Mexican Riviera Cruise

Last week, while I worked and looked after the dogs, Susan and Jenn drove down to Los Angeles and boarded a four night Princess cruise down to Mexico. They went with some of the women my wife had met through scrapbooking.

Their first stop was in Solvang in California where they took a tour of the Swedish buildings downtown.

The second port of call was Ensenada Mexico. After a day at sea they returned to Los Angeles.

Diagon Alley

We were also able to spend a day at the Universal Resort. We spent most of our time in the new Harry Potter area at the Studios, Diagon Alley. The shops were well themed, and the restaurant, the Leaky Cauldron, was pretty good. 

 

We really enjoyed the train between the Harry Potter areas in the two parks, as well as the Escape from Gringott's attraction. It's a cross between an indoor roller coaster and an omnimover, shifting you between large 3D screens that tell the story of a tour of Gringott's that goes wrong.  

Over in Islands of Adventure, they had closed the Dragon Challenge coaster (the former Dueling Dragons) and started work on a new Harry Potter attraction.

Orlando

Last week, we flew out to Florida again. The main purpose of our visit was to empty the storage locker of stuff Bryan left behind when he moved back to Oregon, but we also spent a few days in the parks.

We checked out the Flower and Garden festival at Epcot and spent some time in Hollywood Studios, including checking out the entrance to the future Star Wars Land.

We also enjoyed seeing the models for the new Toy Story Land and Star Wars land currently under construction.

We also rode the Peoplemover in the Magic Kingdom, and were able to see inside Space Mountain with the lights on, as it was undergoing refurbishment.

  

We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, where there was lots of construction going on. The lobby area is being expanded, a new DVC resort is being built north of the resort, and work on a gondola system to connect several resorts and parks had just begun.