DAY 5 (30 Oct 2013): Universal Studios
- Universal Studios' Adventure Island (Wizarding World of Harry Potter)
- Universal Studios 

So ever since I heard of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios a few years back, I've been itching to go because the place is basically a dream come true for Harry Potter fans. Bless the souls who thought of the idea - I mean, they're basically swimming in money now so they probably don't need the blessing, but it's such an awesome idea for a theme park! I wish there's one whole large theme park dedicated to it.

The WWOHP is basically just a park-within-a-park, lol. It was a pretty small section of the Adventure Island in Universal Studios, though it has some pretty good rides given its relatively small size. 

Obviously I loved the Forbidden Journey, which was pretty much a must. The Dragon Challenge was awesome, although we only got to go once since we wanted to cover both parks in one day. You can basically choose to take different "rides" on the Dragon Challenge as each tracks are different - choose either Slytherin (green) or Gryffindor (red). Definitely worth it.

The rest of the rides or attractions were pretty tame stuff, so we didn't really stick around that long. One thing I loved about our visit was that it was off-peak season, so we didn't really have to queue for our rides, which was awesome! I mean, the longest queue while we were at Universal was maybe 10 minutes? Well, we had the express pass as well which helped, but at certain rides I think even the express pass wouldn't have been useful if everyone had them. Disneyworld had slightly more people and longer queues compared to Universal Studios for us, but it still wasn't that crowded, so thank God for small mercies :D Was still feeling sick on this day but the nausea was slightly better so I went on every ride lol. (Although that Hulk ride... I tell you, if I barfed, I would've barfed on that ride.)

On to pictures!

Where's my Hogwarts Express? :(

The Forbidden Journey

Dragon Challenge

We ended the day after the Universal park with the Transformers ride. There was still time before Adventure Island closed, so I made my way over to Adventure Island again to go on Forbidden Journey a second time :D

Added bonus: when I got out of the ride, they were lighting up the place. Too bad it was still light out, or the surroundings would've looked much more beautiful!

And thus concludes our day at WWOHP and Universal Studios :'( The visit was definitely too short for me.

AND NOW I FOUND OUT THEY'RE PLANNING TO OPEN ANOTHER PARK WHICH IS DIAGON ALLEY WITH NEW RIDES THROUGH GRINGOTTS BANK HOW DARE YOU, SIR, HOW DARE YOU. It's supposedly set to open summer 2014 aughhhhhh whyyyyy!

...so this probably means I'd be returning to Universal Studios in 2015 >:)

Go to Day 4 (Disneyworld Day 2) | Day 6 & 7 (NYC)
NYC 2013 Masterpost

DAY 4 (29 Oct 2013): Disneyworld Day 2
- Disneyworld's Hollywood Studios 

So the last time I went to Disneyworld with my family, we only went to Magic Kingdom. So I had no idea what to expect for Hollywood Studios - was originally debating between going here vs. Epcot, but ended up going to Hollywood Studios for the number of rides it has compared to Epcot. 

I was basically feeling pretty sick on this day, and sprained my foot from over-excitement the previous day (lol no seriously, no idea how I sprained it, but there it is). So I chickened out of the Tower of Terror because I didn't want to barf all over other people lol (apparently it wasn't even that scary, darnit!). Ah well at least I did go on the Rock n' Roller Coaster, which was fun if a bit headache-inducing lol.

Felt slightly better afterwards so I did enjoy the rest of the day, luckily :) Not a lot of pictures due to the aforementioned nausea / barfing thing, though, ha.

We opted to go back earlier on this day to recuperate before we hit Universal Studios the next day, so our bus would be picking us up some time around 5pm. The shuttle buses between Disneyworld parks were pretty strict about their timing, so my friend and I missed the shuttle to our next bus T_T This was due to my sprained ankles, as I couldn't run and all *sobs* Thankfully everything turned out well, although the bus driver who was taking us back to the hotel did have to wait for us and make everyone else wait as well. 

Looking back at it, I would've probably laughed at myself, trying to run at full speed ahead while nursing a sprained ankle. C'est la vie, non? 

Next day: WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER YESSSSSS.

Go to Day 3 (Disneyworld Day 1) | Day 5 (Universal Studios)
NYC 2013 Masterpost

DAY 3 (28 Oct 2013): Malaysia - NYC - Orlando
- Disneyworld's Magic Kingdom 

I still remember my last visit to Disneyworld with my whole family, which was more than 10 years ago. It was during summer holidays, and it was sweltering - the humid kind, the kind I hate the most because the sweat clings to you and make you all icky (as opposed to the burning one where you mostly get sunburnt). 

My parents were there on a scholarship, as they were pursuing their Masters' degrees at the time (both of them were studying in RPI, Troy). There were seven of us in the family, including my parents. Basically we had to really save up for the Disneyworld & Universal Studios trip at the time, so we cut cost wherever we can, which meant packed lunches for us basically.

So imagine the sweltering heat, the crowd due to summer holidays, the waiting lines, and then imagine having to carry the packed lunches and camera equipment.

Looking back at it, I was an ungrateful idiot :) 

I mean, there we were in Disneyworld, and we were supposed to enjoy ourselves instead of sulking over heavy bags. Eventually I got over the whole bag thing and we eventually began to enjoy ourselves, but existing pictures of our time in Disneyworld and Universal Studios would pretty much show our sulky faces when they were taken in the early morning :P So thanks mom & dad for putting up with me and my sulky ways, I love you forever. 

Having that in mind, I was happy to visit Disneyworld again, and was determined to enjoy myself from morning to nighttime!

We went there a few days before Halloween, and the decorations were fantastic! I saw some pictures of Disneyworld during Christmas and wow, that was even lovelier. They really think of all the fine details.

