You’re Not Allowed to Stupefy Your Mother! A UOR May 2019 TR *COMPLETE* 1/17 x2

The Raptor Encounter was open by then, so we decided to go get in line for that. We finally got to meet Blue!

I wanted to do this so badly but the line was always forever long! It looks like so much fun!

DS of course was very excited to see it, and it was something we definitely wouldn’t want to find a babysitter for DD back home to go see it at the theater, so this seemed like a great opportunity to see it. I have 0 interest in Pokemon in general, but I was a little more willing to see this just because I love Ryan Reynolds so I figured it nothing else, he would keep me entertained! :rotfl:

:rotfl: :rotfl: I agree about Ryan Reynolds!
 
Sounds like a fun morning!

Fun idea going to see Detective Pikachu! I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that movie! Love the pic of DS enjoying the escalator :rotfl2:
 
The things we have to do as parents, sometimes. :laughing: Most of the time, I'm interested in the kid movies, but every once in awhile something like Pokeman pops up and I just have to take the hit.
On the positive side, watching a movie was a really great use of an afternoon break, especially since you were staying offsite and didn't have a hotel room easily accessible.
 


Sounds like a fun morning!

Fun idea going to see Detective Pikachu! I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that movie! Love the pic of DS enjoying the escalator :rotfl2:

It was a nice break during a very hot day, and of course it made DS super happy to see it! Their theater is nice too, but it was too bad we were there before they put the lounger seats in there.

The things we have to do as parents, sometimes. :laughing: Most of the time, I'm interested in the kid movies, but every once in awhile something like Pokeman pops up and I just have to take the hit.
On the positive side, watching a movie was a really great use of an afternoon break, especially since you were staying offsite and didn't have a hotel room easily accessible.

Yesssssss, usually I'm the first one trying to get to the theater to see a "kids" movie, but Pokemon would normally be where I'd consider that line crossed. lol It was a nice time though, and definitely a great way to get out of the heat.
 
Well, y'all, we just wrapped up another fun, exciting & magical Universal trip to wrap up our two years (plus a little more) of being AP holders! It was a really amazing trip that I can't wait to share, and then we are just a little more than 2 months away from our long-awaited return to WDW! Guess that means I need to get moving on this TR as I'll have a lot to share with you!!

Day 4 Continued: Tuesday May 28th

When I left off, we had headed back into Studios after a break to see Detective Pikachu in CityWalk, and had gotten our photos taken at the entrance.

By the time we had done all that, it was time that we could go use our virtual line pass at Jimmy Fallon.


After that, we walked over to Revenge of the Mummy, trying to convince DS to go ahead and ride so we could all ride together, but he refused. DH and I were trying to figure out if we could go through the single rider line and still do a rider swap, so I’m guessing we looked a little confused. One of the Universal VIP tour guides approached us and asked if we needed help with something, and I REALLY wish I would have gotten her name! When we said what we were trying to figure out, she said, “Do you want me to just bring you up there?” We happily said yes, and she backdoored us into the ride!


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It was amazing! She walked us right up to the loading platform, and told the TM’s we were doing a rider swap. While DH and DS went to the rider swap room, she brought me up to the loading area and got me in the front row! And then she just disappeared into the afternoon. It was incredible, and so magical!


Right after I went, DH got to ride in the front row also on his turn.


I love the girl in the row behind DH with a huge grin on her face giving a thumbs down. :rotfl:

Of course, the next and most important order of business was to get another Icee. It had been hours since we’d had one with that lunch & movie break!!


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Then we headed over to Springfield to ride The Simpsons.


After that, we decided to go over and do Men In Black, and had a 25 minute or so wait.


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We stopped for another Icee before heading back to Springfield for dinner.


DS got a hot dog, I had a Krusty Burger, and DH decided not to eat because he wasn’t hungry.


Continued in Next Post...
 
Day 4 Continued: Tuesday May 28th

We stopped for the photo op by the Delorean, and for another Icee.


Since we had the photo package, we decided to try out The Darkroom photo studio.


This ended up being SO FUN! They have 2 green screens with cameras, and each one offers different photo set ups. They give you an idea of how you should pose and take a few different photos, then put them in fun backgrounds. My pics are all mixed up from MUP, so I don’t know which ones are grouped together, but we had a lot of fun with the different scenes.


