Tuesday, October 18th (continued)
After finishing up at Sea Life, we headed over to the entrance to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. If the empty line out front was any indication, we suspected the inside might be as quiet and crowd-free as Sea Life had been.
We had a bit of an issue with our tickets here: the young man didn’t want to allow us to utilize the old ticket that had been purchased for May, despite us also having the printed email authorization from Merlin customer service to extend the ticket validity indefinitely. It took a bit of assertiveness
on my part for him to grudgingly permit us admittance. Steve was more than a little annoyed by the time we finally made our way through the turnstiles and into the attraction.
Not much had changed since our first visit there in December 2015, but it definitely was quieter this time around so we had lots of time to spend taking tons of pictures with all the incredibly realistic wax figures. We started off in the Florida everglades room, where Steve caught a ride on an airboat:
We moved on to the area which features an assortment of prominent individuals who made their mark on American history. There was, among others, Uncle Sam…….
“I want YOU!”:
Abraham Lincoln….
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years”:
Barack Obama….
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek”:
Martin Luther King …
“I have a dream”.
From their, we moved onto those that changed America in other, less political way: from Walt Disney …
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible”:
…..to the brilliant mind of Albert Einstein (who was surprisingly short. Who knew?
):
We spent some time checking out Madame Tussaud’s art studio, a place which we largely skipped on our first visit.
This was also the place where guests could have wax hands made, for an additional cost. This was probably the busiest area of the whole attraction, with several families lined up to have their own wax creations made. Personally, I find them a bit creepy …. but yet I can understand their appeal as they are definitely a very personal souvenir.
The sports area was a favourite once again for Steve, but I’m sure none of you are surprised by that. Basketball and hockey are our family’s sports of choice, so of course Steve made a beeline to the Shaq exhibit…..but tall as my big Steve is, he was dwarfed by Shaq’s likeness.
After Shaq embarrassed him on the court, he ended up relegated to acting as Tiger Woods’ caddy
.
The next section was dedicated to the biggest names in the music industry. Both current day and historical icons are represented here, everyone from Pitbull to Ricky Martin to Elvis.
Because I was feeling “Happy”, I enjoyed an extra moment or two arm-in-arm with my buddy Pharrell Williams
.
After the music area, we moved on to the portion of the museum dedicated to the biggest names in television. Steve sat down for a late-night interview with Jimmy Fallon:
….while I opted to bare my soul to the amazing Oprah Winfrey. She was lookin’ rather fabulous for a 63 year old. I can only hope I age as gracefully.
One of my favourite photo ops in the ENTIRE museum, though, had to be with Jim Parsons. Steve and I are HUGE fans of Big Bang Theory, and let’s be honest……this will be the closest that I’ll ever get to spending anytime with the incorrigible Sheldon Cooper, so there was no way I was rushing this moment. I think Steve worried that he eventually might have to pry me off of that bench. Bazinga!
The movie section was next. Tussaud’s has given the nod to several movies that appeal to the youngest guests, including Shrek:
…..Jurassic Park:
……and Kung Fu Panda:
That is one of my favourite pictures of Steve on this visit to Tussaud’s. He’s such a funny guy sometimes. No inhibitions whatsoever!!
Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe were both well represented in this area.......
as were more current celebrities among who were Tom Hanks:
Zendaya and Selena Gomez:
Johnny Depp (who is much skinnier than I would have ever pictured him….he needs to stop drinking so much rum and indulging in an Oreo or two):
Samuel L. Jackson (who was SO realistic I half expected this wax figure to start speaking to us
):
Will Smith:
….and Brad Pitt.
Many of the Tussaud’s displays have assorted props which allow guests to step even further into the “scene”….but for the most part, we avoided the hats and other clothing items for hygiene purposes. Neither of us are germophobes per se, but the thought of putting something on that thousands of other people have worn…..nope. Can’t do it
.
There are many more wax statues featured in Tussaud’s that I haven’t mentioned, so this is a place you could spend quite a lot of time in…..especially if you have teenagers. It’s also a place where you can get rather slowed down on busy days, as you wait for other folks to finish their selfies (and re-take them 5 times for “just the right shot”
) before they move on to the next star. With the Eye complex so empty, this visit was glorious and uncrowded, and I wholeheartedly recommend visiting in the morning for the best experience
.
Next up on the agenda……lunch, of course. It was time to “shake” 
things up a bit.
. Steve is already vying for another visit to Capone's so those early closure days would be the perfect opportunity.
. What do YOU think it looks like? 
. Gave us a good laugh when we scrolled through our pictures later that evening 
Super excited! (Except the part where we get back to school at 5am 
.
. I was just going to ask to sam and ella are. And then I realized.....salmonella......I am such a dunce sometimes 
. 
.
