I Scream, You Scream, we eat a lot of Ice Cream

When it comes to eating desserts, I could easily pass. I’d rather have a burger over cake.  I am however a great appreciator of ice cream. It is one of my favorite foods.  I prefer hard ice cream over soft serve.  Depending on the flavor, I can eat ice cream with or without toppings. Disney World and Universal  in Orlando are filled with a great variety of frozen delights, and I was ready to try as many as I thought my waist line could handle.  

Animal Kingdom

   Riding the first day of vacation high, and feeling the need for something to top off our Tamu Tamu lunch, we went in search of the elusive Animal Kingdom ice cream sandwich.  

There is no sign naming the kiosk where the ice cream sandwiches are sold. You just have to look for the kiosk that has it on the menu.  We found that kiosk located in between the entrance to the Discovery Island Trail and the large entryway to the Harambe Africa section of the park. 

 We stood in line and debated if we should get one to share or our own.  Fortunately the girl in front of us ordered an ice cream sandwich. Once we saw how gigantic it was, there was no need to get more than one.

 The chocolate chip cookies are the star of the this treat.  They were fresh and delicious and the cold super creamy vanilla ice cream complemented the cookies well.  There were only two issues

1)      We had to put a lot of muscle into hacking away at the cookie in order to split it in half.

2)      The hot weather caused the ice cream to melt rather quickly. 

Things got messy, especially towards the end. I had to take a trip to the restroom to get un-sticky. 

Minor problems however compared to the delightfulness of the sandwich. It was my favorite of our Disney World ice cream treats.  I recommend getting one if you ever find yourself in Animal Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom

I know, this might sound a little crazy to all of the Disney people, but this was our first time trying the popular Dole Whip vs. Citrus Swirl treats.  I was unaware in the past that they were such a thing. We wanted to see what the fuss was all about. To make a proper assessment, we had to get one of each.

The biggest pro to the Citrus Swirl is that the lines at The Sunshine Tree Terrace are refreshingly short.

The Citrus Swirl is tasty, but it does have a more tart slightly bitter pithy orange taste, so if you aren’t into that, it may not be your preferred treat.

The Dole Whip line was the longest line I waited in during our entire trip. There is a significant lack of shade and I could feel my skin crisping as I stood there waiting, and waiting.  I think the problem was that most groups nominate one poor soul to be their Dole Whip point person so each person standing at the window ordered three, six, even ten Dole Whips.

There was a British mother and daughter standing in front of me in line and a woman from Texas standing in front of them.  I witnessed what I could only describe as a British SNL skit where the British people make fun of what they think the stereotypical American is like.

First the woman from Texas kept pushing her sun block on the British ladies as though they were so foreign sun block must be a revolutionary invention to them.

“It’s cloudy and rainy all the time where y’all are from right?”

Texas must have asked that at least four times. At first the British ladies tried explaining that during the summer the weather in the UK is pretty much the same as the US, but they finally gave up trying to reason with Texas and replied yes. 

Texas continued talking the composed polite Brits’ ears off. She was TMIng all over the place and at one point the conversation devolved into her telling the ladies how in the US simple minded people kill babies by accidentally leaving them in hot cars. I really wanted to throw the flag at that point and tell her you can’t talk about dying babies at Disney World.  Really there should be a Disney task force that sweeps in and carts you away if you broach such topics.  I  also wanted to apologize to the two British ladies and let them know that we aren’t all like Texas. I imagine that once they had their Dole Whips in hand, they ran as fast as they could to the other side of the park to evade Texas for the rest of the day.

I liked the Citrus Swirl but if I had to choose, I liked the Dole Whip a little more.  It is sweet, light, and maybe it was the dehydration I experienced while standing in line, but I thought it was the more refreshing of the two. 

 The other most popular ice cream treat in Disney World is the Mickey Bar.  I’m not sure if it’s that you are on vacation and at Disney World, but I think that The Mickey Bar is better than your normal grocery store ice cream bar of a similar kind. 

The Mickey Bar’s chocolate coating is thick and the chocolate is good quality. We enjoyed our Mickey Bar break, but like the ice cream sandwich, they can get messy quick.

