Thank you and goodbye

So we are off back to Blighty.

A bit of a drama at check-in when they tried to seat us separately delayed us for a while, but good old British Airways made it up to us by sitting us together, giving us a queue-jump ticket through security and club lounge access to wait for the flight (a company this good must have fantastic lawyers...). We are now in the lounge, knocking back the Mumm and bracing ourselves for an unhealthy dose of reality.

Thank you America for a wonderful honeymoon and thank you so much to all our friends and family who so generously contributed to us having the time of our lives - look forward to catching up with you all soon.

Oh and thanks for reading!

Cheers!

Islands of Adventure

Islands of Adventure, the sister park of Universal has even bigger rides as well as distinct themed "islands" within the park.

Here we are in the cartoon island, called Toon Lagoon. Can you read what we're saying?!

The Honeymoon Mini Golf World Championship fortunately ended in an amicable score draw and so we are still happily married! Thanks Josie (and Jenks)!

Here is Clare enjoying a "shark attack", a themed cocktail from Amityville (think: Jaws). The red on top is supposed to represent blood!

Below is "Duelling Dragons" in Hogsmeade village, two very similar roller coasters that meet in the middle, themed around a pair of dragons.

This is Hogwarts school.

There are new rides opening all the time - this is going to be themed on Fast and Furious, scheduled for next year (you can also just make out the Hogwarts train above it).

With so many new rides, we might just have to come back again!

Rolling home

So, food wise we have had an "all inclusive" attitude to our honeymoon. 

Some examples of how this worked are below...

This is frozen yoghurt... Rich ate the entire thing for a morning snack.

Taco Bell burritos are a health food here!

This is part of our amazing dinner at the Melting Pot - a four course fondue "experience".

Action shot.

 

In case you are interested, the first course was cheese, next "salad", then meat fondue and then chocolate fondue. Amazeballs.

Below is a US-sized starter (or appertizer!):

The Americans don't seem to be satisfied with unhealthy food, they like to combine multiple "junk" foods into a single dish.

Here is Clare enjoying a "brookie", which is both a brownie and cookie!

This is a cookie - a normal cookie.  It is the size of Rich's head.

It is wonderful (but doesn't help the waistline) that the Americans really know how to celebrate - you just have to mention that you are celebrating your honeymoon or any special occasion and desert is on the house!

We now need to hit the gym!

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink...

Water park day arrived and no early start - well 8am, so a lie in by Universal standards!

Not many photos of the water park as we didn't have our camera but we rode every ride that was open. It was ace.

We also ate dipping dots! Thanks SJ and Tyson! If you don't know what these are they are little icey balls of heaven and you are missing out! Clare's had popping candy in it, Rich was well jel.

We made matching rings for the water park, just in case peeps didn't realise it's our HONEYMOON!!!

And Rich used the wrong sun cream...well more accurately Clare gave Rich some sun cream to use and told him it was waterproof but did not tell him it was tinted!! Fortunately it washed off!!

All in all an amazing day - thanks Nina for our tickets. Also, this was our last ever trip to Wet n Wild as it, the original US water park, closes at the end of the year so next time Clare will have to choose a new favourite water park to make Rich go to.

Clare loves water rides and so the following day at Islands of Adventure rode the water ride 3 times... The first time Rich got wet...

The second time, Rich stayed behind and took photos of Clare...

Clare's the little purple person riding alone.  The third time, Rich agreed to go again and we timed it perfectly for the perfect shot!

Towers-Hakes clan smash water rides.  Fact.

Universally good

Hello from Universal's Cabana Bay Hotel.

It is 1950s themed hotel and this being Orlando, they have even themed the parking lot.

Every cartoon to which Universal own the rights is seemingly dotted around the hotel.

This cartoon painting is so large you may just be able to make Clare out in the bottom right corner (wearing blue). We have even been accosted by Betty Boop wandering the lobby (yes, really!).

The hotel also has music playing from all the artists Universal have on their books so you can go from listening to Taylor Swift to listening to Dion and The Belmonts in the space of one elevator journey!

It is by far the biggest hotel either of us have ever stayed in...considerably less than a quarter of the hotel is showing in the photo below - actually that is just the lobby - there must be 150 rooms on our floor alone....

...and yet they are extending it and adding two further buildings!

They are also building a new water park, Volcano Bay, due to open next year...

