Right. I've been getting a bit behind when it comes to blogging. So are you ready for a monster blog?!
Fine. You asked for it....
So mike finished with us getting to Orlando I think... Now for some reason we have been following bad weather down the east coast. I think we just miss home and the rain ;)
So we arrived in the amtrak station in Orlando. I'd had an email from out hotel telling us it was just a short bus ride to them. So me being me was like well that will cost is nothing!! Let's do that. Firstly locating the bus stop was a bit of a nightmare. It was a singular sign post, facing the road, and on some grass. Not even with pavement slabs or anything... Also it just said the number not the bus name etc so yeah... Secondly the grass was covered in ants.gross. We ha been told by a savvy taxi man trying to get out custom a huge lie. He said there were no buses on the weekends. What a joker!! Although this started to make me worry there wasn't one coming. It was also the middle of the afternoon an the "bus stop" had no shelter. A storm was looming but at that point it was muggy and really sunny. We waited for 25 minutes before I have in and called the phone number on the internet to find out if a bus was due. I was told they are hourly and one was due in 10-15 minutes. Once the bus did arrive I felt as if we were the only tourists to ever have embarke on a bus journey in Orlando. The locals stared at us like we were crazy people. Maybe next time we will just get a taxi.... All thought we did save 24 dollars by getting the bus. It took about an hour, half an hour in the heavens opened and it peed the place down.... All I kept doing was hoping it would stop by our stop!! Luckily it did. Hooray. Only to start again as we walked the couple of blocks to our hotel.
I don't think I want to call it a hotel. It was more like a grosstel. If you have ever expirienced a days inn you may understand our circumstances. It was a motel complex and cost us about 35 dollars a night (including breakfast) so I wasn't expecting much and I was right to not. It was basic and still quite dirty in the bathroom. It was mouldy and yeah a bit gross. Now as we weren't planning on spending much time here I wasn't too bothered BUT.... On the second night after returning back from the parks I found cockroaches in the bathroom.... BESMKDJDBDKSKSHDNSSI so so so gross. Mike killed so many but a few got away. The worst part was I really needed a shower. :( I did have one only to see another cockroach on the wall, I freaked out and jumped out straightaway. I didn't condition my hair that night. Ergh. At least we never have to stay there again....
Anyway the whole reason for our stop in Orlando was purely to indulge me. Mike hates theme park rides. So um yeah selfishly I still booked us to go to Orlando. I've been wanting to visit disney for forever... But a few years back when they opened Harry Potter in Universal studios my dreams changed. An when they announced that the park now had another part opening for Harry Potter the trip changed to include the extra stop. WAAAAAH I <3 HP!!
So we (I) devised a plan. Having already downloaded the wait times app I had been keeping an eye on the times to see what the best option for the brand new harry potter ride would be. The wait had consistently read 2 hours plus. I decided to do it first. Get it out of the way so that I could then go on loads with less of a wait time. We got up at 6.30 and grabbed breakfast (it was pants so we didn't have it again) an made our way over for the 8am opening. I hadn't mentioned that our hotel had one good thing... It's proximity to the universal resort (like 3 blocks) but it was a fair walk as the parks do to start on the edge of the resort obvs. We headed straight to the ride. It said there was a 2 hour wait.... HOW?! Lol rage. So we bagan to wait. Not if you know met you'll know I'll talk to anyone about anything and knowing that this queue would be a fair wait I decided to start chatting to the family in front of us. I knew we would get along (anyone who heads straight to the harry potter ride first is an easy bet on being the coolest people in the park ;D) and it turns out this family were pretty cool. Which was a good thing as the ride started to break down... We ended up waiting 4 hours!! By which point we had talked a lot!! One of the girls had to leave to catch a flight and the mum drove her, the other girl (Berrit) decided to hang on and keep waiting (it had been like 3+ hours already) and I said we would mind hanging out and keeping her company. As mike was a wuss and didn't want to go on anything exciting it was ace as I got to have a ride buddy!!
