Thursday morning we were off to Hollywood Studios. I think this is what we were most excited for. The kids have been really into Star Wars recently so we couldn't wait to try out the new Rise of the Resistance and all the Star Wars themed rides. For the kids this is pretty much what they thought Disney World was, they didn't even realize that Disney meant Mickey and Minny and all of that. We did our best to use the app to research wait times to know where to go first and how to get the most out of our time there. Luckily Hollywood let you go in early and we were able to get in a few rides before the park even officially opened. After those few quick rides we headed over to the Star Wars area. We got to see Chewy and Rey and some Storm Troopers. Star Tours and Millinial Falcon were both favorites, we acutally came back and did both of them again later in the day. Luckily we were able to get into the queue for The Rise of The Resistance and when our time came up we headed over. They really did a great job making it a full Star Wars experience. You become part of the resistance and then are taken prisoner by the first order and then finally you are rescued and all the while you are moving through different aspects of the ships. The kids loved it and were dissappointed that we couldn't do it again. We grabbed a quick snack of frozen lemonade and churros before heading over to The Tower of Terror. We weren't sure if McKay would want to go on it but we spent the morning really talking it up and he was excited. This was our longest wait of the day at almost an hour. By this point it was very hot and humid so Craig and I took turns standing in line while the others waited in shade until the line finally got in the shade and then headed inside. That was definetly something we appreciated was how much of the lines were inside in the air conditioning. We all loved tower of terror and McKay thought it was awesome that he actually came up off his seat as we dropped down. Brooklyn and Craig then went on the one ride that McKay wasn't tall enough for, the Aerosmith roller coaster. McKay and I went to the Lightning McQueen experience and then I went again with Brooklyn on the Roller Coaster. The child swap made it so easy to go on the rides that McKay wasn't tall enough for. We then grabbed an early dinner at an Italian restuarant. It was nice to get inside and sit down in the A/C for a little bit and fill our tummies. After dinner this is when we headed back to the Star Wars rides. At this point it was about 7:00 pm and we were pretty exhausted and decided to call it a day. The only ride that we didn't go on was Slinky the Dog, which for some reason always had about a 90 minute wait. By the time we got back to the condo it was time for showers and then to bed.
Friday morning we were up early again to get to Magic Kingdom before it opened. They let us in the park early but didn't let us on any rides until it was time to open. We headed over to Jungle Cruise first and then right to Aladdin's Carpets and then to Pirates of the Caribbean. We then went over to Thunder Mountain Railroad and since it had a short line we decided to ride it 3 times because McKay loved it. By this point lines were getting longer as we made our way over to the really nostalgic part of the park. We tried out It's a Small World, not going to lie, not my favorite. I had the song stuck in my head for way too long. Then over to Peter Pan and the carousel. I am not a big fan of the nostalgic rides, I am more for the adrenaline rides but we did still hit up the tea cups a few times. We eventually made our way over to Space Mountain and McKay was super bummed because he wasn't quite tall enough. We did skip Splash Mountain because the wait was so long and it was shut down a few times throughout the day. We did treat ourselves to a Peter Pan float (lime dole whip and sprite) and a root beer float. It was again another hot day, but we did have a little bit of cloud cover which helped quite a bit. At the end of the day we tried to head back over to Pirates because McKay wanted to buy a pirate Mickey Mouse but after waiting in line for over 30 minutes the ride shut down and we had to leave and they wouldn't let us go into the gift shop. So instead we walked through a gift shop and McKay choose out a stuffed Goofey. We left a little earlier than the day before because we headed to a jousting tournament for dinner. It was a very cool experience watching the actors joust and sword fight as we ate a yummy medieval dinner with our hands. After dinner we headed back to the condo for a shower and straight to bed.
Saturday morning I got up and went for a run and then we loaded up the sweet minivan and drove up to St. Augustine to meet Craig's sister Lisa and her family at the beach. We checked into our kinda sketchy hotel that was walking distance to the beach and hung out on the beach for a few hours with her family. We hadn't seen her family in over a year because of Covid, so it was super nice to catch up and to meet their newest addition, Penelope Rose! The kids had a blast playing on the beach with their cousins and then we all headed to dinner together before they headed home for the evening.
Sunday morning, which was Mother's Day, we met back up with Lisa's family, minus Stephen and Seth, at the Gator Farm. We had so much fun walking around checking out all of the Alligators and other reptiles. We all loved the Albino gator and there was also a gator that was crazy old and crazy ginormous. It was fairly stinky, but quite enjoyable. We of course left with a few stuffed animal gators. After the gator farm we drove to downtown St. Augustine and walked around the cobblestone streets and stopped along the way for lunch. We also checked out the military fort before heading back to the van. We then said our goodbyes to Lisa and her crew before heading back to Orlando. We had to make a couple of pit stops on the way back. One for a smoothie for me and one for a potty for McKay, but eventually made our way back to the condo to get ready for our last park day.
Monday we woke up ready for our last day at the parks. We headed out early to Universal Studios. We had decided to purchase the pass that would allow us to go to both sides of the park. Brooklyn and I were pretty excited about all things Harry Potter and you have to go to both sides to get the full experience. When they let us in we went right for the Spider Man ride. It was a great 3D ride that McKay and I even went on again while Brooklyn and Craig went on a ride McKay wasn't big enough for. We then gradually made our way over to the water rides and ended up completely soaked. Like soaked enough that we all took our shoes off to wring out our socks, but it felt good because it was a HOT day. Because it is such a big park we knew there would be no way for us to hit all the rides, so we decided to stick to ones that had shorter wait times. This park was more my speed, not so much for the nostalgia but more for the thrill. We eventually made our way to the back of the park with all of the Harry Potter rides, a few had really long wait times so we skipped those, but it was sure fun to get to "fly" through Hogwarts. We stopped at the Three Broomsticks for my favorite treat of the whole trip, frozen butterbeer. Seriously so good. It was like a butterscotch cream soda slushy with vanilla soft serve mixed in. After our treat we made our way to the other side of the park via the Hogwarts Express. Now we figured this was an experience we needed to have, but let me tell you so not worth the 45 minute wait. We would have been better off just walking around to the other side. We hit a few smaller rides like Dr. Seuss and Minions but also some fun ones like Fast and Furious and Brooklyn's favorite, the Rip Rocket Roller Coaster. McKay wasn't big enough so Craig and I took turns with Brooklyn, holy smokes that was a fast roller coaster and Brooklyn just loved it and actually went on it with Craig again. We grabbed an early dinner and took a much needed rest before hitting a few last rides before we ended the day looking through shops to try to find something for Brooklyn. She thought she would want something Harry Potter but couldn't find anything she really wanted so we walked out empty handed. We ended up being at the park for almost 11 hours. We were all worn out but it really was a fantastic day.
