Day 3 (IoA/Universal) Thursday June 21st
We got up nice and early to take advantage of early entrance, the park opened up at 9, 8:00a for resort guests. We got to the gate around 7:40a, and shortly after they were letting everyone into the park, and we were off. The crowd was pretty good, no one was sprinting, and everyone stayed calm pretty well, we took our time, snapping pictures of the park while it was empty for the most part. We finally made our way back to Harry Potter Land, I know nothing at all about Harry Potter, other than he is a wizard of some sort, I have never read any of the books or seen any of the movies
but after going through the area, riding the ride, walking through the shops
.I was intrigued, I bought the first book
.and LOVED IT, read the entire thing in 4 days. I know, who reads that much on vacation, well it rained pretty often, so I got a lot of reading time in, and read each night before bed. I ended up buying year 2 right after finishing year 1, currently am half way through year 2. The books are amazing, and made me enjoy the land and everything even more now that I knew the characters and different things I didnt before. Ok back to the vacation.
WWOHP was simply amazing, by far the best themed area of any them park I have ever been to. You felt like you were part of everything; the shops were all themed exactly to what I was imagining while reading the books. Words cannot even describe on what this area is like, my wife and I both said the same exact thing when we walked in
.WOW!
We walked through taking pictures of everything, and headed for Forbidden Journey, the queue line is amazing as well, you really feel like you are in a real castle, I was trying to pick up on anything I could from the books, but was in awe each time on how real it felt while being inside. With the early entrance we didnt have to wait at all and pretty much walked directly on the ride. And to continue with the pure amazement of WWOHP, Forbidden Journey knocks it out of the park as well. FJ is very easily the best ride I have ever rode, better than any coaster, better than any show. Its hard to even compare it to anything, kind of like Soarin at Epcot, where you really feel like you are flying, and like Spiderman at IoA, switching between screen and real life rooms. I think best describing it would be, its like Spiderman on steroids. The cast on the ride was amazing, sticking to theme, calling everyone muggles and talking to little kids about wizardry. Cant say anything more about the ride other than
WOW!
After getting off we grabbed a quick cup of Butterbeer, man that is good we ended up getting it three times throughout the trip, only trying the frozen Butterbeer, but each time it was better and better.
Finally my wife pulled me out of the land, and we made our way over to Marvel Super Hero Island to be begin our round around the park. The park still was not open to regular guests, so we went straight for The Incredible Hulk, which had no wait at all. We sat in the front row, and were the only people on the entire train. One of my favorite coasters of all time, it still does not disappoint, the blast off straight into the corkscrew is the best part of the ride for me. The rest of the ride is fun, however its a little more on the rough side than I remember from last time, but still one of my favorite coasters. One downfall I did notice about the que line, where the line combines between express pass and non express pass, there was not any cast member there to help the combining of the two lines, so needless to say the regular line all thought we were trying to cut in front of them, because they had no idea we were express pass. We rode this ride a handful of times, there was never a cast member there, until the last day we were there, so maybe they were just short staffed, but I could see a lot of people getting upset each time we jumped through the express pass way.
After the Incredible Hulk we checked out our on ride photo and headed over to Storm Force, the park had just opened to the general public, and everyone was heading to WWoHP, so Marvel Super Hero Island stayed pretty empty the whole time we were there. Storm Force had no wait at all, I always make sure to get these types of rides spinning as fast as possible, my wife just sits back and lets me do all the hard work. After a little bit, my arms started to hurt(I guess Im getting old), and I was starting to get a little dizzy, I just let the ride finish out and sat back trying to enjoy it.
After Storm Force, we headed to Doctor Doom Fear Fall, again the ride had no wait at all, we walked right in went to door 3, and before you knew it we were being shot straight up in the air with a wonderful view of the theme park. Im typically not a huge fan on rides that shoot you up or drop you down like Fear Fall does, but I promised my wife I would ride it, and after doing so it wasnt too bad at all. I didnt enjoy too much the feeling of my body still going up as the ride stopped, but the view of the park made up for that feeling.
Walking through the exit you could smell Café 4s pizza, and them getting ready for lunch, wow that smelled good, we decided to eat lunch there later in the trip. We then headed straight for Spiderman, again with everyone heading to Harry Potter and the others heading to Incredible Hulk, we walked right on Spiderman. The ride hadnt changed from the last time I rode it, other than they updated the graphics, and man did it make a difference, everything seemed so much clearer, and the details stuck out even more than they did before, making it even better than the rides previous to this one. Spiderman is still one of my favorite, and each room you enter puts something new onto you, whether youre getting a little wet, or feeling like youre going to come falling to your death. I could probably ride Spiderman all day and not get bored, we poked around in the gift shop for a little, as I rambled on about the new Spiderman movie coming out early July, my wife, bless her heart, has no idea what Im talking about, but always tries to listen and seem interested.
Once we got through the shop, we took some more pictures and headed through toon lagoon, my wife hates water rides, and we didnt have our swim suits on, so I didnt force her onto Rip Saw Falls or Popeye, but we did stop and take pictures of the area.
Once we finished we headed to Jurassic Park, one of my all-time favorite movies, so I love going through this area and listening to the music, taking in the theming, just waiting for a dinosaur to come out and get me. I talked my wife into going on River Adventure with me, despite seeing the huge splash from the final drop, she reluctantly said ok, and we walked right on, again no wait at all for the ride. Before you knew it, we were off on our tour through Jurassic Park, seeing all the dinosaurs, avoiding the watering holes that were spraying water up at us. And then all of a sudden we were knocked off course, and heading straight for the raptor cages, I looked over at my wife, not sure if she was upset because it was a water ride, or she really thought raptors were out, but she wasnt enjoying herself to much. Now every time before riding this ride, I never got more than a little mist in the face, but this time I got soaked
..and so did my wife, I think it took every bone in her body to not strangle me or toss me off the boat, but she was a good sport and just looked at me shaking her head
.but she did enjoy the ride other than getting wet, so its not all bad
.right?
