"So what happened after the dragon?" a Feb '17 Universal TR - Final POSTS - May 19th!

[skier_pete]

I read the intro, but need to come back and catch up on the rest. Just got back from my own trip!

Hey Alison! Welcome along! My upkeep with others TRs have been really bad. Trying to stay on top of my own.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 3 – The original plan for today was to be just a "hang around the resort day", but Universal threw a wrench in our plans...thel had announced that they were going to have the Jurassic Park ride closed down as of Tuesday for several weeks of refurb, and this was one of the big things that DD was excited to ride. However, we were getting a season pass, so an extra day was not a big deal. We decided we would dress appropriate for the water rides, go today and get wet, and then leave after doing them. I didn't even bring my regular camera, so these are all water

We didn’t worry too much about making it to rope drop, but knowing it was President’s Day and we had lunch plans we didn’t want to waste a lot of time either, so I think it was before 10 AM that we got to the park. We had to go through the process of activating our Annual Passes, and also buying DMIL a 2-day ticket for the next day.

Our first view of Citywalk:

There's something about that tower...

Remo Williams was apparently here...

DD wanted to walk through Hogsmeade, so we went to the the right through Suess Landing. DW and I saw “Sam I Am” standing with no-one greeting, so we couldn’t help but take a picture!

We went through the Lost Continent and Hogsmeade and made it to our destination:
“WELCOME TO JURASSIC PARK!” (In Sir Richard Attenborough's voice)

It’s time to go on an adventure!

As usual with Universal –no photos allowed on the ride!! The ride was pretty much as we remembered, DD liked it, but once things started to go horribly wrong, she closed her eyes and put her head down. She didn’t even get to the see the T-Rex at the end!!! We asked her if she wanted to do it again, but “Nope!” (This will be a common theme!)

So next we went to Toon Lagoon…DD wanted a Pretzel and DW and I split a coke. We showed DD the Dudley Do-Right ride, and she would NOT go on that! We insisted she go on the Bluto’s Bilge Rats. What a great raft ride, way better than Kali River Rapids, but BOY do you get SOAKED on it. (Again no pictures.) After we were soaked, everyone wanted to leave. (None of us like walking around wet.) So we headed back to the car and back to our resort.

So, I wanted to point out what I consider a MAJOR theme park faux pas that occurred as we were walking through Marvel Island. We saw Captain America out doing a M&G. Well, we walk about 100 feet further, and they're doing the show where the Marvel heroes all come out on their ATVs, and there’s Captain America AGAIN – at the SAME TIME. (Just noticed I properly used they're, their, and there in the same sentence!) DD kept commenting on it throughout the trip. She’s old enough to know about the characters, but MAN that is such a major theme park no-no. Someone should be fired over that schedule!

Since today was originally supposed to be our “relax” day we didn’t really have any other plans but to have lunch at Sanaa. We though DMIL would get a kick out of dining with the animals, and we love the food, so why not! We also got to show off our "home" to her. (Yes, we slightly more than 2 one-hundred thousandths of all you see.)

DD was less than impressed...even when I told her "Someday two -one hundred thousandths of what the light touches will be your kingdom!"
She asked "What about that shadowy place."
I answered "That's where they shovel all the poop. You don't want to go there."

Our pager buzzed after about 10 minutes (I had asked for a seat by the window) and so we had to head in.

I love the décor of this restaurant:

Once we ordered, we DID make DD put away her phone! Oh - and that's a Safari Amber there in front of me. It is super-yummy!

We had a fantastic CM for a waitress. We chatted with her about Universal, and about the food at the various restaurants at Animal Kingdom Lodge (ZEBRA DOMES!)

DD loves the Naan, so we figured she could just have Naan for lunch, so we ordered a double-portion of the bread service. I love all the flavored sides that come with this!

For the meal, DMIL order the fish of the day – I forgot the name of the fish. She liked it, but didn’t think it was great.

DW got an order of the Tandoori Chciken. This was very tasty.

I knew I would be full from the bread service, so I ordered an appetizer of the lamb sliders. The lamb itself was delicious, but the little buns were terrible…dry and no flavor. Very disappointing!

We had waited for a table by the window on purpose, because it's always fun eating while watching African animals. A few more shots from our table:

This one African Crowned Crane was really interested in his reflection at our table: You can see him looking behind DW:

We wanted to swing over to Mara to pick up some Zebra Domes to have with dinner, so we were waiting for the shuttle, and this guy (who looked like a manager) came out and started playing the Bongos, and DW sat down next to him, and he gave DW a lesson. This is the kind of cool interaction that seems to happen all the time at Disney, that we didn’t really see once at Universal. I mean, the Cast Members were very nice there, and we had no problems with any of them, but never had an “above and beyond” like you sometimes get at Disney.

