August 31st, Part 2
We relaxed a bit before heading back to the parks for our final night. The bus that picked us up was a coach bus, which was weird but very comfortable.
For his final t-shirt compliment challenge, Rob pulled out the big guns...his original Dueling Dragons shirt from 1999. Ladies and gentleman, he was not kidding around this evening, he was about to blow his previous record out of the water.
A kind guest offered to take a photo of the three of us...
And then we got blinded by the (flash) light and got another one...
I was so used to wearing my racer back tank tops to the park but had discovered they were all dirty so I just used the shirt that I had worn earlier in the day but I had already changed my bra to match the racer back and regretted it photo-wise. Comfort-wise and ride-wise, I was happy because that sucker held the girls in nice and tight, if you know what I mean.
We had decided we wanted another round at Mythos since both Rob and I had ordered poorly the last time.
We checked in and waited for a table while Rob went and got us a ride time for Hagrid's.
Looking up...
We asked to be seated closer to the window this time.
Beautiful view and comfy booth, we were happy
We ended up with a fabulous server, very friendly. His wife (girlfriend?) was also a server at the restaurant and was working nearby. He told us a few stories and gave Kira a whole ton of colouring pages
Then he brought us some bread, which I didn't even touch because I wanted to have room for my food.
And he gave Kira this little WWOHP owl keychain that he had purchased at a special TM discount sale.
I didn't think she would actually colour anything but she did.
We had all ordered the beef medallions and all three had arrived overcooked. Kira was so hungry, she didn't care, she just ate hers right away but our server insisted that they redo ours because they were way overdone, especially Rob's.
We waited a little bit before he returned with two more, they were actually still overdone but we insisted on eating them this time. They were still delicious!
Our dinner had taken a lot longer than we thought it would. Our original plan was now hopeless and we were running out of time before the parks closed. We narrowed it down to three things that were non-negotiable; Hagrid's, Butter Beer Ice Cream and Rip Ride Rocket. We weren't sure if we had time for everything but I was hopeful.
So, here we go...our last ride on our beloved Hagrid's.
Wooo hooo!!!
I let my kiddo have the bike since it was our final ride.
In the very few hours we had spent in the parks that evening, Rob broke his record and ended up with over 35 compliments about his shirt. The best one, by far though, came as we were getting off of Hagrid's where a TM spotted his shirt and loved it so much that they said we could ride it again, no waiting!!
That's my man!!!
They told us to make a right at the child swap area and then they used their radio headset to call to the TM standing there to let us in.
Kira was pretty thrilled and was totally okay, at this point, that Rob was way ahead of her in the compliment challenge.
Oddly enough, she had received quite a few compliments on her Stitch shirt.
We waited only a minute to get back on the ride and off we went. Rob was kind to offer the bike to this guy who was riding it for the first time. Usually when you use the single rider line, you have to ride the side car since the person from the regular line gets to choose and the bike is definitely a lot more fun.
This would be our most memorable spin on this ride as we actually got stuck on it for about 10 minutes.
It was kind of neat though because as we were rounding the corner backwards, and slightly sideways, our car started to lose speed and we came to a slow crawl and then very slowly went all the way forward again to this spot...where we noticed the other car was stopped across from us and we were waiving at each other.
This was the perfect spot to grab a photo of the Weasley car but the zoom on my phone is not very good.
The people around us, who were riding it for the first time, were full of questions since they didn't know what to expect. We waited here in this spot for about 10 minutes before the ride started up again.
When we were done, they were offering us all the chance to ride again, without wait so we could have pulled off three rides in a row but we had other things to do and we were running out of time now so we opted to just leave.
Since our photos from that first spin were taken about 15 minutes ago now, we thought they would be lost so we posed the same way this second ride as the first but they were actually able to find photos from both of our rides.
Why did the muggles cross on the Hogwarts Express?
To get to the other side, of course....so they can have their last butter beer ice cream of this trip.
Farewell Hagrid! We will see you again.
Our last two!
We ate our ice creams on the walk over to RRR and made it just in time...we walked on the ride just a few minutes before they closed it for the night.
Kira was a little miffed because I was going to ride it with her and Rob was going to ride it with the single rider behind us but as we approached the ride, we realized that her and I had gotten the front row. Just like Hagrid's, this ride is constantly loading and you don't have control of what row you get so it was only by extreme luck that we got the front row but she did NOT want to ride the front so at the very last minute, before she could even protest, Rob switched lines with her so we could ride the front together.
Rob and I were thrilled but Kira wasn't.
We all had a great final ride though, perfect ending to a great night.