Tag Archives: Hogwarts

Post Holiday Post

I don’t know about you but I find that within ten minutes of returning to work, it’s like I’ve never been away! Having said that, the memories remain and what memories they are. We had a fantastic time in Florida. We did all the things we wanted to do although they weren’t necessarily the things we thought we would do and we didn’t do some of the things we intended to. That’s the nature of our holidays. We make plans and change them.

We’ve been a number of times before but despite that, returning to the Theme parks was no great hardship. We enjoy them immensely. All you need to remember is that it is likely to be hot and that you will walk many, many miles, so comfy footwear is a must.kids@harrypotter

PIL, CJ and I watched Ed and Greg playing golf and were full of admiration at how they were prepared to demonstrate to all and sundry just how monumentally bad they were.

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Having said that, they were both far better than the rest of us by a long way. At least they could hit the ball! They spent a lot of time searching for their balls, they hit houses, they may have hit a car or two, they plainly enjoyed playing from bunkers and from in amongst the trees.Elltreegolf

Both of them blamed their miscued shots on their selection of the wrong bat to hit the ball with and they both had an absolute blast!Elliott for par

During our travels around the course we found large numbers of balls lost by other players which made them feel a bit better about their own efforts. This feel good factor was increased by coming under attack from wayward golf balls from other golfers while we were lounging around our pool. On our last day, before going to the airport, we all played a round of crazy golf. PIL got a hole in one while I got hit by a ball fired off by someone on another part of the course.

We ate huge quantities of food. All of it was fantastic, the portions were enormous and we were given doggy boxes to take home what we couldn’t eat.The whole tribe eating again

At Animal Kingdom, we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.

The Rainforest Cafe

The Rainforest Cafe

At Magic Kingdom, we managed to get an early lunch at the Crystal Palace. At Universal we stuffed our faces at NBA City. At the Florida Mall we went to The Cheesecake Factory to eat. We stuffed our faces at a different place every day and every place was excellent. We drank Butter Beer at Harry Potter World and it was disgusting.wwohp-butterbeer

We got told off at one place because Ed had forgotten his I.D. so PIL ordered a beer on his behalf and we got caught. You have to be 21 to drink alcohol in the US and while Ed is 22, he still got asked for ID and it’s taken very seriously there. No ID, no alcohol! Oddly enough PIL and I never got asked for ID! Apart from beer and donuts, we also got food in so that we had meals at home too although I’m not too sure what “Turkey Bacon” is. Be prepared to put on weight although not as much as you think because of all the walking you do getting around the theme parks and shopping malls. Places like the Cheesecake Factory, Rainforest cafe and Crystal Palace are very popular so expect a wait if you haven’t booked a table in advance.

All the parks, whether they be theme parks or water parks get busy from early in the morning so ensure you get there in plenty of time so you can either get a good spot or beat some of the queues.BombBay2

tribeatmagic

We purchased express passes for Universal and Disney. They don’t apply at Harry Potter World but work well in the rest of Universal.

Harry Potter World

Harry Potter World

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Not so good at Disney though as you are limited to the number of rides you can go on and it’s at specified times only that you have to book. Everyone of them is great fun though. We did have a bit of an issue at Universal with “technical problems” causing delays on some of the rides. We waited for ages to get on the Hogwarts ride because of this. We were stood under that bloody talking hat for a long time and every three minutes it would start its speech:

“You are about to start your journey…..”image2

We bloody weren’t! If I’d had a gun, I’d have shot the damned thing! A thousand people driven potty at Harry Potter World!

There are absolutely loads of things to do and every one of them is designed to part you from your money! However, it’s all worthwhile and we loved it.

Shopping is a breeze too. We took the minimum of clothes and bought loads more out there but with so many outlet centres, it worked out quite cheap to buy clothes and stuff. PIL got a beautiful Michael Kors handbag for a fraction of the cost back in the UK. Mind you they did have a sale on which saved another 40%. And yes, in a very short length of time, she has lost her house keys, car keys, phone and tablet somewhere in the depths of that bag as well as her make up bag, purse and $6 in change.

We stayed in a fantastic house with it’s own swimming pool so if we didn’t feel like going anywhere, we could just stay at home and slob out in the pool area. Just be aware that the wildlife like living there too!

Sam the Snake

Sam the Snake

Lizards are there in abundance and so are snakes as we discovered on a couple of occasions. Plus there are all kinds of weird insects. (Well, weird to us).

It ain’t cheap but my advise to anyone is to go. You will have the time of your life and have great memories (and a gazillion photos) to remind you of one of the best times you ever had.

PIL organised the whole thing and she did an excellent job of it.image1

It’s no wonder I wish she wasn’t my ex wife! Thanks PIL, we all had a great time thanks to you and we all love you to bits.

Thanks mum. I had a great time. I love you.xxxx

Thanks mum. I had a great time. I love you.xxxx

Thanks mum. I had a fantastic holiday. I love you xxxx

Thanks mum. I had a fantastic holiday. I love you xxxx

Thanks mum. I had an awesome time. I love you xxxx

Thanks mum. I had an awesome time. I love you xxxx

Thanks PIL. I had a stupendous time. I love you xxxx

Thanks PIL. I had a stupendous time. I love you xxxx

Have a great day.

More Dick soon.auto

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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