 Downtown Disney

We were feeling a little worn out the night we went to Downtown Disney.  Shannon skipped on ice cream, but I felt like I had to have my Ghirardelli sundae.  

If we are at a destination that has a Ghirardelli Shop we try to make a stop.  I’m not sure what it was, if it really wasn’t as good as it used to be, or if we had had such great ice cream already on the trip that it couldn’t measure up.  I got the Caramel Sundae and it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t fantastic like I remembered.

It could have been just an off night for them. It was a busy night at Downtown Disney and the woman taking our order was grumpy and reminded me of the Lunch Lady from the Billy Madison movie.  I’m willing to give Ghirardelli the benefit of the doubt and another try on a future trip.

Epcot

This is a bit of a cheat. We had every intention of having ice cream at L’Artisan de Glaces in France.  I was looking forward to it well before our plane departed for Orlando, but we visited Epcot at the end of our trip and by then we were feeling a little daired- out. 

Instead of ice cream we stopped in Japan at the Kabuki Café to try a Kaki-gori.

Kaki-gori is shaved ice that is topped with fruit flavor.  You can get strawberry, cherry, melon (tastes like honeydew), tangerine, or you can get rainbow if you want to try all of the flavors.  

Shannon got tangerine, while I went all in and got the rainbow with an added topping of sweet milk (that makes it ice creamish right?).  

This sounds a little strange, but as soon as I took the first bite I was transported to a Spanish colonial square draped with purple-pink flowers in the San Felipe section of Panama City.  Kaki-gori was exactly the same fruit flavored topped with sweet milk treat we had in Panama, but there they were called raspados.  We enjoyed our Kaki-goris so much that if we hadn’t strayed so far from Japan and scored a good fireworks viewing spot, we would have had a second.

Universal Studios-Diagon Alley

The ice cream place that I was most looking forward to visiting during our trip was Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor in Diagon Alley.  

I remember reading The Prisoner of Azkaban and being jealous of Harry as he hung out at Florean Fortescue’s, eating strawberry peanut butter ice cream while Florean shared his knowledge of the Goblin Wars.  I couldn’t believe I was standing in front of that actual ice cream parlor. It was the place I most wanted to see brought to life in Diagon Alley.

 The theming is fun and charming, but the service is no joke.  

Everyone is pleasant and polite but the line works like the Soup Nazi of ice cream lines.  You better know what you want when they ask, which is easier said than done as there are so many wonderful choices. 

 They have a Butterbeer soft serve, but I really wanted to try the strawberry peanut butter ice cream since 1) it is directly from the books and 2) peanut butter is my favorite ice cream flavor.  I got one scoop of strawberry peanut butter and a scoop of earl grey lavender because how could I pass up a chance to do a Potter- Next Generation ice cream mash up?

I adored the strawberry peanut butter. Oh how I wish I could have some right now.  It needs to become a more popular ice cream flavor.  I felt that the earl grey lavender was too mild.  Maybe they made it that way so it wouldn’t overwhelm the not so adventurous, but I thought that the earl grey ice cream that I had in Bryant Park in NYC was more flavorful. 

The ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s was so good, we returned for a second round the next day. On our second visit Shannon tried the clotted cream ice cream.  It was a strange mixture of tart and sour, I was not a fan.   I couldn’t pass up a chance to have the strawberry peanut butter again and I also got a scoop of the salted caramel blondie. That flavor was also divine.  I look forward to trying the other flavors and maybe even the butterbeer soft serve the next time I'm at Universal Orlando.

Our Orlando Parks trip turned out to be a great ice cream/ice treat tour.  

If you have a favorite Disney ice cream stop let me know. We are working on putting together another trip this fall and I’d love to try some different creamy indulgences.

J.K. Rowling skipped over the part of Harry's life where he blew all of his inheritance money partying in his 20s and had to earn money by scooping ice cream at Florean Fortescue's 

Kneazleless in Diagon Alley

The people stand like human statues, phones and cameras poised high in the air. Expectant fingers hover over buttons, waiting, waiting, waiting.  Then it happens.  A series of menacing growls followed by quiet, followed by a monstrous bellowing roar; brilliant fire streams forth from the mighty dragon’s mouth.  