Now if you like harry potter you will love the park. The dragon coasters are awesome and the simulated ride are amazingly hi tech and pretty impressive!! You can eat in the leaky cauldron and the three broom sticks, ride the hogwarts express an generally just bask in it's awesomeness. :D loved it. I want to move in. One other glitch of the first day... I got stuck on the ride in the castle for about an hour. It was pretty hilarious as I was a turn away from the end an just stuck without a phone an generally just dangling. Hahaa. We had to be 'rescued' pahaha. It would happen to me right!!??!!
So Berrit had to leave shortly after that and mike and I went on lots of wet rides and got thoroughly soaked which then kept us cool in the crazy heat!! It seems to get warmer mid afternoon about 3pm so odd. We went to the Simpsons bit (mike got fairly animated... Haha) we had Krusty burgers and duff and I had a flaming moe LOL. Lots of fun.
That evening we had tickets (FRONT ROW SPLASH ZONE) to see the blue man group. I have no words to explain what we saw... It was hilarious and amazing. Story line...? No clue. But I laughed so much I snorted.
The next day we did much the same. I started I. The other park and worked around all if the rides we missed the day before. I got turned into a minion, expirienced a duel between Poseidon and an evil dude, saw a twister, helped the transformers and Spider-Man and went to krustyland on the most unsafe coaster in animated history and so much more. We stayed until they kicked us out! I rode the dragons in harry potter again one after the other and felt really dizzy (it had been about 3 minutes inbetween) SO MUCH FUN!!
I want to go back.
We had a lovely surprise from the family after exchanging emails on the first day in Orlando they got in touch and offered to pick us up to go out for food. We went for breakfast with them which was really nice. They are very easily the nicest people we have met so far on the trip. We went to a Denny's!! ;) awesome.
We had a day to fritter away and no park tickets and with the weather looming the mini golf plan went out the window and we instead watched Lucy in the cinema. It was ok...
Wow!!! I haven't even got to talking about New Orleans (I've been writing for an hour)
SO HERE COMES THE AWFUL JOURNEY.
Now yes I booked it and yes I knew I was in for a night on the bus which I wasn't looking forward to. But it was made so much worse as I didn't realised that every like 3 hours they chuck you off the coach to refuel and change drivers. I'm pretty sure that's unique to America. Some rubbish about federal laws. So it's not ok for me to sit on a coach when you fill it up with fuel but is ok to let idiots own guns. Right. Ok.
It seems the same idiots were also in charge of loading and unloading the coaches. The staff are so rude. They shout at you for nothing, one told one person to keep their nose out of other peoples business or they wouldn't be allowed back on the bus. It was awful. All I know is I will never EVER travel over night on a grey hound if I can help it again. (We have a day journey this time fingers crossed these drivers have some manners and don't treat us like cattle)
So having travelled all thought the night we arrived about 8am in New Orleans. Grumpy and tired we walked a mile to our hotel in hope of dumping our bags. They were wonderful and let us check in early!! :D we went to bed and slept until about 3pm! It was glorious. Plus as a bonus the hotel is lovely. A little dates but the furniature is classy not ugly. It's cool!!
So New Orleans is an expirience!! You walk down any street in the french quarter and you'll hear trumpets and drums and just awesomeness! There are balcony a everywhere with people drinking and eating amazing food.
The first day we had food in the Gumbo shop. We tried gumbo, crawfish étouffée and delish desserts!!! Nom nom nom. The second day we wandered around getting a feel for the place and booked an evening dinner cruise down the Mississippi which was really awesome. It was a 40 year old steamboat with 100 year old engine!! Loved it.
We've been on a voodoo tour a swamp tour where we saw a whole host of alligators and we have watched a fair amount of jazz as there's a free jazz fest in the french market!
I really love it here. The city has it's own pace (slow) and I can imagine gettin a summer home here (well a march or April home to avoid some hurricanes!!)
You should visit. It's epic. AND THE BEIGNETS!!!!!!! So flippin good!!
We leave tomorrow and head to Houston for a few (we are planning on pretty lazy time there as we are getting so tired!)
I can't believe how long we have been travelling already!! We are well past halfway and I don't want to come home!! Haha I want to keep going!!
I'll try to stay on top of blogging! Sorry for the essay...
Xxxxxx jess
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