Universal Day 2 - Our First Full Day
One of the perks of our hotel is getting early entry into the Universal Parks. That means we could be in the park as early as 8am! Beat the crowds! Hahahahaha....yeah right. I set an alarm just in case we wanted to get up, hit Starbucks and hop on one of the first buses. As soon as that alarm went off, it was immediately silenced and I slept for another hour. I think I eventually crawled out of bed at 7:30 or 8am, took a shower and everyone was still asleep. We all got started to get moving at 8:30 or so. Colleen wasn't feeling well, so the three of us ventured on towards Universal Studios.
Our strategy for the day was to find the rides and experiences with relatively short wait times. The Universal App was great at keeping us updated. Our first stop was the Transformers 3D ride. The wait was 35 minutes when we entered the park and 45 by the time we got in line. There is a neat feature that many of the rides had called Single Rider. Your group would be broken up, but the line usually went faster. Since it was Charlotte's first ride, I stayed with her and Ross checked out what Single Rider was all about. He was in and out in less than 15 minutes! Charlotte and I took almost the entire 45 minutes to get through the ride. It was a great ride and a ton of fun, but that Single Rider is where it's at!
After Transformers it was about 11 and the Bourne Stuntacular was about to begin. That was a show, not a ride, but it was fun! The digital effects were impressive. There was a LED screen as wide as the stage and the graphics were so good it was hard to tell which people were real and which were on the screen. We all enjoyed it.
It was almost lunch time after the show and Charlotte spotted a crepe cart across the street. We snagged a vegan chik'n savory and a nutella and strawberry crepe. Ross and I had to help Charlotte with the sweet crepe, but I wasn't too upset about it. Ross had also acquired a Mardi Gras cup to get all the special drinks available at the pop up stands. We tried a good handful of different beverages for the low low theme park price of $8 per refill (for a cute little 12oz cup). While we ate the Spongebob float came by. The fish that were along side the float all had rollerskates on, so I was excited to see them! Pineapples AND rollerskates?! Heck yes!
Next on the list was Springfield and the Krustyland ride. It was another 3D ride similar to Transformers. This did not have Single Rider, but the wait was about 30 minutes. While it was fun, I didn't like it as much as Transformers. The 3D rides mess with my equillibrium much like some games in VR do. But we carried on! Right next to Krustyland was the Men In Black ride. This one did have Single Rider and we took advantage of it! The three of us were on the same ride, just in different cars. This one was fun because we had laser guns to shoot all the aliens we encountered. Everyone got a score too! Ross was the top shot out of the three of us, but the girl sitting next to me knocked everyone else out of the park. She was paying attention and hit the red button when we were told. You go girl!
After Men In Black, we headed into Diagon Alley. We were hoping to get on the Escape from Gringots ride, but the Single Rider line was closed for the moment. We did some shopping and then headed out towards the front of Universal Studios to the Rip Rockin' Rollercoaster. Charlotte had never been on a real rollercoaster before, so we skipped the Single Rider line and waited together. The neat part about this ride was that each person can select the music they want to listen to during the ride. This coaster wasn't the smoothest, but Charlotte liked it enought to want to try it one more time. We all jumped into the Single Rider line and went again. My head was not very happy with me afterwards!
We needed a break from rides, so we found a place to eat called Finnegans, an Irish restaurant. The Blues Brothers were finishing up their performance as we walked up and they got into the Blues Mobile to drive away. Just like the movie!
While we were waiting for our food a man started to perform on stage. He kept trying to convince Charlotte to come up on stage with him, but she kept saying no. Ross convinced her to go if he went with her, so the two of them performed a duet of shakers while he sang an Irish tune. I enjoyed sitting back to watch!
After finishing our meal we walked across the street to check out the Mummy/Universal Monsters gift shop. The Curse of the Mummy ride has been closed for a while an won't re-open until summer. Booooo - I like the Mummy movies (except that third one with The Rock....sorry Mr. Rock).
The wait times look like they dropped for Escape from Gringots, so we headed back into Diagon Alley and hopped into the Single Rider line. Yay! The regular wait for the ride was 100 minutes. We paid attention to when we hopped in line. Luckily all three of us got on the same ride and Ross and I were sitting next to each other. From start to finish, it only took 30 minutes. Hooray for Single Rider!
We weren't done with Harry Potter experiences just yet, but we crossed over to Islands of Adventure to ride The Forbidden Journey through the Hogwarts Castle. It was a 3D/Rollercoaster ride that was fun but disorienting again. My poor head could barely keep up with all this artificial and real jostling! But not to be outdone, we had one more ride on the list for the day. The Flight of the Hippogriff. We must have waited almost 45 minutes for the 1 minute ride. Not really worth the wait. By that time, night had fallen and the light show on the Hogwarts castle had already had its first showing. Once we were off the ride, we found a spot in front of the castle and waited for it to start again so Ross could see it. It was just as enjoyable the second time through. As soon as that was done we booked it out of there to steer clear of the mass exodus crowds and cranky staff members. We took the same route as Charlotte and I did the night before and made it to our hotel bus.
Also like the night before, we stopped in the hotel food court for dinner. Just as crowded and overwhelming. Ugh. Not my favorite, but it was the best option we had. Another exhausting but fun day in the books!
Stats for the day:
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