We laughed so hard taking those photos! It was a lot of fun!

We decided we were ready to head out of the park, so we made a stop a Cold Stone Creamery on the way out of City Walk.


I had vanilla with chocolate chip cookie dough, fudge, and caramel. DS had vanilla with Oreos. DH had chocolate with peanut butter, Reese’s cups, and fudge. It hit the spot, and then we headed out to the car around 7 pm.


It was nice to get an early evening back at the resort to relax a bit before bed since we’d had such an early morning. From the extra doughnut, to opening the park, to the free photo package, and then being backdoored onto the Mummy, it had been a fun & magic-filled day!!

UP NEXT: Ready to be Minionized!
 


What an awesome TM that got you on the mummy!

The photo studio looks like a lot of fun!

Sounds like a great afternoon and overall a really fun day!!
 
That TM sounds awesome. Pretty nice of her to help you guys out like that!

Sounds like it was a fun conclusion to the rest of your day. I haven't had Cold Stone in forever and seeing your ice cream pictures made me go, "Man, I could really go for some of that right now." :rotfl:
 
What an awesome TM that got you on the mummy!

The photo studio looks like a lot of fun!

Sounds like a great afternoon and overall a really fun day!!

She was really amazing to do that for us, just to make a little magic. I really wish I had gotten her name!!

The photo studio was really great, and we had so much fun posing for the photos. We did it again in December and used one of the pictures for our Christmas card because they had a bunch of holiday backgrounds.


That TM sounds awesome. Pretty nice of her to help you guys out like that!

Sounds like it was a fun conclusion to the rest of your day. I haven't had Cold Stone in forever and seeing your ice cream pictures made me go, "Man, I could really go for some of that right now." :rotfl:

It was such an unexpected but awesome surprise!!

Haha we don't get it much either because they closed the one by us a few years ago, but we used to go often. It was a nice treat on the way out of CityWalk on a hot day.
 
Day 5: Wednesday May 29th

Today, we were up around 7 am and had breakfast in the room. We wanted to head to Studios first, but they had Early Entry happening so we weren’t sure how that was going to go. As it turned out, we were able to get into the park and hang out on the street in Production Central until regular park opening. While hanging around, DH went to the drink stand to activate our AP cup, and when she put it on the chip reader, she said it was still showing as active for 15 more hours! Not sure how that happened, but…free drinks all day!!

We checked out the gift shop while waiting, and I sent my mom some pictures of different lanyards I thought DD might like to let her pick. She ended up choosing one with the unicorn stuffed animal from Despicable Me, so we got that for her for our upcoming trip. DS was still really pining over the Toothless hat, so he ended up getting that with his souvenir money.


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After making our purchases, we found some curb space in the shade while we waited the last few minutes for Early Entry to end.


DS wanted to learn how to use DH’s camera, so DH gave him a quick lesson.


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Here’s a couple of the photos he took.


Once the park was open for everyone, we hopped right in the line for Minion Mayhem. It was posted at 20 or 25 minutes, so DH grumbled a bit about that. But DS and I wanted to do it at least once and it had been consistently around 40 or 45 minutes every day, so I figured this was our best chance at getting on with a relatively short wait.


DS didn’t mind getting to see all the pre-show videos while waiting.


We stopped on the way out after the ride was over for a picture with some of the minions.


Once we wrapped up at Minion Mayhem, we were more than ready to kick off our Icee count for the day, and DS decided I should be the counter.


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Next, we went over to ride Transformers.


After the ride, we decided to put our photo package to more use and get some pictures with Optimus Prime. We also had them take one with our camera too.


We checked the app and it said E.T. had a 10 minute wait, so we walked over to Kids Zone, but once we got over there, the posted wait said 45 minutes, so we were like NOPE! New plan. We tried to go inside the shop to do the photo opportunities because every time we had walked through before having the photo package, they were begging people to stop for pictures. But of course now that we wanted to do it, there was a family having their photos taken and another family waiting. So we turned over to Woody Woodpecker’s Nut House Coaster.


We ended up riding Woody Woodpecker twice in a row, then went to check on the E.T. photos again, and now their cameras weren’t working! Lol Since we were right there and the meet & greet was about to start, we decided to wait for the Trolls. There was a little time to kill so we got another Icee and checked out the Spongebob shop.