Our evening was spent at the Sheraton. We actually took a rather long nap in the afternoon, and then went over to the pool for a short while. It was quite a nice pool, but it was getting dark and cool at the same time, so even though I went in for a short bit, it didn't last long as I knew the air would be cold getting out.

Up next - our first full Universal day!

 

[rteetz]

Jurassic Park would be one thing I want to see at Universal. I love the movies.

Universal has made great improvements to their parks but from the sounds of it characters they still have some work to do. You would think they would figure that out by now.

Ugh I really need to try Sanaa. I just love AKL in terms of theming. That's also really cool your wife got to have that drum/CM experience.

 

[Malia78]

She asked "What about that shadowy place."
I answered "That's where they shovel all the poop. You don't want to go there."

This was the chuckle I needed in the middle of my work day

 

[pattyw]

DS20 loves Jurassic Park! So glad it reopens before we get there later this week! Nice pictures of Sanaa! We've never made it over there for a meal- have to pry ourselves out of the park to do so!

 

[khertz]

I'm here! Seems like y'all got to do a lot more than just Universal, which is cool. We are thinking of doing the Space Center when DS is a bit older. I think he'd really enjoy that.

How great that with APs you were able to adjust your plans and check out Jurassic Park before it went down. And got a nice little detour to your home away from home!

 

[skier_pete]

Jurassic Park would be one thing I want to see at Universal. I love the movies.

Universal has made great improvements to their parks but from the sounds of it characters they still have some work to do. You would think they would figure that out by now.

Ugh I really need to try Sanaa. I just love AKL in terms of theming. That's also really cool your wife got to have that drum/CM experience.

The Jurassic Park area is definitely impressive. The ride could actually use some love - it seemed a bit dingy and many of the animatronics were not that impressive, but overall it's a fun ride and makes nice use of the drop.

I can't recommned Sanaa enough. It's one of our favorites on property.

This was the chuckle I needed in the middle of my work day

DD was in the Lion King musical, so I think we have every line memorized by now.

DS20 loves Jurassic Park! So glad it reopens before we get there later this week! Nice pictures of Sanaa! We've never made it over there for a meal- have to pry ourselves out of the park to do so!

One thing to consider is taking a mid-day break to go over there - instead of lunch in the park, the bus from DAK to AKL Kidani is only 5 minutes, and they just loop a bus all day, so you never really wait more than 10 minutes.

I'm here! Seems like y'all got to do a lot more than just Universal, which is cool. We are thinking of doing the Space Center when DS is a bit older. I think he'd really enjoy that.

How great that with APs you were able to adjust your plans and check out Jurassic Park before it went down. And got a nice little detour to your home away from home!

The space center is great. I was hoping it would inspire DD - but she just said it was boring. Ah teenagers.

Yeah, fortunately with the shift in calendar, we could go on Monday (the 20th) and that still would in theory give us Saturday/Sunday/Monday (17th - 19th) next year for President's week, though I was originally considering going for 3 days, I think at this stage I plan to drop it to only 2 as there was much less enthusiasm for Universal after she actually went there.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 4 (Tuesday)

Without front of the line, I was determined that we would get to the gates with plenty of time. DMIL has trouble walking but won’t use a wheelchair, so we wanted to make sure she would have time to get to the park. So we planned to leave at 7:45 AM to make 9 AM park opening. (In addition, the weather today was supposed to be decent- overcast but warm - but the next two days they were calling for rain, so I anticipated higher crowds today (that was probably a good call).
Surprisingly, though this was the earliest arrival day, we actually had the “worst” parking spot today..but we took our time walking through citywalk. I think I said this yesterday, but I am impressed with Unviersal’s security protocols, using metal detectors and scanners to check bag like at the airport as opposed to the silly searches that Disney uses. They also do it at the conjunction of the parking ramps and the drop-off location, essentially giving them a single location for security before you even get to citywalk. Nice job Universal.

Much lower crowds through citywalk today:

We stopped for a picture in front of the Universal globe.

