Park Hard All Day
Monday
14 Nov 2016
Today we decided to sleep in a skosh (look that shit up, it's a real word!). Em has a fancy shmancy app that gives you the park census and other tidbits of helpful info. We knew we were going to have a long day so we got up at 8a, got ready, had our usual delish breakfaat in the Rock Royalty Lounge, and headed O-U-T.
Today we entered the park through Islands of Adventure because we started in Universal Studios yesterday. Our plan was really just to hit as much stuff as we could and that way Tuesday can be a catch fall for anything we missed or didn't get to. By the by, I'm still walking through the park starry-eyed and stopping to take pictures every two seconds, and then asking Em to take a picture of me every 32 seconds.
Our first ride was 'The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman'! And boy were they Ahhhh!-mazing! It was pretty awesome, I can totally get down with these 3D CGI movers & shakers rides. They also put a lot of detail into the waiting in line part (which we didn't do much of because we have express passes); they manage the crowds professionally and happily. We did not have to use lockers for this ride so I was able to snap a couple of photos as we walked through to get to the cars. After nearly every ride they push you out into a store so we looked around a little, they had your tradional "BAM!", "POW!", "THWOP!" 😂 on the walls and of course a bunch of groovy (synonym for cool) items for purchase.
This park is excellent for people who appreciate the small things.. guys- they even paid attention to the frigging GROUND. The part that you WALK on. For example in the Jurassic Park area the ground is full of fossils! And in The Lost Continent (home to Poseidon's Fury) the ground has SEASHELLSSSS!
Okay, back to business. After 'Marvel Super Hero Island' comes 'Toon Lagoon'! I thought this was so entertaining! Big thought bubbles everywhere, parts of comic strips, cartooned displays with water and other things. Very fun. I squealed when I saw Marmaduke and also got excited about Spike's dog house, although there was no Spike. 🙁 The two big rides here are water dealios so we skipped those but we did watch just clear of the splash zone.
NEXT was the NEW Skull Island: Reign of Kong!!! Em forgot about it yesterday 😂 It was good to do something she hasn't already! 💀🐵 It was intense and again they are very good about making sure you are stimulated while you wait! The cave walls are so real and there are skulls all around and exotic plant life. We didn't wait long, maybe 15ish minutes (that express pass 😉) and we were ready to go! They jammed a bunch of us on a row in a safari type vehicle. It was enjoyable but not as incredibly impressive as HP.
Time for Jurassic Park! Not much here but a bunch of photo-ops, which is fine with me, and a water ride. We skipped that but again watched from just outside the splash zone. We wanted to do 'Pteranodon Flyers', you get to be a Pteranodon and fly around the top of Jurassic Park! Alas, it's only for children; hopefully they will remedy this soon! We did attempt the 'Raptor Encounter' but the raptors were gone so instead we visited the 'Jurassic Park Discovery Center' where I turned myself into a dinosaur and we got to hear what they must have sounded like to themselves as well as see through their eyes. And also, more photo-ops. I love dinos!
Next stop was to visit 'The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Hogsmeade' for a second time. We wandered through a couple of shops but that place is PACKED! The goal was to take the Hogwart's Express back to Diagon Alley, the train ride is different in each direction and so fun! You really feel like you're riding along the countryside and you can see and hear Harry, Ron, and Hermoine as they walk through the train. We stopped to take pictures and watch 'Kreacher' peak out from the window of 12 Grimmauld Place (per the HP Wiki: "Grimmauld Place is a street in the London Borough of Islington mostly inhabited by Muggles. The Black family residence was located at number twelve, and served as the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix between 1996-1997.").
Now to 'Springfield: Home of the Simpsons' for (literally) 'The Simpsons Ride'! Another great area full of stuff.. excellent for those with an attention span of zero seconds. I took a million photos of all of the things, everything was just like from the TV show. There were donuts everywhere, made me miss my girl EZ! 💓🍩 The Simpsons Ride was also 3D, we crashed through Krustyland. We enjoyed it!
On our way out of Springfield we happened upon the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Movie history is everywhere at Universal! We decided on Mel's Drive-In for lunch, located in 'Hollywood'. Much to me delight they had veggie burgers and you could get a combo with a shake and fries. What's not to love about that? Unfortunately the table juke boxes were not functional but there were some tunes playing and I was digging the 50s vibe.
Walking out of the Drive-In we noticed that the next 'Universal Orlando's Horror Make-Up Show' was happening in just about five minutes! We booked it over there and caught two front row seats. No photography allowed but the show was quite entertaining. Host Alex Ross (!) and makeup artist Mark James "make up" a great team! I laughed a lot and I'm glad we stopped in; this show is one of the two original attractions at Universal Studios Florida that are still in operation (the other is E.T.)!
We continued to wander around Hollywood when all of a sudden there was an explosion of characters! I spotted Scooby Doo and then the Mystery Machine came rolling down the street with Shaggy driving! Then across the street we saw Curious George and Woody Woodpecker, and down a bit further were none other than Homer and Bart from The Simpsons! There was pretty much no more than five minutes of waiting for each character so we really got lucky! We were still in Hollywood so we backtracked to the Hollywood sign which is right off of the walk of fame (which does have stars!)
