Our first full day here, and before we’d arrived, we’d decided what we would be doing each day. We’d booked various Fast Passes for certain rides, so we were all ready to start having fun. Today we were spending the whole day at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, or as it was later named by me, Islands of Puke Adventure. At each park we took a family selfie, so you’ll be seeing lots of these as we go through each day.

Islands of Adventure family selfie.

When we first arrived there was hardly anyone about, and the first ride that we came across was Dragon’s Challenge. Now please bare in mind that I’m now 40 (yes I know I don’t look it), and haven’t been on a roller coaster for a good few years. I don’t like to go upside down, and drop suddenly. I don’t like to be thrown about and feel like I’ve been through the washing machine spin cycle and I like to look at rides before I venture on them. Before I knew what was happening, I was strapped into this ride and then the horror began. I believe I said every single swear word very loud (even the really bad ones) as this ride threw me about and let me see the sky more times than I wanted to. Once it stopped I was shaking like a jelly and had to then sit down on a bench for a little while.

I think I was shaking more than Mr Jelly.

Then after I’d recovered a little we then went onto the next ride, which was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. They make this sound like a lovely gentle ride where your seat just rocks back and forth and you watch a huge screen and follow the characters through their journey. Well they LIED!! You’re flung about and whizzed up, down and round. I didn’t see much of the ride as I started to feel very unwell at this point, so tried to focus on the side of the seat, but that didn’t work. Let’s just say that it was handy that I was on the end seat!! I believe I shouted “MAKE IT STOP!!” several times. When it finally finished did finish, I was whisked off by a fabulous lady called Theresa, where she gave me some spare clothes and let me clean up. I then said to Mark that the best thing for me was to go and lie down in the First Aid room for about an hour and then they could go and have fun, and then come and pick me up later. Which they did. I fell asleep and when I woke about 45 minutes later, I felt much better. For the rest of the day I carried the bags, took photos and did some shopping while they all went on all these rides and had a great day. Well someone has to hold the bags don’t they? They all got very wet (especially George) on the water rides. George was ecstatic at being able to go on these rides again and again. And having to wait 30-40 minutes wasn’t a problem for him at all. Sometimes Emily stayed with me, and the boys went to play, but to be honest I was happy watching them have all the fun.

All very wet after fighting dinosaurs.

Later we met Mark’s old school friend Sally and her partner Sarah, and had dinner in Bubba Gump Shrimp, before heading back to the hotel and to bed.