Just a pair of kids

August 21 & 22, 2014
Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure
Orlando, Florida



When we were planning our trip and saw we'd be flying through Orlando both ways, we just couldn't resist stopping there for a couple of days to check out the new Harry Potter stuff that opened in Universal shortly after we took our family there for spring break.  They added Diagon Alley, a Gringotts Bank Ride and the Hogwarts Express that takes you over to Islands of Adventure and lets you out in Hogsmeade.  It was really cool!

I have to admit that for awhile, I kept feeling guilty about not having the kids with us, and kept thinking about how much they would love it!  But after awhile, I just decided that while a theme park does feel a little more magical with children, it's fun to go as an adult too.  You're just trading a little magic for a LOT less stress.  Like the 9 hour plane ride on the way out, I wasn't worried about either of us freaking out because we were hungry or had to go potty RIGHT NOW! or one of us was too tired to take another step!  So in that sense, it was pretty magical.  Another benefit to doing a theme park with older people is the single rider line.  We did that single rider line where ever we could and wow!  what an efficient way to get on every ride you want and your favorites twice!  Since Arthur and I are a big fan of rides, I'd that single rider line was pretty magical.

You can't see my eyes, but the rest of my face pretty much sums up 

how excited I was to visit Diagon Alley!  

This dragon on top of Gringotts breathes fire every 10 minutes.  

You can really feel the heat down on the ground!

Inside Gringotts

Weasley Wizarding Wheezes

The Knight Bus

 

Knockturn Alley.  They have employees in Knockturn Alley whose job it is to be creepy and wear black robes and follow people around until they notice someone is behind them.  awesome.  

We ate lunch at the Leaky Cauldron.  Delicious fish and chips and frozen butter beer, of course.  That cauldron pictured above was as tall as me. 

Riding the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade!

just a couple of wizard wanna-be's

In the minion store after the Despicable Me ride.  

On the second day, we did all the water rides right before lunch and then went back to our hotel to change into dry clothes and take naps before coming back for dinner at Mythos, (a really yummy restaurant in Islands of Adventure) and to hit our most favorite rides and get all the souvenirs it would require to beg forgiveness from the kids for going without them.  Daphne response was classic:  "WHAT?!?  I can't believe you guys went there without us!  When we grow up, we're gonna go fun places without YOU!  but we still love you."

My favorite roller coaster--The Hulk.  

Torro Verde

Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Torro Verde 

Wednesday was our last day on the island. We slept in, enjoyed the delicious breakfast at the inn, and then packed up and checked out.  (sigh. all good things must come to an end.)  Our last adventure was  something I've been wanting to do the last two times we were in Hawaii but I was either pregnant, or had children with us that were too small to do it.  So FINALLY I got to go zip lining for my first time.

Puerto Rico's Torro Verde currently boasts the world's longest zip line, called "La Bestia."  It is 1 mile long, and they harness your chest AND your feet to the line, so it's like you are flying!  Honestly, it kind of freaked me out, so I was a little relieved that we didn't have enough time to add that to our package.  However, by the end of our 8 lines, I was definitely ready for more.  So that means we'll just have to go again sometime so we can conquer "La Bestia."

We did 8 lines that added up to about 2 miles of lines.  And you just go from ridge-top to ridge-top sailing over lush green jungle vegetation.  LOVED it!

What a great way to end our Puerto Rican adventure.  After the zipline, we booked it to the airport to catch our flight to Orlando.  Where we made a little stop-over . . . 

A Secret Lagoon and Moonlight Kayaking

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The Rainforest

Loquillo Beach

Yokahu Kayaking at the Fajardo Biobay

On the property of the Rainforest Inn, there is an obscure jungle trail that leads you to a private waterfall and swimming hole.  We got lost and injured (I still have a small remnant of the goose egg on my head from a jungle rock that totally took me out) and almost just gave up and turned back because it was hard to find, but we finally made it to the secret lagoon.  It was delightful!  We spent an hour or two jumping off rocks and cooling off in the perfect-temperature-water.

Careful--you might need some sunglasses while viewing these pictures.  

I am a white, white girl.

Getting there made us so hot and sweaty, that I rinsed my shirt in the river and set it on a rock to dry.  Unfortunately, we were in a jungle, not a desert and rock drying was less effective than I'm used to.  But Arthur rigged this ingenious drying system for me so it was almost dry by the time we started back.  Nice right? We could totally be on one of those survivor reality shows.

Later that day we went for a walk around the Loquillo beach area, and saw a huge iguana--it was a good 3-4 ft long including his tail.  We also ate at a fun tiny restaurant called "La Estacion" because it is an old gas station that they converted into a restaurant.  Tiny but pretty delicious.  The dish you have to try if you're ever in Puerto Rico is Mofongo.  There are all different variations on this plantain-based food and La Estacion had some really good Mofongo.

That night we did something awesome, that I have no pictures of except this huge crab we saw walking in the parking lot that night.  He was as big as a softball.  

But I digress.  That night we had booked an ocean kayaking adventure to the Bioluminescent Bay in Fajardo.   There are only 5 places in the world where you can see this natural phenomenon and 3 of them are in Puerto Rico.  In these places, the conditions are just right for a certain microorganism called dinoflagellates to flourish.  All day long, they collect sunlight, and at night, if the water is agitated, they glow a bluish color. It is AMAZING!  Arthur said it reminded him of Avatar (if you've ever seen that movie and you remember the part at night when the jungle creatures start glowing).   

