Thursday, December 3, 2015
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| My Cinnabun breakfast |
We were up earlier this morning after a full, good night's sleep. The parks opened at 9am this morning. We were up at 7am and took our time. I had coffee again made in the room with what was provided. It was pretty good both mornings. We stopped for breakfast at Cinnabun in CityWalk. Then we walked over to the Studios side again to start and straight in as soon as they opened and we arrived. No problems today.
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| Clay's Cinnabun breakfast |
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| Park Entrance |
I had gone through the week's map/schedule brochure last night before bed and made a list of live scheduled activities so we could get the most out of our last day without running around missing things or just counting on luck. It was a pretty loose schedule and it worked out fine. We also made a dinner reservation from the room before bedtime because we had enough of the Harry Potter area's meals. The day's schedule went more or less like this: 10:45am meet Shrek & Donkey, 12:30pm Horror Make Up Show, 1:30pm Animal Actors, 3:45pm Raptor meeting, 4:30pm Terminator 2 3-D, 5pm Universal's Superstar parade, 5:30pm Finnegan's dinner reservation, 7pm parks close and Universal's Cinematic Spectacular nighttime show. There was more of course, but these were the times and places that were set.
We were in early with time to kill before 10:45am and the first live scheduled event I had laid out. I looked at the map and chose to visit Curious George Goes to Town, an interactive playground. It was at the opposite side of the back of the park to Diagon Alley. We had not gone back there at all yesterday. We walked around the lagoon and scoped out most of the other places we would visit today. The little kid's section in the back was mostly empty this morning. Oh! I am not sure when we did it but sometime near the end of the day yesterday before Studios closed at 6pm and we went to Hogsmeade for dinner, we rode E.T. Adventure close by here! I don't know how I could have forgotten that since I rode so few rides! You kind of sat on a kid's bicycle with a group of other bicyclists hanging from the ceiling. It was pretty tame and mostly reminded me of Peter Pan at WDW. So, we walked by there again this morning on our way to see Curious George. It turned out that it was not just a playground, but mostly a water playground! Clay did not want to enter because there were warning signs that if you entered, you'd get wet. It was overcast and cooler this morning and neither of us wanted to get wet. I was hooked by the big books though and told Clay I was going to try it by looking for dry paths. We managed to stay dry but it wasn't easy. But, the reward for our perseverance was the Ball Factory at the very back of the playground! This was unexpected and one of my favorite things in the Universal parks. It was a big 2 story building about the size of a small house. It was full of Nerf balls and machines to either suck the balls up or shoot the balls out. I had a blast! We mostly had the place to ourselves. I think 2 other families with kids came in. We spent about a half hour in the Ball Factory. Clay mostly sat on a bench. He said it was because I hurt him when I shot Nerf balls at him the one time he was vacuuming balls. I didn't mean to hurt him or think it would hurt, I was just supplying him with balls to vacuum. Oh well. It was great fun and we narrowly avoided get soaked from a big tsunami of water as we headed back to the front of the playground. We never did see the Man in the Yellow Hat. But we did find George.
We meandered back towards the front of Studios for the Shrek & Donkey meet at 10:45am. We arrived to find Fiona, Shrek and Donkey out early! We went to the back of the short line and waited. They have professional photographers but we never even looked at any of the photos they took because they will also take photos with your own camera. Donkey was fascinated by Bob. I asked him not to bite Bob before putting him on the stall window ledge. Donkey was offended by the idea since Bob did not smell like waffles, did not look like waffles and did not taste like waffles! Also, he couldn't reach Bob! He was worried about how small Bob was and how I could keep up with him. He asked if Bob was born that small and wouldn't grow. I told him that Bob had a leash that he hangs on. Donkey wanted to know, Bob hangs on to what, HOPE? He was hilarious and the voice sounded a lot like Eddie Murphy. I don't know how they do it. It was interactive and very life like. A remote control animatronic puppet? After the photo, Shrek put out his hand for Bob. I am sorry to say that I allowed an ogre to pinch Bob by the head and put him in his mouth and nibble at his paws! Sorry Bob!
