Sonya's Blog - Day 213 - Back to the park - Hooray?!

Sonya’s Blog - Day 213 - January 21st - Back to the park - Hooray?!

Well this is going to be the nicest day this week, with a high of 22 or 23 forecast. We were all pretty tired, but the kids wanted to go back to the park and do the water rides while we had pretty warm weather. That means we are going back to Islands of Adventure. We really were not on the ball today and left quite late. We didn’t arrive at the park until after 10 and we remembered why it is good to arrive earlier. The line up for bag check was insane and we waited for at least 20 minutes to have some guy rifle through our stuff. We then had another long wait to get through the gates and into the park and then massive crowds to navigate through. When we got to the Harry Potter section, you could barely walk there were so many people. I have been here at the busiest time of year (Christmas) and it seems just as busy in the HP section as then. Now the other parts of the park are not as busy, but the Harry Potter part is crazy. I went and sat in the Lost Continent section, which is right next to Harry Potter. It has about 1/4 of the people in it and most of those people are walking towards Harry Potter. There was not a seat available in the HP section, but many tables available in the Lost Continent section. I sat myself down with all our bags and waited. We decided to not get a locker today, because I had done almost everything I wanted to do. I had brought the computer (they do have great wifi at the parks, much better than most of the campgrounds we have stayed in). The kids and Blake wanted to go on the Dragon Challenge and do the red side today (we did the blue side the other day). Blake was turned away though because he had his phone and wallet in his pockets. You could not ride with anything at all and they told him to go get a locker. All the lockers were being used, so that was not an option - he was pretty happy about it. The kids got to ride though. They then went to Hogwarts and went in the single rider line to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. They did it twice and only waited about 5 minutes altogether - it was a 40 minute wait in the regular line. The only difference is you don’t all get in same car, but it doesn’t matter once the ride starts. Isaac wanted to try out his spells in this park with his wand that he bought yesterday. He has a little map that came with the wand that explains where all the “spell” spots are. He was off doing that, Natasha bought herself a new wand. She got Snape’s wand as her tribute to Alan Rickman - plus it is a cool wand. When they were all finished they came and got me. I managed to get some blogs posted, so that was good since I was just sitting around anyhow.

We decided to catch the 12:30 showing of The 8th Voyage of Sinbad and eat our lunch. Well our lunch was good. I cannot even describe how bad the show was or the acting, it was just terrible.

We headed over to Jurassic Park and decided to do some of the water rides while it was the warmest part of the day. First, we all went on Jurassic Park River Adventure. I do like this ride and I didn’t do it the other day as it was too chilly for me to get wet (I am a huge wimp about getting cold). Here is a picture of us on the ride, tried to get the dinosaur, but the head moved out of the frame just as I was snapping the picture:

At the end of the ride, you drop out of the control room while the T-Rex is lunging towards you - you are looking up and then the boat plunges down and you get wet. Natasha and Isaac were on the edges and got soaked! I did get splashed, but mostly my bum got wet from sitting on the wet seat - yummy! Blake and the kids decided to do Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls - it’s a log ride and get all the wet out of the way. Isaac wanted to do the Popeye ride as well (which is a river adventure ride that you get soaked on), but it was closed for maintenance. Blake was so sad! I went and sat down with all the bags and waited for their return. Wow, did they ever get wet. They both went and bought their new t-shirts so they could change. I guess they were going to get a t-shirt anyhow, so this was the perfect time.

The kids having a spell duel in their new t-shirts:

Natasha wanted to get some pictures, so they all ran off to do that. Then Blake and the kids went on Cat and the Hat for kicks. Blake and Isaac then went on Spiderman and we called it a day.

Traffic was terrible when we were leaving, I guess 6 PM is the worst time to leave. It took us longer to got the 3 KM’s to get on the Florida Turnpike then the rest of the trip home. We did a quick pit stop at the store and then went back to the RV. I walked Kizmet, while Natasha and Isaac got busy with washing and cutting up salad stuff. Blake cooked the burgers and we were all set.

After supper we watched Smokey and the Bandit because Blake has been dying to see it and it is on our hard drive of movies. I gotta say, it was pretty silly and the clothes were amazing. How on earth Burt Reynolds squeezed into those bell bottoms is beyond me. Sally Field was super cute in it. We all loved the Bassett Hound - Fred - he was our favourite.

Sonya