i had to leave luna for the first time since our honeymoon. what kinda of person starts off their blog about orlando and cancun with that statement? a dog obsessed mom - that's who. it was heartbreaking, but we had to do it.
i stood in front of this stupid world to get this picture for at least 10 minutes. either someone would walk in front of me, or i wouldn't time it right - but here we have it. in all it's glory.
last summer, lee made me ever so proud by passing all these crazy tests and obtaining his senior title for his job. senior at age 28? okay, hubs, i see you. anyway, he got an incentive trip to orlando for a weekend in january. i love orlando as much as the next 5 year old, so book me on all the rides!!!
...enter in my own job promotion at the beginning of september, and i found out that we had an all manager's meeting which overlapped the same dates. so i flew from charlotte on a saturday to spend two days in orlando with lee, then left on that monday to fly to cancun for my own work function.
rough life, right? no, i'm not lucky, i'm blessed. yes.
we ended up buying park to park tickets to islands of adventure and universal studios - which included both of the harry potter parks.
ok, don't freak out.
i don't know much about harry potter. i know he's a wizard and there's a lightning bolt and they have brooms and there's this dude with a weird nose who i'm pretty sure is bad and there's butter beer. there's a train and a talking hat thing and a three headed dog. but even so, the parks down in orlando are amazing even if you don't know jack squat about what's going on.
and if you want to go on the scariest ride known to man, go on the simulator ride in the castle.
i freakin' love adrenaline rides or roller coasters, but this thing scared the absolute crap out of me. i went on this ride about 4 or so years ago for the first time, and i remember telling lee - this ride is no joke. i spent 3/4 of the thing with my hand over my eyes. they had spiders jumping out at you and i do. not. do. spiders.
anyway, go on it, don't listen to me you harry potter fans. what do i know?
the second day, we bought express passes. i'll be the first to admit - those things are outrageously priced. tickets ALONE are outrageously priced, but hey, you pay for convenience, right? so we did. i honestly felt bad walking past all those people who had to wait in line for 45+ minutes for the ride when lee and i waited no more than like 8-10 minutes. it was so worth it. we got to do multiple rides back to back and bounce from one park to another to catch rides we didn't get to the day prior due to wait times.
the express pass really came in handy for this coaster.
i know, i know. that's a sick pic. i took it and was like yessssssss. anyway, this is one of the coolest coasters i've ever been on. first of all, it's a 90 degree vertical climb to the top which is insane from the get go, but the reason this was so unique had nothing to do with that.
when you sat down, your lap bar came across & had a touchscreen. it asked you to select your favorite genre of music ranging from country to rap to rock to alternative. you picked your favorite and then it auto populated specific well known songs from that genre & you were to select one. at the top of that first drop, your selected song started playing through out the entire ride due to speakers embedded in your headrest. so. cool.
then at the end you get to see yourself filmed throughout the ride. they didn't tell you this - and oh my gosh it's freakin' hilarious.
then i jetted off to cancun.
i do not have nearly the amount of pictures or stories that i do in orlando since i was on business, but the resort pool was all kinds of heart emojis.
and so were the sunrises.