I thought I had heard they let you into the park slightly early to allow people to get to their desired locations, but they had everyone queued at the turnstiles until right at 9 AM. In addition, there seems to be lots of problems with the scanning systems at Universal. We only had maybe 15 people in line in front of us, but it took almost 10 minutes to get into the park, because EVERYONE had problems with the ticket scans…including us. This was a common problem in the morning getting through the gates.
DD only had one interest and that was Harry Potter, however, based on what I had read about ride lines, the better option was to hit Minion Mayhem first thing. And it turns out this was the right move. We essentially walked onto this “ride”, and any other time we passed by it, wait ranged from 50 to 90 minutes.

Nice job of theming the inner queue!

We’re pretty big fans of the Despicable Me movies, though the Minions movie was not great…it was nice that they had seats for DMIL that didn’t move, but the rest of us sat in a regular car. DD didn’t want to do this ride because it was 3D. (She hates 3D –and yes I KNOW everything here is 3D, and I TOLD her everything is 3D ahead of time.) However, it was a fun and cute motion simulator ride. I am glad it focused more on Gru and the girls than just the minions. That said, I thought that once was enough for it.
At the end of the ride, you could get your picture with a minion! DD of course declined from participating.

Next we headed to Gringott’s, along with what appeared to be thousangds of other people. We were already having issues with DMIL walking, and now we needed to stop for a bathroom break. We finally got to Diagon Alley it was about 9:40 AM. We found a place for DMIL to sit, and we got in line for the Gringott’s line, which was showing a 45 minute wait.
I know it’s been said before, but the detailed theme in this area is indeed impressive. Pretty much everything that is mentioned in the book exists somewhere in Diagon Alley or Hogsmead.

The dragon is of course really cool especially when it breaths fire – but one small probably with it, it doesn’t actually move…

The queue for Escape from Gringott’s was pretty true to it’s word and took about 45 minutes. Much of that was outside behind the ride building in a very dull queue, but eventually you get into the main building…where the animatronic Goblins are. Excuse the crappy phone pictures, my phone was picking up glare big-time and I couldn’t figure out why. (Fogged?)_

The ride itself is pretty unique. It’s in theory a roller coaster, but you end up stopping like every 15 seconds to watch a projected seen on a screen. It tells the story (sort of ) of when Harry, Ron, and Hermione sneak into Gringott’s to steal a Horcrux, and we just happen to be there at the time –so of course everything hoes horribly wrong. No photos of the ride.

To be continued in next post...

 

[skier_pete]

Once out of the ride it was showing a 90 minute wait, so good thing we did it when we did. DD really wanted a wand, so next up we got in line for the wand show at Olivander’s. This wait was probably about 25 minutes, so not too bad.

Love how the buildings are typically not very straight. And also theming is right down to the ice cream shop.

Once we got inside, we had to wait for one of the wandmakers before they let us in. Wands were stacked EVERYWHERE! DD couldn’t resist touching them.

A bunch of us were crammed in a small room, and they did a little show where a boy picked out his wand. This seemed like one of the few moments of non-chaos in Diagon Alley – and it was a nice relief, but once the show was over, they dumped us into the wand shop, where they had about 200 people in a shop meant for maybe 50. It was hard to even LOOK for a wand, but DD went through several before finally settling on one. These wands cost $50, but they do stuff around the two lands, so I guess there’s that. (As a note, the different spells you can cast seem to vary in difficulty. Some of the things we just simply couldn’t get to work, which seemed to be frustrating lots of kids. The ideas were cute – something moved, or sang, or jumped, or vanished – but in the end it didn’t seem like it worked all that well. DD like it for a while, but didn’t really try to do to many of them. She DID carry the wand most of the day, so she was definitely happy to have it.

By this point it was past 11 AM, and we decided to have lunch. The line for the Leaky Cauldron, like everything else, was huge, but it was probably only a 10 or 15 minute wait.

We ordered our food, and then they found us a seat. The system here was definitely well set up to handle the crowds. Ordered a frozen butterbeer and DD wanted the orange soda…however, she did not like the way it was prepared with cinnamon, so she wouldn’t drink it. There goes $6!

DD and DMIL both ordered the fish and chips. They both really liked it. They chips were nice hearty steak fry style and their was plenty of fish served.

I had the Cottage Pie, which was mashed potatoes over a meat / veggie stew. It was really delicious. The side salad was sort of weird, though. Six leafs of lettuce and half a mushy tomato.

DW had the chicken sandwich, which she said was also very good!

Is this the actul Leaky Cauldron?

Theming was pretty minimal in here actually – lots of long tables to get ‘em in and out.

End of the update for today...

 

[macraven]

Your pictures are awesome!

