Day 2, Universal Studios

Yesterday was an excellent day! We were awake early because of the jet lag (matt still suferin worse than me). We had some peanut butter cereal - so sweet, definitely a holiday breakfast, and we were off to Universal Studios theme park by 7.30am. The drive took about half an hour and the park was quite empty when we arrived, opening at 8, only a few minutes after we arrived. We didnt even have to queue for tickets. Nearly $500 later, we had 2 day passes to Universal and their sister park, Islands of Adventure, and we were off!

We got a bit over excited and ran about aimlessly for a while, before headin onto a roller coaster tgemed on The Mummy film.  Then a mad dash to the Universal Studios half of Harry Potter World, which was a real treat. We met stan and Ernie the shrunken head on the night bus, had our photos taken at 12 Grimauld place, walked through the leaky couldron to get into Diagon ally, and marveled at all the shops, Olivanders, quiddich supplies, robes, madam fortescues ice cream, the owl post, pet shop, and had a (sickly sweet) butter beer while watching a Beadle the Bard live performance. There was even knockturn ally to wander through, ith Borgin and Burkes. The attention to detail is incredible. Kids were buying wands in Olivanders which could control various water fountains around the area.  Gringots bank had a huge dragon on top of it, and we reluctantly headed into the 60 minute queue for the escape from Gringots ride. In hindsight, this was always going to be the busiest area, so we need to planour route better. Queueing for the gringots ride wasnt all bad because you queue through the banks main entrance, with goblins on both sides at desks. Tgenyouhead down through the vaults, until you are in a cave with enromous stalegtites hanging from the ceiling. The ride was my favourite of the day, and well worth the wait! Its a roller coaster,but your surrounded by huge screens on all sides. You wear 3d glasses and the screens come to life. My stomach was doing sumersaults as voldemort threw us down a revine, even through our car had just tilted up a bit! Very clever stuff!

 

By the way, the wind was howling so we were really cold! It did warm up but not until about 2pm. Shivering people everywhere!

Afer Harry Potter, we headed to Springfield home of the Simpsons, to meet some characters, and go on tge simpsons ride, a simulator that had me feeling rather wobbly!

We stopped and had a gigantic turkey leg for lunch, seriously yum! Then onto the Terminator 2 show.

The men in black ride was next, which was really fun! You get a zapgun and have to shoot aliens for points. We were neck and neck all the way, until i was the first to push the little red button earning me another 100,000 points. We ended on, matt 36,475, mine was 136, 200! Matt wasn't happy. He thinks i cheated because i had been on the ride before, once, 10 years ago!

Next we headed to Matts favorite of the day, the Horror make up show, live. It was a comedian and a movie make up specialist who bounced off each other with great chemistry, talking about movie props. They sawed someones arm off too! It was great, and so funny.

We watched the universal super stars parade next, with Dora the Explorer, spongebob and Despicable me characters, before heading to the Shrek 4d show. We had been in the park for 10 hours by now and couldnt face a 2 and a half hour wait for the roller coaster. We said we would come back i  the evening to do it after our Islands of Adventure day, and headed home, slightly sunburned already.

We popped into Walmart on the way home for supplies, and i made Nandos chicken burgers for dinner, followed by fresh strawberries. Then we watched some wrestling on tv, (loved it. I could seriously get on board with wrestling, its like a soap opera!), before bed.

Now im up at the crack of dawn waiting for Matt to wake up before our day at NASA. Cant wait.