PIC-TRIP REPORT Orlando 8/13 - 8/22 LOTS OF PICS COMPLETED 27/09/2010

Your trip report and photos are awesome!!! What kind of camera do you have?? Those night shots are some of the best I have ever seen!!! I so can't wait to see it, it will be a short trip and I am sad that the parks will close so early in Dec so I won't get to see much of it at night. That makes me sad. Not sure why that is. Oh well.:goodvibes
 
Do you know the settings you used for that night shot?? it's gorgeous!! :lovestruc I just wish IOA was staying open that late when we'll be there in 3 weeks!
 
I'd really like to put that gorgeous shot you took of Hogwarts (with the moon) up as my desktop background. Have you uploaded any higher resolutions anywhere (like on Photobucket?).

I'm loving your trip report! It's really whetting my appetite for our trip in December. Your pictures are terrific!
 
Your trip report and photos are awesome!!! What kind of camera do you have?? Those night shots are some of the best I have ever seen!!! I so can't wait to see it, it will be a short trip and I am sad that the parks will close so early in Dec so I won't get to see much of it at night. That makes me sad. Not sure why that is. Oh well.:goodvibes

Thank you, glad you´re enjoying the TR and the photos. I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28. Hope you enjoy your trip, we´ll be waiting for the TR and pics:thumbsup2.

Do you know the settings you used for that night shot?? it's gorgeous!! :lovestruc I just wish IOA was staying open that late when we'll be there in 3 weeks!

Thanks. Yes, I took it with the Night Scenery (it´s automatic) function in my camera (see reply on top;)). But it gives me this info: Shutter 8 sec. ; Aperture F2.8, ISO 100. Remember to use a tripod or anything steady to take pic.


I'd really like to put that gorgeous shot you took of Hogwarts (with the moon) up as my desktop background. Have you uploaded any higher resolutions anywhere (like on Photobucket?).

I'm loving your trip report! It's really whetting my appetite for our trip in December. Your pictures are terrific!

Thank you very much for your comment. I had practiced a lot with my camera before the trip so I could get great pics and some of them came out awesome.

I haven´t uploaded that pic in high resolution yet, but once I do I will post it.:)
 
Today we all had an early wake up call, 7am, as we had our Breakfast at the Three Broomsticks scheduled at 8:30am:woohoo:. In the reservation they suggested for guests to be 45 min prior to scheduled time so we had to leave early. We left the hotel at 7:50 and arrived at WWOHP at 8:10. We went straight to the Three Broomsticks and were greeted by a lady who checked our family´s last name in her reservation list, everything was OK. She told us that they would allow us inside in about 15 minutes.

We waited or let my rephrase that, my parents waited, :rolleyes1, while I went and took more pics and my sister went to ride Dragon Challenge (wait time 5 minutes).

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About same angle from last night, just love the night pic more

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15 minutes had passed and we entered the Three Broomsticks after a short wait in line, but my sister wasn´t back from Dragon Challenge. So we entered and ordered our breakfast and then my sister ordered hers. She told us it took long because the queue was very long until it reached the ride itself. My dad and my sister ordered the American Breakfast and my mom and I ordered the pancake one. We thought both breakfasts were really good and a good serving size. Our only observation was the link sausage as we didn´t like it too much. About the Three Broomsticks itself we loved the décor and great atmosphere in it, a lot of details and some strange paintings on the walls.

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We finished our breakfast and headed out to explore and take more pics of the place. We went to Dragon Challenge as I needed to take pics of the queue and my sister needed to ride the red dragon this time. During the queue you get a great pic spot of the castle.

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At this point I headed out the chicken exit, LOL, and entered a nice alley with various displays. We went back to the Owl Post and now it was about 9:30am so we left WWOHP to visit the last two islands. (We had a planned early entry day with my sister so we didn´t need to stay in WWOHP today).

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Our first stop was Lost Continent. We headed to Poseidon´s Fury as it was the first show scheduled at that time of the day. We entered the queue and after a 20 minute wait the show started. We enjoyed the show very much and the special effects at the end with all the water and projections looked great, even though we thought the images looked outdated.

