When we were at Universal in May, we had planned to take in the Disaster attraction but upset tummies changed our plans at the last minute (note to self….don’t eat so much Butterbeer ice cream until your stomach is fully awake
). We were so disappointed, just shortly thereafter, when they announced its closure to make way for Fast & Furious. We had had our chance and we blew it!!
With the rumoured impending closure of Twister (to prepare for the new Jimmy Fallon New York-themed ride) we didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. Today was our day, and the time was now…so that was our next must-do of the trip. We waited a whopping 8 minutes to enter (just until the next show) so it was basically a walk-on.
I won’t say Twister was “bad”, per se, but in comparison to the other things that Universal has to offer, it didn’t take much to see why Universal had opted to retire it. I am sure the special effects may have been notable in its day, but with state-of-the-art rides like Gringotts in the same park, Twister very much felt old and worn out to us. That said, we were glad we had a chance to experience it before it was shuttered.
The former Twister gift shop had been converted to the official store of
HHN, so that’s where Twister spit us out once it was over.
They had a lot of cool artifacts in there from various horror movies throughout the years, and we spent quite a bit of time pouring over all the neat stuff. It was a bit like an HHN museum. The very nice thing about touring that store in the daytime versus during HHN is that we had the place to ourselves…..so we could lazily browse and poke about without being in anyone’s way.
On our way towards Shrek (which was next on our attraction to-dos), we stopped to check out Monsters Café, since we would be dining there on Wednesday night for the Scareactor Dining Experience.
We figured it would be pretty hectic on Wednesday with the special event going on, and doubted we would have as much room to gawk and move around. Turns out that was a brilliant idea on our part….it was darn near empty as we walked through now, and PACKED at the Scareactor Dining!!
Steve was being naughty so I sent him to the electric chair.
There are lots of cool tributes inside to monsters of yore. I am sure the Creature from the Black Lagoon was one that haunted my dreams as a child.
We were just leaving Monsters Café when the Blues Brothers came rolling through, much to the delight of the crowd:
And speaking of crowds….here’s a crowd pic of mid to late morning….maybe 10:45-ish?
Shrek may have been next on our attraction list, but as we walked up toward the building the first thing we noticed is that the queue was PACKED. Lines for Shrek like we’ve never seen! The posted wait said 20 minutes, but there’s no way that could have been accurate. We wondered what was causing such a back-log (wait times were low to none on our trip in May, and while park crowds may have been a tad heavier on this vacation, the difference was nothing extreme), but we didn’t learn the answer until our RIP Tour on the Wednesday night. Apparently they close one of the Shrek theatres to use for one of the HHN houses, essentially cutting the attraction capacity in half….so now that silly long queue makes perfect sense. Not to be deterred, we opted to skip the ride (or is this classed as a show?) and head outside to meet our favourite ogre and his trusty sidekick instead
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We had just joined the short line when they announced that Shrek and Donkey would be taking a quick break and returning in 5 minutes or so. A few folks grumbled and left (for a 5 minute delay? REALLY?!
) so we expressed up a few feet. We had a great chat with a couple from the UK to pass the time (they were so freakishly excited to meet Shrek and Donkey, it was absolutely adorable) and the characters reappeared exactly when promised.
I have to say, the characters and their handlers were super, super awesome. There was a family just a few folks before us who had a young man in their party who I am guessing had autism (or something similar). My heart was so awesomely warmed by the kind and gentle way that they interacted with the young fellow……even Donkey (who can be quite a rascal) kept in character while doing so in a way that it engaged and delighted him within his comfort level. It was just so neat to watch
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Just like that, it was our turn, and as usual….Donkey ran the show!!
It was Donkey's idea for us to hold hands for the photo as he yapped away about us being love birds from Canada, which in turn made us "snow birds". He's such a goof.
We still had some time to kill before our noon reservation at Finnegans, so there was more fun to squeeze in before lunch. Stay tuned!
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. Work was crazy, I had a couple of extra personal tasks to attend to....and then we got the go ahead from our Memory Maker Share Group that we could go ahead and download our photos. The few of you who are my Facebook friends will get a sneak peek of the Photopass pics as I posted those earlier tonight. The rest of you will have to hold tight until I get to that part of my report.
Callie ! Glad to have you reading along! Even more glad that you came out of lurking and decided to post, too 
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Bring on the 
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It's coming up VERY soon 
I'll try on my home computer tonight.
We love this bread, and between the two of us we finished the loaf by the end of our meal.
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