We then entered 'Woody Woodpecker's KidZone', the home of 'E.T. Adventure'. I remember riding this as a kid when we went to Universal!!! Definitely nostalgic. I'm also glad we could hit both of the remaining original attractions at the park. at this point it was starting to rain a little bit so we ran to 'World Expo' where the MIB ride is. 'MEN IN BLACK Alien Attack' was amusing, it's an interactive ride where you zap aliens with your last gun (for points) and at one point another car of riders who have become aliens. Em killed more aliens with a score of 85 while I had a 61; in a car with six people total I do believe the ride/game considered our score average so we didn't completely suck. 😂 After that the rain had pretty much let up, save for a few drops here and there. we walked through San Francisco, where the former entrance of the 'Jaws' ride remains for photo-ops.
The next thing we happened upon was a Blues Brothers show! 'The Blues Brothers Show' happens in the New York City section of the park (where Jimmy Fallon's new rode is being built!!!) and boy am I glad we caught it. The guys were fabulous and really did a great job with the instruments and dancing.. near the end they had the crowd do a train and they ran and danced through, it was splendid. We shook our tail feathers for sure. In NY we were right near 'Revenge of the Mummy', this ride required lockers but that wasn't unusual to me at this point, we had done a few other that were the same. I forgot that my sunglasses were on my head so I tucked them on my shirt inside out and thought for a split second I should ask if they'd be okay but I let it go assuming the ride would be like the other 3D CGI ones. Well, I'm here to tell you that it is not. We did not get 3D glasses and with our express passes we were quickly herded into our car, ALONE, in a car made to hold 16. I started thinking something was afoot but I rationalized to myself that there was no way in this giant car that we could be on an actual coaster. Let me stress to you, THIS IS AN ACTUAL COASTER. The description reads, "Plunge into darkness on this indoor roller coaster and face an army of mummies." I clearly did not read it prior to riding. I screamed my head off the entire time and screamed at Emily, "YOU DID NOT TELL ME THIS WAS A REAL ROLLER COASTERRRRRAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
BUT- I'm glad we did it. She didn't intentionally leave the roller coaster part out, she forgot how intense it was as it's been a minute since she's been on it. Also, we didn't go upside down and we didn't do any straight ups or downs, but since I dislike and refuse to ride roller coasters it was still scary to me! And again I'm glad we went on it, I may do it again if I come back! The picture was hysterical and I'm really sad they're so overpriced (25$ for one shot!). It was literally just me and Em in this giant car and all you can see is a stream of red hair and my ghost-white face, mouth agape (screaming bloody murder), and my white knuckles, while Em's just next to me laughing her head off. 😂😂😨😱
Next ride was in 'Production Central', 'TRANSFORMERS: The Ride-3D' and it was much better than the mummy in that it was NOT a roller coaster. 😂 It was magnificent! We battled the decepticons in a 3D intergalactic war and we kicked ass! Optimus Prime was outside afterward, it really is fascinating how they get all these people outfitted to do these meet and greets and outfitted to work on all of the rides; you should see some of these uniforms!
In the same location we spotted Shrek hanging out across the street and went to say hello; Donkey was somewhere making waffles. We decided to get in line for 'Shrek 4-D' which was just auditorium seating where they splash you with water and do the air on your feet and wobble your chairs.
We strolled back to Diagon Alley where I tried a pumpkin juice and Em got a hot butterbeer. Both were delicious and the pumpkin juice comes in a fun bottle. It was getting dark, we watched the dragon on top of Gringotts blow fire and then headed to find a good spot for the Universal Centennial water & light show. It felt good to sit! The show was awesome, very impressive what they can do these days. We saw 100 years of heroes, comedy, love, and much more and theoughout the show they lit fireworks!
After everyone clapped we traveled to City Walk for dinner. We put our names in at Vivo, an italian place, and Antojitos, a mexican place; both had texting systems and gave us the same estimated wait time so we figured whoever texted us first would be where we went. Mexican won and we headed over, I was pumped for a margarita and there was a fun mariachi band. Unfortunately my nachos left a lot to be desired and my margarita came with an orange; I also did not think our waitress was that great. Em's food was good, she got tamales, but then the surrounding tables really started to kill our vibe so we hightailed it out of there and back to the hotel.
The night had cooled down a little and we were sore from all of our walking so we headed for the hot tub.. MAGNIFICENT idea! We met a nice couple from Cleveland so we swapped a few travel stories and they asked about the Rock Royalty thing, they have a super picky kid who evidently won't eat out at any restaurant even if they carry macaroni and cheese or spaghetti, the only two things he eats.
Anyway, I was able to cool off with a dip in the regular pool before we came upstairs and went to bed. We accomplished a TON today and smashed Sunday's step count (Em has a fitbit clip) of 16,791 with a whopping 21,394 steps today. That's 9.35 miles! 😩👣💣💥