The Grand Bro Trip (Orlando, Florida) - Day 11

This summer holidays, my Bro and I went on the trip of a lifetime! 2 weeks of amazing times on the Grand Bro Trip in Orlando, Florida.

Day 11, 5/8 (Friday)

Day 5 of Disney!

Today was our final day at Disney (sob!) and we were back at Magic Kingdom. We started our day by grabbing another LL for Jungle Cruise so that we could actually go on it! Then we got a little more snoozing in and then packed up. We did today our second Disneybound - Yzma and Kronk from the Emperor's New Groove. I wore all black and purple accessories, and Bro had an amazing outfit. We also quoted the film quite a lot throughout the day and someone did spot us which was super cool. We  had to pack up everything because we were checking out of the Poly today and moving over to the Aventura for the Universal part of our trip. We checked into the valet at the hotel and headed straight over to the Magic Kingdom!

Our first stop was Jungle Cruise because we knew that we knew that we wanted to go on 'The Rock's Tiny Tugboat'. It was a chill way to start the morning and a great way to start the day (although I'm not sure how they turned it into a film!). After that we headed back over to everyone's favourite ride - ours at least - Pirates! This was my 6th time in 5 days. Then we grabbed another LL for a ride that had had long queues all week but I wanted to experience, the Winnie the Pooh ride. It was really really sweet and gave us lots of nostalgia which we really enjoyed! For lunch we wanted something less huge than in previous days, and given we had had Casey's Corner twice we had a look on the app and found the Columbia Harbour House, where Bro had a fish burger, and I had an lobster roll. It was amazing and they also had lemonade slushies which were absolutely perfect!

The Harbour House was really close to the Haunted Mansion and so we popped in there again. Love it - and I should rewatch the movie. I then realised that there was a place that we hadn't been in which may have had a cool photo spot so we went looking for Gaston's Tavern. We didn't eat or drink anything becuase we had just had lunch but we got to see and sit in Gaston's chair. Sadly he wasn't there this time to reassure us how awesome he is. After that we wanted to catch a show so we went to Philharmagic show, which was kinda like an updated 3d film similar to Fantasia. That was what we were hoping for so it was exactly what we wanted!

Before we left the park mid-afternoon for the final time, we had to bookend our Disney Experience by finishing with the same as our first ride. So, Pirates of the Caribbean for the final time. I have to admit, I was quite disappointed to be leaving so soon. I can truly understand why people come every year, or more than once a year, and spend 2 weeks. It would allow you to eat as many treats and at as many restaurants as you want, ensure you catch the MK fireworks (which we did) and the Epcot fireworks (which we didn't get to), repeat your favourite experiences, and not burn out from trying to fit too many things into each day. I feel like we hit a great balance in these 5 days and we definitely did everything we really wanted to - and repeated some things! I am writing this less than 2 months later and I already would like to go back - or maybe to try California or Paris next!

We sadly took the monorail back to the Poly, collected our bags and got an Uber over to the Aventura. While we are at Universal we are going to use the bus service. It turns out that Universal CityWalk (the shopping area) actually leads to both parks, which are also linked at the back. Our room at the Aventura is many floors up and has a view over the carpark to the top of Volano Bay, the Universal waterpark! For dinner, we changed into more regular clothes and headed over on the bus to CityWalk.

We started with a wander through some of the shops. They have a Universal store as well as a Universal Heritage store. The regular store was about half HP merch and I oohed and ahhed over lots of things, and then saw the Loungefly bags! There were 3 to choose from - one Honeydukes themed, one Hedwig one, and a Hogwarts castle one. I love them all so took photos to ask my friends for advice and will sleep on it. Basically we made lists of things we liked like we did at Disney. I also appreciated some of the Heritage stuff like Jurassic Park and ET more than the Minions stuff if I'm honest.

We decided to eat sushi, but they didn't have any space so instead we went for pizza. I just had a margarita and then we grabbed some mini Cinnabons for the hotel room and headed back to eat them and get some sleep ahead of our journey to Hogwarts tomorrow!