2012 Vacation: Universal Studios

And the vacation posting begins... :) We left from the SLC airport Tuesday afternoon-ish to arrive in Florida that night (and it was pretty late for Florida time because they were two hours ahead of us. Most of us hadn't been on an airplane for a while so it was fun to be there again. Gracie absolutely loved it, being her first time on a plane, although as you can see below it also exhausted her.

We got to Florida late that night and then we still had to go pick up our rental car, which took a while. When we got to the hotel, they of course didn't put our rooms next to each other so we were separated--me, Carina, and Sidney in one room and my parents, Gracie, and Cee Ryle in the other. My sisters and I actually went to one room and it smelled a lot like smoke, which we weren't fans of, so we had to ask the people to give us a different key and switch us. Kind of annoying and I don't remember what time we finally got to bed but it was pretty late. And add onto that no dinner because all we'd had on the plane were snacks they provided.

The next morning we woke up early because Universal Studios opened up at 8 am and we wanted to get there when it opened. Let me remind you though, that this was 6 am our time and since we had gone to bed so late, we didn't get much sleep. The hotel had a continental breakfast, but their idea of breakfast was bagels and orange juice. So we didn't get much for breakfast either. We got to Universal Studios at about 8:30 and our tiredness was replaced by huge excitement instead!

First stop? Harry Potter world of course! All of us were beyond excited for this, especially me! This is what it looked like when we came in, although it wasn't this busy yet (this picture was taken later in the day):

We had to take a picture by the famous Hogwarts Express and I of course brought my wand with me! I don't know if I've said this before, but man, it feels so natural to carry a wand around. Call me crazy, but I love it. The whole place was so cool and so very realistic. Everywhere you turned made it seem like you were living in the magical world. Even the bathrooms had Moaning Myrtle's voice floating through!

There aren't a ton of rides (only like three) and the really worthwhile one to go on is the Journey Through Hogwarts ride. Man was it sweet! And while you were walking to the ride, you felt like you were walking through Hogwarts, seeing places like Dumbledore's office and the Herbology classrooms. The ride made you feel like you were flying on a broom with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I don't know how they did it but it felt so realistic! They had you put your stuff in lockers before you went on the ride, which is a good thing, because I kept my phone with me in my pocket but I almost lost it on the ride because it flew around so much!

Honeydukes was awesome! They had all the food from the books and movies and it was all so amazing and real...and expensive. I'm sure everything would have tasted delicious but the only thing I got was Pumpkin Juice...and MAN was that good! New favorite drink! I still have the taste in my mouth and it was completely worth every penny.

After Harry Potter world was Suess Landing, an area of the park based entirely off of Dr. Seuss books. Gracie loved it of course, but it all was really pretty fun. I do have to say that one reason I love going to amusement parks with my family is because I hate big roller coasters so it means that I'm not pressured to ride them since there's usually someone else who also won't want to. We had fun going on rides here and meeting different characters, although Gracie was a little scared of the Cat in the Hat and we had to really push her to take a picture with Things 1 and 2.

They had this cool little walk through place with all kinds of fun Dr. Suess stuff that you just did on your own. The machine Sidney is stepping on below made funny sounds when you stepped on it.

There were other cool areas of the park as well, like the Marvel area and Toon Lagoon.

We went back to Harry Potter world to eat lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and lets just say it did not disappoint. It looked just like it did in the movie and food was delicious and totally belonged. And Butterbeer...yum! It was soooo good :) The froth at the top of it was the best.

I really liked this conductor guy..he had a British accent and was talking to me just like I was a really Hogwarts student. Really funny and cool!

We had to take a picture by the houses because on Pottermore so far all of us are in different houses (except for Carina, who hasn't been sorted yet)! So Carina stood by Hufflepuff, I was Ravenclaw (the best house, obviously!), Cee Ryle was Gryffindor, and Sidney was Slytherin. We are so cool.

There was a little show/ride thing called Poseidon's Fury in the Land of Adventure. Here are my sibs waiting in line. It was a cool show that you walked through and the rooms kept changing and getting bigger with lots of water and fire and special effects. Definitely a favorite.

We went on this water ride that we thought was just going to be a gentle normal ride where we got fairly wet. We didn't want to get too soaked and also my mom, Sidney, and I really don't like big drops in roller coasters or anything. And since Gracie was tall enough to go on this ride we figured it couldn't be too bad. But it turns out that we got incredibly soaked from this unexpected huge drop at the end of the ride. It took a picture but it was a lot to buy it, but it was so funny. Carina was covering Gracie's eyes, Cee Ryle looked like a hyper maniac and the rest of us were shocked or closing our eyes. I wish I had a copy of the picture because it was so funny!

