Hey everyone! It’s been a while that I haven’t blogged. Even though summer is over and my post was way past overdue, I still wanted to share my short trip to Orlando with my boyfriend during the Quebec day weekend.
DAY 1 – Revisiting Philadelphia
At around 7 am we left Montreal to Philadelphia for our lay over and arrived at around 9 am. We had about 11 hours there so we decided to visit the city again. We had another chance to visit downtown this time and go where our bus tour didn’t go when we went there a couple months ago(see my older post here when I went to Washington).
We took the train Septa to downtown and turns out that we were in Chinatown. Starved as we were, we tried to find something decent to eat. We stopped at a café and beer resto and turns out that their food was served like a buffet. I was in awe of all the choices they had. We took a plate with General Tao chicken, chicken skewers, soft noodles with soya sauce, and some dumplings. The food was okay and some were not hot enough even if they were just putting out the food. It was expensive for one plate (about 14$USD) including a bottle of green tea and of course it was by the weight. It’s a place close to the Bloomingdale’s Outlet which I would not go back to.
As we were still hungry, we found a bagel breakfast place named Manhattan Bagel. We took a bagel sandwich with bacon, cheddar cheese, and eggs. The bagel’s bread was really different. It was soft, less filling and seemed kinda fatty. Nevertheless, it was still very good. Anything with bacon is good.
After breakfast, we continued strolling in the city and went to a Nordstrom rack store. We didn’t find anything. We were both looking for shorts since I was wearing leggings and he was wearing jeans on a super hot and humid day. It was like 36 degrees and 100% humidity. A while later, we went to the Bloomingdale’s outlet. It had nothing interesting. It was weird having a Victoria’s Secret there, it made no sense compared to the less expensive shops they had. It didn’t have many shops and it was definitely not an outlet.
We continued walking in the city and by around 2 pm, we decided to have a sushi burrito in Chinatown (it was tasty and fresh), some curry fish balls and finished our meal with a bubble tea at VIVI bubble tea where we had previously gone on my first trip to Philadelphia. Then, we decide to go to the Spruce Harbour. It was really empty, not crowded at all. The little amusement park was even empty. We wished we went there during night time since there were some cool green and blue lights located in the hammocks zone to relax with music from the stage that they were preparing during the day.
As we walked back to downtown. It started to rain but not enough to get rid of the humidity. We finally found shorts in a Century 21 store. I got 2 dresses and a pair of shorts from Angie’s brand. I really love the bohemian style. We walked all day… I was already dead and exhausted since I only slept 2 and half hours the night we left. We stopped into a hotel again to refresh. Then we took the train back to Philadelphia’s airport and left to ORLANDO WOOHOO. We arrived at midnight in our hotel which is 12 mins walk from the Universal amusement park.
DAY 2 – Sea World and City Walk
We weren’t sure what we wanted to do on the first day in Orlando, so we decided to drive in the city in a convertible that we rented and looked for a place to eat in the Kissimmee area. We ate in a place called Chipotle. We took a bowl with rice, salad, diced beef, beans, spicy sauce, guacamole and sour cream. It was healthy and delicious.
After we wanted to see how Disney World looked, but turns out we can get in there unless you pay for the parking lot. We decided to go Seaworld instead since my boyfriend never saw or touch dolphins. What another hot and humid day ahhh. Once there, we went to the dolphins’ area and paid an additional 15$ each to meet the dolphins up close. Waited about 20 mins to actually see them and touch them. Got splashed big time by one of them. Felt more refreshed afterward ahaha. Then we saw a dolphin show, then a Shamu show and ended with a bubble pop show. It was nice and magical. We relaxed in the waiting area of a shark restaurant. Yes with real sharks in front of you. Too bad the restaurant was seafood only cuz we would have eaten there.
After a little break, we went back to our hotel and prepared ourselves to go the City Walk to discover their nightlife. Apparently, it seemed to be the best nightlife that you could get over there which has huge entrance area before actually entering the Universal park. Plenty of lights everywhere that lit up very nicely the area. It was like an ideal nightlife on a little island that never ends with a perfect view of reflecting lights on the lake. It had a Hard Rock Café, a Chocolate Emporium, some clothes shops, nightclubs and some other restaurants.
DAY 3 – Visiting Universal Studios
We took a buffet breakfast at TGI Friday’s which was about 2 mins away from our hotel. Then we headed to the Universal Park. We waited only about 20 mins to get in. Once in, we automatically walked towards the Harry Potter’s Dragon Alley.
The Harry Potter Dragon Alley was so awesome. Everything looked so real like the movie. We tried their butter beer which had a lot of caramel flavor and sweetness to it. I personally didn’t like it since I don’t like things that are too sweet. We did the Gringotts roller coaster just like in the movie when Harry and his friends are going down the bank. It’s the best ride I ever had, it’s nothing like the La Ronde that we have in Montreal. It has 3D visuals, music, and sounds. It is much more entertaining than regular roller coasters. There’s one part where you go down and you are in total darkness for about 10 seconds which was bit scary but fun! We waited about an hour for the ride which is a bit too long. For a speed pass, it’s like 90$USD per person which is freaking expensive, so we decided to not get it.
After a while, we went to eat in the resto that looks exactly like the Poulard’s dining room, only much smaller. I chose wrongly for the food and ended up with lots of cheese(which I detest), bread, a salad and two cut fried whiskey boiled eggs.
Then we took the Poudlard train with an hour of waiting to go the second Harry Potter’s Hogsmeade park. It was showing movie parts in the window frames of the train. It was quite hot in there, not much of air conditioning and no windows during a super hot day. When we arrived at Hogsmeade, it felt like winter due to the fake snow on the houses. We checked some stores and headed to the Poudlard castle. Then it started to rain like crazy with thunderstorms. Everyone rushed to the roller coaster in the castle and it was chaos. It was hard to get a locker to put our stuff in it because we were all crammed like sardines.
It took almost 2 hours to finally ride the roller coaster. When we finally reached into the insides of the castle, plenty of frames were hanging on the walls. Some were still and some were talking framed images just like in the movie. The ride was crazy. We had to walk fast to sit on the ride because the floor was moving. We were sat in a closed bench that looks like an old church bench. The ride gave me a headache because we were being shaken a lot, from all sides. At some point, I was afraid that I was going fall upside down.
After the ride, we decided to walk back to the Dragon Alley. In the meantime, we saw some superheroes rides, the King Kong entrance and much more. Seeing the Dragon Alley at night, was totally different, mysterious and even a bit scary. We walked all around the Orlando park to check everything and ate in the Simpsons food court.
We arrived at our hotel at around midnight super dead. Barely slept again to go back to Philadelphia, then Montreal.
We had an exhausting trip but it was fun. I would not go back to Universal Studios. We only did three rides which were plenty enough. The Harry Potter rides seemed the most decorated and fun to do, thus why we did them. It was so well done that it looks real for example the Gringott’s bank, fake marble looking and the building itself is all designed from scratch. It’s a great place for kids or anyone who wants to get involved with magic. You can cast a spell, point and stand at the right spot to make the water fall from a statue or move objects. And of course, you need to buy a magic wand(that costs about 50$USD made from special kind of wood…pretty expensive) to cast a spell.
If we had another day we would have gone to the Daytona Beach. We would have also visited some more of Orlando like the Eola park, the Millenia Premium Outlet, Orlando’s downtown and much more.
Here goes the end of my post. Hope you all enjoyed it. Have you ever been to the Universal Studios? How did you find it? Which one was your favorite ride?
Thanks for reading and have a great week 🙂
My Love 4 Vanity 