To protect the luminescent micro-organisms that live in the bay, only kayaks are allowed into the bay.  There are only  2 motorized boats that are authorized to go in and it's only to bring handicapped people.  But for everyone else, if you want to see it, you've gotta kayak in.  This was my first kayaking experience.  I was really worried about kayaking in the ocean in the dark and especially about falling out of my kayak into the water.  But it turned out that nobody fell out, even though clearly, most of us were amateurs.   

We used a company called Yokahu and the tour guides were great.  Funny, knowledgable and told us the only dangerous things in the water that we'd be traversing that night were the "enemy kayakers" from the other tour companies.  They said should we encounter them, just row up next to them and whack 'em with our paddles.  

In order to get to the bay, you first have to kayak through a mangrove channel. That was a little crazy.  If you ever go--LOAD UP on insect repellant.  Oh my goodness, I was devoured.  It's dark in there because the trees block out most of the moonlight.  So you just follow the glow stick on the back of the kayak in front of you, and hope they don't crash, because you'll probably crash into them if they do.  (yes, that happened a few times.)  Occasionally, the guides would yell out to turn a certain way so you don't crash into the trees.  Or they would make creepy jungle noises to be funny.  It was pretty entertaining watching people figuring out how to steer their kayaks.  Especially the ladies who'd had a couple drinks before coming on the tour.

Arthur and I were sharing a kayak and since Arthur is good at everything he does, and not to brag, but I think I caught onto the whole kayaking thing pretty quickly, we made a pretty good team.  By the time we got out into the bay, we were ready to break away from the group and go FAST!  After they gathered us together and told us all about the bay and the dinoflagellates, they let us wander around the bay for awhile on our own.  So Arthur and I took off going as fast as we could, while the water around our kayak glowed blue.  When we got further away from the group, our paddles would frighten the fish in the water and we could see blue glowing streaks where they darted away from our kayak.  Sometimes we would stumble into a big cluster of fish and the blue streaks would scatter everywhere.  It was so. cool. and definitely a big highlight of the trip.  Pictures wouldn't do it justice and words can't really describe it either.  Just one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that you gotta do if you're ever in Puerto Rico.

The Rainforest Inn

August 18, 2014

The Rainforest Inn

El Yunque Rainforest

Puerto Rico

After spending the day walking through Old San Juan and her forts, we drove up to where we'd stay the remainder of our time in Puerto Rico, The Rainforest Inn.  Guys, if you ever go to Puerto Rico, I would HIGHLY recommend staying in this beautiful and private bed and breakfast.  There are currently only 2 villas, and this is the one we stayed in:

And this was the view from our porch.  I honestly wish we'd planned a day in our schedule to do nothing but sit outside and read and nap and drink virgin pina coladas.

It was completely charming and secluded.  The owners are very earthy, so the breakfasts were all organic, cooked with herbs from their own garden, and vegetarian!  Didn't know cooking without meat could be so delicious, actually.   They were also great about giving us tips on our excursions during the day, which was really helpful.

Our first adventure was some hiking in El Yunque, our nation's one and only National Rainforest.  We hiked to Mina Falls and Britton Tower but ran out of time to hike to the peak.  Parking at this place was a little nuts--the parking lots are far too small for the demand, so there is lot of parking along the side of the windy road and walking to the trailhead.  Just added to the adventure.  :)

Here's the map that we used trying to find all of our rainforest destinations.  Not sure who designed this map, but there are a lot of inaccuracies.  :)  I put it in here so I could remember.

Cool view from Yokahu tower

Arthur on top of Yokahu tower

Just hiking through the jungle on our way to Mina Falls

This waterfall was beautiful, but it is the most popular spot to hike to in the park, so there were a good 80+ people trying to cool off in the water and sitting all over the rocks.  Our heads are blocking most of them but now I kinda wish I had a picture of how crowded it was!  However, if you climb the rocks downstream a bit, there are two other much less crowded falls, and that's where we cooled off.  After our humid, sticky, jungle hike, the water felt so refreshing!

After we hiked back out from Mina Falls, we ate lunch at a yummy concession area, and shared a very delicious pina colada.  However, honestly I think the lunch may have given us food poisoning.  Arthur's stomach of steel was only mildly affected but I did not feel well the rest of the afternoon.  I had to take a nap when we got back (which normally I would LOVE but it's not nearly as luxurious when you are curled up in a ball wondering if you're going to throw up.)  On the way to dinner we had to make an emergency stop at a Walgreens to get some tums, which helped a little.  I was able to munch on some chips and pico during dinner.    Thank goodness it passed and by the next morning I felt fine again.   

But the tummy-ache happened after we hiked to the Mt. Britton Lookout Tower.  So back to the rest of our hiking.  I thought my kids would love this tower--it reminds me of Rapunzel.  

a cool, weird jungle flower growing out of a tree

The top of Mt. Britton is often cloudy and we caught it on a cloudy day.  Although the views were not as sweeping, it was pretty awesome standing on top of this tower and feelings wisps of clouds touching your cheeks as they blew by.  It was awesome to see the clouds moving and curling over the top of this peak as the wind rush over it.  And sometimes a gust of wind would sweep the mist out of the way for a few minutes and you could see further.  Beautiful.