Monday, 2 March 2015

I've got a penny and a tooth!

After breakfast, we headed out to Universal Studios. This was something I really wanted to do, especially for the Harry Potter World. I had no idea that you could do all the rest of Universal too so that was a bonus.

Unfortunately we hit a lot of traffic on what should have been a 20 minute journey. We also hit an accident which caused huge delays and made us get there much later than we intended. Also, because we hadn't booked online beforehand the queue to get in and pay was ridiculous. I am amazed at how much you could actually do before you paid anything (apart from the parking of course). There were many many restaurants and shops before you even got on the park itself and it was apparent later on that it was a bustling nightspot too. We started off on Islands of Adventure and walked through Dr.Seuss World and The Lost Continent until we got to Hogsmeade.

Back to the snow except this snow was in searing sunshine and high humidity, past Hogwarts Express. Huffle and Small went straight on to Dragons Challenge. Smallest was too small for this ride so I was designated looker after and we went looking around Hogsmeade. We watched a bit of a show about the tri-wizard tournament and had a sneaky look at Hogwarts.

We just happened to see Small and Huffle finish their ride and get off. Poor Small wasn't feeling too good after this one. (Huffle edit - poor lad this was a very quick looping ride). Still, we carried on to Hogwarts and queued for another ride all the way round (inside) the castle. It was fascinating. Talking pictures, statues, the garden where the plants are grown for Herbology, through the classrooms and corridors until we got to the end where we got on the ride.

This was a sit down, roller coaster, 3D simulater ride which was very good. We flew over Hogwarts and travelled through the castle. Next we queued up a very long time for the Hogwarts Express. Small had a headache and couldn't eat and didn't feel at all well. We had some pain killers (for all ages) and gave him a couple and made him drink plenty. By the time we eventually reached the platform of 9 3/4 he was starting to feel much better.

However, when the muppet ticket master told us which number to stand behind, he put too many of us there, consequently we couldn't all get on and we four and two girls got left behind. You can imagine how annoyed we were, especially after waiting for 40 minutes already. At least it was cool and under cover from the sun. A more senior ticket master came to us and asked what had happened and when we explained she asked which rides we wanted to go on at Universal Studios. We told her a few (as did the girls) and she asked for our names and went away. She didn't actually say what would happen but we used this as a green light to try and get passes through to whatever we wanted. (Worth a try).

Hogwarts Express was a fun train ride sitting in the old style 1st class compartments while we sped through the countryside from Hogwarts to London. On one side it had windows showing where we were 'going' and the other side made it look as if wizards and witches were walking past - it was very clever.

Once in 'London' we headed straight for Diagon Alley, passing by the Knight Bus. Diagon Alley was my most favourite place and I decided I wanted to live there forever. There were all the shops from the books, Ollivanders, Weasleys Magic Shop, Gringotts. We decided to try our 'passes' on the Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts. It worked and we went through the Express Line. We walked through the bank and saw the goblins until we got to a lift that went down miles and miles underground to the Gringotts railway where we continued our ride. This was Smallest's favourite ride. Huffle and I were a bit disappointed with it as it seemed a bit stoppy/starty and told the whole Gringotts story. For a lot of the rides you have to stow your bags in a locker. You put your finger in a scanner and it tells which locker is free and then locks it. When you come out of the ride you tell the machine your number and scan your finger and it opens. Clever, but a bit of a hassle.

We perused Diagon Alley again and had an ice cream at Florean Fortescues Ice Cream Parlour. The ice cream was delicious here and we had a Salted Caramel Blondie, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Apple Crumble and Chocolate.

Next we went to World Expo where we discovered The Simpsons Land. Smallest wanted to go on Krustys Ride even though we had no idea what it was. We queued for quite a while but again we were shaded and we had videos to watch all the way. This one was a simulater ride. It was very good and funny.

After getting refreshed by the coke bottle refreshing station, we wandered around the SpongeBob shop and then watched the parade. The boys were trying to get various characters to wave at them and some came up and high fived them which they were very pleased about.

We noticed the transformers were greeting people and having photos so we waited to see them. They were funny too.

Next we went on the Men in Black ride. This was the biggest queue we had all day (except the train) and it wasn't really worth it. It was a shooting ride - our car won. We had problems getting our bags out of the locker on this one and had to get help. Apparently the planets weren't aligned properly! We went on the Despicable Me Minion Ride which was another 3D simulater. A good funny ride. The kids loved it. Small wanted to see the Shrek 4D show so we all piled in. In this one it was like a cinema but the seats moved and we got sprayed with water. The kids loved this one too and so did Huffle and I.

I was told the ET ride was very good so we tried it. We sat on bikes (almost like bikes) and travelled around trying to find ET so he could go back to his world and save it. We thought this was a little outdated. Twister was next. There were videos on while we waited and they built this show up quite a bit. In reality it wasn't very good, and we got wet!

Revenge of the Mummy. Another one where we had no idea what we were going on. It was a very slow start and I heard Huffle say "well I can't see anything scary here" and then it went crazy, Smallest wasn't too sure about this ride, he said it was too fast. It was mainly in the dark so we didn't know where we were going. Another roller coaster ride. I had my head in the wrong position and I thought it was going to fall off, we went so fast!

The Transformers 3D ride was closed for a while but we had downloaded the Universal app which was really good as you could set which rides you wanted to be notifed about if the ride times went down significantly. We got to know when it was open again and we used our name for the Express - it worked again. This ride was fantastic. 3D, very loud, very fast. A kind of roller coaster in a simulater. It was so good we did it again and used our queue jib again! At the start of this ride (2nd time) Small's tooth fell out. He said he had been wiggling it for ages. He wondered if he would get an American dollar or a Canadian one. I told him I had no idea as I had never lost a tooth in America before. We shall have to wait and see.

We finished with another look around Diagon Alley in the dark and finished on Gringotts ride again. This time it was much better. I think because the first time you are not sure what to expect and don't really take in all that is going on around you because you are wondering if you are going to fall, crash or whatever. Anyway, I really enjoyed this 2nd time around and this was one of the boys favourites too.

As we were leaving we noticed that there was some kind of show over the water and sat and watched, it was celebrating 100 years of Universal and there was a light, water and firework show. Smallest was very tired and we left just before it finished.

We were all very tired and our feet ached a lot. A very busy but very enjoyable day. The boys both say they preferred Universal to Disney and Huffle and I think it was possibly aimed at a higher age group as there were not quite so many kids there and definitely not many strollers. Brilliant day.

 

 

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