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After the show, we looked at the place itself and felt it was a little abandoned and had a cold atmosphere that didn´t invite you to stay there. The only place that did stand out was Mythos, just astounding.

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As it was too early still for Simbad´s show, we decided to head into Seuss Landing and even after yesterday´s night visit we still fell more awed by it. The wonderful theming of this place is breathtaking. Our first stop, as it was already open, was the The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride. And really enjoyed the view from up there, I took a pic out of the video I took.

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Following this ride we entered the Christmas store, ate some desserts and rested a little from the heat with some shade and lemon slurps.

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It was almost 11:30 so we headed back to Lost Continent for The voyage of Simbad Stunt Show. We got to the entrance of the show and had to wait almost 15 minutes until we where let in, the heat was really high so it was really wearing us down. We finally were let in and the show started after 10 minutes. The show was entertaining and fun, the story itself was just ok, but the show as a whole was pretty enjoyable.

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This show marked the end of our day at IOA as my parents were really tired from the early start we had today, so we left the park at around 1pm.
We enjoyed the afternoon and night at the hotel, we really needed a rest as all the heat was really starting to affect us.

The next day we had nothing planned in the parks, we did some shopping and relaxing.

Next: Early entry at WWOHP and some Downtown Disney
 
Getting so excited for our trip! Love your TR and all the photos! Can't wait for more from WW! :goodvibes
 
Your trip report is the best Universal / IOA reports that I have ever read, the pictures and detail is just amazing. Thank you so very much for taking the time to do it, it is greatly appreciated. Can't wait to read and see more of the trip. I hope that we are able to see and do most all of it when we are down, we won't have a long time but plan on using the whole day.:goodvibes
 
I want to thank everyone who has commented on my TR and my photos.

As a gift I would like to post the following link of my Hogwarts Castle night photo in high res. so you can all download it for personal use ;).

Enjoy!

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/5295/castlev.jpg

Squee!!!! Thank you SO much!

My desktop looks fabulous now. :wizard:

P.S. I also want to thank you for your trip report - it's really whetting my appetite for our December trip!
 
Getting so excited for our trip! Love your TR and all the photos! Can't wait for more from WW! :goodvibes

Thanks, glad you´re enjoying reading TR and seeing the photos. :yay:


Your trip report is the best Universal / IOA reports that I have ever read, the pictures and detail is just amazing. Thank you so very much for taking the time to do it, it is greatly appreciated. Can't wait to read and see more of the trip. I hope that we are able to see and do most all of it when we are down, we won't have a long time but plan on using the whole day.:goodvibes

Thank you very much for your comments, it has been a pleasure writing the TR and I tried my best to explain and show everything Universal has to offer(almost finished though :sad2:).
I think 1 complete day should help you do all the best rides/shows in the park, remember to pace yourself in WWOHP it is full of details.


Squee!!!! Thank you SO much!

My desktop looks fabulous now. :wizard:

P.S. I also want to thank you for your trip report - it's really whetting my appetite for our December trip!

You´re welcome, glad your desktop looks fabulous!:thumbsup2. Thank you (and everyone) for reading the TR, hope you enjoyed it (almost done though :sad1:). I´m sure you will have a great time in your december trip, I´m just dying to see the decor in WWOHP during that time.
 
After a relaxing day yesterday, my sister and I were ready for our early admission to WWOHP. We woke up at 6am and left the room at 6:45am. We arrived at IOA and were first in the turnstile lines, people started to gather from onsite hotels as well as travel packages, when we were finally let in it was 7:33 and we all headed straight to WWOHP via Seuss landing (the people in front of me didn´t know about the shortcut, too bad lol).

