Universal Studios – All Day
Up early and out the house by 8.30am this morning, determined to make the most of the day and get to the Theme Park before the queues all start…fat chance! Today was the turn of the Universal Studios (Islands of Adventures) – very popular at the minute because of the new addition of the Harry Potter World, so we made our way straight there…oh dear…very busy already at 8.45am – in fact it was packed out!
We joined up the queue for the main ride, the one that Lewis, Charlotte and I went on the night before and went straight in, however, this time it was slightly longer that we needed to wait. It probably didn’t help that every ten minutes we were saying how much quicker it was the night before! Anyway, it meant that we had plenty of time to take in all the setting and the scenery – very, very impressive. It was like actually being at Hogwarts, they really had the place down perfectly. We were there waiting for an hour and it was damned hot, but worth the wait and the ride itself was quality.
We went on a couple of more rides after that then wandered round the ‘village’ that was resplendent with snow covered houses, all the shops and everything that is in the Harry Potter world. Unbelievably expensive! Well, probably not so unbelievable…$10.00 for a chocolate frog, I think that tells you all you need to know!
What else? Watched the SinBAD show – bloody awful…Poseidon’s Fury – bloody brilliant. The special effects on that one were amazing and then wandered round Dr Seuss World. For us that isn’t so engrained in our childhoods as it would be for American’s but it was recognisable as Cat in the Hat and all that. Good fun there.
So, lunchtime, what to do? Spoilt for choice with all the options, but we’d made our own sandwiches and walked back to the car-park, turned on the air-conditioning and had our lunch in the multi-story…not quite sure how many other people would do that!
Back to the park after that refresh and cool down for the Spiderman and Dr Doom rides and then onto watch the Tony Hawks skateboard show which was brilliant. Loads of fantastic stunts, very impressive.
So, God knows how hot it was, but the chance to go on a water ride was too good to miss, however, we went on the Popeye/Bluto ride which wasn’t a case of getting damp, or splashed, but literally drenched. I have never been on a water ride where I have got so wet. Every part of my clothes, possessions, even underwear completed soaked! As were all of us, very funny. So, next to this was the log flume and it made perfect sense to go over to that and complete the ride whilst still soaked…
We were about to leave at 6.00pm and were walking past the huge great Hulk ride and the sign said it was only a 5 minute wait so straight onto that! Absolutely fantastic!
So on the way home we decided to stop off at the Designer Village and without any shred of pride were walking round all the shops in our damp, wet clothes. It was actually freezing because of the air-conditioning! Anyway, managed to find some stuff for the boys, and Lewis was very pleased as he found the boots he had his mind on before we even set out for the States.
Started making our way home at 10.15pm and realised we’d not eaten since lunch in the afternoon so on Highway 192 we pulled over in a Denys Restaurant and it was such a clichéd/authentic US restaurant – exactly what you imagine them to be. So we had burgers and unlimited refills of course!
All in all, a fantastic day, very full on…same again tomorrow!
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