2019 December, XMAS with Grandson, Universal Studios

 Hi Everyone – Departing DC in the Rialta it was so good to be on the road again. Seems we really love the lifestyle of RV traveling and can't get enough of it! Slept so good it is uncanny.

Dinner with Doug and family at El Jalapeno we catch up on what's been going on. Missing our other grandson Alex for he is in boot camp, it was still good to get together, I guess having everyone in one place at the same time will be harder to do from now on.

Of course, every trip starts with a Waffle House breakfast. 

Picking up essentials at a Walmart we head to Savannah, GA for the first stop. Izi Travel app has a good tour of Savannah. Riding around the city listening to Izi describe each location where ghosts had made appearances and the buildings that were important such as Juliet Gordon Low who created the “Girl Scouts" in the 1920’s. Cool stuff and fun to learn about. Or the servant who haunts the kitchen and throws pans around!

Leopold’s ice cream parlor, mmmmm, with marble countertops and soda jerks. Parking was in high demand, so Tanya circled the block while Zach and I ran in and picked up some double scoop ice cream.

Zach has a lunch visit with Grandma Doris at Texas Roadhouse – so much food! Catching up is always fun, and Doris shares pictures of Zach’s visit with her the previous year and make plans for spring break since he will be with us for the summer. Always too short amount of time and try to keep planning to spend more time together.

Here we are finally at Universal Studios!

Zach:

We got up early to get breakfast then took an Uber to Universal so we could get our tickets and get in before it became crowded. Once we finally got in the first thing, we did was ride the Fast and Furious ride, it was cool how they added the “smoke” for effects.

Went over to Dragon Alley and found a wand that caught my interest. It was filled with darkness like my soul, so I felt a special connection with it. 😊 The wand was interactive within the park, so I went on to practice the dark arts.

Tom:

Zach’s wand had interactive properties in the Harry Potter area of the park. We're able to find many of the features, and Zach was able to make them perform magic!

Zach does Magic! – click this link - https://youtu.be/PPRN7arZP_M

 

Getting back to the campground, Tanya put on some Christmas music, for it is Christmas Eve. Before long, Tanya and I are dancing to the music and Zach joins in and we're dancing all together having a great time dancing in the campground. Soo good to move your body after driving all day!

Tanya:

Next morning, the Christmas day, we slept in a little bit. The weather was so nice at the night – a light breeze, very quiet, not too cold, the perfect sleeping weather. We went to the same Waffle House for breakfast as we did yesterday. Even though it was noisy there, we decided to brave it, and it was even more loud there today! As we were eating our food, several people walked in and started handing $100 bills to the staff – that surely made everyone working there very happy!

After our very, very loud but good breakfast, we went back to Universal. We're currently standing in line waiting for our rollercoaster ride. Keeping my fingers crossed that it’s not going to be too scary… I'm a bit afraid of the rides… will be brave.

Tom:

After a few rides at the Studios Park, we ride the train to the Islands of Adventure. The train was part of the movie (Zach lets us know what fits the movies, for we're so not with it on this type of thing) getting off the train the first stop is for sustenance, WOW, you know the cost is high but it's still a shock.

Castle ride and I hope the food stays down:::::: 😊

Pictures that talk, holograms getting us to the castle, I'm assuming it is scenes from the movies or something like that. What great science!

 Good ride through the castle. Tanya and I head back to the RV for a much-needed rest, and Zach soldiers on!

Zach:

I rode the Harry Potter motorcycle coaster and bought some chocolate frogs. Then I went to back to the RV and we sat around watching a Christmas movie – I don’t remember the title, but it was good. I made us all dinner and we all ate together at the table while watching the movie. Once it got dark, we headed back into the park to see the Christmas parade.

 

 

 

And cool cars too!!

Grandpa couldn’t hold out for the rest of the night so him and Tanya went back to the RV as I stayed and rode the Transformers ride and watched the water show. Went back to the campground and fell asleep when my head hit the pillow.

Now its Thursday, the day after Christmas, and we decided to start the day out with something different, so we went to First Watch for breakfast. Once we got to Universal, we decided to lose our breakfast on the first ride, the Hulk coaster. It goes up and shoots you off going at a high speed in just seconds. Lines started getting long so we left and went to Walmart and picked up some things. Before heading back to Universal we stopped at Burger King and got some whoppers. I went off on my own while grandpa and Tanya went to the campground and did their own thing. I went and scouted out Volcano Bay, but I couldn’t go into the water because the park was about to close. After checking out the park I went back to the regular theme park and got a classic Cinnabon because I was getting hungry and needed something to eat. I haven’t had one in a while, and it was so worth it!

After enjoying my delicious Cinnabon roll it was time to have some fun. I rode the Cat in the Hat coaster then went off to so fast spinning ride. I got dizzy before the ride even started: it had a wheel in the middle that you could turn, and it made you spin faster, so once I sat down, I started spinning it before the ride even started. Once it stopped, I could not get out of it to save my life!

I went looking around for other things to explore and found an arcade, so I went inside and got some tokens to play some games. I stayed there playing games till the park closed. It was so much fun! I could have stayed there all-night long-playing games. I was lucky enough to win tickets in a crane machine on my first try and I ended the night with 910 tickets which I used to get candy. 😊

 

Pic-tickets

 

The next morning, we had our usual Waffle House breakfast. Grandpa was planning to do some work repairing the black water tank in the RV that morning. I had a chance to help him with that but had to man up and deny the job to go to Universal! I just couldn’t take the fun away from my grandpa and leave him being bored with nothing to do. 😊

So, I headed off to Volcano Bay and went down all the slides. Most of them required at least 2 people, so I met some new people and had fun. But the best of all was the 6-foot drop slide: you slide down a tube and at the bottom is a 6-foot drop into a 10-foot-deep pool. None of the other water rides could even compare to how much fun this one was. When I went to the other rides and they said one of the slides was more intense I expected it to be very thrilling, but it wasn’t as intense as I was hoping for.

In the afternoon we met with Grandma Doris at her hair salon and ate spinach fandango – this is our signature family dish! It was very nice to have everyone together one more time before we headed back home.

So, it has been a wonderful Christmas filled with Travel, Fun, Family