Good morning! Happy Sunday! I wanted to blog last night but I was dead on my feet after spending over 12 hours at Universal Studios!

But let’s rewind! Where I last left off Eric and I were looking for a place to go for appies and drinks since we were still very much on West Coast time and hungry at 9 PM. We ended up at Bahama Breeze, which despite being a very expensive cab ride, was really awesome!

We had a plethora of drinks and appies and just relaxed, chatted and enjoyed one anothers company. It was such a fun night and made Eric and I realize we need to make an effort to go on more date nights like this – with no phones! – when we’re at home.

We crashed into bed around midnight on Friday hoping that a full nights sleep would get us fully on east coast time finally!

Saturday morning we were tired and dragging our feet. We actually just missed the 8:45 shuttle to Universal but it came back so we were able to catch the second one. Before doing anything else we beelined it back to Harry Potter World for one last magical visit and to go on the Forbidden Journey ride one more time. This time we only waited about 40 minutes

We sadly said our goodbyes to HP and headed over to spend the day at Universal!

Universal was really fun, and a lot less crowded than HP! We went on a bunch of rides while we there: Terminator, The Simpsons, Men in Black, Jaws, Disaster, Revenge of the Mummy and The Simpsons again.

It was a really fun day!

Finally around 3:00 PM we broke for lunch and had some very questionable, and very expensive, fried fish. At least our restaurant had a nice view of the park!

Universal was really cool and had a bunch of little “neighbourhoods” that were fun to wander through!

I loved the Christmas decorations

After going on The Simpsons ride for the second time (that ride was SO fun, up there with the Forbidden Journey as a must-do ride!) we actually got caricatures drawn of us. After sitting there for 35 minutes and paying $40 I was slightly disappointed because he’d drawn me with blonde hair.

However, I don’t have a photo to show you because I forgot it at the restaurant last night!! I was SO mad at myself but it turns out they called in the middle of the night to let me know they found it, so Eric and I are going back there today to pick it up and I’ll share a photo in the next post!

Anyways, after the Simpson ride and getting our photo drawn it was time to meet Stephany for dinner!

We met at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was really good. It’s also the biggest Hard Rock Cafe in the world – little tidbit for you  Stephany was awesome and we had so much fun chatting about blogging, books and other things!

After we said goodbye to Stephany Eric and I wandered along CityWalk one more time and considered going for a drink, but then we decided we were just too tired and headed back to the hotel for sleep!

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Today is our last day in Orlando and we’re planning on going back to CityWalk to get our caricature, and then taking a cab to this giant flea market and tonight we have tickets for Medieval Times.

Our trip has been amazing and so, so fun but also has ended up costing a lot more than we budgeted for. I never realized that we would have to take a cab EVERYWHERE we went since nothing is walkable nor is there good public transportation in this city. We paid $33 to go 8 miles in a cab on Friday night! By the end of the trip we’ll have easily spent over $200 on cab fares which seems nuts to me since we’ve taken advantage of the free shuttle every chance we could and also took a shared shuttle ride to and from the airport to save a bit of money.

Eating has also been really, really expensive and it’s almost impossible to eat cheaply. I’m not complaining, just things we didn’t think about when planning the trip! I also thought three days here would feel really short but it’s actually been perfect and is kind of similar to Vegas in that respect. Everything is just so go-go-go and expensive we are ready to go home after three days!

Anyways, those are just some of my observations from the trip so far. See you tonight or tomorrow with one last recap

Good evening! What a full day we’ve had. Time for a recap

We didn’t get to Orlando until almost 2 AM local time last night. This resulted in only five hours of sleep but we both still bounded out of bed this morning because we were so excited to get over to the parks! Apparently Orlando has been hit with some sort of “cold spell” and it was only 10 C (about 50 F) when we left the hotel this morning. Not good considering all I packed Eric and I to wear are t-shirts, shorts and capri’s!

I tweeted this while we were waiting for our shuttle:

I really was shivering but walking around the park and standing in the sun quickly warmed me up!

We got dropped off at Universal around 9:00 AM and immediately beelined it for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Little did we know the Today Show and some of the Harry Potter cast members were at the park filming today so it was BUSY!

We took some photos as we walked through Jurassic Park to get to HP but didn’t stop for any rides!

And then we were there! It was AWESOME!

I cannot even explain how super, duper busy it was. Later when we went for lunch the waitress told us that it had been a ghost town for the last few weeks but then with the Today Show coming 22,000 people were expected at HP world that day. Whoa!

We caught a glimpse of Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) while we were there!

Eric got this really good photo of him as he was whisked past us:

After that excitement was over we decided to hit up some of the attractions! Eric got in line at Ollivander’s (wand shop) while I went to get us some butterbeer.

I had the frozen one and Eric had the chilled one. I did not like the chilled version AT ALL but the frozen version was very good! A little too sweet though, I drank about 3/4 of it.

