Family Vacation to Florida 2016 - Universal!

Monday was the first full day of our vacation, and we spent it at Universal.  We went there a couple years ago, and had a great time so we decided to go back.  The boys were excited to go back and see the Marvel Super Heroes again, I wanted to see Harry Potter's Diagon Alley, and Josh was excited to go to the Duff Brewery.

Our first stop was the Despicable Me ride, mostly because it is the first ride when you walk in the park :)  Like every ride we went on, Carter was excited and Conner was super nervous.  He said he loved the ride when it was over, but then got really nervous before the next ride again.  I guess he doesn't understand that is the fun of it :)  Also, Conner is pretty afraid of the characters so he steered clear, so there are many pictures of just Carter.

Next, we headed back to see the Transformers and go on their ride.  Megatron (the big scary bad guy, for all of you not in the Transformer world) was the character coming out next.  Conner of course stayed far, far away.  Carter decided that this year he was going to be brave enough to see him and stand for a picture.  Turns out, he was scarier than he remembered and we just moved on.  But he went on the ride with Josh and we decided to come back when the good guys Optimus Prime and Bumblebee were out.

We worked our way around the park and went into Diagon Alley.  Carter and I were so excited about it, because we have been reading the books and we re-watched the first movie on our airplane ride down to Florida.  It is awesome how much the park looks like the movie :)

Conner got a pretty nervous when he saw the dragon on top of Gringotts Bank.  We told him it was okay, it is just pretend and doesn't do anything.  Turns out we were wrong, it shoots out fire all the way over to the next building.  Whoops.

We all went on a tour of the bank, turns out it is just as scary to Conner as the outside was.  So Josh and the boys left and I stuck around to go the ride.  So fun!

 Finally it was time for us to hop on the Hogwarts Express and head over to Hogsmeade so we could check out Hogwarts Castle!  This is something that Conner was really looking forward to :)

 When the ride was over we stopped for lunch at Three Broomsticks.  Great food, and such a cool atmosphere.

After lunch Carter and I went to Ollivanders to see how wizards choose a wand! The number of wands there is crazy!

Next up was the Jurassic Park Discover Center.  The dinosaurs were so cool.

Carter and Conner liked these dinosaurs.  You could look move the dinosaurs head, and were able to look through to lenses so you saw what the dino saw.

Finally we came up to the Marvel Super Heroes.  Just what Conner was waiting for!

Conner and Josh were able to meet Captain America while Carter and I went on the Spiderman ride.  He asked if he was Conner's favorite super hero, and Conner said "No, Hawkeye is!"

Later Carter wanted to meet Captain America also, so we got back in line.  Cap recognized Conner and said he remembered how much he liked Hawkeye!  This is the best Captain America ever!

Seuss Landing was next on our loop around the park! By this time Carter said his feet were starting to hurt and he had a blister.  We stopped and got him a pair of socks and gave him a chance to ride around in the stroller.  He did such a great job walking around all day and keeping up with us. 

We finally made our way around Universal Island of Adventure and took the Hogwarts Express back to Universal Studios.  We were back just in time for dinner at Moe's!

The boys each got a hot dog, but Josh and I went for the Krusty Burger.  We were in Springfield after all!

 It was a great day, we ended it with a couple more rides and then headed back to the hotel.  The boys did a great job keeping up with us all day, and we were able to see everything on each of our To-Do lists!