Goodbye to Universal...

So, our last day and we were off to Target first thing to do some essential shopping! I treated Sophie and myself to two new beach towels which we will use at the gym as the ones we use at the moment are tatty in the extreme! We also bought several bottles of wine - a range of the Rex Goliath wines and the Hess Chardonnay from Monterey in California that I enjoyed so much at BJ's Brewhouse the other night.

Our stash - I just hope they make it home in one piece!

Sophie and Mikey bought some sweets for their friends back home and we had a good mooch about, looking at all the different things to buy.

Back at the villa we had coffee and muffins for breakfast and then it was time to relax in the sun for a while. I kept popping back into the villa and doing the odd bit of packing when it became too hot! I was dreading the packing, to be honest, as we'd all bought a fair amount of clothes while we were out here and we had to try and find a way of getting the wine - plus a bottle of whiskey for my Dad and an opened litre bottle of vodka into the cases!

We'd decided to go to Universal in the evening for one last visit to Islands of Adventure, but before we set out we finished all the packing and managed to squeeze everything in! I just hope it makes it to Gatwick safely!

We had a fabulous time at Universal and we were amazed at what a difference a week makes! MIkey wanted an airbrush tattoo so he sat and had it done while I went into the Christmas shop and bought a tree decoration. Hopefully, every time I look at it in the middle of winter I'll be reminded of our lovely holiday.

  There were hardly any queues and the wait times were minimal. Sophie and Mikey rode Dr Death's Fearfall first and said it was great, but they wished it had lasted longer! We then went on Spiderman again and we all enjoyed it much more than last week for some reason! It was brilliant and very entertaining!

 As it was still quite hot (it briefly showed 90 degrees on the way to the park) we made our way to Harry Potter land and had a drink in the Three Broomsticks. It's supposed to be like an olde English pub, but they didn't get it quite right as we had to order our drinks from one server and then make our way to another servery to get them! Very odd! However, it was great to go in there and also to explore Hogsmeade village properly as we hadn't had a chance up until now. Mikey bought some jelly beans in Honeydukes, some of which had revolting flavours! I contented myself with a bar of chocolate!

Keith and the kids outside The Three Broomsticks

Keith stayed in The Three Broomsticks while the three of us rode The Forbidden Journey again. Again, we were amazed at the difference in the wait times (15 minutes) and we almost walked straight on! It was a brilliant ride, and very scary!

After The Wizarding World of Harry Potter we sauntered through the rest of the park and Sophie stopped to buy some presents for her friends at the Lucky Eye stand. I'd bought a necklace last week and it had already brought us good luck as Mikey wanted a sign for his room and the man who was selling them gave us a discount as I was wearing the lucky ornament!

The park closed at 8pm so after Keith and Mikey rode The Cat in the Hat (OK...I made them!) we drove to the Longhorn Steak House on the 192 for dinner. Last time we were there we had crowds of people waiting in the entrance and at the bar for a table but tonight the place was very quiet indeed! We waited for, perhaps, five minutes and then were shown to our table.

Our waiter, Damon, was a real character and we had a great meal. Keith and I started with spicy shrimps while the children feasted on chilli cheese fries. I'd decided to go for the half rack of baby ribs, Keith chose a Ribeye steak, Sophie had the loaded Sirloin and Mikey had the Parmesan crusted chicken. Again, the meal was delicious and we ended with the Chocolate Stampede which even defeated the children! It was HUGE!

We had one last drink on the terrace before bed (Keith had bought a small bottle of Seagrams 7 in the liquor store this morning) and watched frogs hopping about outside the netting. We'd never seen them before and assumed they were coming from the lake behind the house. There was a large one on the drive when we put the bin out and one even let Sophie stroke him...shame she didn't kiss him, he might have turned into a handsome prince!