We finally arrived at our hotel, the Lowes Portofino Bay Hotel, which is meant to be a recreation of the Italian town of Portofino Bay. Abby's always wanted to go to Italy, so we thought this might be a good first step! It was beautiful, but we definitely started feeling some effects of coronavirus as it was VERY quiet at the resort...
As soon as we checked in, we jumped on the water taxi to take us over to the park for the afternoon...
We made it!
Abby did a bit of research on the Harry Potter stuff, so right outside of the entrance to Diagon Alley, was a phone booth where she knew the number to call the Ministry of Magic!
She also knew where the unmarked entrance was to get into Diagon Alley!
We were welcomed by the dragon on top of Gringotts Bank when we entered! He supposedly breathes real fire every 10 minutes, but he must have been fired out by that point because we wouldn't get to see it until our last morning there.
First stop... BUTTERBEER!
A quick stop in Ollivander's Wand Shop...
Off to our first ride of the trip... Escape from Gringotts! It "might" have been an ambitious one to start with for some of us... but everyone eventually rallied!
After our second ambitious ride on "Krusty the Clown" (what happens at Universal stays at Universal...), we headed off to find the famous gigantic Homer donuts!
We scaled back a bit and tried the Woody the Woodpecker roller coaster which was a good call, because everyone liked that one (and admitted we could try some harder stuff next time...)
The Men in Black ride was a hit too!
We had a great first couple hours in the park, but we were ready to head back, check into the hotel and get some dinner!
The girls were excited to see the "infamous" coffee maker inside our room! (They've been watching YouTube videos of the hotel and parks to get ready...)
Dinner was definitely a bit quiet...
After dinner, Abby & Dad decided to head back to the park together to ride some scary stuff alone... they ended up doing the Mummy ride three times and went on Rip Ride Rocket (Mom was too scared, and there was no way Ben or Emily would go on that thing!). Too bad they didn't get their picture that time, but they rode it another day to make sure they got one :)
Meanwhile back at the hotel, the rest of us got some balloon animals, enjoyed gelato & went exploring...
We got REALLY good at not touching anything with our hands, and we all carried bottles of Purell everywhere we went! We were definitely prepared!
Goodnight! It's Daylight Savings Time tonight and we need to be ready to go early tomorrow morning!
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