The Magic of Disney, Harry Potter and Jaden by Liz Saunders

It’s been a very tiring week.  Vacations are supposed to be relaxing.  Not so with a 9 year old in tow and theme parks to do.

Theme parks every other day should be doable, right?  And physically it wasn’t bad (okay, I lie, my feet were killing me at the end of each day).  Thank goodness for the special pass we could get at both Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios, which probably saved us 8 hours in various line ups over 2 (and a bit) days.

It was more the angst and anxiety which were difficult to deal with and exhausting.   Between the bragging “I’ve done Leviathan at Canada’s Wonderland” (I don’t think it’s true, I don’t think he’s tall enough) to the fretting “is this fast?  Does it drop far?  Does it go upside down?” to the  “I’m scared, I don’t want to do this…are you sure it doesn’t go upside down?” to the eventual “I wasn’t scared…that was boring”.

Didn’t seem to matter that we were at Disney…”everything here is for children buddy, nothing is going to be too scary” (okay, okay, Space Mountain was pretty scary – but other than that…) followed by Universal where the scary rides were pretty darned obvious and a certain 9 year old would say “you guys are SO chicken that you wont go on that” (The Hulk, Drop Zone).

But I got to try Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice, visit Hogwarts and Hogsmeade; Jaden enjoyed Jurassic Park (particularly the water ride), Harry Potter (he has an official wand), Shrek, something about Minions and Gru, the Cat in the Hat and all the other lovable (and not so lovable) characters that inhabit the wonderlands that are the Orlando theme parks.

And so it ends.  We had a visit with Auntie Olivia, Bryan, Uncle Bruce, Aunt Betty, all day rain, all day cold and a couple of days that were warmish and sunny.  No relaxing by the pool, no sitting quietly in the sun, but a little boy who had a very memorable adventure in Florida.

And that’s what it should be all about.