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| That's Bob in the lower right corner and far too close to an ogre's teeth. |
We had about an hour free now. We went around the corner and rode/watched the Shrek 4D in stationary seating together, though they didn't have seat restraints here so it seemed pretty tame. We used our Express Passes. They put us directly at the back of the line that was already there unlike Minions where they put us at the front. I don't know whether it just works that way or if the girl we gave the passes to didn't understand. Oh well. We had time to kill anyway.
After that we walked over to the Simpson's Springfield and went to Lard Lad Doughnuts where we shared a Brain Freeze Pink Donut Sundae with Reese's Pieces. It was good. It was basically lunch!
Fortified again, we walked over to the Horror Make Up Show at 12:30pm. It was funny and informative. More comedy than horror.
Next on the schedule was Animal Actors at 1:30pm.
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| Debbie walking through the brick wall to Platform 9 3/4 |
After that we walked through Diagon Alley again and had a Butterbeer each. I had a hot one this time since it was cool today. It was exceptionally and unexpectedly good! Clay had a frozen Butterbeer. We went back out to King's Cross Station and to Platform 9 3/4 and took the Hogwarts Express over to Hogsmeade in the Islands of Adventure park. We walked through Hogsmeade to get to Jurassic Park to meet a raptor.
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| I'm first in our queue for the Hogwarts Express Train |
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| Hogwarts School |
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| We're waiting to meet the wild giant reptile with all the teeth! |
We got in line for the raptor meeting in Jurassic Park around 3:45pm. We had a bit of a wait and as we watched, it seemed like it might be a bad idea! But, we were all the way over in this park for this alone and I insisted that we stick it out for variety if nothing else. Whoever Clay handed his camera to took an astonishing series of photos of our seconds long raptor close encounter!
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| It started out nice enough.... |
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| and quickly went south... |
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| Good thing I had decided to leave Bob hanging on to hope... |
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| Clay thought the whole thing was hilarious... |
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| he wasn't being nuzzled by a giant reptile... |
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| Is Clay trying to distract Zulu? Yes, that is her name! |
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| Not helping... |
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| Trainer to the rescue... |
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| It's a 2-man rescue. |
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| Whew! That's done. |
We walked back through Hogsmeade to the Hogwarts Express Train station and rode back one final time to Studios park.
We walked to the front of the Studios park and sat in stationary seating near the back of the theater for Terminator 2:3-D at 4:30pm.
We walked to the center of Studios towards Finnegan's for dinner. The Superstar Parade was at 5pm so we stopped nearby to stand and watch it. It lasted less than 10 minutes.
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| We just had a fish lips close encounter with that pink-skated blue fish |
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| Bob and Clay's Guinness |
We arrived at Finnegan's after 5pm, but well before our 5:30pm reservation time. They were not busy and seated us anyway. It was an Irish pub. The food was surprisingly good and more reasonably priced than the Harry Potter places. In addition there was live music and it was table service with wait staff and not counter service. Go figure.
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| My grilled chicken breast on garlic mashed potatoes with cabbage and veggies |
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| Clay's corned beef and cabbage |
We had some time to kill between dinner and the show tonight. We didn't like any of the little pudding glasses of dessert at Finnegan's, so we walked back to Diagon Alley for a last Butterbeer ice cream. We hung around and waited to see the Dragon blow fire in the dark, but after blowing about every 12 minutes for the last 2 days she was done. I don't know if she was broken or if she was out of gas but after more than 30 minutes with only a couple of mild roars and one little blue flame, we gave up. We walked back out and stood by the lagoon across from Starbucks where our waitress had advised was a good place to watch. It was okay.
Last night the Studios side closed early at 6pm. Tonight Islands of Adventure closes early at 6pm. We are stayed Universal Cinematic Spectacular show at 7pm before heading out for the end of our visit.
We got a last good night's sleep and got up early to start the drive home on Friday morning. We should have left either earlier or later than 7am as we sat for an hour or so in the car creeping across Orlando for 16 miles. Avoid I-4 if ever you can! We had breakfast at the first Bob Evans we found. They did not have a senior menu! The drive back was uneventful. We were happy to have a pizza and go to bed in our own bed early. Saturday we have another early start as we go to Grifton for our Burch siblings Christmas get-together.
The next trip we have planned is to Mom's in Florida for Christmas. After that it is Cuba with Mom & Judy. Stay tuned.
