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Here we go! Universal Studios, the big unknown.everyones been telling us "oh it's so much better than Disney!" And Joey watched a video online of the Hulk rollarcoaster so he had freaked himself out before we got there. It was definitely more adult than Disney. The first thing you see coming into Universal is bars and restaurants which isn't technically part of the parks so you don't need a ticket to get there. First things first we forgot to bring our ticket voucher to pick up our park tickets, fun. We had to go to guest services and stand in line and then try and email the confirmation to the woman in front of us through the free park wifi (it was dodge at best). I'd say 40 mins ish on we got the park tickets and got through. Everything was themed and shiny! We planned to do Islands of Adventure first so we leaned to the left into that park. The first thing you see is the Hulk ride, it's massive and it s green, you can hear the screams from the ticket office. That's what we need to do before anything else before lines got mad and before Joey lost his nerve. There's no fastpassing in Universal, unless you pay an extra 100 dollars a day. So no we did not have one of those magical tickets. We got in line, not bad, bout 30 mins later we got on the ride. We took a picture I'll attach it but its height was the main fear factor. After that we stumbled off and looked around. It was a comic hero and villain street, bold colours and all themed. We got our bag from the free lockers provided beside the hulk ride and walked down the road. Woooo! Dr Doom's drop ride! He needed to harness our fear to gain enough power to defeat the fantastic four and there was only a ten min wait, win win. That was good, too short. We decided Tower of Terror in Disney was better. That's when we saw......them.....
Captain America, Wolverine, Storm, Rogue and Spider-Man cam driving down the street on themed motorcycles! They looked fantastic! Storm looked a serious badass. The green goblin was messing around the crowd but the heroes scared him off. We watched all this on the sidewalk with hot dogs like a pair of gawking two year olds.
Moving on from that street we walked further on, hot dogs finished. Joey lead me street to Harry Potter's Hogsmeade. Oh my god it was beautiful, almost cried. Hogwarts was off on the left looming over Hogsmeade but you can see it from the bridge as you enter the land. Butterbeer unfortunately I didn't like, it was like a creamy, frothy over sweet cream soda. Joey loved so he got mine too. First thing we did in Hogsmeade was get in line for Olivander's. We didn't know why or what for but I was over excited. When we got into Olivander's it was a tiny shop full of wand boxes and Olivander's greeted us. The room was dimly lit by lanterns and he asked a little girl to to come forward for a wand. He recreated the scene when Harry gets his first wand. She waved the wand and the flowers died, another wand she caused lightening above us, the next want made the room glow so that wand had chosen her. It was so magical and sweet!!
Leaving Olivander's lead to an actually shop with a load of Potter stuff. We took our time looking about, it was awesome.
Moving on there was another big rollarcoaster which was too scary for the kids so no line. It was a big dragon ride, one red dragon, on blue. We tried both since there was no line. Ha ha! We loved it! The Hogwarts express was outside the ride so I got a picture with the train driver who called me a Weasley and told me Ireland was only an hours broom ride to London. They neeeeeever break character, neeeeever.
We then got lunch in The Leaky Cauldron. Aaaaaaaaaah amazing, tasted great too. The menu was all British which was a nice rest from pizza and burgers. We were gonna get some fire whiskey since you can drink anyway here but there seemed no point buying so much for a name. Now the Leaky Cauldron was not in Hogsmeade, oh no no no no. We had gotten on the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley in the next park. And the train itself was not just a train! The windows were screens and the screens made the train seem like we were going through the Forbbiden Forest, seeing magical creatures and Fred and George Weasley flying along with us waving. It was beautiful. Even the door to our carriage cast sillouettes of Harry, Ron and hermione arguing and walking by us. Aaaaaaahhhhh so good.
We also got into Gringots the wizarding bank at the top of Diagon alley with the huge dragon on the top blowing occasional fire at the crowds and growling. We got in line and it was worth the wait. It was amazing, the ride was a rollarcoaster and a simulator and the technology was incredible. It felt like proper reality and I was genuinely frightened at the characters attacking us as we escaped Gringots! Aaaaah nothing will ever be as fun as that ride.
Then we left Harry Potter world into The Simpsons land. Scenery was a drastic change. Everything was done in the big bold coloured cartoony still. We walked through Krusty's face into Krustyland to get in line for the Simpsons ride. It was a bit of a wait and the ride was another simulator. Compared to Gringots this ride was tame but fun. We then took tons of pictures of all the buildings and characters and then went into Moe's tavern since we were getting pretty tired by now. The love tester said I was Luke warm but Joey was Casanova so that was funny and we sat at the bar for a Flaming Moe (Flaming Homer). It was a cool orange drink over dry ice that made the drink bubble and smoke, it was over priced cool. The novelty was good and we took the cups with us, we'll we paid enough for them!
After the drinks and another look around we decided to head back and got the Hogwarts train again and headed for the front of the park. On our way were couldn't resist and bought two Hogwart scarves, I got gryffandor and Joey got slytherin since he's evil. Then it started to rain, like really rain. It fell like sheets of pure rain. The ground quickly got flooded and the sky was lightening up and there was loud angry thunder. We tried to hide from it but we had to get that bus back to the hotel of risk having to pay for a taxi. We just have into it and rain through it. It was warm and humid so the experience was actually kinda fun. We were as soaked as if we had been swimming underwater but so was everyone else! I felt like a dance party in the rain was about it happen.
Well we got our bus back, which was less than ten mins away from the hotel. There was no way we could go back out for dinner so feck it we ordered in from Pizza Hut. A large cheese pizza with the crust.....completely made of mini hot dogs....! What? Americans are crazy!! We also got a giant chocolate Hershey's cookie pizza for the deserts, yes desert, we can fit in desert! The cookie out shone the pizza hotdog Frankenstein which was more an novelty experience than a tasty meal.
Obviously I showered before the pizza and then we both slept like babies in our giant beautiful bed.
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