The statue- like people frantically tap their buttons. The crowd sends up resounding cheers. Those who stumble upon the scene by chance helplessly fumble with cameras but they are too late.  They stand still, cameras poised and begin their waiting.  In fifteen minutes (more or less) the whole scene will play out again.

If I was excited about Hogsmede, I was downright overwhelmed by Diagon Alley.  The enormity of it is instantly immersive.  

We traveled from Hogsmede to London on the Hogwarts' Express.  

I was jumping out of my skin with delight as the train pulled into Hogsmede Station. (The Hogsmede station isn’t as impressive as the London station so all of my pictures are of the London side)

The windows inside of the compartment, both looking outside and looking into the corridor are actually screens.  As soon as the train starts moving the show begins. 

There are two different scenarios. One traveling from Hogsmede to London, and one traveling from London to Hogsmede. I thought the Hogsmede to London trip was the better of the two, so if you can only ride the train once, I’d suggest going to Studios and riding the train to Islands of Adventure.  

The train is not to be missed. We road it three times and even people who weren't Potter fans seemed delighted and impressed.

The train station on the London side is spectacular.  You forget for a moment that you are in a theme park.

There are so many details. Some would probably only be recognizable to fans.

Billboard Dumbledore stares at in the beginning of Half-blood Prince

They even have a street musician hanging out in regular clothes playing just within the entrance (one time it was a violinist and another time it was a saxophone player)

Parked just outside of the London station is The Nightbus, 

which sits across from Number 12 Grimmauld  Place.  If you wait a bit you can see Kreature peeking out from behind the upstairs curtain.

In order to enter Diagon Alley you must move behind a brick wall. Then you will see the space where the bricks have moved away. There is a sound of moving bricks, but the noisy crowd drowns it out. It's the only part of Diagon Alley that is a little underwhelming. 

This section of the Wizarding World is split into Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley, Horizont Alley (see what they did there), and Carkitt Market.

There are twice the amount of shops compared to Hogsmede, the most striking being Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.  

It wasn't as big inside as I had hoped, it's actually pretty cramped, but I think Fred and George would approve of the staff . 

The second store I was most excited to see was The Magical Menagerie. 

Pure Kneazle

I was looking forward to purchasing a stuffed Kneazle (a pure kneazle, not a kitty kneazle mix like Crookshanks), but sadly they didn’t sell pure kneazles.  They had plenty of Pygmy Puffs.

I purchased quite a few souvenirs at Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment. 

We browsed around Madame Malkin’s Robes for all Occasions (if only I was rich enough to afford Hermione's ball gown), Quality Quidditch Supplies, and of course Olivander’s.  

If you are in Diagon Alley and you want to escape the blazing sun, turn down Knockturn Alley.  It’s actually indoors, but the theming makes you believe you are outside.  It’s dark, the temperature is kept  cool, and the stores, especially Borgin and Burkes’ are pretty spooky.  

Vanishing Cabinet. You can hear a bird chirping inside.

We were fortunate enough to stumble upon what I now believe was one of the first showings of the new puppetry show, The Fountain of Fair Fortune (I didn’t get a picture because my hands were occupied with ice cream). The show was absolutely beautiful.  I was sad we never got a chance to catch a performance of The Three Brothers which is also told on stage using stunning artistic puppets (cool puppets, not the sort that I am afraid of). 

I was glad we caught a performance by Celestina Warbeck and the Banshees.  She was fantastic during her live performance of A Cauldron full of Hot, Strong Love. I was totally geeking out.  

We grabbed lunch at The Leaky Cauldron.  I can’t express how great all of the staff are who work in The Wizarding World.  I had a great uber fangirl Potter conversation with the girl who took our order at The Leaky Cauldron.  She was a fellow Ravenclaw.

I thought that the theming of The Leaky Cauldron topped the theming at the Three Broomsticks, but as I said before, Broomsticks had the better food.

I got the cottage pie (it paled in comparison to Haddonfield’s British Chip Shop's cottage pie which is heavenly).

Shannon got the banger sandwich.