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It ended up being only Poppy, and DS was being funky and didn’t want to meet her, so only DH and I did.


We decided next to head over to Men In Black by way of Springfield.


Continued in Next Post...
 
Day 5 Continued: Wednesday May 29th

As we were walking through Springfield, we spotted Homer, Marge, Bart & Lisa out meeting with hardly any wait, so despite DS’s protest, we got in line for a photo with them.


Then we continued on to Men In Black, which had a 20 minute wait. It ended up that all of the wait was in the outside portion, and we were able to get to the front of our pre-show and the elevator, so we were ahead of the group and had no wait after that to get to the loading point.


Knowing we were getting the photos, I attempted to make a surprised face when they snap your photo, and instead I ended up with this.


When we were at the counter adding our ride photo, I pointed out to DS one of the display photos with Frank the Pug in it, and joked we should ride with him next time so we could get him in our photo. The TM was listening, and said, “How about I put him in your picture?”


So cute!

We stopped for another Icee refill once we had grabbed our stuff from the lockers.


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We wanted to check out the AP Lounge while it was open and get our free buttons, because we had been in the park after the lounge was closed every other day. So we headed down Hollywood Blvd.


The lounge wasn’t really anything special, but it was definitely nice just to have a place to sit in some a/c and relax for a few minutes. You can charge your devices there too, and you can do the thing where you can turn your bottled drink into a slush if you want.


We were heading out of the park at that point because we had decided to go to Toothsome Chocolate Emporium for lunch.


There was no wait for a table, and they sat us upstairs this time which was new for us.


We decided to order the same as last time we were there, and got the margherita flatbread and totchos from the apps menu to split, but this time we ordered a milkshake and the brookie sundae dessert.


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Classic Margherita Flatbread - San Marzano tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, extra virgin olive oil


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Totchos - Fried tater tots, spicy green chili, crispy pork belly, andouille sausage cheddar cheese sauce


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Kids Mini Burger - American cheese, French fries, apple sauce


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Brookies, Cookies & Cream - Brookie, chocolate chip cookies, Oreo® cookies and cream ice cream, fresh whipped cream, chocolate sauce, chocolate shavings


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Brownie Milkshake - Dutch chocolate ice cream, brownie, milk chocolate swirl

As seems to be typical of us, we ordered WAY too much!! We love the milkshakes, but with the rich dessert too, it was a lot to eat. I really enjoyed the sundae a lot so I ate more of that, while DS enjoyed most of the milkshake to himself.


After lunch, we rolled ourselves back to the car and went back to the resort for a break.


DH and I both took a quick nap on the couch, while DS watched some TV. Then he wanted to go down to the pool for a bit so DH took him down to swim.


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We left the resort to head back to the parks at 4:30 pm. We had talked it over, so we decided to stop at the Amex kiosk in the parking garage area after you go through security to see about getting the free express passes or dining plan. DS enjoyed seeing himself on the big screen while waiting for us.


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We ended up going with the dining plan over the express passes because we’d only get the passes for ourselves, so we’d still have to purchase it for DS. All we had to do was sign up for a card, which did take a little time, but not too long. They gave us our new cards and our vouchers for the plan, and told us where to stop in CityWalk to exchange our vouchers for our dining cards. We each got 2 days of the quick service plan, so it gave us a total of 4 quick service meals, 4 snacks, and 4 drink credits.

Continued in Next Post...
 
Day 5 Continued: Wednesday May 29th

After getting our cards, we were headed over to Islands of Adventure.


We tried to go meet Spider-Man, but he was already gone for the day, so we backtracked over to Seuss Landing instead.


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It had been too long since our last Icee, so it was time for #4 and then we hopped in line for Cat in the Hat.


Then we walked over to the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride.


We got another Icee before exiting Seuss Landing and heading through Last Continent to Hogsmeade.


Forbidden Journey was posted at 20 minutes, so we got in line for that. It ended up taking longer than 20, but it wasn’t too bad.


After the ride, we headed into Jurassic Park in search of some dinner.


We ended up at The Burger Digs and we all got kids burgers. They are the same size as the regular burgers but not as expensive. It might come with a little less fries, but it's definitely enough for us to eat.


After dinner, we crossed back into Hogsmeade because DS was wanting to do some magic!


Then we decided to take the Hogwarts Express over to Studios.