Meet Popeye and Olive. I'm not in a lot of these characters because I ended up being the photographer for them.

I thought this picture was funny :)

They had this pixie stix candy stuff in Suess Landing that wasn't too much money so we each got 3 foot long (the longest ones they had) sticks of them. Lots of candy=lots of deliciousness (and unhealthiness ha).

Universal Studios closed at 6 and we actually got to do everything that we wanted to do in the park, which was great. But dang were we tired by the time we were done. Living off of little sleep and only one meal (though it was a big one) tired us out and when we got back to the hotel, we laid on our beds, watched a little bit of Disney Channel and then fell soundly asleep, awaiting to go on our cruise the next day... :)

Update

I figured I'd just write a quick blog post so I don't get too behind on this thing. My life has been so crazy busy lately! Right after finals were over, I cleaned up my stuff in my apartment and moved it all home (my room is a huge mess right now). I went on a trip to the grand canyon with some of roomies and some guys. Two days after I got back from the GC I left on a plane to Florida with my family where we went to Universal Studios (which contains Harry Potter World...holla!) and went on a Disney Cruise! Funnest vacation of my life--I seriously had a blast. We got back last Monday from that and then I spent that week hanging out with my family mostly. This week I'm leaving for Boston (hopefully!!). The deal with that is this: I'm flying standby (because my aunt works for an airline and can get passes for that sort of thing so it's WAY cheaper) and the flights keep not looking good. But I start my internship on Monday so I kinda need to get out there asap! I'm praying that I'll get to fly out Thursday, but I know that whatever happens will happen and it'll work out the way it's supposed to.

So that's life right now..wish me good luck on getting on a flight to Boston and you will definitely know when I'm out there! When I get a chance (aka when I'm done packing, which I keep putting off) I will post all about those other trips, but for now I'm packing and spending time with the fam. Nothing better right? :)

Guatemala: Departing and Arriving!

Wow, its been like two months since I left for Guatemala, and I had so much fun! I got so busy as soon as I got home from it though, with projects, finals, and graduation. I haven't really been that busy this summer, but I've gotten kind of lazy...so excuse me for that. :D

On May 19, we left kind of late at night from the SLC airport (so that's why its not day 1). I was with my mom, grandma, and grandpa. I had a purple luggage set and I was so ready and excited to go! I love airplanes and I was psyched to get to Guatemala!!!

From SLC we went to Long Beach and had kind of a long layover (which was NOT fun because the Long Beach airport is tiny!). We ate sandwiches that were way too expensive and then just had to wait. Since we were flying standby (because my aunt was able to get us buddy passes from Jet Blue--thanks Zeebee!) we were worried about getting on the flight and thought we might not get on. Thankfully, we got on....however I ended up sitting in between two fat old men (one of which was eating some digusting sandwich with everything on it and spilled his sprite on me! :P) but I watched TV, so I guess it was all good.

From Long Beach, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the morning. Here, the problems began.... When we went up to check in our luggage, we had to show our passports. My mom pulled them out and gave them to the guy when he was like, "Um, who's this man?" And there was a picture of my dad on the passport, instead of my mom. It turns out my mom had accidentally grabbed my dad's passport instead of hers. We had no idea what to do, but my grandparents and I checked in our stuff and then went to discuss. My mom called my dad and had him send the passport express mail so it would arrive the next day.

Thank goodness my dad's brother lives in Miami, because he was able to pick her up so she wouldn't need to stay in the airport all night. My mom had to buy another ticket and was able to make it to Guatemala the next day (May 22).

As for my grandparents and me, we had to continue on. We made it into Guatemala City later that day and the excitement started!!!! We picked up our rental car (which was supposedly a minivan...but it was too small to be an actual one) and then went around to an outdoor mall place and to my great uncle, Chepe's, house, where he lives with his family. I was so tired I fell asleep on their couch and then we were finally able to go to our hotel, which was called "Quality Service" (really funny because it was in english in a Spanish country).


On the 21st, we were able to pick up my mom, my uncle Derick, and cousin Alex. We visited my great uncle's family (AGAIN...you'll notice this was a regular pattern each day), and then went to pick up my mom. While waiting to pick up Derick and Alex, we went to "El Centro" and went inside this huge Catholic church. After that, we were able to go pick up Derick and Alex and then went to the hotel and slept... :)