It ended up being a really good move, because the week we were going to go in October that hurricane hit.
The first complication was that we were leaving the 16th and coming back the 22nd which mean I needed to be done with Christmas shopping. It was a little stressful, but I got it done. Except for my present to Megan, but that's not my fault. More on that later.
Since we were flying into Orlando, I told J we needed to go to Harry Potter World in Universal. He has been talking about going for years. And it's always nice making someone's dream come true. So we booked our flight one day earlier.
And found out that J's sister was getting married the day we were leaving, which was the second complication. Oops. J looked into changing the flight to leave a day later but it was going to be expensive. We felt bad, but we went on our trip anyway.
The Orlando airport had this awesome Christmas tree.
We caught a cab to our hotel, which had an amazing restaurant attached.
Then the next day we had the hotel hold our luggage and hopped on the shuttle to Harry Potter land (or, as J kept correcting me, Universal Studios, but since I wasn't interested in the rest of the park I didn't think it worth mentioning).
I was really surprised it was so awesome.
The little window shops were very well done. You could buy a wand, and there were places marked where, if you waved your wand, you could make different things happen in the windows. It was pretty neat to watch. But some people stood there waving their wand, nothing happened, and it was kind of awkward, so I was content just to watch. And mutter about Squibs.
There were a lot of different costumes, it was awesome.
The goblins were animated, so they moved and spoke. It really looked great.
And Gringotts was guarded but a fire-breathing dragon. You could feel the heat when it roared.
You know we went to the Leaky Cauldron and had some butter beer.
Joseph only closed his mouth to chew.
Harry Potter has two sections in two different parks. Which means you have to buy two different tickets (lame Universal, very lame) but the cool part was taking the Hogwarts Express from one area to the other.
The window was actually a screen and it played an interactive movie. The other side of the cabin had the door, which also took part with shadows and noises.
After we spent the day checking out everything, we decided we really weren't interested in any other part of Universal. So we met up with J's brother Michael and his family. Michael, his wife Triska, her daughter Alyssa, and their son Crew had driven from their home in Pennsylvania. They picked up Triska's oldest two sons, Mason and Taylor, from the airport, and we headed to our hotel that was right off the beach.
The next day we hung out at the beach again, then packed up and get on the ship.
Our first cruise stop was Freeport.
You could see the hurricane damage.
We took a taxi to the beach.
The second cruise stop was Nassau.
We took another taxi, this time to Atlantis. J and I have been to Atlantis before, but this time we were going to the waterpark.
There is a slide where your tube goes through the shark pool.
And it's right near the beach, which is my favorite.
The third day was a day at sea, which was a relaxing day to nap, read, and hang out on the ship.
At dinner, we got a special treat and they sang to us for our anniversary.
There was one night where everyone was walking around with jingle bells and I was jealous. I knew I had missed the activity where the bells were handed out. There was an activity the following night in front of the Christmas tree, and I informed J we would be going and I would be getting jingle bells.
I got my bells, and they made it "snow" while singing Christmas songs. It was pretty neat.
The shows were pretty good.
I always love the towel animals.
The baby's name is Crew.
I was a little bit worried about the ride back to the airport. It is a seven seater car and there were eight people. The ride from the airport to the hotel on the beach wasn't bad, because Michael and Triska had checked into the hotel already so they didn't have any of their luggage. J and I shared a seat but it was still tight. I honestly didn't think we would make it back so we were going to take a taxi or an Uber. But Triska insisted, and they figured out a way to pack it up even tighter. I was very grateful they saved us a good chunk of money.
On one of the car rides J was in charge of entertaining the baby. Michael told him the baby liked it when you nibble him. So J was nibbling the baby and the baby starts to cry. Turns out J bit him too hard. It reminded me of years ago, when we were in the car with our friend Jacob, his wife Rachel, and their little baby. Rachel was telling us what a good baby she was, so chill, you could do anything, you could even scream in her face. What does J do? He screams in her face. The baby did not take that well and we spent a few minutes in the car with a screaming baby. So lesson learned is to be careful what you tell J about your baby.
It was such a good trip. It's always nice to go with friends and family.
No comments:
Post a Comment