We got to FJ and the place was almost empty, walked through the greenhouse and entered the castle. The décor is amazing and boy is the queue long, lol. My sister was riding it so she went ahead while I took lots of pics! I stood next to the railing and once in a while when people approached behind me I just told them to go ahead as I was taking pics. NOTE: Take your time and enjoy the queue, most people walk so fast I´m sure they miss a lot of the great stuff in there. Passed the Mirror of Erised, the statues, house points (Gryffindor is always winning, I don´t know if the points move at all, as that would be great), passed corridors full of moving paintings and a Hogwarts map, then arrived at Dumbledore´s Office and he was ending his speech so I waited for it to start again while taking video and then some more pics, then I entered the Defense against the Dark Arts room and loved all the detail in it, saw the video with Harry, Ron and Hermione explaining the ride and took a video of it and the snow falling in the room. Then I went through the Gryffindor common room and after I exited I reached a CM that asked me if I was riding, I said no, so he directed me to go through the exit door; there was a nice CM who I asked if I could go and take a pic of the sorting hat as it was still ahead just before you are about to get in the ride, she said Ok and opened one of the sides of the line not been used for me to approach the hat without disturbing people in line. Took the pic and thanked her on my way out.

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I exited FJ and into Filch´s I went, Surprise! My sister was already done with her ride and was waiting for me. I thought I didn´t take so long taking the pics, LOL. She absolutely loved the ride and told me it was not for me (as you know I don´t like roller coaster style rides, so we had agreed that the would ride it and tell me if she thought I could handle it). We wanted to look at my sister´s pic but she didn´t like it so we just kept looking for souvenirs at the shop. We founf a time turner keychain that my sister turned into a necklace and I bought a HP keychain (forgot to tell you I recently starting buying a keychain from every place/park/ I visit on vacation). We wanted a Marauder´s Map but thought it was too expensive.

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We exited Filch´s and went to Flight of the Hippogriff, liked the décor and my sister rode alone in the cart (Yes, I don´t like roller coasters that much I can´t ride a kiddy coaster, :confused:, hope I can get that out of head cause I know I´m missing a lot of great coasters because of this. Hey! At least I rode Revenge of the Mummy, lol.

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After Hippogriff we decided the line for Ollivanders was relatively short so we went and stood in line. After 20 minutes we entered the show. We really liked the show and thought it was good but would´ve liked a bit of more magic (maybe do to it been so crowded they decided to shorten up the show) as the kids chosen (two brothers about 10 and 12 yrs old) where asked to do one magic trick each before the right one chose them.

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We exited into the Owl post and boy it was small, gladly not too crowded so we escaped into Dervish and Banges where I bought a Hogwarts Crest Old Fashioned Glass and Dumbledore´s wand (Elder wand) who knows, maybe I will find the invisibility cloak and the resurrection stone, LOL.

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We exited the store and had our last butterbeer, sad. We had our last look at Hogsmead and started to head out of WWOHP at 10am.

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Early entry was great, we had done every ride and entered to all the stores with no problems and were done in 2 ½ hrs, perfect!

We exited WWOHP and headed to the hotel, but not before I took some more pics, lol.

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As we started to leave the park it started to rain real hard, wind was blowing sideways and we got wet even under the moving walkway. We arrived at the hotel, changed into dry clothes, rested a bit and we left at 1:00pm to Downtown Disney.

We arrived at our destination, DTD Marketplace, at 1:30pm and it was still raining so we got a little wet going from the parking lot into our first store, World of Disney. We all loved the giant décor of characters throughout the store, took a look at all the areas and did some shopping.

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It stopped raining so we headed outside to look at the rest of the area. But got really hungry so we decided to have lunch at Earl of Sandwich and thought the food was really good. My dad really liked his tomato soup. With our batteries (and stomachs) refueled we continued our way. We passed Mickey´s pantry and loved the window displays.

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We kept walking and arrived at Disney´s days of Christmas. We thought some of the ornaments were really beautiful though expensive. So we ended up buying a couple of things. While the rest of the family was browsing I took a pic of a nice painted wall. I went into The aRt of Disney and loved the place, ended up buying a small painting for home (not framed yet, lol.).

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Our Downtown trip continued and we entered Pooh´s corner, then we continued our way and my sister and mom went into Trend-D while I kept browsing other places like Pin traders and Team Mickey´s Athletic Club.