And loved all the pics of the giraffes you had a few posts up

 

[franandaj]

OK All caught up!

Hey Alison! Welcome along! My upkeep with others TRs have been really bad. Trying to stay on top of my own.

Well I haven't started my next one yet, but finished the other before I left on the last trip. I have a few more rounds to make before I post my own TR.

I have another friend here on the DIS who stays at the Sheraton Vistana. They have a timeshare there, and usually get the 2 bedroom units when they stay.

Yours is the second report on the Kennedy Space Center I have read this week. We went there almost 10 years ago when the shuttle launch experience was new. They have added a ton of new stuff since then. It might deserve a return trip sometime (when I can start planning trips again.... ). It sounds like their space shuttle experience is much cooler than what we currently have in LA, but they are working on a really cool building to display it. Right now it's just in a giant hangar.

I also hate getting wet, so I've never gone on any of those rides. Too bad your DD wasn't into the rides there so much. Love Sanaa! When we go back to WDW that place is going on the top of the list!

They also do it at the conjunction of the parking ramps and the drop-off location, essentially giving them a single location for security before you even get to citywalk.

Our Disney park recently implemented something similar in December. It's actually a vast improvement, unless you are a guest at a "Non-Harbour Blvd" offsite hotel. In that case you have to walk all the way to the DLH end of DTD to pass security. It's great for people who are guests at the Grand, the line for security is practically non existent and once you're in, you're in! No more pesky screenings!

I have yet to try the Leaky Cauldron or what's the other one? We've always got there so early and been done with HP land before lunch that we weren't hungry until we were either back at the hotel, or on the other side of the park! I think I would choose your entree. I love a good Shepherd's pie, and Cottage pie, sounds about like the same thing. Hmmmm......now I'm thinking that I should look up a recipe for that and make some while we're expecting rain next week. I thought we had settled in for the rest of year summer, but I guess we're cooling back down a little.

I hope you didn't get hit to hard with the last storm. Everyone on FB I saw in the NE was underwhelmed by the actual snowfall given the wild predictions.

 

[skier_pete]

Your pictures are awesome!

And loved all the pics of the giraffes you had a few posts up

Thank you very much!!

Yours is the second report on the Kennedy Space Center I have read this week. We went there almost 10 years ago when the shuttle launch experience was new. They have added a ton of new stuff since then. It might deserve a return trip sometime (when I can start planning trips again.... ). It sounds like their space shuttle experience is much cooler than what we currently have in LA, but they are working on a really cool building to display it. Right now it's just in a giant hangar.

It's not something I would go to every year - but it certainly is interesting!

I also hate getting wet, so I've never gone on any of those rides. Too bad your DD wasn't into the rides there so much. Love Sanaa! When we go back to WDW that place is going on the top of the list!

I don't mind getting wet in a water park, but I really hate walking around one of the theme parks all wet. I love these rides though - Bluto's is great, I'd even say it's better than Grizzly. One of the great things about staying at the Grand is being able to ride GRR and then pop in and change into dry clothes. When we went in 2013 we rode Splash, hopped across to GRR, rode it twice and then went to our room. (I think Bluto's is a better ride even than GRR.)

Our Disney park recently implemented something similar in December. It's actually a vast improvement, unless you are a guest at a "Non-Harbour Blvd" offsite hotel. In that case you have to walk all the way to the DLH end of DTD to pass security. It's great for people who are guests at the Grand, the line for security is practically non existent and once you're in, you're in! No more pesky screenings!

I saw somewhere that they moving the security screenings back. They're going to have security when you get off the monorail, off the buses, and off the ferry instead of right in front of MK. It should really open things up there again.

I have yet to try the Leaky Cauldron or what's the other one? We've always got there so early and been done with HP land before lunch that we weren't hungry until we were either back at the hotel, or on the other side of the park! I think I would choose your entree. I love a good Shepherd's pie, and Cottage pie, sounds about like the same thing. Hmmmm......now I'm thinking that I should look up a recipe for that and make some while we're expecting rain next week. I thought we had settled in for the rest of year summer, but I guess we're cooling back down a little.

Yes, the cottage pie is similar to Shepherd's pie, but I think of Shepherd's pie as having ground beef and this had shredded beef. It was still really good. The other restaurant is the Three Broomsticks, and it has a similar menu. I think we'll try it next trip.

I hope you didn't get hit to hard with the last storm. Everyone on FB I saw in the NE was underwhelmed by the actual snowfall given the wild predictions.

