Tag Archives: Harry Potter

Stitched Up Good and Proper.

Before I start on today’s post there are a couple of things that I’ve forgotten to write about in previous posts and I feel it necessary to cover these particular aspects of our holiday.

First of all, if you go to the Harry Potter part of Universal, be aware that Butter Beer tastes like…well, shit really! I have no idea what shit tastes like but if I was to take a guess then I would say shit tastes like Butter Beer or, if you prefer, what I said originally – Butter Beer tastes like shit.wwohp-butterbeer

All five of us tried it and the more profane of us concluded that it does indeed taste like shit while the females of the tribe declared their disgust for it in a slightly more lady like manner:

“Bloody disgusting.” said PIL.

“Foul, disgusting stuff.” said CJ.

“Tastes like shit.” said Ed.

“Ed!” said PIL

“Yeah. Tastes like shit.” said Greg

“Greg!” said PIL

“Fuckin’ horrible.” I said

“Dick!” said PIL

“Dad!” said CJ.

“Ok. Sorry.” I said. “Still tastes like shit though!”

“Dad!” said CJ

“Dad’s right.” said Ed. “It’s fuckin’ horrible.”

“Ed!” said PIL

“Ed!” said CJ

Anyway, as you can see, we didn’t like it. 5 out of 5 considered it foul. You may think differently but I would suggest that you buy ONE SMALL Butter Beer and try that before investing a shit load of money for a drink that in my opinion, tastes like shit.

Secondly, if you go to Typhoon Lagoon take your own music (phone or iPod) and good head phones . Unless you are a huge fan of 60s California surfing songs that blare out on a continuous loop that repeats every 2 hours, you will go nuts within hours because that’s all that’s played and you can only listen to “Daddy taking the T.Bird away” so many times.typoonlagoon

I wholeheartedly recommend both these places as tremendous fun and not to be missed but just be aware of what I’ve said here.

Today I started the day with another 1.2 mile run. This time CJ came with me as the lazy toad known as Greg was fast akip in his pit still. After breakfast and showers we headed off to Wet n’ Wild. We’ve never been here before so weren’t sure what to expect. We were not disappointed though. It was smashing. There were lots of water rides that the kids went on straight away while PIL and I sorted out the loungers and chairs and made like Germans by covering everything with towels. After about an hour the kids came back and started telling us about the rides they’d been on. They harped on about this ride called the H2O Disco ride and said it was great fun.Wet-N-Wild-Water-World-54698-735x400

“Dad. You really must have a go. It’s got really loud 1970s disco music playing the whole way down. You’ll love it(!!!!!)”

Eventually I agreed to have a go. Ed said he wasn’t going this time round as he wanted to top up his tan. He said it with a huge smile on his face. Greg and CJ were beaming too. ( I should have guessed something was afoot). So off we went and joined the end of the queue for this allegedly fantastic ride.

“So what happens?” I asked

“OH Dad it’s great. You get in this 4 person rubber ring thing and shoot off down the slide. Some of the time it’s in a dark tunnel thing and then it’s outside then it goes back inside the tunnel and finishes off in the pool. It’s great. You’ll love it.”

“Yeah Dad, and all the way down they play disco music really loudly.”

“But I don’t like disco music.” I said

“That’s ok Dad. It doesn’t matter. They only play it loud so no one can hear you screaming.”

“What?”

“Never mind Dad. We’re there now.”

“No” I responded. “What’s this about not hearing you scream?”

Whereupon the guard at the top of the ride gestured us forward ready to take our places in the rubber ring thingy.

“Right Dad. You stand on the number 1. We’ll stand on 3 and 4. That way the weight is evened out.”

“Cheeky bugger” I thought. “Why is the guard smiling like he’s just toked a whole spliff on his own?”

We got on. Then the ground suddenly disappeared from below us and we shot off somewhere. I was facing back up the ride throughout and a) had no idea what was happening until it happened to me, b) all I could see was Greg and CJ laughing their heads off and c) I was probably screaming like a girl but due to the VERY loud 1970s disco music, I couldn’t be sure.BombBay2

Finally, after what felt like an hour or so we ended up in the pool at the end of this ridiculous water slide thing. The kids were wetting themselves with laughter. I was so exhausted from all the screaming I’d screamed that they had to help me out of the pool and escort me back to PIL and Ed. PIL had a huge grin on her face so it was fairly obvious that Ed had told her what was going to happen. The buggers had conspired on the way back earlier to stitch me up like a kipper and they had. There I was thinking that PIL and I had succeeded as parents in bringing up three civilised human beans. Wrong!

Today is our last full day in Florida as we catch the evening flight back to the UK tomorrow. Ed, Greg and I are finishing off the beer before going to bed. PIL has drunk the last of the wine and gone to bed.

We have had a truly wonderful time. We will return again soon. Next time though, we may not have all the kids with us. Ed is 22 now, finished Uni and about to start work. He may decide that he wants to holiday elsewhere with other people. We shall see. Greg is 18. He’s about to start Uni. Who knows what he will decide. CJ will come with us though as she’s still not old enough to holiday alone. I hope that our kids will all join us on holiday again. PIL and I love having them around. They are great company (somewhat annoying at times though) and both PIL, CJ and I will miss them.

Have a great day.

More Dick soon.

