When I left off, we were heading across City Walk to Universal Studios after a morning conquering most of the dry parts of Islands of Adventure!
The time stamp on our pictures shows we went through the gates at Universal at 1:20 pm. Since we knew the line for Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit would be crazy so late in the day, we knew we'd have to save it for another day. As we walked up the street taking pictures, we figured we'd see what the wait was like at The Mummy.
Rip Ride Rockit
Snoopy & Woodstock balloon from the Macy's Holiday Parade
The Christmas tree. Pretty, but not nearly as impressive as the Disney Christmas trees!
The balloons for the Holiday Parade were up everywhere! Very cool to see, as I wasn't expecting that at all. Here's a few more we saw while still on our way to The Mummy.
A Garfield one in front of our destination, The Mummy!
After storing our stuff in the lockers, we jumped in line and only had about a 10 minute wait. This is one of my favorite rides in Universal, so I was very excited! On our honeymoon, DH and I had skipped this ride thinking it wouldn't be that great until we were leaving the park for the last time and decided to ride it, and we were blown away! We were very disappointed that we'd been missing out on such a great roller coaster that entire time. This time, we knew better.
SUCH an intense ride, despite the fact that it slows at some points, and even stops. And it doesn't even go upside down! But it is still one of the best coasters for sure.
After catching our breath and collecting our stuff from the lockers, we made our way down to the San Francisco area of the park to check out Disaster!
This ride has changed so much in the years since I can remember going to Universal, and I think now it is the funniest I've ever seen. The guy picking "extras" for the disaster movie they were shooting was just hysterical. He embarrassed some poor guy by making him show everyone his "guns." When they spliced the scenes together at the end, it had us in stitches, especially because the "movie" starred The Rock! Oh man, so funny!
We continued barreling through the park with our next destination in mind, Jaws.
I think they have updated this ride and added more splashes and possibly even more of the shark popping up out of the water? We all thought it seemed like the "scary" elements had been beefed up. But maybe we just hadn't rode in awhile. Still such a cheesy ride, but a must-do. I bet this one will be getting the boot soon to make way for something more updated.
As we continued making our way through the park, we could see up ahead an attraction that was new to all 6 of us: The Simpsons Ride!
Map of Krustyland
While standing in line, which was about a 15 minute wait, we were treated to some VERY funny clips of
The Simpsons to keep us entertained while we waited. Actually, I might have been the only one paying attention because every time I laughed, everyone else in our group looked at me funny.
The preshow was funny too! After a few minutes, we boarded our ride vehicle, and when the screen opened, we ended up being in the lowest level which I think is closest to the screen. The combination of being close to the screen, being thrown around and feeling like we were REALLY on a roller coaster after going on so many real coasters had my stomach feeling ALL KINDS of funny when we came off. It was a great ride, so realistic and so much smoother than Back to the Future had been. But not good on the belly.
When we exited the ride, we were pretty close to Men In Black, but I wasn't the only one not feeling too hot evidently as everyone turned down riding another ride that would spin us around. We decided to take a little break and sit for a few minutes to let our stomachs settle. My dad decided to get a beer and a soft pretzel, and the pretzels were buy one get one half off, so he got the second that me and DH split while sitting.
When we finally got up and moving again, we started heading towards the exit as it was getting close to 4 pm and we had to get to out of the park before the 5:30 parade because we had to get to church for 6 and we didn't want to get stuck by the parade. At the front of the park, we saw Shrek 4-D didn't have much of a wait, so we decided to make that our last attraction of the day.
We went right into the preshow area, and before long, we were putting on our 3-D glasses and heading into the theater! I absolutely love Shrek & Shrek 2, I think they are really hysterical movies, and this attraction is no exception! The only bad thing was that we were at the far left end of our row, and my seat wasn't always working. There were a few times that I could see Dustin's mom next to me moving with the shots on the screen, and my seat wasn't doing anything. But still a must do, for sure.
We leisurely made our way to the front of the park and got some pictures of the gigantic snowmen up front.
We headed into City Walk, and as we were passing the Nascar Grille, we heard the Saints game playing over the speakers on the porch! We had been keeping up with the game all day on DH's iPhone, and by this time, they were into overtime. My mom got VERY excited when she heard the broadcast and ran up onto the porch of the restaurant and pressed her face against the glass to watch the game on the screens inside. It was so funny when the waiter standing inside turned around and saw her standing there with her face up against the window and a grin on her face. He nicely invited us all in to watch the game at one of the booths, because they actually weren't busy at all. After watching the Saints dominate overtime and go to 12-0!
After all that excitement, we finally got ourselves back to the car to head to 6 pm mass at Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine. We dropped DH's parents off at the nearby outlet mall to shop while the 4 of us went to church. It was so hard to stay awake, I'll admit. We were exhausted, and it had been a long day. After church, we went to pick up Kathy & Jamie and grabbed some dinner at the outlet mall's food court before heading back to Bonnet Creek for the night.
We had an early morning coming up, so we all got to bed early, but only after enjoying an encore presentation of simultaneous IllumiNations and Holiday Wishes from the balcony! Never got enough of that, for sure. But Monday morning meant Rope Drop at DHS!!
UP NEXT: Did we make it in time for Rope Drop & get to ride TSM??
Definitely didn't live up to the hype!
x
DH and I went through first and immediately hurried up to the rope. I told him to stay to the right since that was what I had read on the DIS, but the crowd formed all the way up the sidewalks on either side, so we ended up a few feet away from the curb. It felt like forever that we were waiting there! But there were a couple of nice CMs standing there to "entertain" us until the rope drop show.
I still love that ride, but going on it so many times, I think it loses some of the surprise of the drop. It doesn't make my stomach feel like I left it at the top of the elevator shaft anymore. Some people might consider that a good thing, but I love that feeling! It's still fun though, and it doesn't stop me from riding multiple times a visit.