Well, we actually got hit quite hard by our house. We usually don't get much snow at our house because we are not in the lake effect bands, but the way this storm came out of the north we actually had lake effect push off of Lake Ontario, which almost never happens. So while at work we only got maybe 8 - 10 inches of snow, at our house we probably got a good 20-24 inches. Not a big deal as it fell across 48 hours. DD missed 2 days of school, but back today.

I was remarking to Ulana last night that living here its nice that even though we don't get snow that often, we are well prepared for big snows, so we don't get paralyzed by a foot of snow like most places do. Honestly, we had more snow in the last 2 days at our house than we had the entire winter. (I ran the snowblower 3 times before this week all winter, ran it 4 times this week.)

 

[pattyw]

Well, we actually got hit quite hard by our house. We usually don't get much snow at our house because we are not in the lake effect bands, but the way this storm came out of the north we actually had lake effect push off of Lake Ontario, which almost never happens. So while at work we only got maybe 8 - 10 inches of snow, at our house we probably got a good 20-24 inches. Not a big deal as it fell across 48 hours. DD missed 2 days of school, but back today.

Yep- we're in Lockport, NY and were slammed by that 2 feet of snow, too! We were so happy to leave for Universal last Wednesday!

Leaky Cauldron looks good- we never ate there because I didn't want to fight to find a seat- do they seat you?

 

[NJlauren]

How did DD like Escape from Gringotts? I do think the theming in these lands at universal are amazing. The only lands I think come close are Cars and Bugs in Disneyland. I'm hoping Pandora is just as good! Not that I love Avatar or anything but I really love 'lands' where I feel really immersed!

Seems like a good trip so far!

 

[skier_pete]

Yep- we're in Lockport, NY and were slammed by that 2 feet of snow, too! We were so happy to leave for Universal last Wednesday!

Leaky Cauldron looks good- we never ate there because I didn't want to fight to find a seat- do they seat you?

Yes, they did have TMs seating people, it was very well organized I think they did a nice job of it, though at times the line for being seated built a little. We didn't feel too pressured to leave though.

How did DD like Escape from Gringotts? I do think the theming in these lands at universal are amazing. The only lands I think come close are Cars and Bugs in Disneyland. I'm hoping Pandora is just as good! Not that I love Avatar or anything but I really love 'lands' where I feel really immersed!

Seems like a good trip so far!

She tolerated it OK - I don't think she liked many of the rides very much. She doesn't like 3D, and she doesn't like things being flung at her.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 4 continued

DD was eager to ride the Hogwarts Express, but we insisted we look around the shops here just a little bit more. So over to the Weasley joke shop.

I gotta give Universal a lot of credit here. Pretty much every item that was ever mentioned in one of the Harry Potter books is available to buy here in Potter-World. This includes the gag gifts in the Weasley shop. And again the shop looked just like the movie.

DD was very excited to get her own Pygmy Puff!

They had a shop that was all about Magical Creatures, and you could buy a stuffed version of pretty much any animal mentioned in the books.

There was a dark forboding area that was Kockturn Alley. Down there was Borkin and Burkes, the dark magic store. And of course you can buy all kinds of stuff in their too…even a death eater mask for the next time you want to worship the Dark Lord.

DD was creeped out in here and just wanted to leave.

Leaving Diagon Alley through the brick wall.

So we headed next door to “Kings Cross Station”. We had to have our tickets scanned because we were now going park-to-park and only certain tickets allowed that. The line for this part wasn’t bad, but the wait for the train was 45 minutes!!

Once you got about 90% through the queue, you actually got to watch people passing through the wall to enter platform 9 and 3/4ers!!! This was a neat illusion done with a very, very old magicians trick.

Unfortunately, you got to watch OTHER people walk through the magic wall, but when you did it, you were just walking through an arch. Most of the queue looked like a train station, but once on the Hogwarts Platform there was slightly more to it.

Anyone know what the Hogwarts motto means?? It’s pretty goofy, but I’ll make you go look it up like I did.

Excited to be on the train…I guess.

I’m going to put a little rant in here. So we do not normally buy hoppers at Disney. I prefer to stay at a single park most of the day. Plus, it is often cheaper to buy 2 or 3 more days of park tickets than to add a hopper option.

Universal is no different. I could have bought a 4-day single park pass for $225, but our 4-day park-to-park pass costs $55 more than that. And I would’ve been perfectly happy with that 4-day single park ticket.

