An Unexpected Journey –Chapter 2
Saturday August 25th
We were awake again reasonably early on Saturday and tuned in to ‘hurricane watch’ again on the weather channel. Isaac had hit the Florida Keys and next on alert was Miami. The predicted route also saw Tampa on high alert for forthcoming days. For us it was a little unsettling as we’ve never really been in this sort of potential situation before.
The original plan was to do a park day, the a rest day (rinse and repeat) however, due to the uncertainty over the next few days and the fact that the weather forecast for today was good we thought we best do another park . Left it up to the kids to decide and they picked Universal – which was their favourite - so we got ourselves sorted and headed out again.
Now having been to Florida a few years ago and knowing that whilst all the theme parks and rides are amazing they do lose a little bit of ‘wow’ factor 2nd, 3rd & 4th time round so we decided that we would try and make this a holiday of ‘firsts’; i.e. we would try and do at least one rise in each park that we (or at least the kids) hadn’t done before. We did Splash & Thunder Mountain at Magic Kingdom – so what ‘first’ could we do at Universal?
I suggested ‘Rip Ride Rockit’ and the kids just raised their eyebrows at me and walked off (little did they know I probably wouldn’t have done it either) but the obvious choice was Despicable Me as it had only been open a few weeks. The queue (line) was pretty big and we endured a 40 or so minute wait before we got into the pre-ride room. It was an amusing bit of rambling and finally the doors opened and we got in and seated.
I’m a big simulator fan and this was the first 3D one I’ve done so was quite excited. Whilst it was well done and enjoyable (and you can’t help but chuckle at the minions) I just found it to be a bit of a re-hash of the Jimmy Neutron ride (which it replaced) in 3D – with a lot of unnecessary ‘bumping’. My youngest really enjoyed it though – which is the main thing.
From there we went down to Twister (which took us a little while to coax jack into) and then up into New York to take in a bit of live Blues Brothers. Had a bit of lunch and then through to Men in Black passing the site of the old Jaws ride.
Next stop was the Simpsons which we all proclaimed as our favourite ride last time and we again enjoyed it (and all the pre-ride paraphernalia) thoroughly. Went on to Animal Actors show (which was a first for the kids as it was closed last time we went), ET (which I think mustn’t be far off its sell-by date now) and then on to Terminator 2 3D (which probably isn’t far behind ET).
Before we knew it the time was 5pm and the new Universal parade was in full flow. Half a dozen floats and a load of dancers and a few characters went past and that was that – I think it needs a little work doing on it to reach the standards of Disney – and then we did Shrek 4D before calling it a day; a 9 hour flight and two intense parks in 3 days were taking its toll so it was back to the villa and another pretty early night.
I'm not sure whether tiredness was kicking in but for the very first time in four visits I actually felt a little underwhelmed by Universal – I feel it is in need of a bit of a re-vamp and some new and updated rides; maybe they have been concentrating a little too much on IOA? I dunno…
We got home and had recorded some footy (Newcastle v Chelsea) so we watched that (bit of a horror show) and caught the weather forecast before going to bed and not much had changed – they reckoned we would get some sunshine on Sunday but before long the rain and wind would hit with a vengeance…
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