Universal Islands of Adventure- Friday, November 23, 2018

     We started this morning a little slowly again.  We had breakfast at the hotel, though the pickings were sparse and the “orange juice” seemed to just be the water that they washed the oranges with.  We figured we would eat an early lunch. 

     Julie gets to go to Disney quite often now since she goes with the seniors from JFK every January.  She had been talking about taking a short trip down sometime in order to go to Universal again to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  When the plans for this short trip materialized, we decided to make a stop at Universal.  The first question was- Were we going to go to one park or two?  The Harry Potter experience is spread between two parks, so if you want the whole thing, you need to buy the more expensive multi-park admission.  Julie and Emma decided that they could live with just going to the Islands of Adventure side, where Hogwarts and the village of Hogsmeade are located.  The next question was- Are we going to pay for the upgrade to “Universal Express” tickets.  At Disney, FastPasses are “free,” but limited.  Here at Universal, there is actually a tiered ticket system instead.  If you want to be one of the poor schleps who doesn’t pay for the upgrade, you end up standing in whatever lines form—and they can be long ones.  On the other hand, if you pay for the upgrade, you can basically get a fast pass for every ride.  We got the option so that Julie and Emma could fast pass every ride once.  (There was another option for them to be able to able to fast pass the rides an unlimited number of times, but we didn’t go for that.)  Scott was left without the upgrade, but he wasn’t planning on riding many rides here.   It was still an expensive day.

     We are really close to Universal here, though its too far to walk.  We drove there and when we were paying for parking, Julie was talked into the “Prime” parking upgrade, which allegedly got us a better parking spot.

     The girls decided that we didn’t have to rush to get to the Harry Potter area like we had other years.  Since we had the special passes, we could go around the park in order and get to Harry Potter when we got there.   We passed through the City Walk shopping/club/restaurant area.  (Emma had fun saying, “Welcome to City Walk.  Can I take your order?”)  The entry to Islands of Adventure has its unique not-quite-Caribbean, not-quite-African, fantasy-Adventurelandish décor.  We turned left and went to the Marvel Super Heroes area.  There was a line at the Spider-Man ride, which was one that Scott was going to go on.  He didn’t want to make the girls wait, though, so they went on while he looked through the shops on “Stan Lee Avenue.”  Emma said Stan Lee was on the ride too.  He was in a lot of people’s thoughts since he passed away only about two weeks ago.  Scott had a Marvel superheroes shirt on and wanted to get a picture at the “Stan Lee Avenue” sign, but it didn’t happen this time.  We thought maybe we would return later in the day when the lines at Spider-Man might be shorter.

     The girls next stopped at the water rides in Toon Lagoon, where the theme is classic newspaper comic strips and cartoons.  They rode the Popeye-themed “Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges” and the Dudley Do-Right Ripsaw Falls log flume.  On each ride they got thoroughly soaked.  Scott wouldn’t have written on them anyway and got video of them getting wet.

     Beyond there was Skull Island: Reign of Kong.  Julie said it was more like a movie than a ride.  Emma was getting hungry by then, so we ate at the Thunder Falls Terrace in the Jurassic Park area.  The girls got rotisserie chicken and roasted corn-on-the cob.  While we were eating, the girls watched the enormous splashes from the Jurassic Park ride and decided that they were wet enough from the other rides that morning.  They passed on that ride this time.  Instead the payed for some time in the “People Dryers” to blow dry themselves and warm-up a bit.  Emma’s shoes remained damp for the rest of the day though.  Meanwhile, Scott went into the Jurassic Park shops in order to buy a copy of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel, which he hoped to read while waiting for the girls.  Ironically, they don’t sell it anywhere in Jurassic Park here, which seems to say something sad about our society.

     Hogwarts was next on the list.  The girls took the ride called “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey,” which takes you on quidditch brooms up into Hogwarts and past Dementors and out through the gift shop.  Scott and the girls passed on the other ride, the Flight of the Hippogriff, for now.  Instead, they went shopping in Hogsmeade village.  Scott got a butterbeer to share, though it is non-alcoholic and isn’t really beer—it’s really more like a sarsaparilla with whipped cream on top.  Julie and Emma got some deserts at Honeydukes.  They got a “Cauldron Cake” and a “Chocolate Frog.”  So, yes, it was once again “beers and desserts” like it was at Epcot two days ago, but with a Harry Potter twist. 
     The level of detail in the Harry Potter portion is really quite remarkable and there are so many details to see.  Sadly, the place is always the most crowded in the park, so many of the details are hard to take in.  But there’s always more to see—like Gilderoy Lockhart’s books in one of the shop windows and all of the little “magical” things that kids can activate by waving their wands in front of others.   There’s always many people wearing wizard robes and school house colors.   By the way, there are some modern construction cranes protruding into the magic here, so there seems to be something new opening here soon, and from the looks of it, it’s more for the Harry Potter world.

     We probably weren’t expecting to stay as long in Seuss Landing as we did.  There were subtle Christmas decorations all over the park, but in the Seuss area, the Christmas decorations took over, helped by the fact that the new Grinch movie is out this year.  Julie and Anna rode the “High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train” above the area and got the birds-eye view of the area.  Then we all had some refreshments at the circus themed “Circus McGurkus Café” that we ate at with the girls.  After that we got into a line for the “Grinchmas Who-liday Spectacular.”  It ended up being a full theater show in one of the studios just outside of the park, behind Universal Studios, and sat quite a large audience.  Of course, it told the story of the Grinch who stole Christmas, with a Jim Carrey-style Grinch.   The Whos look a little creepy in real life, but Cindy-Loo sang “Where Are You Christmas?” which is one of Julie’s favorites.  Julie and Emma both thought that Max the dog was cute, since he was played by a real dog.  He didn’t seem to want to keep his reindeer antler on for very long, though.  The show was nice, if you like the Grinch’s story.  Scott enjoyed it well enough, but he’s never been a fan of the Grinch.  He thinks he smells funny.  By the way, Julie had gone to see the new Grinch movie with her mom last week, and she was looking for a stuffed version of the new character- “Fred” the fat reindeer.  She was disappointed to find out that no one has them here (yet).

     After the Grinch, the three of us rode on the Cat in the Hat ride.  We enjoyed it well enough, but we watched two families in front of us get turned away because their children didn’t meet the minimum height requirements.  There’s something wrong with a Doctor Seuss ride that can’t take preschool aged children.

     We had come full circle around the park after that, and we visited the gift shop by the entrance.  It was time to decide where to eat dinner.  We could go to the Harry Potter-themed Three Broomsticks, which Julie has always wanted to eat at, but which was guaranteed to be crowded.  Or, we could leave the park and eat at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville out in the City Walk area.   Julie loves getting the “Volcano Nachos” there, even though the plate is so huge we can never finish it.  We sat out on the porch and enjoyed eating outside for probably one last time this year, while we were listening to a singer/guitar player singing a nice selection of 70s and 80s era soft rock.    Julie got a non-alcoholic mango daiquiri, but the sugar in it may have been too much for her stomach.  She started to not feel well.  The original plan was to go back to the park and see if lines were shorter, and maybe see the holiday lights at Hogwarts.  Now though, we all agreed we should head through the shops at City Walk and work our way out to the car and back to the hotel.  We were a little sad to call it a day because we knew it would be the end of this little vacation, but we were satisfied that we had crammed quite a bit into this trip.