About 45 minutes of waiting later we were able to go into Ollivander’s!

It was so cool!

Then Eric got a wand and one of the shirts that Harry Potter wore during the triwizard tournament in the Goblet of Fire!

Can anyone tell which wand he got?!

After we were done at Ollivander’s it was time to head up to the castle!

We then waited in line for just over an hour to go on the Forbidden Journey ride in Hogwarts but it was so, so, so worth it. We are hoping to go back tomorrow and go on it again! Plus the wait wasn’t too bad because about half of it was IN the castle and they had lots of cool stuff to entertain you!

After we were done at Hogwarts we headed back down to Hogsmeade to go into Honeydukes and Zonko’s!

There were lots of things we *wanted* to buy but we only ended up walking out with one thing…

We haven’t tried any yet

And that pretty much concluded our time at Harry Potter World for the day. The crowds were getting overwhelming and we were starving so decided to leave Islands of Adventure and find some food on City Walk.

It felt SO GOOD to sit down and relax for a bit, especially with this view in front of us.

Bliss!

I’m so glad our waitress told us to wait and see if we were still hungry after eating our appetizer nacho’s. We had grand plans for what we wanted for lunch but didn’t realize how huge the plate of nacho’s was!

I enjoyed two margarita’s and Eric had two beers while we munched on our nacho’s, chatted and took in the view. It was so nice to hang out and relax for a bit.

After a big meal and a couple of drinks the 5 hours of sleep and 6 hours on our feet caught up with us. We wandered back into the park and half-heartedly checked out the other half of IOA (Dr. Seuss and The Lost Continent). But we were tired and just not into it. We decided we couldn’t handle another four hours at the parks (what time our hotel shuttle would be coming back) and took a cab back to our hotel.

Once back I proceeded to devour this and tweet up a storm about seeing Rupert Grint. We also checked out the Harry Potter segment on the Today Show.

And then we fell asleep and were OUT for about four hours. Now we are just kind of chilling at our hotel, still a little full from those nacho’s and chocolate apple but thinking about going somewhere for appies and drinks.

We’re hoping we’ll have renewed energy tomorrow to tackle the Universal side of the park, go back to HP World one more time, and check out the Jurassic Park rides. I’m thinking having more than 5 hours of sleep will help with that. And, of course, we’re meeting STEPHANY for dinner tomorrow night which I’m so so excited about!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Friday, whether you were working or not. See you tomorrow with another LONG recap Hope you don’t mind!

Hello from Memphis, Tennessee! We are here for a 2-hour layover before continuing on to Orlando. Our flight was delayed so we won’t get in until midnight. However, that’s 9:00 PM PST so that shouldn’t feel too bad – except maybe when we get up tomorrow at 7:00 AM (4:00 AM PST).

We didn’t get to Seattle until late last night due to a stop in Bellingham for some outlet shopping (we hit up the lululemon and nike outlets!) and thai food. So the only sighting that happened of the space needle was as we drove by on the interstate last night.

After a restless night of sleep where I dreamt that we slept until 11 am (our flight left at noon) I was wide awake at 6:30 AM. We decided to get up and see at least a little bit of Seattle before leaving. We hopped on the link rail to go downtown.

Once there we headed straight for Pike Place Market. It was around 8:30 AM so it definitely was a lot quieter and less bustling than the time I went with Lisa but it was still fun. We got some pastries from a french bakery and then hit up the original Starbucks for eggnog lattes.

We ate our breakfast while sitting on benches overlooking the Seattle waterfront. It was gearing up to be a beautiful day!

After we were done we wandered through the market a bit. One of the guys at the fish stand said, “Oh, I see your Canadian. I guess I should say ‘Good Morning, eh!’” I asked what gave us away and he said it was Eric’s little poppy! In Canada, you can buy cloth/plastic poppies this time of year to wear on your jacket in honour of Remembrance Day (which is tomorrow).

I thought that was pretty observant of him

Before we knew it we were at the airport lining up to catch our flight! Not-so-fun fact: Eric is terrified of flying. He is actually really scared of heights in general but he really doesn’t like flying. He did not sleep a wink our entire 9-hour, red eye flight to Amsterdam last year.

He gets really nervous and anxious leading up to a flight and then any little bump or drop that happens on the plane he feels it and gets nervous again. We got a free sample of these little “dream waters” and he drank two of them and apparently they helped make him drowsy and he actually slept a bit on the flight from Seattle to Memphis.

I’m thankful he’s willing to face his fear and go on trips with me. He loves traveling as much as I do, just hates the flying part to get there! I feel kind of indifferent towards flying, I wouldn’t say I *love* it, but I don’t mind it. And I can at least read or sleep in a plane (I get carsick if I try to do either of those things while driving).

Hope you had a great Thursday! We are heading to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter ALL day tomorrow so watch for another update tomorrow night some time

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Questions of the day: Are you scared, indifferent, or love flying? If you are scared of flying too, any advice for Eric?