While walking through the line, DS was casting random spells, and pointed his wand at me and yelled, “Stupefy!” and that’s when I told him, “You’re not allowed to Stupefy your mother!” which he found hilarious. So in turn, it became the title of this TR.


Once we had made our way off the train, we stopped for our next lemonade Icee.


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UP NEXT: Cinematic Celebration
 
Day 5 Continued: Wednesday May 29th

We planned to go over to E.T., but as we walked past Transformers it only had a 5 minute wait, and without access to Express Pass, we felt like we couldn’t pass up a 5 minute wait!


After walking on to that, we continued over to our original destination of E.T.


That ended up being our last ride of the day, as we grabbed our last Icee for the day and then got a spot to wait for Cinematic Celebration to begin.


Once the show was over, it was time to leave the park. We stopped on the way out so I could use the restroom, and a TM from Shreveport noticed DH’s Saints hat while he was sitting and waiting for me to finish up and struck up a conversation. The TM was very sweet, but definitely had some special needs and was pretty into Pitbulls & Parolees, which is something neither DH or I have ever watched but the TM really enjoyed talking about it! After chatting with him for a bit, we made the long walk back to the car and drove back to the resort to get to bed. The next day was our last one, so we wanted to be well rested and ready to hit the ground running in the morning!


UP NEXT: A Little More Voodoo
 
The Cinematic Celebration looks cool! High on my list to see.

That walk back to the car feels incredibly long at the end of a day lol
 
Woo hoo for free drinks on this day!

Great photo with the Simpsons gang! Sounds like a great morning!

Looks like it was a great lunch! I really want to go back to Toothsomes one day!

Sounds like a great evening in both parks!
 
The Cinematic Celebration looks cool! High on my list to see.

That walk back to the car feels incredibly long at the end of a day lol

Given that Universal can't do big fireworks shows like WDW since they are so close to residential areas, I think they really knocked it out of the park with Cinematic Celebration! It's so well done, and celebrates some of the best of their IPs.

Oh man, does it. And I hate getting trapped in a bunch of people who are standing on the moving walkway and blocking me from moving any faster!!!

Woo hoo for free drinks on this day!

Great photo with the Simpsons gang! Sounds like a great morning!

Looks like it was a great lunch! I really want to go back to Toothsomes one day!

Sounds like a great evening in both parks!

It was a really cool surprise!! We get max use out of our reactivation fee as it is, but free is even better!!

Yes, it was a really nice day. We always enjoy some apps & desserts at Toothsome, but one day I hope we get to enjoy an actual meal there. lol
 
Day 6: Thursday May 30th

This morning was another early one with our alarms set for 7, but we quickly got dressed and out the door, because we wanted to hit up Voodoo Doughnuts for breakfast one more time on our last day! We left the resort around 7:30 am, and we were there and ready to eat in no time.



This time, we went for just one doughnut each.


My Choice – Diablos Rex Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, red sprinkles, a vanilla frosting pentagram, and chocolate chips

DH’s Choice – Butterfinger Chocolate cake doughnut with vanilla frosting and Butterfinger crumbles

DS’s Choice – Chocolate Old Fashioned Cake with chocolate frosting


After eating our breakfast, we headed over to Islands of Adventure for the morning. We arrived before park opening, so we had a little time to wait at the gates before we were let in. Our plan was to hit Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man first, so once we were let into the park, we turned left towards Marvel Superhero Island.


Unfortunately once we made it over there, the opening was delayed. DS wanted to wait since the TMs out in front didn’t seem to think it would be too long before it was open, so DH stayed with him while I ran over to ride The Hulk.

Since it was so early, I walked right on to the ride and was finished in no time. While I was riding, Spider-Man opened up, so DH and DS got in a ride.



Once we were all done, we swapped so DH could go ride The Hulk, and I took DS back on to Spider-Man.

For some reason, I guess only DH got his ride photo.



We made a quick stop at Croissant Moon Bakery to get our cup activated for the day, and by the time we were finished with that, Spider-Man was out meeting, so we went over there next.


DS wanted to have Spider-Man sign his hat, which was kind of cool considering what good luck the hat had been for us on this trip.


We had some free prints available with our photo package, so we decided to go ahead and get one printed at the counter at the meet & greet so DS could have a photo for his room of him & Spider-Man. Once we had it printed, the TM suggested getting Spider-Man to sign it too, so DS was super excited about his souvenirs!


