bread. My mum had a pepperoni pizza.

Our room is awesome. We are in building 7, which is Bay Side. This room is awesome because we booked a Volcano view room.

This is the view out of our room. We also have a mini fridge and got a cool selection of amenities, such as the hair shampoo and conditioner being 50s/60s styled.

There we go, all summed up for this day of our holiday. Hope you enjoy and see you all tomorrow.