Sonya's Blog - Day 217 - Second Day at Universal Florida

Sonya's Blog - Day 217 - January 25 - Second Day at Universal Florida

Our last day at Universal Parks and we are heading to Universal Florida as we have already done our two days at Islands of Adventure. We arrived at the park at around 10 AM. It was pretty busy, but nothing crazy. We headed straight to ET, since it was on our way to Harry Potter. We have to walk through Hollywood to get there and the Mystery Machine was parked on the street and the whole gang (minus Scobby Doo) were there taking pictures. There was no line-up, so the kids stopped to have their picture taken with them and Isaac got one with the Mystery Machine. The kids told them that we are heading to Honeydukes and Shaggy decided to join us because that sounded tasty to him. He stayed with us for about a block, but then was called back by the rest of the gang. There was only a 5 minute wait for ET, which worked out perfect for us. You join ET on a "bike" and go up in the air to try and get him back to his planet. You then travel with him back to his planet.

After ET we hoofed it over to Diagon Alley and went straight on the Escape from Gringotts ride as there was only a 10 minute wait. I decided that I would ride it and give it a try. Blake and the kids went on it the day we arrived and they said it was very different than the one at Hogwarts Castle. There is not as much simulation and the ride is more of a roller coaster. It is a neat set up, you walk through Gringotts bank and then descend down into the vaults before you get on your cart. Once you are on your cart, you go racing down into the depths of the vaults. The cart stops every once in awhile and there is a screen with a scene on it with different characters talking to you. Then the ride moves again. This worked out well for me because we were not moving, so it was more like watching a 3D movie. The ride only appeared to be moving through the screen once, every other time it was just like a roller coaster. It was a great ride and didn't make me feel sick at all. Perfect! We walked through Diagon Alley for a bit. Blake and I decided to walk back and grab the lunch because the Fear Factor Show was starting at soon and Natasha wanted to check it out. We thought it would be a good place to eat and watch the show. I was hoping it wouldn't be too gross.

Isaac and I going through Gringotts:

We met the kids at the Fear Factor Theatre with the lunch. They had already picked their contestants. When we arrived they had just strapped some lady to a chair and were going to place Scorpions on her head, 5 of them. Yuck. She was pretty good with it though. After that, they had 4 people. Two were strung up and holding bucket and the other two had to run back and forth and grab bean bags from an eel infested tank and toss them into the bucket. The team with the most caught bean bags after 30 seconds wins. The two guys from the one team advanced to the final round where they would compete against each other. While they were setting that up two other contestants came up for the "eating" round. They made a shake of left overs from the meat processing plant (the stuff they won't even put in the hot dogs), a seafood mixture (clams, oysters, fish heads and tails, etc), curdled milk and a bug mix. They blended that up and the first one to down the drink wins. The one guy didn't even touch his, but the other guy just lifted it up and drank it down, no problems. Gross! All he one was a souvenir cup - not really worth it if you ask me. Then the final round of the obstacle course, out came the two finalists. They had to do a silly obstacle course and the first one to finish wins. That was the show. Natasha was sad that you had to be 18 to sign up because she totally wanted to do the eating portion, oh sorry - the obstacle course portion.

We decided to head over and see the Terminator Show. We have seen it before, but the kids wanted to see it again since they had just watched Terminator. This show is a mixture of live action and filmed sequences. You are supposed to be at an expo for whoever the evil company is in the Terminator movies. Then the lady and her son come in and warn you to leave and tell you how evil the company is. Then you head into the auditorium and the expo starts with their state of the art Terminators. While they are showing you a demo of what the terminators can do, the lady and he son come on stage and tell us we are all in danger. The Terminator from the movie shows up and it looks like he jumps right out of the screen (it is 3D) Then Arnold shows up and the action jumps from being live in the theatre to being on the screen. They do a pretty good job of it, but our live action Arnold impersonator could have been better.

When that was done we went to watch the Horror Movie Make Up Show. This is a demo where they explain how they do some of the make-up effects in the movies. They then get a volunteer from the audience and it looks like he is cutting into her arm - this little girl behind us started screaming and crying when he was doing it, she totally thought it was real. She was only about 5 or so, she was so upset, poor little thing. He then took the knife out and showed us how it was accomplished. They then showed some famous scenes from movies and did some more demo's. It was a pretty good show, it was interesting to see how they accomplish some of the effects.

When this show was over I looked on my Universal App to see how long the line-up was for Minions and Transformers and they were about 30 minutes each (and they were 60 minutes earlier, so much better). Blake and the kids ran off to do those rides, and I just hung out and chillaxed since they are both simulation rides. I did catch some of the Blues Brother's Show while they were gone:

When they were done on both those rides we met up at Shrek - the 4D experience and walked into the show. We had great timing as they had just opened the doors for the next performance. It is a 3D movie and the seats move as well plus some other effects, which is what makes it 4D. The movie takes place right after Shrek and Fiona get married and Lord Farquaad has shown up (as a ghost) to cause trouble and great adventures begin. We did get sprayed with water a few times, I had forgotten that part.

When that was done the kids wanted to head back to Diagon Alley to buy a couple of things and go on Escape From Gringotts again. First we stopped in the Leaky Cauldron to check it out and have a bit of a snack. Blake, Isaac and I shared Toad-in-a-Hole (sausage baked in Yorkshire Pudding) and Natasha had Potted Butterbeer Cream (which was like pudding). The food was pretty good, but Natasha would prefer to drink her butterbeer. The Leaky Cauldron was well done and we got a few pictures:

The wait was 60 minutes for the Gringott's ride, so we decided to single ride it. That was still about a 20 minute wait or so, but we lucked out and all got on together. It was just as good the second time around and I saw some stuff I had missed the first time. It is a great ride.

Isaac wanted to visit Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes! and bought a Decoy Detonator (he will put a picture on his blog) and Natasha got a Pigmy Puff keychain. It is a great store, here is a picture:

A couple of more pictures from Diagon Alley before we take off:

Blake and the kids wanted to ride the Rip Ride Rockit Roller Coaster. I have never gone on this one. It takes you straight up (it looks like it at 90 degrees) and then drops you down. While you are going up you get to pick your song to listen to to get you pumped up. It has two loops that you go upside down on and it goes really fast. Blake wanted to do it at the end of the day because it makes him a little queasy (this is how I knew I would never do it, if he gets queasy then I am out). I went to the exit and got all our bags out of the locker and got set to leave. I managed to get a couple of blogs posted while I was waiting, so that was good.

On our way out we took a selfie with the Universal Globe to wrap up our days at Universal. The kids were super happy that we made this extra stop for them and we all had fun. We began the long trek back to the truck so that we could get back to the RV and walk Kizmet.

Blake trying to figure out the selfie stick - just look at that concentration:

There was mist coming up from under the ball, that is why it is so white in one part:

Traffic was good on the way back and we made it back in no time. Luckily, we had some leftovers, so supper was ready in no time. The kids took care of getting that prepped while Blake and I took Kizmet on a nice long walk. Our work wasn't over after supper though, because we have a long drive ahead of us. Blake headed off to the store while I did dishes and made some pasta salad for lunch tomorrow. Natasha helped dry the dishes and put away and she also started packing stuff up so we could have a jump on that in the morning. Isaac just had his shower and goofed around, he was too tired to be helpful. I made him go to bed by 8:30. I managed to get everything ready for lunches and some eggs hard boiled for breakfast in the morning. We were all exhausted when we climbed into bed.

We drive to Carrabelle Beach tomorrow. I thought we were driving to Pensacola, but I had it wrong. Pensacola is another 3 hours west of Carrabelle and it was too far to go.

Sonya