Tale of a trip... part cuatro

Universal Studios

Another glorious day in southern FLA. I am having such a great time... I wonder what the poor people are doing today- oh, we're here in FLA! (again, lest I hurt someone's feel bads out there, I mean no disrespect to poor people. I know a lot of poor people (I'm one) and many poor people are my friends- I love poor people!) We didn't get as early of a start as we would have liked, so by the time we got to Universal, it was hoppin'. The parking area was ginormous! I'm was worried I wouldn't remember where I parked... as it turned out, I didn't! Good thing the kids were watchin'.

We wanted to get the speed passes for this place for sure. So we got in a ticket line which we thought was going to be quicker than the normal lines. I must have missed the line for speed passes to get the speed passes- ha! There were about 3 people ahead of us and they must have taken 30-45 minutes- could not believe it! People, tell your life story to 1-800-WHOCARES, I've got rides to do, what? So much to do, so little time..." Then I had thoughts of Yoda in my head... Patience, patience, soon you'll be there." Well, sorry Master Yoda- you're wrong this time. Wish I had been trained in the Force, I'd have been tossin' a few people aside.... just kidding! I'm pretty mild-mannered these days ;)

There is so much to do and see here, you really do need a couple of days to enjoy it all. The fist thing we did was go right into the Shrek show- a 4D diddy, 3D plus seat shakin', slobber splashin', etc. for the other D.... (you see, if you remember your math: 3D + 1D = 4D)- it was fun. Then we did the Twister thang- man, felt like I was right in the movie when that tornado came through and wiped that outdoor movie screen away! The Mummy ride was next on the list- dang, I thought we were gonna burn up on that ride as the heat from flames was quite intense on a portion of it. I think we also went on the MIB (Men In Black) ride... or did I get flashy-thingyed? There were a lot of people, must have thought they were..."hosting and intergalactic kegger here". It's a ride where you shoot little aliens with your Noisy Cricket. I was trying to beat Carson's score- you know, he's a video game enthusiast (duh). When we were done, come to find out that this old lady behind us just kicked our trash! Made us look like noobs (sp).

Of course we tried to hit the best stuff as our time was limited. They've got a lot bigger rides here than they do at Disney, but you can sure tell that Disney does it better... the staff is nicer, it's cleaner, but I still enjoyed myself. We probably spent most our time in Harry Potterland. I was skeptical about it, but it turned out to be very awesome. The detail of the castle and Hogsmeade was fantastic, like some of the pictures moving in the castle, just like in the movies. The Harry Potter ride, kind of a 3D thang, was great. I can see where they make a little more money off of this one as I was almost upside down and all the change was shaking out of my pockets! Carson almost lost his phone- whew! Then there is the dragon ride. I think you get the choice of the Chinese Firebolt or the Hungarian Hunchback (or whatever it is)- wicked awesome! Wish we would have had more time to ride it again, but even the fast pass line was long on this one. We wanted to get into Olivander's wand shop, but that line was probably longer than for a rides- unbelievable! Luckily they had a little cart just outside the rides where you could buy wands- high quality ones. Expensive, but great detail. The kids bought a few for them and some for their friends. Another thing we were looking forward to was the butter beer. Oh my goodness, but I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. No wonder the lines were so long! They had it in a big keg on the back of a wagon. I guess you had the choice between regular and the frozen kind- we chose the frozen. It was so good. I would describe it as a cream soda, butterscotchy concoction, with a slushy vanilla ice cream top... I don't know, but I want some more. There was also pumpkin juice that was bottled, but we didn't want to carry them with us, so we decided to come back later and get some. We just hung around there for a while, just soaking up everything Potter
and trying to find a backdoor into Olivander's... dang! Oh well.

We then left Pottersville to enjoy more of the park. I think the next thing we went on was the Jurassic Park ride. Wasn't expecting to get wet this late in the day... again. But, we all got blasted from the waist up, and were almost eaten by the T-Rex and the raptors- whew, it was close! Saved the camera again apparently.

They have this whole section devoted to the comics. I wish we would have had more time to enjoy them all. We spent most of our time in the Marvel comic area and went on the Spider-man ride. It was very cool, another 3D action adventure. Brenda enjoyed it so much that she had to close her eyes as she was starting to get sick. I didn't want another 4D ride on my hands- no spewage please! We spent a while looking for t-shirts to take home to the other kids- so many cool ones made it hard to choose... and since I couldn't decide on one, I didn't get one- weird, eh, Pacha? There was a Dr. Doom drop ride and a Hulk coaster ride. Sydney and I went on the Hulk ride a couple times... so much fun just screaming like little girls all the way through that thing.

It was getting late and we were ready to leave. We then remembered that we wanted to get some pumpkin juice, and I didn't come all the way to Florida to not. So Sydney and I high-tailed it back to Pottersville whilst Brenda and Carson went shoppin' for more t-shirts and shoes. When Syd and I got to Potterland, it looked like they were closing down. We asked the guy at the butter beer cart if we could buy some, he said the cart was closed... "here, just take this one, they don't keep good count anyway." I told him that I wanted to buy two (one to drink now, and one to take home and share), so he just gave me another one. I told him I didn't want to do that, but he insisted. I then quickly thought about how much money I spent here today...... yeah, I still think they came out ahead ;) So, I thanked the kid for his kindness, I quickly put on my hat and dark sunglasses, stashed the beverages in my trench coat(jk), and slunked away into the darkness. As we were walking away, Syd said, "I should have asked that kid for his number, he was cute." Where are her priorities, really... we just scored pumpkin juice! So we all shared one and are going to take the other one back to Utah to share with everyone else... we are so thoughtful (more about this story later).