It wasn’t that the food was bad, it was fine, it was just very average.  What was great was the drink selection at The Leaky Cauldron.  I got a Tongue Tying Lemon Squash which was just the right amount of tart and wonderfully refreshing.  I might lose my Potter cred here, but if I must be honest, I liked it better than Butterbeer.

I wish they sold the same drinks in Hogsmede at The Three Broomsticks,but you can only get the lemon squash in Diagon Alley.

Our main goal of course was to ride Escape from Gringotts. 

On our first day we ended up using the single rider line since the wait never dipped below an hour and a half. Using the single rider line we only waited for about ten minutes ( I felt bad for the people in the summer who waited 4-6 hours in line to ride Gringotts) and we still rode together. The downside is that you don’t get to walk through the bank and take the elevator ride, so the next day we went to Gringotts first thing in the morning so I could fan gush over animatronic goblins and Bill Weasly's office.  It is amazing! 

We only had to wait that time for about 25 minutes and then we rode it a third time because it's a fun ride.

The beginning of the ride was my favorite.  You are just a regular Joe bank customer taking a ride to your bank vault. Bad luck for you because you just happen to be in the bank on the day when Harry, Ron, and Hermione break into Bellatrix’s vault. Your car is suddenly stopped by Bellatrix and Voldemort who suspect that you are in cahoots with the trio. In order to “persuade” you to cooperate, Bellatrix zaps your mine car and turns it completely vertical with you facing forward staring straight down into a dark void of nothingness. Your mine car gets zapped again and the car starts falling straight down and for a moment you think, we are going to die, but then the roller coaster track banks and levels out. I am not a fan of roller coaster drops. I approved of this one, it was extremely fun without being too scary. The majority of the ride is more like a regular 4D simulator ride. Of course it wouldn’t be a Universal simulator if you didn’t have a scene where it looks like you are going to fall and hit the ground (all done with screens). Good thing Bill Weasly was there to save the day (just like Spider Man and Optimus Prime) The ride continues to move through the bank as you try to escape Bellatrix and Voldemort.  During one of the scenes I was seated in just the right spot that when Voldemort walks up to the car it looked like he was walking right up to me and talking to me.  I got a little freaked out. It was creepy, but fun creepy.  There is one more roller coaster part as the dragon, ridden by the trio, pulls you to safety.

It is a fantastic ride, but I still liked Forbidden Journey just a tad more.

Like a big city, Diagon Alley is filled with chaotic huslte and bustle. At times the crowd got a little overwhelming so we escaped for a bit to other parts of the park. It is almost impossible to get clear pictures through the swarm of the crowd and I can see the value of staying at one of the Universal resorts just to get a head start in Diagon Alley.

I enjoyed my time geeking out at The Wizarding World and at the time I thought three days was more than enough, but a month later, I must admit that I dream of more days filled with lemon squash and train rides. 

Universal Studios Orlando-we saved the world...a lot

Back to vacation posts.


We arrived to Universal Studios bright and early in the morning. The crowd entering Studios was considerably larger than the crowd we encountered entering into Islands of Adventure. I jumped on the app to check the early morning wait times. Since the wait time was short, Shannon went to ride the Rip Ride Rockit coaster, a ride I was happy to sit out. I contented myself with people watching near the entrance. Time and time again I watched as people made what I would consider a rookie theme park mistake.  Close to the entrance there are two attractions, Minion Mayhem to the left and Shrek to the right.  It seemed like everyone was either peeling off right or left to do one of these two attractions. Minute by minute I watched the wait times climb.  Minion Mayhem climbed to 75 minutes and still people were lining up in the queue.  I wanted to grab their shoulders and shake them saying,

"Wait, go somewhere else first. Don't do the first attraction you see if the wait time is long."

We did Minion Mayhem the day before in the afternoon and only waited 15 minutes. We walked right onto Shrek.  I feared however that if I touched strangers security would be called.

When we did go on Minion Mayhem it was cute and fun; Shrek felt outdated and kind of sad. I wish they would replace it with a How to Train your Dragon attraction.

