PART 7 - MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSAL
Tuesday started with a bang...literally!
5.30am and I was woken by the most enourmous crash of thunder accompanied by multiple, simultaneous flashes of lightning flooding the bedroom, The rain was pelting against the windows and the road outside looked like the River Tyne.
This went on for about an hour or so as the storm gradually moved on. The kids surprisingly slept through it all and by the time they woke the sun was shining.
We were off to Universal today which has always been one of my favourite parks. I just hoped everyone else would share my views by the end of the day.
After setting off from the villa I thought I better grab some fuel for the jeep. Stopped at our local gas station which was a couple of communities up the H27. Not wanting to obviously look like a dumb tourist I parked at the pump furthest away and started reading the instructions. Card payment... zip codes... eh?! It had already got the better of me so I headed toward the kiosk for some help.
"Pumps out of order" shouted the woman selling cheap park tickets outside the gas station (who looked a little like Magda from There's Something about Mary).
I stuck my thumb up in acknowledgement, stil not wanting to seem like a tourist and proceeded to move the jeep to the next pump.
"No, I said ALL the pumps are out of order!" she shouted again.
Turned out that the gas station kiosk had been struck by lightning only 4 or so hours earlier which had knocked out the whole electricity supply to the pumps. What if it had actually struck one of the supplies?!
We grabbed gas elsewhere and headed for Universal. On arrival we headed through security and into the park.
Were there just in time for the first showing of the day of Terminator 3D so Ben and I headed in - Jack wasn't sure so decided to give it a miss. He did managed to get his photo with Scooby Doo and Shaggy while he waited though.
After Terminator we almost got steamrollered by the arrival of Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa as they arrived in their RV for photoshoots. We got first in line and to be honest it was the only characters I had any desire to be photographed with. The Simpsons are legends!
We then headed over to the Simpsons Ride which I think we were all looking forward to. Back to the Future was always my favourite ride from previous visits so my expectations were very high for it's replacement. Queues were only 20 mins so we got through quick and watched the amusing H&S video.
Knowing how much more realistic Back to the Future was compared to other really good simulators I had advanced concerns about Jack's reactions and post-ride mental state but he was adamant he wanted to do this one. We boarded our cart and off it went...
He cried... then he screamed.. then he laughed.. then he "whooped"... then he did them all again at the same time as we careered and tumbled our way through Krustyland and Springfield. I thought it was fantastic - as good, if not better than BTTF. Ben was amazed by it and wanted to ride again straight away, Angela enjoyed it too and Jack..... He loved it and also asked to ride again.
"Well if you can do that I can't understand why you can't....." I stopped myself from heading down that route and said we could go back on again later in the day if they were good.
We did Jaws (Jack decided against facing the killer shark), ET (Jack was more scared on this than on The Simpsons) and then had some lunch.
Aferwards we tried to convince Ben to do The Mummy Returns but he was having none of it. We did Twister and then headed round to do Shrek 4D and Jimmy Neutron which both went down well. Jack met his idol - Spongebob Squarepants which made his day but I thought that the character spot with Shrek, Donkey and Fiona was one of the best we had seen with the wisecracking, Eddie Murphy sound-a-like Donkey being a great original touch.
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