Today was our second Universal day! We were planning to do Universal in the morning and cover some of the things we didn't get to do on Day 3, then move on to SeaWorld in the afternoon and stay until closing. We decided today would be a good day to wear our matching blue Wish shirts from SallyinDE since we had customs for the twins to wear on every other day. I don't remember anything memorable occurring before we got to the parks, but I am sure the morning involved ice cream at some point. We had really enjoyed our first day at Universal, with all the special treatment and everything, and we were looking forward to going back. The kids and Lance especially enjoyed the thrilling rides there.
We went in the same way we'd gone in before, and we had been working on Shay Lynne so that she would let us all ride Twister by reminding her that it wasn't real and that she could close her eyes like almost every other ride she'd ridden so far, etc. She finally gave in, but then Twister's opening video made me wonder if we'd made a big mistake because it gave all this factual information about tornados. Oops. Anyway, we went on and did it, and it was amazing! She wasn't too scared at all. So after she'd gotten so much gumption up, she let us leave that ride and go on to Revenge of the Mummy. I've never watched the Mummy movies, although in my world people always talk about the fact that the heroine is a librarian. So I've always meant to watch The Mummy, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Even so, I LOVED this ride. It has all these mummies coming out at you from everywhere, and it's a rollercoaster in the dark that even goes backwards! AWESOME!!! The kids adored it! It really was a blast.
We walked for awhile until we found an entire area that we'd missed the last time we were there--Woody Woodpecker's Kid Zone. I had been wondering where E.T. was, but we found it here so we rode it. I loved it, too! I was just a kid, maybe in the 4th grade, when I saw that movie in the theater. I have always loved E.T., and I told Lance that I felt like the ride was sort of a sequel to Part 1 because I'd always wondered what E.T.'s home looked like. You get to see where he came from and returned to on the ride, along with lots of other E.T.s. Very awesome ride. When you get off it dumps you out into the E.T. store, of course, and you can have your pic made either in the closet amongst all the stuffed animals (remember that scene?) or on the bike with E.T. riding on the front. But the pics were so durned expensive! And we'd already gotten our free one over at SpongeBob, plus I'd bought one of all of us in front of the globe on the first day we were there. However, the lady had sold that one to me for $7 for some reason (I think Clay's button) although the regular price was like $20-something. I don't really think she was supposed to do that, though. Anyway, those cute pics with E.T. were like $16.95 for a 5X7, and remember I had "Little-spender Lance" with me still. So we passed those cute photo ops up. I did ask if we could take our own pics, but they said no (the props were behind the sales counter).
Next we found Fievel's Playground, and the kids wanted to look around in there for a few minutes. We took a few pics because it was a cool place.
I think the Honey I Shrunk the Kids thingy at DHS would've been neater, but we bypassed that the day before because it was getting late. They had fun in this playground, but they had spied the Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster. We went over there to ride it, and although it by no means looked to be a thrill ride, it turned out to be a pretty cool kid's coaster! It seemed to be a little more lengthy than Goofy's Barnstormer, which was nice because if you take the trouble to ride something, you want it to last. When we got off that ride, we looked over and saw some characters we could go meet. The first ones we saw were Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat! We love monkeys in our house, and of course I love Curious George because he's a literary character, so we were excited! We went on over and met them so the twins could get their autographs. They moved us right up to the front of the line.
The next ones we saw, I could have fainted over! If you've read this very long-winded and wordy trip report from the beginning, you may remember that Clay loves Scooby-Doo and the Gang. Well, guess who we saw! Scooby AND Shaggy!! All my kids have loved the Scooby Doo shows through the years, so we all enjoyed meeting them!! Scooby was sweet, and Shaggy was a hoot!
Next, we saw Woody Woodpecker and his love. I hated that I had to ask the worker what the girlfriend's (or wife's?) name was, but I learned that she is Winnie Woodpecker. We got their autographs as well. I don't know that the kids have watched Woody Woodpecker before, but at least if they do in the future, they'll remember meeting them.
After seeing these characters, I had planned to make one stop at the Curious George area because I knew it would be cute.
I know there were still things in this park that we hadn't seen, but we decided to walk on out and head over to Islands of Adventure because by now it was well after lunch time. This is where some more grumpiness set in. It was almost unbearably hot on this day, I haven't mentioned yet how much Ty and Madison were complaining about their blisters. We all had
Crocs for the trip--Lance had Croc sandals because he won't wear any other kind of Croc, Madison had Croc flip-flops, and Ty had just gotten his first pair of regular Crocs. I've always worn Crocs, and so has Shay Lynne. Clay--bless his heart--cannot walk in regular Crocs. He walks with a limp and drags his right foot a little, especially when he's tired, and Crocs just will not stay on his right foot...so he has to wear the Sketchers Cali-gear that have Velcro. Anyway, I didn't have a problem with blisters severe enough to whine about, and Clay and Shay Lynne rode in the stroller most of the time, but the other three had blisters like crazy. I know many people on the DISboards recommend wearing Crocs to WDW, but my suggestion is to be used to them first unless you're up for wearing socks with them, which we weren't. Of the three complainers, Madison definitely won "the most blisters" award. Her Croc flip-flops bothered her after the first day so I let her wear some of my regular Crocs from then on, and she just got blisters everywhere else from those. Ty wore his tennis shoes from Day 2 on, but still always found something to complain about. Lance wore his Croc sandals as many days as he could stand it, then he wore flip-flops (not Croc flip-flops) for the rest of the trip.
I say all that to tell you that there was some major complaining going on due to the blisters and the sweltering heat, and everybody was tired, and then Lance and Madison started arguing over which road to take out of the park that would be the shortest. Lance got his way, of course, but Madison sure did complain about all the extra walking she thought we'd have to do, and so did Ty. But then we looked up, and something magical was happening up ahead!
And why wouldnt they let you in the LK show? Yeesh. So you had to wait for the third show? And what is it with low spending dh's 
Glad Clay got to meet Spongy! We had fun at US when we went but Curious George was a bit rude...he jumped off of a car and went to the nearest tree to do his business 
I was like this 
, you left us hanging. I need more please 
I will keep checking for updates 
How cool was that. You must have had tears yourself. 
What a special moment for him 
). OK, here's the sign...
. We can't wait to hear about the last 2 days.
)
