Girl Trip!!

My sister Lucy has been working at DisneyWorld for the past 5 months and as a perk she got some free entrance tickets. She graciously gave some of those tickets to my sister Lydia, my mom, and me. Yeah. Girl Trip. We all flew to Orlando on Thursday May 5th. We all arrived late at night, my mom was the last to arrive at midnight. We rented a car and drove to a cheap hotel for that night. Originally the plan had been to pick Lucy up the next morning, but we decided we wanted to get her that night. After we got Lucy picked up and back to our hotel and finally settled down to sleep it was about 3-4 in the morning.

On Friday we went to Universal Studio. . .particularly to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Being a huge Harry Potter fan myself, I have wanted to go see it ever since it opened. My girls are to young for Harry Potter and I was thrilled to go with my sisters who also love Harry Potter and could really enjoy it.

Before we went to the wizarding world, we got on the Hulk ride. We were in line for an hour but it turned out perfect because about 5 minutes after we got in the line it started raining. The line waits inside so we didnt get wet at all. I was afraid they would shut the ride down, but they didn't, and by the time we got off the ride the rain had stopped. Perfect. The one problem. . .after we got off. . .my mom had to throw up.


She felt pretty sick for awhile but we went and had a long, leisurely lunch at The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmead and chatted until she felt better. That leads us to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. :)


We had a great time. For lunch I got the meat Pasties (they sounded the most Harry Potterish) but I think Lucy's dish of bbq pork ribs tasted the best. We also had tons of ButterBeer (in the souvenir mugs of course) and Pumpkin juice. Both beverages were absolutely delicious and I will be searching the web for mock recipes. :)



The Hogswarts ride is AWESOME. We had to ride it twice and I would have ridden it many more times. (I'm not worried, I'll be back). We also rode the dueling dragons, which was really cool. Overall, it was just fun to walk down the street and see the "wizarding world" come to life. I had a fun time looking through Honeydukes sweet shop. It was neat to see how they created all the magical treats from the books. I didnt buy any because I wanted some different souvenirs, but they were really fun to look at. And Lucy did buy a chocolate frog.


As we were leaving we stopped in to see a magic show. We were all impressed by levitating money, disappearing balls, moving lights and everyday items bursting into flame. We also enjoyed walking through the whimsy of the Dr. Suess section and I had to take some pics to bring back home to my girls. They would have loved it.




Universal closed at 6:00 (it was Grad night throughout the weekend. . .so things closed a bit earlier then usual for the public). We headed to our disney hotel, the All Star Sports Resort. It was the cheapest. Lucy was able to get a 50% off discount so that made it doubly the cheapest. :) After checking into the hotel we found an Olive Garden for dinner. Hey, when you're there, you're family.:) After that we just hung out at our hotel. Lydia brought her wax and waxed all our noses. That was interesting and quite hilarious at the same time. Even my mom did it.



On Saturday we headed to Disney. We started out going to Hollywood Studios. I was pretty excited because while we were waiting in line for the shuttle, the worker asked us some trivia questions. She asked who was Mickeys older brother. . .I didnt remember his name (Oswald) but I did remember that it was a rabbit so she gave me a "Disney Triumph" pin which I wore with pride for the remainder of the day. Later I answered another trivia question right, much to the surprise of the disney employee who asked. That question was-what was Mickey's first name. . .the answer is Mortimor. Anyway, enough trivia. At Hollywood studios we rode the Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster. I had never been to Hollywood Studios before and I enjoyed trying out those new rides. Then we shuttled over to the Magic Kingdom to have lunch at Columbia Harbor House, Lucy's restaurant. We were quite disappointed when we tried to enter and they wouldn't let us. Apparently it was a Magic Kingdom blackout day for re-entry's. Weird. Lucy felt so sad (and so did the rest of us.) She decided to go in and get lunch and bring it out to us. She went in and talked to her supervisor who kindly gave her three of his personal tickets to get us in. It was sooo nice of him!! It was a classic disney "Magic Moment". It was really fun to see Lucy in her element and meet lots of her friends. They also hooked us up with free chocolate cake!! I had the fish basket and it was quite delish. Once again, we had a long, leisurely lunch filled with laughs .



Once we were done we rode the haunted mansion. Lucy told us a "historical" story about the place, apparently they told it to her at orientation, and we were all convinced it was true. Something about this lady who married then chopped off her hubby's head. And then did it again and again before she was finally caught and hung herself. It did make the ride really interesting. Afterwards she told us it was a joke and I couldnt believe it. I totally fell for it. :) We spent some time shopping after that (I certainly took advantage of Lucy's 20% off discount!!) then we shuttled to Epcot. We probably shouldn't have done this (we were super exhausted) and everyone did it for me. (So thanks guys). They had some phenomenal bush sculptures left over from the flower festival.


We had dinner there and then booked it back to Hollywood Studios to watch Fantasmic. We were all impressed with the cool effects and video on water. Very cool and worth the wait. We finished up the night by going on the Toy Story ride. We used fast passes which we had gotten earlier in the day and we pretty much walked right on. That ride was very fun and I'm way glad we got to it.

By the time we got back to the hotel we were all exhausted and a bit grumpy, but it had been a great day.

On Sunday we had a little breakfast and headed to the airport. I was really worried that I wouldnt make my plane. It was one of those mornings where everything seemed to go wrong. I got off the wrong exit for gas, I got picked for a random screening check, they also searched my bag, my boarding pass wouldnt print right and I had to get a new seat. . which happened to be in the back of the plane so it took me 20 minutes to get off and I had about 10 minutes in Atlanta to catch a shuttle, run up the super steep escalator, and run down the terminal to make my connection. I didn't get a chance to get lunch or go to the bathroom, and I was all red and sweaty, but I made it. So I guess not everything went wrong that day.

I had a great time on my girls trip. I loved the rides and the food. But mostly I just loved talking to and being with my mom and sisters.