Well, my Leakycon experience has begun.
After much research, I found the hotel, the park, got registered for Leakycon(no paid activities though
) and sorted out most of the issues involving information and changing one of the registrations(My dad is with me instead of my sister).
We departed from the Outagamie County Airport at 5:50AM, Central Time. That meant I only got an hour's sleep. We left the house shortly after 4:30, when I forgot most of my DVDs-goodbye HP marathon-and boarded the plane effortlessly and landed in Milwaukee where I got a Blanco Mocha from the coffee place-not as sweet as a regular mocha, which I usually get at Micky D's-and then had some French Toast from Johnny Rockit's. They dont even serve shakes at breakfast time. The rest of the flight was nice enough. I slept then, after perusing the Noble Collection page of the airline catalog and drooling over Lucius Malfoy's Walking Stick, and we got off at the Orlando International Airport. Talk about huge. We had to take a shuttle to the baggage claim and even then we had to go down a floor.
Not without stopping at the Universal Gift shop though. If I was excited about the Wizarding World before, I was even more excited after seeing the whole half of the small store that was devoted to Potter. Light-up Remembralls, little Golden Snitches, Wand Replicas, Honeyduke's sweets, Chocolate Frogs that actually came in movie tin packaging, and same for the Bertie Bott's Beans. The shelves were topped with musty old books and dusty old trunks too and Neville's Waltz was playing in the background. Didnt buy anything, but it definitely whet my apetite and the constant ads I saw afterwards(a giant cardboard display on the exterior wall of the gift shop and a billboard with Harry using a 3D sculpted wand! :O) only made me want tomorrow to come even more. I dont care if I'm missing the opening festivities, I'm going to the Con whether I have to pay admission to Universal or not!
We then skipped the Disney Store and went to claim our bags. After a few minutes of trying to figure out ground transportation, we found a pay shuttle service-Mears-that would take us to the hotel cheaper than a taxi. It was a well-kept van for sure. There were a couple other groups in the same car. After going down Universal Blvd with palm trees on both sides(totally hollywood), we were the first dropped off at the Point Orlando Resort.
How does it fair? Quite good. It's 3 1/2 stars and the "Junior Executive Suite" was in our price range. Nice roo-607H-though it's only one bed and the couch has a pullout. It has a mini-kitchen and overlooks the outdoor pool. We sweated our way to Walgreens shortly after while trying to figure out our plans for the day and hydrated on the way back with a new pair of sunglasses, sunscreen that we conviently forgot to pack, and snacks for the kitchen.
Afterwards, I decided to go swimming, but after an hour or so of waiting around for the pool to be cleared of so many people I dont know, I decided I'll just go in the last hour before closing, if I make it back in time. That's when I took a shower and now I'm writing this.
We decided to go to Disney today, but due to cost and different hours of the parks, we may end just hit Downtown Disney when the sun is set and the cooler air comes. Havent been to Disney World since I was 7, and kinda wanted to go. it was his suggestion-and we found the dinner-theaters to be a little amateur looking or I did anyway-but it would've been $170 for just an afternoon and DD is at least free.
So far, a pretty good 21st. I feel like I just jumped a fence I've been staring at for a long, long time. The pool has a bar, so maybe......
). I'm not sure if Walmart has a standard price that an item sells for at all their stores, or if it's a store-by-store basis kind of thing.
)
I knew Jim Kay would take a while with OotP considering it's the longest one, but it's the one I'm most looking forward to at the same time.