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Holiday report II

We are still here. The authorities have not deported us yet. Of course just because we are on holiday doesn’t mean that the rest of our world stops. Upon our arrival PIL decided we should eat more healthily. In America? Land of the ginormous portions? Yep. PIL decided that both Ed and I should stop taking sugar in our tea. The only sugary things in the house are Krispy Kreme donuts that we hide in the shopping trolley every time we go to the supermarket. PIL gets the serious hump about it and gets really annoyed if we eat one.

PIL

PIL

And really, really ticked off when we leave the empty box in the fridge!

While we’ve been here Ed received notification of his degree result. On tuesday 21st July he will graduate from the University of East Anglia with a 2:1 in Business Management. PIL and I are chuffed to bits. Ed’s pretty happy too! We will be at his graduation ceremony and we will undoubtedly have a bit of a cry.

Wednesday:

Today we descended upon the other part of Universal Studios: Islands of Adventure.Island of Adventure

This is where Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione hang out.Harry Potter

There’s other stuff as well but we decided to get Hogwarts out the way before it got packed. (And boy, did it get packed!) Here you can buy a complete Hogwarts school uniform and people did. You can buy all kinds of wands and people did and then stood practicing casting spells with their new wands. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that they were just pieces of stick that some enterprising bloke had picked up off the forest floor and no matter how well they waggled their wand they would not ever cast a spell because it’s not real. Any story where a ginger kid has two mates has got to be fantasy. We went on rides and walked hither and whatever the other word is that goes with hither. We scoffed about two cows worth of meat

Our lunch

Our lunch

and two acres worth of spuds converted into chips, drank drink until we could drink drink no more. It was blinking hot. We had a great time again.

Thursday:

Blizzard Beach. This is a great water park. It has the most frightening water slide ever.

The "Crap Your Pants" water slide at Blizzard Beach. I think Disney call it something else.

The “Crap Your Pants” water slide at Blizzard Beach. I think Disney call it something else.

Not only does this ride scare the crap out of you it does two other things:

1. It gives you a huge wedgy that takes for ever to pull your trunks out of your bottom as the crotch of your trunks is up around your tonsils and

2. It gives you a dreadful enema if you’re not careful. Fortunately, Disney has realised this and has a great many rest rooms nearby.

I did not go on this slide. It takes an eternity to walk up about a gazillion steps to get there and I could not be arsed. The kids did though and loved every second of it. However, Blizzard Beach does have a lot of other water features and slides most of which we went on. The best is a very pleasant and gentle meander in a rubber ring around the whole site called Cross Country Creek. We all went on that several times during the day.

Cross Country Creek

Cross Country Creek

We chomped our way through a least one cow, a sheep and a pig during our visit. We returned home to our house on the golf course completely knackered, bloated and very content.

Friday:

Supposedly a day of rest. So, in keeping with our new found desire to become fit and healthy human beans, I got up and went for a run.portrait of a mid adult man jogging in a park

Two strides into the run I realised I’d made a mistake. I am not as young, fit and supple as I used to be. My knees are a mess and the extra weight I now carry around certainly doesn’t help. So for the outward leg of my run it was a case of brisk walk, slow staggering run, brisk walk, slow staggering run etc etc. The inward bound part of the run was a non stop run all the way home. Total distance covered 12 miles. Ooops. Missed the decimal point! 1.2 miles. They say every journey starts with a single step and how I wish it had only been a single step!homer_running

After breakfast, Greg and I went for a haircut and on the way, we sorted out tee times for another round of golf. At 10.04 precisely, the boys teed off.

Ed tees off

Ed tees off

After watching their previous round, I was not expecting great things and both PIL and I were not disappointed. They were bloody awful again. The thing is, despite not being very good at golf they are ultra, ultra competitive and got more and more frustrated as they went around the course.Todd3

Some of the conversations they had with each other made PIL and I crack up:

“What are using for this hole?”

“Last time at this hole I used a 9 iron and hit someones house, so I think I’ll use a 5 iron this time.”

“O. Good idea. I hit  a house at the tenth so I’ll do the same as you I think.”

Whereupon, they both sprayed their balls in all kinds of weird, indiscriminate directions, not necessarily in the direction they wanted them to go.

Balls were lost never to be seen again.

Gregs second shot at the ninth

Gregs second shot at the ninth

Some, however, were seen more often than the lads liked.

Er. Sorry mate. The ball is still at your feet

Er. Sorry mate. The ball is still at your feet

Usually, you can see the ball flying through the air but as they were travelling in completely unpredictable directions, we never actually saw them. Some shots whizzed off into the distance about 3 feet off the ground. Others shot off fifty feet into the air but at 50 degrees to the intended direction. Hopefully, they will play another round before we leave. PIL, CJ and I enjoyed it even if Ed and Greg didn’t.

Then we went shopping again. I actually managed to buy not one but two hats that fit on my buffalo sized head.buffalohead

The kids think I’m bonkers because they say my hats are basically the same but as I like to point out, one is Adidas and the other is Under Armour so they are completely different.

My new Adidas hat which is completely different from....

My new Adidas hat which is completely different from….

My new Under Armour hat

My new Under Armour hat

During the course of the day we managed to eat a whole flock of chickens and possibly a duck or two. Eating so much can only end badly.

Coming soon……..

Is that a snake???? Am I becoming my sister????

Have a great day.

More Dick soon.

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