After Jurassic Park, we headed straight through Harry Potter, man was it packed. People were everywhere, FJ now had a 90 minute wait. Every single person you seen had a butterbeer in there hand, I have never seen one of area of any them park, sell that many of one drink
.coke included. Some people had frozen, some didnt, some had the souvenir cup, some didnt, but everyone had a butterbeer.
After cutting through we made our way over to Seuss Landing, and went to Cat in the Hat. We only had to wait roughly ten minutes, and we were on our coach reliving one of the great Dr. Seuss stories. I have heard some say this is only a kid ride
..its not, while classed as that, its one of the best kid rides I have ever been on, and I have never seen anyone exit this ride upset, grandparents, moms and dads, kids, everyone seems to love this ride. And why not, the theming is excellent, they do a great job of telling the story, and the ride itself is super smooth and exciting.
After getting off The Cat in the Hat, we got on the Seuss Train Trolley ride, this was probably our longest wait of the day, ended up waiting around 20 minutes, but very enjoyable ride, and you get a nice view of Seuss Landing from up above, and a special little treat going through the circus tent.
We had reservations at Mythos for 12:30, however it was only 11 and we were starving. We didnt want to eat, but wasnt sure what to do to waste another hour. So I talked my wife into a couple more rides to waste some time, we headed for Dragon Challenge, with the new Harry Potter land and FJ, it seems like people forget about this ride, actually we forgot about it. Didnt really pay much attention to the theming, and we only had to wait about 10 minutes, and we were choosing fire or ice. We went with fire the first time and just chose the row that had the shortest wait time, ended up sitting in the third row, at first we started going up the lift with the ice train, but they slowed our train down and allowed the other train to go ahead to avoid the racing feature that used to happen. The ride itself is one of the smoothest coasters I have been in, very enjoyable and kind of quick, once you go down the hill and through the loop, the ride ends pretty quickly afterwards, but still a very smooth and fun ride one should never skip over.
After Dragon Challenge we still had over an hour until our reservations so we went through Poseidons Fury with it being straight across from Mythos. I love this show, the actor was excellent and did a really good acting scared, confident or funny whatever he needed to, he brought everything together for the show. Everyone enjoyed the vortex of water, and next you know we were in the middle of the final battle. We were in the front row, the first was very hot, and at times it was a bit crazy trying to pay attention to everything and listen to what was being said, but still never a dull moment in the show, and it keeps your attention through the entire thing.
Finally lunch time was here, we went straight to Mythos, our reservations were for 12:30, we got there around 12:15, and they had us seated within 5 minutes. Inside this place is nothing short of amazing, if youre looking for a nice place to have lunch, try Mythos, the inside is spectacular, and the prices arent too far off of normal theme park prices. The bread that they bring out for your meal is really good, and eliminates the need to order an appetizer, especially if your there for lunch. I got the buffalo chicken wrap with fries, my wife ended up getting a bacon cheeseburger I believe, both meals were excellent and well worth the price we paid. Whenever I make another trip to Universal, I will defiantly be eating at Mythos again, I recommend to anybody to try it as well.
After lunch we were rather tired and decided to head back to the hotel for a nap. I only slept for a little bit, and jumped into my Harry Potter book, while the wife got her beauty sleep. After she woke, she wanted to go to Universal, so we got ready and were heading down the walkway from RPR to Universal Studios.
We first caught the Universal Horror Make Up Show, which is a very funny show, and shows a couple tricks on how they do things in Hollywood. Some humor and language they use during the show is a bit out there, so if you have young kids, you might want to think twice about going to this show. However it is very funny, and very cool to see everything, and I would recommend checking it out if you want to get out of the sun and have a seat.
After the show we headed over to E.T., which had no wait at all, we walked straight up and straight through the doors to the pre-show area. I was kind of shocked and impressed that all the younger kids that were standing next to me knew exactly who E.T. was, props go out to the parents for actually showing them a movie thats a lot older than almost anything else at the park. The que line for E.T. is amazing and you really feel like you are walking through the woods, however that is pretty much the best part of the ride, the rest of it you can really tell is way past its age. E.T. defiantly needs some lovin to update this ride. The trains on this ride are really cool and give the impression you are on a bike, however the animatronics on this ride are very very outdated, but none the less a fun ride, especially for little kids who could care less about the animatronics.
After E.T., we then headed for
you guess it, MIB, again we did it two more times, each time getting better and better learning more secrets than we knew the previous time.
We were getting hungry and left the park, it was game 5 of the NBA championship and I talked my wife into grabbing dinner at NBA café, the lady told us it was an indefinite wait, but she thought it would be anywhere from 30-60 minutes, we only ended up waiting 25 minutes. We had a perfect table facing the TV and got seated right at the beginning of the game. The food here, was not what I expected, but it was very good, probably one of the best restaurants Citywalk has to offer, and our server was amazing. I cant remember his name for the life of me, but was hands down the best server we had on the trip. We stayed for the first half and then headed back to the hotel to watch the rest of the game and head to bed.
Coming up Day 4....Tour of Hard Rock Hotel, Universal Studios, IoA and the rain starts.
