Before I knew about the awesomeness of skydiving, Florida meant three things to me: my mom, sun, and Disneyworld/Universal Studios. So obviously since my sister was coming down this time as well, we HAD to go to the theme parks. I needed to introduce her to the magic that is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We went to Orlando and stayed at a hotel for two nights, so we had a few days there, and on our first day, we checked in, then spent all evening and night at Disneyworld. We may have accidentally landed on the bus ride from hell for an hour and a half in order to get there, but it was all worth it, because we got to see Disneyworld lit up at night with all it's festive holiday trimmings, Christmas trees, and the castle absolutely dripping in icicle lights. It was stunning. We went on all our favorite rides on repeat, namely Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain.... all the mountains! It was awesome, and when the park was about to close at 1 am, and we were completely knackered and somewhat damp from the water rides, we were more than happy to crawl into our comfy hotel beds to get some much needed Zzz's in preparation for Universal (Harry Potter!) the next day.
Now for Universal, namely The Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I went two years ago (see this post), and it was EPIC. I was convinced I was actually at Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. Of course, Suzanne felt the same way, and we went for the full experience - eating lunch at the Three Broomsticks, sharing a butterbeer, shopping in Zonko's and Honeydukes, and riding dragons and hippogriffs. At one point though, we reckoned we ought to do some other stuff as well, so we made our way round to Jurassic Park (where we got absolutely soaked in one ride - it's an ominous sign when EVERYONE else in line is wearing full body ponchos and you're not), Toon-land, Revenge of The Mummy, Transformers (which was meh), and others.
And of course no trip to Florida is complete without one of the main highlights - the pup! Never tire of hanging out with this little scamp. :)