But wait, Universal has to go a build a ride (The Hogwarts Express) that you can ONLY ride by buying a park-to-park ticket. And because my little girl is such a huge fan – I HAD to buy that park-to-park ticket. So it also led me to upgrade our tickets to APs, and MY AP to a preferred AP to get discounts. And a park-to-park ticket for DMIL. So in reality, I spent $425 more on park tickets than I would have liked – for ONE SINGLE RIDE…(And yes, we are getting a second visit next year out of that money – but if you just consider the upgrade, it would be $220 more for this ONE SINGLE RIDE.)

…And let me tell you, even though I’m a Harry Potter fan, the ride wasn’t even worth the 45 minute wait. It’s cute and all, but it’s essentially a 4 minute video that if you watched it on-line it’s no different from the ride. It’s like paying $220 and waiting 45 minutes to ride the TTA. So knowing now what this ride is like, and having ridden it…if we ever come back for an extended visit to Universal…I am not sure I will pay the upgrade for park-to-park.

Anyways, we finally arrived in Hogsmeade.

As you can see – there were a lot of people around. Everyone was hot, everyone was tired. DD didn’t want to do anything in Hogsmeade because there were too many people, and she was still agitated from the Gringott’s ride. We decided to get out of the extreme crowds and head over to Jurassic Park.

To be continued....

 

[skier_pete]

Day 4 cotninued -
At this point, everyone seemed to be having mental breakdowns. DW was falling asleep. DMIL couldn’t walk anymore. DD wanted to go back to the hotel. I was going crazy because everyone seemed like they were done for the day – and we had only done 3 rides. Now, I wasn’t yelling or anything, just boiling internally. The fact is – I KNEW this was exactly what would happen. (Well, not DW falling asleep.) And I knew that I would be mad that I spent all this money, and after 4 hours everyone was done – and I even KNEW I would be mad about it.

But I tried to calm myself. We sat there on a rock wall, and I finally decided to do something about it.

Yes, I ordered a very, very strong alcoholic drink. I watched the lady pour it, and there was a good 4 shots in there. It was quite alcoholic, and it managed to calm my nerves. So, we decided to go to the raptor meet – but the wait was at least 45 minutes, so no-one really wanted to do that. Instead, we went to the discovery center.

They had these computers where you could scan a dino egg to determine what type of dinosaur was in the egg. DD LOVED this. (Yes, she’s too old for it, but for whatever reason it fascinated her.)

I wanted us to still do something else, but everyone was still rather weary, and DD was refusing to ride anymore rides. So I suggested the Sinbad stunt show. This show is L-A-M-E. Yes, just not good. I don’t think it’s changed at all since we saw it in 2000, and it wasn’t very good then. I’d rather watch the Indiana Jones stunt show 20 times than this thing.

Next we went to Suess landing.

DD wanted a Fanta (orange soda) so we got her one. Then DMIL and I got ice cream, and DD was upset that I wouldn’t let her have ice cream AND a giant soda. I told her she could share some of my ice cream, but that wasn’t good enough – so she went and pouted. (Yeah, we’re all having fun now!) We all rode the Suess Trolley. This was really lame too. I thought because it was above the park it might be kind of neat, but it definitely was a kiddie ride. (It didn’t help that the weather was starting to cool off and get cloudy. Next we went on the Cat in the Hat. It only had a 5 minute wait, but we got half way through and it BROKE DOWN!

Some of us were less than excited about this. DD complained about having to ride these lame kiddie rides, but of course she wouldn’t ride any of the adult rides either, so what exactly are we supposed to do?
Well, I told them I was going to ride the hulk. I had to ride by myself. PETE SMASH!

It was about 6 PM by the time we were leaving the park. No one really wanted to stay to watch the Mardi Gras stuff, even though this would likely be our only night we would get to do so. We ended up stopping for dinner at a Fuddrucker’s. (Always liked their burgers, but the one near us had closed down a few years ago.) We went back to the hotel to relax and check out the weather forecast. They were talking about rain for the next two days, and we weren’t looking forward to two days of rain at Universal. We debated about going back for Mardi Gras in the evening, but no one had any enthusiasm for it.

Next up - here comes the rain!!!

 

[macraven]

I'm guessing it rained....

 

[skier_pete]

I'm guessing it rained....

Though not as bad as the forecast predicted - it was nonetheless not a great day.

 

[rteetz]

Well quite the update!

I am surprised Disney hasn't done something like that yet with the ride between two parks where you must have a park hopper or something.

I could totally see something in Star Wars Land being exclusive and an add on.