Day 6..Breaking out of the World. Universal & Islands of Adventure
A quick (word heavy) story- When we were kids and visited Disney, we didn't venture out of the world other than to the Florida Mall for one day each time. So when we came back again for the first time as adults in 2014, we decided a trip to Universal was well overdue, especially with Harry Potter world! We only put aside 1 day of the two weeks to do this and chose Islands of Adventure as our park of choice as it seemed bigger and had Hogsmeade/Harry Potter ride to visit. We arrived as early as we could and bought our tickets at the gate. It was relatively quiet so there were no big queues. We made our way straight to "The Hulk" since it was a 10 min wait and we were walking past. Then we carried on through and over to HP. AMAZZING RIDE. Ride of the Hippogriffs, wandered through the shops,early lunch at "The Three Broomsticks" then over to watch the Sinbad show. This is where it went downhill. Genuinely the worst show I've ever seen and a waste of 30 mins. A wander over to Dr Seuss land...and the heavens opened. And I mean opened. Pretty surreal being stood outside Circus McGurcus in what can only be described as a biblical downpour. Long story short, we had to leave the park just after lunch, having ridden 3 rides. It gets worse....10 miles down the road and back at the world, glorious sunshine. GUTTED. It is now known as Universal-gate.
Back to this trip. We booked a taxi for 9 of us (mum had a pool day) the night before to collect us at 8:30am to be there for park opening at 9am. We didn't realise the taxi waited across the road in the car park at POR so we were stood waiting for about 20 minutes
They sent two so we just split the cost between us all. It was $35 each car one way.
We had bought our tickets before we set off from the UK so we just needed to print them out. I didn't realise that you needed ID to collect them
so I hadn't brought anything with me but luckily we had a lovely (cast member?
) and she said it was fine if I had my confirmation number.
Since the rest of the group had been the Universal before, they weren't fussed about which park to go into first. We chose Universal Studios as we hadn't done it before. The weather reports looked great so we weren't too worried about having to leave early today
View attachment 218945 Had to wait for the Universal sign
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I think i'll do this as bullet points as it could become pretty word heavy:
- First up Shrek 3D. Entertaining but not bothered about doing it again.
- Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket- Loved it. I chose "Born to be Wild" as my song for this. It seemed appropriate
- Next up- The Mummy. Spent about 5 minutes in front of the fans spraying water before went on this. SUCH A HOT DAY! I love the building that The Mummy ride is in. It's brilliantly themed and the queue is very creepy. Kay had been telling us how scary this ride was so we were really looking forward to it. She was right- I definitely screamed a couple of times and that fire room is HOT!
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After we got our things from the lockers, we had a wander down to Starbucks for a drink. I hate to say this but, walking down the "New York Streets" made me feel quite sad that Disney had gotten rid of this at HS. Universal have done a brilliant job on the themeing here and it makes HS look really terrible IMO
*runs and hides*. That said, I don't think Universal has that much ability to immerse you in a bubble that Disney does so its all good (apart from perhaps HP but that is just on another level
).
View attachment 218949 I got a Strawberry Banana Smoothie and I think sis got a chocolatey something! We stood and watched the street entertainment (similar to Stomp but they were builders or something?) they were good anyway!
The rest of the group got the refillable cup. Me and sis opted for water as we don't really drink that much fizzy stuff usually.
And then we arrived at London Kings Cross.
Certainly cleaner than I remember London being
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By this point I had a blister
even though I was wearing sensible trainers I think they were just rubbing as my feet had expanded in the heat (yes I keep mentioning the heat. We don't get even close to this over here so I'm allowed to say I was MAFFTING)
For the next 10 Minutes we wandered up and down saying "Is this it..?" "What the heck?" "I don't get it" "Is that Grimmauld Place? Maybe we go in there?"
"Well I need the loo so I'm going through here..there must be some in here?"
OH.
IT'S HERE!!!!!!!! WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!!
And as if by magic, through a magic wall,we were in Diagon Alley.
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And my inner Harry Potter nerd was released!! WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW!
There are no words for how excited I was so I'm just going to leave you with the pictures. Lets just say, I was in my #HappyPlace
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We headed for Escape from Gringotts and there was only a 15 minute wait. I think most of that is actually getting through to the ride since the walk is pretty long. I don't think I have any photos from inside but when we walked into Gringotts and into the main hall we were the only ones in there and my gosh its incredible. Felt like I was really in the film!! If only
Ride review- Really good and very clever use of the screens and coaster simultaneously. I will say I think I prefer "The Forbidden Journey" over at IOA as it is so different to any other ride but this is a close second. We decided to ride again as single riders and it was still as good the second time round.
We had a good wander around Diagon Alley and went in and out of the shops. Some of the group got ice creams and I think Matt got a Butter beer.
We decided that we would head back out of HP and finish off the rides in this park and head over to IOA for the afternoon.
- Simpsons was next- not sure on this one. I felt quite ill during and closed my eyes for a minute or so. It was fun but I don't think i'd be rushing back
- Men in Black- fun but I wasn't sure where I was shooting/aiming for?! I'm too used to Buzz Lightyear and his targets!
Hannah and Dave had bought 2 x 1 park day tickets so they were remaining in this park for the rest of the day while we headed over to IOA. What better way to get there but by The Hogwarts Express
.
I must add that I was fortunate enough to go on the REAL Hogwarts express when the first film came out. It was filmed somewhere that we visit fairly often so that was a very exciting.
View attachment 218961 Love it. Just like home
I've exceeded my photo limit for this post so I will continue in my next one