It even has a bowling alley, two swimming pools and a lazy river. However being America despite all the amazing facilities, it only has 1 bar! Fortunately the queues are not long.

Rich insisted that we buy water rings to use on the lazy river as apparently floating around a swimming pool with American teenagers is relaxing...

It also has buses to the Universal parks meaning we get in an hour earlier than the general public! Woo hoo! That means Clare has to get Rich up at 6am on park days! Booooo!

Fortunately it is only a 5 minute bus ride from hotel to the theme parks and our hotel lays on all the buses for free.

In fact we are so close that from our hotel room we can see Hogwarts (on the left of the pic) and the Rip Saw Falls water ride on the right.

It feels a bit strange setting an early alarm and catching a bus at 6am on holiday...

and getting to a theme park in the darkness is a bit strange...

...but it certainly adds to the magic of Harry Potter and the Hogsmeade village!

A lot of people don't seem to bother getting up this early so we can get on to the rides without having to queue for long!

There was no queue for our second butter beer of the holiday.  Score.

Pottering about...

So we are back in Orlando and this time we are visiting Universal Studios and its sister park, Islands of Adventure. Slightly less polished than Disney they are also aimed at an older audience with some absolutely amazing rollercoasters and rides.

By far the most impressive part of Universal and Islands now is the Harry Potter themed area in each of the parks.

The attention to detail in designing not just the rides but the surrounding stage sets is absolutely incredible!

We found Hagrid's motorbike from the movies...

Clare enjoyed a pint of butter beer, which is nether butter nor beer and is sickly sweet! Thanks CJ and Tief!

Rich even tried to dress himself as Harry Potter but the closest he could find were minion "eyes", which didn't quite do the trick! He got lots of annoyed looks from kids for confusing their wizard idol with a minion!

We were astonished by the number of kids dressed in full Harry Potter Hogwarts school gowns in this heat! They must be boiling hot in this heat and humidity and their parents must be mad or very rich as they are over $100 each.

Clare has modelled one for your enjoyment but she is still sulking as Rich didn't buy her one.

Most of the kids (including the big kids) seem to have aligned themselves to one of the Hogwarts houses. Most popular is Harry's house, Grifindor. The baddies generally are in Slytherin, so it is not such a popular choice but Rich has decided to insist on being in Slytherin, mainly to annoy people. Here he is modelling the house scarf...no we do not know why they are selling winter gear somewhere you don't even need a coat!

Below is Clare in a Grifindor house hat.

Yes she really does look good whatever she wears!

Some of the kids are even wearing house ties and almost all of them seem to have been bought a magic wand by their parents. Out of curiosity we thought we'd check the price of the wands and they were coming in at around $50 for a piece of painted wood in a fancy box. We need to start selling counterfeits just outside the park. At even $20 we'd be in the money!!

Both Islands and Universal have a steam train between the Harry Potter experiences - from a distressing real Kings Cross (platform 9 3/4) to Hogmeade village. The attention to detail in the replica Kings Cross is such that they even the right security announcements and train departures constantly being broadcast over the tannoy and it is all a bit too close to home!

The train however is incredible as although it serves as a means of transport between the two parks it feels like a ride as it is very cleverly done so that when you look out of the window you can see people flying by on broomsticks and other wizardly goings on.

We do not have any photos of the rides but if any of you are lucky enough (or silly enough?) to come here we both agreed that Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is by far the best ride either of us have ever done - we won't spoil it for you in case someone reading does come here but is a mixture of rollercoaster and flight simulator and it really does feel like you are flying around with dragons. Yes, really!

More on the rest of Universal and Islands in a separate update!

Richard's ribs

Sarah Whitehouse kindly bought Rich ribs the size of a 5 year old at Logan's (thank you from Rich!) and here is the proof - mission accepted...

And mission accomplished!

One full rack of baby back ribs cleaned as if by a vulture. Do not challenge this boy to an eating contest...

Clare, known for her love of food, tried to take Rich on at the full rack of ribs challenge.

She got nowhere near and was (for a short time) very sad...

...until she realised that here in the land of the chubby...I mean the land of the plenty, it is culturally acceptable (and indeed encouraged) to over-order grotesquely large portions of food and then get your left overs in a "to go box". 

We now have a hotel minibar full of baby back ribs!!