Vacation Recap Day 6--UNIVERSAL STUDIOS Part 1

I have to split this day into a few different parts, because we absolutely packed stuff in!

Now, some background.  The ENTIRE reason that we planned an Orlando vacation was to go to the Harry Potter section of Universal Studios.  That's it.  And if that's all I had gotten to do, I would have been fine with it!  In fact, if it was the only section of the park I had gotten to visit, I would have been more than happy.

But we did do more than that, so I'm going to cover the non-HP parts of the park first.  Keep in mind that this was our 5th amusement park in 5 days, and we were TIRED. :)

I believe the picture below is the Hulk roller coaster. We didn't go on it. Roller coasters give Steve and I headaches, and we had just about had our fill from the Disney coasters.

Seuss Landing was adorable, but a little young for my tall kids. Had to get the pic, though.

THIS is one of my favorite books from childhood, so I had to get the following picture!

We moved into the next section of the park. After all of these months, I don't remember a whole lot about it. Sort of Greek-y, mythology-ish...meh.

Okay, this ride, Treasures of Poseidon? Worst idea ever. Complete waste of time and totally cheesy.

Hey, here's some good looking kids!

Ahh, Jurassic Park.  My dad still laughs at how I jump every time I see this movie.

I think we went on a rafting ride in the Jurassic section--it still wasn't super hot, so getting wet wasn't fun. 

Then we headed into the Marvel section for lunch. :) 

My nephews would have been beside themselves.

The majority of the time, though, was spent in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (so cool). I'll blog about that next.

This is what the kids looked like at the end of the day.  They were exhausted, and we were only at the park from like, 10am-5:30pm.  I think we would have taken more time to explore other areas of the park if we hadn't been so tired.

Overall, I definitely liked the feel of Disney over Universal. Disney just OOZES family fun & memories.  Universal was more like the local amusement park that you go to on a date. Lots of couples, teenagers roaming without adults, lots of inappropriate clothing....we much preferred the Disney parks.

I'm still glad we went, though, because HP was awesome.  Universal is opening a whole new HP park in 2014, and I definitely want to go.  Next time, though, I'll know that I'll be happy just exploring Hogsmeade & Diagon Alley, and won't feel the pressure to fit in everything.