June 10, It isn’t Disney, It’s Universal Studios!

Well folks today we decided to take advantage of something that wasn’t Disney and headed to Universal Studios.  Now in retrospect, we can say that Universal is no Disney World.  The main reason we headed there was to see the “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” since we are reading the books to the kids.

Before that however, we ate breakfast at Give Kids the World and had some more ice cream!  We are never going to get the kids to stop asking for Ice Cream for Breakfast.  We also got to ride the carousel there!  It was a fun old fashioned carousel that gets run just for the wish kids!

                      

 

Now the recap of Universal: It was hot.  you end up walking about a mile from the parking lot to the entrance of the park going through a bunch of shops and finally getting to where we want to be.

We rode a couple of rides in Dr. Seuss land and were surprised just how long it took to get people on and off of the rides, since Disney is very efficient at this.  But the kids liked it.  We then headed to Harry Potters world.

     

Did I mention it was hot?  Leatha and Mom rode a cool roller coaster that was themed like the dragon fights in the movies.  They have some seats on the wall at the bottom of the coaster to make sure you can fit in the things.  Cameron and Amelia were not tall enough to ride the coaster but it looks like they did!

          

The whole Harry Potter world was interesting because it really looked like the movie.  It was a bit odd though, most of the stores were just facades and we couldn’t shop in them.  I really wanted an owl and a magic quill but I guess that will just have to wait.  We did get to go into Olivanders wand shop for a demonstration and a wand being chosen for…..Leatha!  she got picked from the small group and ended up having her wand choose her.  She seemed intimidated but it was really cool.  There is some video of it in todays video.

     

Amelia and Cameron also found a roller coaster that they could ride and did so over and over.  It was fun to hear Amelia giggling and laughing at the ride.

After a while of playing at Harry Potter land and fighting crowds that would make the fire marshal tear out his hair in frustration, we headed to Jurassic Park.  It was neat so see some of the models and vehicles that were used in the movie.  After lunch the kids got to ride the Jurassic Park ride and had a great time on that as well.  There is a great Cameron reaction on the video from that ride.

Finally, we were getting ready to leave the Islands of Adventure and head over to the other side of Universal studios so we had to go back through Harry Potter and get some Butterbeer and Pumpkin juice.  You want to know the secret to Butterbeer?  Butterscotch flavored cream soda.  It was really good stuff.  And then there is pumpkin juice.  That is a secret because I think I can duplicate it and will be doing so over the holidays.

We never did make it to the other park.  Grandma had issues with her scooter that took way to long to get fixed and by the time we were going to be able to hit the other park for fireworks the wind came up and the skies opened again.  This was one of the biggest rain/ lightning storms that we saw the whole trip.  Luckily, we got to hang out under the awnings by the front gate customer service windows so we were dry.  The lightning was something.  We were talking to one of the customer service guys and he said that two of the roller coasters had already been hit and they were running on emergency power!  It was a good thing that the park was closed.

We waited for a while until the lightning receded and then made our way home.  It was another big day of going and going but at least we managed to stay dry and our ponchos got another workout.  Tomorrow, June 11th we are moving out of Give Kids the World.  It is amazing how quick that went.  But that is all in the next post.

Dont forget to sign up for the mail list!  I will send out mail when I have loaded new pictures and videos!

Thanks again for being here, There is much more to come.

*** Don’t forget to check out even more pictures on the pictures page!  CLICK HERE to see it!*****

-Justin

Other posts:
Day 1, June 5

Day 2, June 6

Day 3, June 7

Day 4, June 8

Day 5, June 9

Day 6, June 10 (That is this post!)

Day 7, June 11

Day 8, June 12

Day 9, June 13

Day 10, June 14