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At some point, we grabbed our first Icee for the day.


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Next up, we wanted to go ride Reign of Kong. Again, DS and I were super nervous about the scare-actor in the queue, and DH did his best to point him out so he wouldn’t scare us, and it worked! DS said, “If that guy scared me, I would just fall to pieces.” :rotfl:


Next, we stopped at Camp Jurassic so DS could play for a little bit. DH and I used that time to check out the Southwest flights, which had just dropped for our planned December trip back to Universal before our passes expired, and were able to book our flights for only $44 after using DH’s Southwest points! It was really fun to book our return trip while on the last day of a trip.


DS stopped for a pressed penny in Jurassic Park.


All that effort!!


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Continued in next post...
 
Day 6 Continued: Thursday May 30th

There was a photographer out on the bridge between Jurassic Park and Hogsmeade when we were passing that way, so we decided to stop and she took a bunch of photos for us!


After our mini-photoshoot, we stopped to use one of our snack credits at the Butterbeer cart.


We were ready for some lunch, so we headed over to Three Broomsticks.


We used two of our QS credits to get a fish & chips platter for me, and the chicken & ribs meal for DH, but paid out of pocket for DS’s chicken tenders kids meal. Our meals came with drinks, so we also got a lemonade and a Gilly Water.


Unfortunately, there was no technical rehearsals for Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure.


Even though we’d just had lunch, we had some snack credits still to use, and DS asked for a soft pretzel, so we made a stop in Lost Continent to get one and to get an Icee refill.


As we made our way through Seuss Landing, we saw that an Oh the Stories You’ll Hear show was just ending, and the characters were heading to their meet & greet locations, so we followed The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 & Thing 2 to their spot to meet them.


And apparently we got another Icee.


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We gave DS the option to ride The Cat in the Hat after that, but he decided he didn’t feel like waiting the 25 minutes for it, and we were about ready to head out of the park for a break.


I had stopped to use the restroom after our meet, and I had the bag with the Spider-Man photo print with me when I went in. I hung it on the bag hook in the stall, and as we were leaving Seuss Landing and had made it over into Port of Entry, I realized I had left it in the stall! I ran back to get it, and thankfully it was still there, but after all that running in the heat I felt pretty freaking awful!

We still had a 5x7 photo print left, so we stopped at the photo store in Port of Entry to look through our photos and see which one we wanted to print. We had really wanted to do one of the ones from the Darkroom photo studio, but as we found out, those can only be printed as an 8x10. Our photos from the JP/Hogsmeade bridge weren’t ready yet, so we decided to hold off on picking a photo to print for the moment.

On the way out of the park, we passed through the gift shop to look for something for DD.


We ended up getting her a notebook and pen with the unicorn from Despicable Me, and she LOVES it! Ever since starting Pre-K and really learning how to practice writing her letters and numbers, she just loves writing things down and asking people how to spell things so she can write them in her notebook.

DH took some photos of the details in Port of Entry as we exited the park.


We headed back to the resort for a break from the heat, and to start packing up so we didn’t have to stay up late doing that after we finished in the parks that evening. I ended up taking a little nap too while DH and DS went outside to play on the big chess set they had, and watched some TV downstairs.

We also did a little planning for our December trip, which we had already booked this same resort for and had talked to my parents about joining us for. The original plan had been to fly in on a Friday and fly back home on Tuesday so that was the nights we had booked at the resort, but when we had been looking at flights earlier that morning, we had ended up booking a Thursday night flight because it was cheaper than Friday morning. That meant we didn’t have a hotel for Thursday night and were trying to figure out the best way to plan around that…book a hotel for the night near the airport? Book something close to Universal that was cheap? But we poked around a bit on the Wyndham site and saw we actually had enough points for another night, so we were able to add Thursday night to our plans!

I'm actually getting everything together to get that TR started so I can share all our holiday fun with you soon!

UP NEXT: E.T. Phone Home
 
Worked out nicely that you could ride the Hulk while the boys did Spiderman and then swapped with DH!

Glad DS finally got to meet Spiderman and got his hat signed- very cool!

Great family photos!!

Sounds like a really great morning/afternoon! And a productive time planning your Dec trip (which I can't wait to hear about)!
 

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