Darnit, sun!

Disneyworld has Starbucks now! Definitely wasn't there 10 years ago, not that we could've afforded it on our budget lol

Lunch at one of their restaurants

This was where my family and I sat down to have our packed lunches and drinks, lol. Meeeemories~

LOVE the Tangled deco - can you spot a wanted poster? 

The parade show that night was fantastic, love all the lightworks and the fireworks - didn't manage to get any good pictures of the fireworks since there were too many people and I was actually coming down with a cold, unfortunately.

Overall though, it was a memorable trip, and I got to revisit all my favourite rides and re-live my childhood. How many people can claim that, really, so I consider myself lucky.

The next day: Disneyworld Day 2!

Go to Day 2 (Orlando) | Day 4 (Disneyworld Day 2)
NYC 2013 Masterpost

DAY 1 (27 Oct 2013): Malaysia - NYC - Orlando
- Shopping @ outlets 

After the hectic day we had the previous day, what with the 24hours++ journey and transit and all, you would've thought we'd be jetlagged and tired on this day.

Fear not, the thought of shopping put every exhaustion out of our mind :D

First thing we did was to walk to a nearby iHop for breakfast - the pancakes were pretty good! All soft and light, just the way I love it. Oh I miss American food sometimes!

Afterwards, we went to buy our iTrolley ticket - think we bought it to be used in 3 days, and it was pretty cheap considering ($7) we can use it any time within the loops that run in between the roads in Universal area.

There were two shopping outlets nearby, and we decided to go to both (of course) after breakfast. The outlets were really huge, but I wasn't interested in all of the brands since I couldn't afford most of them :P I was very happy with their Coach and Kate Spade selections, however! 

Without realizing it, I already spent $1000 (USD mind you!) in one day OTL.

Forgive the lack of pictures, I was too busy concentrating on shopping for bargains rather than taking pictures unfortunately. 

So that was basically the end of Day 2 in Orlando - with lots of smiles and lots of shopping bags (and empty wallets). 

Go to Day 1 (Malaysia - Orlando) | Day 3 (Orlando)
NYC 2013 Masterpost

DAY 1 (26 Oct 2013): Malaysia - NYC - Orlando
- Malaysia to NYC
- NYC to Orlando (Orlando Point Resort)

Honestly I tend to procrastinate a lot when it comes to doing this whole blogging thing, but at least I'm starting now. Still can't believe that the actual trip was around 3 - 4 months ago! It still feels like a dream!

Anyway, this trip wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for my two friends, Zsa and Hana, both of whom are living in Aussie for now. It was their initial plan to go to Orlando & NYC and they've been planning it for quite some time now. Another friend and I decided to tag along because it would be fun, plus it'd be an awesome year end trip.

We did have some misgivings about it when we heard about the bombing attack at Boston Marathon in early 2013, especially since we were planning to be in NYC when the NYC marathon takes place! (We eventually decided to use that day to go for a one-day trip to Troy, Albany in order to avoid any unwanted problems.) So yeah, amidst all the fear with the bombings and with tighter security, we still made our plans, and when the time came, we set off to NYC :)

Since my friend and I were coming from Malaysia, we took Qatar Airways (which had the cheapest price amongst its competitors at the time) to NYC (with a transit in Doha). The flight itself was okay, although we spent almost 23 hours in flight come to think of it. And the sucky part was that our Doha - JFK flight was delayed, and so we had to rush from immigration to our next departing flight to Orlando, MCO. 

Originally we had allocated 4 hours in between our arrival time and our domestic flight to Orlando, and I thought that was ample time, since we'd be arriving in Orlando pretty late at night otherwise. But with the looooong queue at immigration, we waited for at least 2 hours until we couldn't take it anymore and practically begged the women who was manning the immigration line to let us through first on account of our connecting flight. She was awesome enough to oblige, so we ran and made it to our connecting flight.

And so we basically lost one day in transit, and arrived in Orlando around 11pm. We took off to our hotel, Orlando Point Resort, and met up with our two friends who came in earlier from Aussie and had time to shop around ahead of us. 

All in all, a pretty uneventful flight and a hectic transit to Orlando. The trip was just beginning. 

Go to Day 2 (Orlando)
NYC 2013 Masterpost

Well, it's been pretty silent over here since I'm just waiting impatiently for my NYC trip (20 more days!!!). In the meantime, thought I'd just show off my beautiful Photobook :D

Photobooks are probably the new "in-thing" right now in Malaysia - more so since we've all pretty much resorted to digital cameras, but we don't really whip out those pictures to look at it anymore. So photobooks really shouldn't come as a surprise since it gives you the best of both worlds - you get to shoot in digital form, but you also get to see the pictures in the physical form.

I bought a Photobook Malaysia deal at Groupon Malaysia a while back, and when inspiration finally struck, I finally sat down and finished collaging the whole thing. I got it on a cheap deal (RM54) so it was a win/win situation for me. The software itself was easy to configure and once you got the ball rolling, it felt so exciting to put everything together.

Everything was done on the computer - when I was done with my book, I sent an order through the internet (the software has an uploading option) and not even a week later, my book came! Yay!

Overall, I'm super happy with the quality of the photobook and can highly recommend Photobook Malaysia's service. Good user-friendly software; beautiful, glossy pages with excellent colour rendering; fast and efficient service (there was an instance where the cover had to be adjusted and they emailed me and resolved everything so efficiently) - I'm very happy with their service this time around. Just keep an eye out for a Groupon deal because the deals are pretty common nowadays.

In fact, I've bought another deal in anticipation of my NYC trip :P NYC, here I come!

(Also, I purchased another item which I'm super excited to use in NYC! Will be putting up a post on that soon.)