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I went back into Trend – D but they weren´t ready so I kept exploring the place. I caught another view of the outside décor of World of Disney.

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I continued and approached Lego Imagination Center and was impressed by the real size figures the have displayes, I´ve seen them in pics but in person they are just incredible.

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I decided to keep walking and got to T-Rex and loved it´s prehistoric look.

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I returned to Trend-D and my sister and mom were ready (only 20 minutes passed since they entered store but with so many pics it seemed longer, lol). They saw the rest of marketplace (I´d seen it on my own while taking pics) and it started to rain again so we decided it was time to leave to the hotel, not before I got another pic of an exterior décor in World of Disney that is on the parking side (didn´t take pic when entering as it was raining).

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We got to the hotel at 6pm and it started to sink in, we had finished, we had done all that was planned and we were leaving the next day (sad). We got everything packed and enjoyed our last night at the hotel sharing some of the pics I had taken during the trip. We joked about my mom in Revenge of the Mummy and especially how great WWOHP was.

We left Sunday morning at 11am. Just before reaching Vero Beach we got hit by a massive storm while driving. Let me tell you I felt scared while driving and had to slow down a bit to see well but at the same time nervous looking at my rear view mirror in case I saw someone coming fast behind us. The rain passed and I could relax again. We arrived to Miami at 6pm. Enjoyed our days there (4 total), visiting friends and some shopping. We left to the airport on the 27th at 5am and arrived home almost at 6pm (3 scheduled stops). We arrived really tired to our home sweet home, and let me tell you I had this in my mind.

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NEXT: BONUS STUFF
 
Another great update and amazing photos!! I so can't wait for my trip. If we book the HP package and have early entry is it nice? Just curious, we would have like an 8:30 breakfast time, but the park its self I believe opens at 9 on that day, so not sure how early entry will work? Can you explain what time early entry starts, your pictures are amazing from early entry. Are all the shops/rides, etc open? It just seems kind of weird that the park opens at 9, I am thinking we won't have much time to do a whole lot after breakfast, so anyway just hoping to get some advice from you. Also can't wait to see the bonus stuff!!!!:goodvibes
 
Thank you for sharing your trip report, your pictures really have me looking forward to my first visit to IOA.

Glad you´re enjoying the TR and photos. Thanks

Another great update and amazing photos!! I so can't wait for my trip. If we book the HP package and have early entry is it nice? Just curious, we would have like an 8:30 breakfast time, but the park its self I believe opens at 9 on that day, so not sure how early entry will work? Can you explain what time early entry starts, your pictures are amazing from early entry. Are all the shops/rides, etc open? It just seems kind of weird that the park opens at 9, I am thinking we won't have much time to do a whole lot after breakfast, so anyway just hoping to get some advice from you. Also can't wait to see the bonus stuff!!!!:goodvibes

Thanks!

I thought early entry made a real difference as we enjoyed everything without been rushed and could see everything calmly.

We had the same schedule you had for breakfast and we entered the park at 8am but it was open already, as you´ve read, right before breakfast my sister rode Dragon Challenge once and after we did Dragon Challenge and entered shops. We could have even done Hyppogriff but left it to see rest of park. Both had 5 min wait time.
FJ and Ollvanders we left for our real early entry but at that time Fj had a 30 min wait and I guess Olivanders would have taken 40 min.

The day I left with my sister for our real early entry, the park opened at 7:30am (same 9am park opening hour) and enjoyed FJ (walk on) and Ollivanders (20 min). Everything was open.

As a side note let me tell you that even though the park opens at 9am, people were redirected to enjoy the rest of the park before entering WWOHP so it wasn´t crowded until we left at 10am. You´ll have enough time :thumbsup2.

Trying to extend TR with the Bonus Stuff, LOL. But that would be last entry. :sad2:
 
Thanks for a great trip report! :cool1:

I have loved all your photos and following the descriptions of your days.

I am sure you have some great memories for all your family :grouphug:

Now we get some bonus stuff :thumbsup2
 

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