Today we visited Islands of Adventure, the last Universal park we had to visit. Unlike Disney which is quite spread out, the two Universal parks are cheek by jowl, allowing you to either walk out of one and into the other or ride the Hogwarts Express from one to the other. We did both!
I didn’t much like the Hogwarts Express because you had TV screens instead of windows and me being me, like to see out of train windows as it helps prevent travel sickness. The boys both enjoyed it, despite the capacity of the train, the queue was still pretty long and moved slowly but frequently.
Matty and I began the day by riding Hulk, a giant green (what other colour would it have been – lol) , roller coaster. It was by far the fastest coaster we’d been on and like Stealth at Thorpe Park, you really felt the force on your neck and shoulders. We then walked around the park to ride Jurassic Park ride, to find they had technical difficulties and were closed, with no news on when they’d re-open. Hoping the issues would be resolved we walked on. Matty had spotted a refillable drinks offer and as this was easily the hottest day yet, we bought two to share. A wise idea as Liz doesn’t do cherry or vanilla and I don’t like orange fanta. We were in for a bit of a treat and a shock all rolled into one. The “serve yourself” drink machine used a chip on the bottom (microchip Grandma, not the sort you have with Ketchup), to identify the cup and that you bought it “today”. You first add your desired amount of ice and then select from over 100 different drinks. In the Sprite section alone you had Sprite or Sprite Zero as your base choice then “au natural” or cherry, orange, lime, vanilla, strawberry , raspberry or grape syrup that you could add as an additional flavour. If you think coffee syrups in Costa or Starbucks you’re on the right lines. You can now see the issues we faced! Liz doesn’t like cherry or vanilla (very strange), the boys are equally fussy! We ended up saying to them you choose this time and then you choose next time. Overall it worked out until Matty sneaked one in that Luke didn’t like “oh I didn’t realise Dad!” (laugh , laugh, laugh). Having had a dozen refills across both cups we were glad to get away from fizzy by the end of the day!
Anyhow, we made our way with our new drink cups to one of three rides in the “new” Harry Potter section. Everyone seemed to like the simulated fly my car thingy (we sat in) and follow Harry and friends. The queue didn’t move too fast but it was air-con so we didn’t care! After this we rode a mine train style ride, it was a smaller mine train and one of those that big folks like me find a bit jolty and you end up hanging on, just to add support to your upper body and prevent unwanted strains everytime the car lurched from one side to the other.
Pausing on the whole Harry thing, we headed back to Jurassic Park to see if it had re-opened. It had and the queue wasn’t too long at 50 minutes. We downed another couple of our generous 24oz drinks (probably a pint plus ice) and ate lunch in the line. The ride wasn’t too bad although I’d have liked an actual Raptor rather than all the bushes moving, simply implying a Raptor.
The final ride in “Harry Land” was a dual coaster chasing the dragons. We must have caught it at a second where everyone had boarded the Hogwarts Express or gone off to see some other show, as Matty and I walked the entire length of the queue to within sight of the loading area. Matty chose to ride blue first, the ice dragon. It was fast and there were many loops. We came off, found Liz and went back to ride the red, fire dragon. This time the queue was longer but we still managed to walk 75% of the way to the front. Having done this we queued for the Hogwarts Express.
Ending up in the other park at King’s Cross Station, a part of this park we hadn’t visited previously so we looked about. The station wasn’t too bad in design. I guess a 40s or 50s version of King’s Cross (not knowing the year the books were set in). They sure loved the red phone boxes and other iconic English things to add to the feel of the place. The joke was then how many Mexican or Japanese tourists can you cram into a phone box!!
They piled in much to their amusements and attempted to close the door or have someone on the outside ram it shut for them! Shouting in their language and then noisily taking photos before all piling out to laugh and point at the sardine tin phone box they’d all just been inside of.
We had a quick look around and then walked back out towards the exit. Luke wanted to pause outside the parks in City Walk to pop into the NBA Store (basketball) and have a look around. City Walk is a large collection of stores and restaurants outside the park. I guess it’s Universal’s answer to Downtown Disney.
Luke loved the NBA store as you could imagine and bought a T shirt and then had a go on the basketball challenge. Score as many baskets as you can in 45 seconds. It was tougher than he thought, the NBA pro match ball is heavy. Matty crowed until we threatened him with no tea if he didn’t shut up.
We bought two of the largest pizzas in Wallmart you’ve ever seen. They practically filled the shelves of our fat boy American range style cooker. The were very tasty but we were so tired we ate a little and fell into bed another day done.