This blog post is all about acting your age or paying the price. Seriously we had the best day in a long time today at the Universal Studios Theme Park. Yes, we paid for it later but it was worth every ache and pain we have.
I won’t spruik on too much as the pics tell the story but I will try to explain some of the photos attached.
Naturally, the day starts with the mandatory snap at the entry and logo of Universal Studios (you’ve all seen it at the start of a movie). As you move into the park you find it is in fact a series of little towns. The one we headed for first was Harry Potter’s Hogsmeade. What really makes this place so special are those little extras you don’t think of like the train timetable from platform 9 and 3/4 . There’s ‘snow’ on the rooftops, a huge castle, shops and stalls with ‘Pottermania Paraphernalia’. You can buy a unique wand, tricks and sweets, clothing (so many people – not just kids – in school capes). I apologise for the blurry pic of the young female teenager pointing a wand but this happened often where there were metal plates in the ground where devotees stood, pointed their wands and said some magic words. I have no idea what was supposed to happen but there were as many adults as kids trying it. While at Harry Potter’s world we had our first ride. I had cornered Shane the night before by saying I wasn’t paying hundreds of dollars for tickets to a theme park if she wasn’t doing the rides. So we hit the “Hippogriff” roller coaster. We loved it.
All day long you walked into characters from Universal films such as the Minions, Dracula, Frankenstein, the professor from “Back to the Future”, Beetlejuice, Zombies and Mummys, Egyptian warriors, dinosaurs and some I didn’t know (to recent for my old brain). Anyway we jumped on the “studio tour” and witnessed what goes into making films. The backlots and studios. We saw mock NYC, a car lot with with famous ‘prop’ cars (even the flintstones cars), spitting dinosaurs and bones in the Jurassic Park lot. After passing a yard where some show we don’t get in Australia was being filmed (the yanks on our bus were excited) we drove into a warehouse that held a station where special effects had us involved with Vin Diesel, the Rock and others in a shootout and train crash. Then there was Amity Beach (from Jaws), Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives) and another non-Aussie show for kids. In the next page of photos we start at Bates Motel from Hitchcock’s “Psycho” before coming across the plane crash site in Tom Cruise’s version of War of the Worlds and that was all in the Studio Tour.
After we finished that we wandered a bit before heading to the Jurassic Park (boat) ride. If you ever do this take a poncho, you’ll get wet, guaranteed. Between the pics of the Egyptian warrior and the Mummy (in bandages, not Shane) I can only put in 2 pics of the Transformers ride which is a shame. This ride is just brilliant. Using 3D glasses you really feel you’re in the action. At one stage we ‘fell’ of the top of a skyscraper and was plummeting to the ground. My sub-conscious kept saying it’s only a ride but my conscious was screaming “Holy s**t! We’re about to die.” I can’t say how fantastic it was. I’d go back again just for that 1 ride. Even Shane enjoyed it.
After more meanderings and a feed of chinese from the Kung Fu Panda Cafe (the meals were massive) we saw the ‘Special Effects’ show, the “Animal Actors” show turned towards the exit. We passed the kids water park and had a few more character meeting ups, a visit to the Hogswart Sweets Shop and we deserved a beer. What a day!
As I said at the start, we paid for this great day out but neither of us regretted it. We were planning to go to Disneyland the next day (today) but when the alarm went off we both looked at each other, rolled over and went back to sleep. Disneyland will wait till tomorrow.
Watch for more in the next blog.
Garry and Shane.