Our Despicable Me 2 Family Trip Experience #DM2Orlando #Spon

#DM2Orlando bloggers
In early June, my kids and I were invited to go on a Despicable Me 2 trip. Universal Studios invited us to see the Despicable Me 2 movie before it is released. All expenses for the trip were covered by Universal Studios.
When we first arrived at the Lowe’s Portofino Hotel, this is what was waiting for us in our room. You will see the Minion hat on several of my kids throughout the first night. That basket put us in the Despicable Me 2 mood.

Day 1 Adventure

We started out the trip by watching the Despicable Me 2 movie (which is several weeks before it’s release date of July 3, 2013.) We went to the Universal theaters at City Walk and had the theater to ourselves. Full review of movie to come next week. But let’s just say, we all left very satisfied. The movie surpassed my expectations and shows you a whole new softer side of Gru. Despicable Me 2 poster

A scene for the movie. Gru & the girls After the movie, we had attended a VIP party with the Despicable Me 2 characters. The decor in this party room all had a Mexican theme. There was items all over the room that tied into the movie All the tables had toys and puzzles from the movie.

Despicable Me 2 ice sculpture
My kids had a blast running around with their new friends. It was really nice that there were kids there close to both Nicky & Megan’s age.
kids playing at party

The kids had fun dancing with the Minions and having their photos taken.

kids dancing with characters
There is the Minion hat….

My older daughter started working on the Despicable Me 2 Minion puzzle and was not going to leave the party until she finished it.

Despicable Me 2 puzzle
puzzle
She had a bit of help with the puzzle.
Gru helping with puzzle
puzzle help
She did finish the puzzle (and the Minion hat again.)
The food was a taco bar, guacamole station and desserts that were as gorgeous as they were tasty. We were treated to special Despicable Me drinks and the kids loved that non-alcoholic versions were available.
And see who else is wearing the Minion hat…
dm2orlando
After photo bombing Nicky’s photo. The kids had such a good time playing with the kids characters from the movie.
photo-bombed
And even my 16-year-old son stopped to take a photo with his mom.
Next, we were treated to the Blue Man Group show. I have always wanted to see this show and never had the chance, so this was a new experience for my kids and I. Awesome show. I’m just amazed at what you can do to entertain a crowd. Who ever thought watching people on stage eating Twinkies could be entertaining??!!! You’ll need to see the show to understand that one.
waiting for blue man group to start

One of the Blue Men (is that what you call them?) did a Meet & Greet with us after the show. He never said a word, but still managed to communicate with us all.

McGraw family with Blue Man Group
We collapsed back in our room at the Lowe’s Portofino Hotel sometime after midnight. It was an exciting beginning to our adventure.

Day 2 Despicable Me 2 Adventure

The next day started early with breakfast at the Universal Studios theme park with some of the Despicable Me 2 characters. They mingled with us while we ate breakfast and got ready for our day 2 adventure.

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Minion breakfast

breakfast

We listened closely to our assignment.

wpid-Photo-Jun-8-2013-931-AM.jpg

And my 10-year-old was all ready for our Minion Mayhem adventure:

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Our first stop on our Scavenger Hunt was a ride on Minion Mayhem.

Minion Mayhem ride

Minion Mayhem ride
We waited in line for the Minion Mayhem ride.
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After the ride, our scavenger adventure began. We were given clues and assignments at each site. Here a guide is giving us the clues to figure out where we needed to go next.

getting clues

Once we figured out the clue, we received a collectible souvenir pin.

souvenir pins

My kids were very helpful during the scavenger hunt. They knew a lot about the movies and books portrayed in the theme parks. They were able to quickly answer the questions.

The hunt took us all over both the theme parks, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventures and we have some awesome photos to remember our adventure. The above photo includes all the Instagram photos I took during the scavenger hunt.

Lunch Break at Universal Studios

After the scavenger hunt, the kids and I cooled off with lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Hard Rock Cafe

The afternoon included a VIP tour of the theme parks. This is the same tour that a celebrity or other “VIP” would receive. We learned so much about the rides and the parks from our tour guide. I’ll be doing another post on the park and I’ll give you a lot of hints & tips we learned. We were able to go on any of the rides and went up to the front. Nicky road a roller coaster for the first time and was so proud of himself.

During our tour, we had torrential rains. It was raining so hard, we were stuck in the basement of the Harry Potter ride and had to wait it out. Fortunately, it was almost the end of our tour and we didn’t miss anything from the rain.

My girls loved this next part. We were going to be attending the Big Time Rush concert later that evening, but before dinner, we went to a Meet & Greet with the Big Time Rush band. My daughter was in heaven because one of the boys touched her iPhone when he showed our tour guide how to bring the camera up.

McGraw family with Big Time Rush

Then it was off to dinner which was a carnival theme. We had pretzels, french fries, hot dogs and many other carnival type foods.

We thought our surprises were done for the day, but we learned that we were going to be able to ride the new Transformers ride which wasn’t “officially” open yet.
Hearing about the ride from one of the creators was really interesting too.
Our family is a big Transformers fan, so being face-to-face with Optimus Prime was pretty cool.
And the evening was topped off with front row standing at the Big Time Rush concert. It rained during most of the concert, but we didn’t care.
My kids and I had such an incredible time. This was definitely an experience we will never forget. It was really exciting to see more of the park and learn about the Despicable Me 2 movie and the parks. I will be sharing more with you about the movie and the parks in the next week.
Disclosure: All of my expenses were covered by Universal Studios for this trip. (I did buy the plane tickets for my older 2 children, but all other expenses covered.) No other compensation was received. This post is one of 2 required posts. The information and all opinions are 100% my own.

Let me know if you have any specific questions about either the parks or the movie and I will try to answer those questions in my next 2 posts. Photos taken by me and the really good ones were taken by the Universal Studios photographer.

2 Comments

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  • I enjoyed reading about your Universal Studios experience. I wish I had been able to see all of your photos. I saw empty boxes for most of them. My husband wants to go there for our next Orlando vacation. Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you had an amazing trip!

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