My favorite ride at Universal Studios (non-Harry Potter related) was Transformers.  It's a 4D immersive motion simulator ride. The story involves you being part of a transport team that must move the allspark to safety before the Decepticons capture it.  It is a pretty cool ride that goes by fast so we rode it more than once just so that we could follow the whole story from start to finish.  The ride is so immersive that even though my brain knew I was on a ride, there was a point when Megatron showed up and  I actually felt a little afraid that he was going to get us and then take over the world. Good thing Optimus Prime showed up to help us save the day. We all clapped and cheered because we were pretty awesome.

Our favorite ride the last time we went to Universal Studios was Men in Black.  We rode it multiple, multiple times. One, because it was fun, and two, because there really was not much else to do at Studios at the time.

We were a little worried that this ride would feel outdated, especially with all of the other super high tech rides in the park.  I will report that we were pleasantly surprised.  We had just as much fun on the ride as we did years ago.  There is n't much to it. Your job is to save the world from aliens.  You ride around and shoot guns at animatronic aliens who pop up in what looks like a city movie set. In the end you receive a score, a score that you usually want to improve immediately.

We didn't ride it as many times as our last trip, but we did take advantage of the single rider line enough that at one point one of the staff greeted us with a,

"Welcome back."

After saving the world from aliens we decided to take a load off and duck into the Horror Make-up Show.

This is our second favorite show in the Orlando parks.  It's not scary at all. It's actually a comedy show that teaches you about special effects make-up in movies.  Part of the show does include a montage of clips from various horror movies so that may be scary for little kids, but overall it's tame.  This was first time we've seen the main characters Alex and Marty being played by ladies.  They were hilarious.  I assume the show is part scripted and part improved.  One bit that completely cracked me up was when they asked a teenage boy where he was from and he said he was from Wales. The ladies kept riffing on how great he looked and how they thought he'd be different coming from whales.  There was also a clip from a movie showing someone digging a grave and they said that it was Justin Bieber burying his career.

The part of Universal Studios, non- Harry Potter, that we were most looking forward to was Springfield U.S.A.  It was not there during our last trip.  It's been quite a while since I've watched a new Simpson's episode, but I am a regular player of Tapped out, so I was excited to see all of the things that I see everyday in the game.

It was a fun.  If we had more time we probably would have explored or hung out there a little more, but we saw all of the major things.

For lunch we decided to eat at the food court, because it seemed wrong not to eat at Krusty Burger.

I went to Krusty Burger while Shannon went with Cletus' Chicken Shack.  The food court also had Luigi's and the Frying Dutchman. The food court is attached to Moe's. We thought about getting a Flaming Moe drink, but we weren't feeling an intensely sweet drink, even if it wafts smoke.

I wasn't feeling the regular Krusty Burger either, so I sort of cheated and got the black bean burger with curly fries.

Shannon got the chicken and waffle sandwich with tots.

It wasn't bad for theme park food, but it was not as good as The Three Broomsticks.

We hit a few other attractions like E.T. and Revenge of the Mummy.  Revenge of the Mummy is an indoor roller coaster. Think of it as a more intense version of Space Mountain. I couldn't decide in the end if Mummy was thrillingly fun or a tad terrifying.

Towards the end of the day we were approached by a man who asked if we wanted to take a survey about some upcoming television shows that NBC wanted to add to their line up. He said we would each receive $20 in cash for participating.  We shrugged and said,

"Sure."

If these shows never air I think you owe us some thanks.  They were abysmal.

The first show was some sort of military government conspiracy that looked like a rip off of Homeland.  One of the promotional images showed the main character with her arms bound behind her back by the American flag. That pretty much sums up the show.  It also made me unhappy because it starred Anna Friel who starred in Pushing Daisies, a show that I loved that got cancelled.

I was even more disappointed with the second show because the promotional images made it look like it was a comedy about a family of spies.  I was already writing the clever, whimsical script in my head that was like the book series The Spellman Files where everyone is a quirky detective. They are always spying on each other and getting up to shenanigans.  When I watched the trailer I was sad because the NBC show ended up being some horrible drama that was trying way too hard to be intense and full of scandal.

 I enthusiastically signed up to be on their current survey e-mail list, but I have a feeling my opinions aren't the type they are looking for.

Overall we did have a fun time at Universal Studios, and we got to save the world...a lot.