Last day continued
Having well explored Islands, and after enjoying an OK lunch at Three Broomsticks we hopped on the Hogwarts Express for Kings Cross, and Studios. The train ride is fantastic, and a great way to get people to buy park to park tickets.
We stumbled out into the heat of the day, and almost immediately split up again. A wanted to stay in the Harry Potter areas, and C wanted to ride Men In Black. Both kids wanted to dial the phone that's in the booth outside the station. They understood how to dial, but the concept of picking the phone up off the receiver first was lost on both of them. Ahhhh children of the digital age. If you think about it, a cordless phone has no "hook" either. Once I got her to pick up the phone, THEN dial she got it to work. Then of course C had to do it.
That done, C and I took off for MIB while T and A stayed in Diagon Alley. We did single rider line which was a walk on, but C missed the pre-show queue. We were able to get on the same car which was nice. We came out to find both T and A in the gift shop waiting for us. A wanted to ride again, so I said ok leaving the bags with T. I realized half way in that I was still wearing my prescription sunglasses, I was worried that I wouldn't see anything but it wasn't too bad. Made for a fun photo. I also discovered that I'm too old to go on the æ rides back to back. I was wobbly when we got off the second time.
We hit the coke station next to MIB - air conditioning! and started walking toward the front of the park. Doc Brown was out (My kids- who?) parenting fail on my part. and we came across the end of a minion parade as we hit the character row area. C was VERY excited to see Gru, and I did offer to stand with him for a photo but he refused. This has gone on my list for next year, to deliberately catch a parade or two.
We continued to make our way to the front of the park, it was around 2:30 at this point and T was just done. Honestly all of us were. We had been back to the room by this time all week and not having anywhere to go was not a good situation. We didn't need to be at the airport until 5 or so, and we needed to kill some time in some AC ASAP.
I wanted to stop at the photo place on our way out of the park, I had purchased the photo pass package and had drilled into everyone to get their ride photos added each time they got off a coaster. I discovered that you had to print Volcano Bay photos IN that park, they weren't available in the other 2 parks for our "free" prints. This was a bummer as we had enjoyed our time in that park so much. I chose a nice one of our family taken that morning, before we looked like we'd been drug through a humid amusement park and when I told him we didn't want the poster he offered to give me another size instead. I opted for 2 5 x 7s as those are easier to frame. I don't know what our package was supposed to give us, but he kept hitting buttons and I walked out of there with more prints than I think I was supposed to.
Other than the VB stuff not being available, I liked having the package. I'm not going to pay full price for it by any means but they run sales frequently and I've revisited the photos often. If we meet one of my goals of doing more characters next year I'd like to have it for that.
Photos accomplished we headed out of the park in search of AC. I voted for Toothsome (milkshake) but T suggested Margaritaville. It was late enough in the afternoon that the lunch crowd had dispersed, but there was still a bit of a wait. It's a fun restaurant, and the store is neat to walk through as well.
Once we were seated, T and I agreed to split some nachos and got the kids some pretzel sticks. The kids had other ideas and A ordered spaghetti off the kids menu while C ordered a hamburger plain. Food didn't take long and WOW the nachos are HUGE. They're also really really good. I'm not one for Chilli on my nachos but these were excellent. Fresh chips, good beans lots of cheese and the chilli offered a nice bit of flavor. They can also serve 4 people easily. We didn't even make a dent. A inhaled her spaghetti, but C's burger which he did order plain came out with "stuff" on it. The offender, tomato and lettuce. I scraped it off, but he was hot and tired and refused to eat it. I was slightly irritated at the waitress for not checking on us as well. I've had them grab things the kids have ordered plain and make the kitchen redo it. This time she was nowhere to be found. C munched on the pretzels and fries, but it contributed to an already foul mood for him.
We killed as much time as possible in the restaurant, and meandered through the gift shop on the way out. My favorite item? the T-shirt that says I am the woman to blame.
When we couldn't avoid it any longer and headed back out into the heat toward the bus. The ride back to the hotel was uneventful, and we headed straight for the car to shuffle things around from the park bag to the plane bag.
Once at the airport car return we were greeted by a porter with a rolling cart. We quickly filled it and T chatted with him all the way to the Southwest desk. Super nice guy and honestly, worth the tip to not have to haul our newly expanded suitcase collection in from the parking lot. It's also really nice that the car rental place is within walking distance of the main terminal - that's not true for us, you have to take a bus. With all your stuff.
We got checked in with Southwest, dropped the bags and hit airport security which was totally backed up. I swear we were in the slowest line as it felt like people were zooming past us. Then she refused to let all 4 of us go up together, I tried going up with T and she barked "get back" "only 2 at a time, you're crowding me" at me. ohhhhk then. After giving C the third degree we then stood in line to go through the metal detectors. Someone in front of us tried just letting his bag go through with all kinds of stuff in it. He got called out of line and basically stepped in front of me to talk with the TSA agent. T and the kids were already through the machine, but our stuff was still on the belt so I stayed with it. The guy plops his bag on TOP of one of our bins. TSA agent says do you have electronics in here? He starts pulling stuff out of the bag and dropping it in our bin. The TSA agent wasn't having any of it however, and starts scolding him, this isn't your bin. The guy doesn't care one bit and keeps dumping stuff. She finally grabs an empty bin, and moves everyone elses stuff out of the way while he's still dumping. He finally finishes, then walks through the machine again completely without care that he's just disrupted the entire line. I suspect he didn't care that he was dumping his stuff into our bin, that the agent would fish it out. The agent and I make sure his stuff is in his bin, and I go on through.
The security gauntlet threaded, T helps me get my shoes back on and we head for the train. This really is a pretty airport. We easily found our gate and enjoyed some down time before our uneventful flight home. it was so late once we made it through baggage claim and then getting our car loaded that I don't think anyone did anything but faceplant the bed once we got home. I know I did.
It was also wonderful to have a day to do laundry (the cups weren't all the way emptied when I shoved them back in to the suitcase, along with our swim stuff so everything was just … damp. The dog was rescued from the kennel and we spent a lazy day catching up before heading back into the workweek ahead.
next up: final thoughts and return trip plans.