"Cruise" Days 9-11

Day 9 was the last day we were on the ship as it was the day we got back to Tampa.  It was sad to leave a life of no responsibilities and meeting new people, but it was nice to be able to have contact with the outside world as we had our cell phones off all week and didn't have any internet.  It was also nice to be able to buy things and not have them cost at least three times what you'd pay at Target or Wal-Mart.

Our roommate, Sara, had been in Orlando the last few days on business so she drove to Tampa to pick us up.  When we got on the boat, we didn't know what time to tell her to pick us up so we ended up waiting by the aquarium next door for awhile.  It was all well and good as we were able to catch up on voicemails, texts, and facebook, I even attended a church meeting via text while sitting there.  We were heading to Orlando to play for a few days but we couldn't get into our hotel right away so we decided to change into our skirts at a rest stop on the way there and found the local YSA ward so we could attend sacrament meeting.  We still had some time afterwards so we stopped by the Orlando temple and walked around a bit.  After finally checking into the hotel, we all just collapsed, watched TV, read books, and played cards.

Day 10 was our first day playing at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.  We got two-day park hopper passes so we could bounce back and forth based on Sara's ride wait time app.  We started out in Harry Potter world so we could make sure we got to do that.  Apparently everyone else had a similar idea.  It was the only time we waited an hour for a ride.  We passed the time by playing games.  After walking through Hogwarts and enjoying that ride, Colette and I rode the Dragon Challenge.  The rest of the day we enjoyed the following rides: Spiderman, Sneetches, Caroseussal, the Mummy, Cat in the Hat, Men in Black, and The Simpsons.  We ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks, I had frozen butterbeer for the first time, it was very delicious.  Colette and Sara were very surprised when I ordered the roasted chicken...it had the most meat (it was half of a chicken) especially for the price and I really needed/wanted protein...it was ok.

That night we went to a dinner show.  Sara and I had both already been to Medieval Times so we decided to try something new called Arabian Nights (sounds cool huh), plus I had a half-off coupon.  It was a good thing we didn't pay full price.  It was a show all based around horses around the world, it turned into a very insensitive cultural show.  We all rolled our eyes when they started playing Enya while a unicorn pranced around with a lady dressed in white dancing all over the place.  The food wasn't very good either.

Day 11 we were back in the parks!  We hit the Incredible Hulk first as we basically walked straight onto the ride and usually there is a very long wait.  It was amazing!  We then headed for the water rides, but there was no wait for Spiderman either so we rode that one again.  We then got really wet on the barges (we rode it twice in a row as there was no one waiting to get on), the log flume (the best log ride I've ever been on, plus it took us to Canada, I didn't know it bordered Florida), and Jurassic Park.  While waiting in line for Jurassic Park, we started talking to a man and his daughter, they were from Great Britain and were amazed that Harry Potter has as much hype here as it does for them back home, they were also a little concerned that they would be getting as wet as we already were on the ride as we were soaked completely through.

We walked through Harry Potter again but decided it was too crowded to stick around.  We then tried to ride the Mummy again but the line was too long for our liking.  We "rode" Disaster which was really more of a audience participation "show" where they had people film short clips and used special effects in a film we all watched at the end, it was entertaining.  We rode Men in Black again and then tried to ride ET but the ride broke down so we went to wait for the animal show to start.  While we were watching the show, it started raining like crazy!  Thunder, lightning, pouring rain, the whole bit!  After the show, no one wanted to leave because of the rain, but we were still wet from before so we went splashing through the puddles to get to some indoor rides as all of the outdoor rides were closed because of the lightning.  We rode The Mummy twice (our favorite ride, plus all of the fire in the ride felt nice since we were so wet).  Afterwards, we left the park to go get something to eat and planned to come back later for a anniversary show.  We ate at a place called Steak n' Shake, it was very good and the waitress was very surprised when she came back to check on us and we were already done eating...we were very hungry and Julie really likes burgers.  We went back to the hotel to hang out before the show, but then it rained some more so we decided to not go back.