We Go To Florida--Day 2 Universal Studios

Blythe woke up at 3:30 and wanted to know when we were going to Harry Potter World.  Trying not to wake Kent and Brandt, I told her we were still hours away and she needed to go back to sleep.  I gave her second melatonin and told her to shut both her eyes and her mouth.  We were both able to go back to sleep.

We are staying in a hotel across the street from the entrance to Universal Studios.  This doesn't mean that you can see the entrance to the park from our hotel, but it does mean that we are close.  It's a lovely place, with a fountain in the middle of a courtyard, a big pool, and nice rooms, but which, sadly, doesn't do breakfast.  Well, let me rephrase.  They do offer a very nice breakfast buffet for $21 a person.  We're not paying that much for breakfast, knowing we're going to be eating in the park and it will cost us big time.

As a result, after getting up and showering (somewhat pointlessly as it is so humid in Florida), we had a breakfast of cantaloupe, carrots, and bell peppers, and a granola bar, all cut up and transported with us from home.  We were going to need a big lunch!  We loaded up the camera, water bottles (which we didn't fill thinking we could get water from a drinking fountain somewhere), spray bottles, and cooling towels that Kathryn Seamons recommended to us as being a clever way to stay a bit cooler, and headed to catch the free shuttle to the park.

We have tickets for five days (buy three get two free!), so the plan is that we'll spend a day at Universal Studios, a day at Islands of Adventure, and then spend the third day doing our favorite things in both parks, taking the Hogwarts Express between parks.  Today we went to Universal Studios.  Parts of the park look like city streets, or movie sets/backdrops, with characters wandering around or performing sometimes.  There are various mini themed areas in the larger park, each with rides or attractions you can ride or visit.  I downloaded the Universal Studios app which gave us wait times at each ride, so we chose the area we visited based on how long the wait was to do a ride.  We spent the day wandering around in the humidity trying to stay cool-ish and not have to wait too long any one place.

Proof that we had arrived.

We began at Men in Black Alien Attack, a ride where you get to shoot aliens, accumulate points, and help your car of six people beat an opposing car of six people.  There were no sudden drops, just some spinning and a lot of freaky looking aliens we got to shoots.  There was a very funny guide who took us through training, and we waited in line through what looked like Men in Black sets.  All the rides were good at giving you things to look at while you waited, creating an ambiance that went along with the movie the ride was representing.  We were all pretty lousy shots, but our car did beat the other car.

Next we went into Harry Potter's Diagon Alley.  Harry Potter World is what we really went to Florida for, and I hoped it would be magical.  Thing is, we weren't the only people at Universal Studios going to Harry Potter World and hoping to have a magical experience.  There were hundreds (maybe thousands) of other people milling about as well, somewhat detracting from the overall experience of being in Diagon Alley.  But!  The kids were delighted to be there and seemed to find it all pretty cool.  We bought them interactive wands that can be used around the Diagon Alley to perform little incantations that do things--open curtains, turn on lights, start water flowing, turn pages of a book.  The idea to allow a wand wielder to feel like they are really doing magic.  We went on the Escape from Gringotts ride, drank butterbeer, chatted with the driver of the Knight Bus, and listened to some singers.  We got sweets, saw owls, and wandered through Nocturn Alley.  It was super fun and Brandt and Blythe were both happy to be there.  Highlight?  Probably.

 Day one we all had frozen butterbeer.

It was delicious, but Blythe liked the cold, non-frozen kind better.

Kent was largely unimpressed.

On no sort of schedule, the dragon atop Gringotts will sometimes breathe fire.

Inside Ollivander's Wand Shop.

The broom is sweeping the ceiling.

Watch out!

This wizard and witch are wanded and dangerous.

Brandt chose Voldemort's wand, while Blythe chose Fleur Delacour's.

Working on a spell.

The skeleton body on the screen is doing what Brandt's body is doing.

It's reacting to a spell he cast!

We're in Nocturn Alley.

We went on other rides--a Fast & Furious thing which was sillier than it was probably meant to be, a 3D Revenge of the Mummy ride, another 3D ride based on Despicable Me called Minion Mayhem.  We watched a short Shrek movie, saw the Blues Brothers waiting in their car to perform on the street, and caught the tail end of the Beat Builders, a percussion show that incorporates construction materials the "musicians" beat on.  We also spent time in Springfield: Home of the Simpsons.  I was reminded of Dad who watched and loved the Simpsons.  We had pizza and pasta for lunch, and tried to say hydrated and not too, too hot.  

The Simpson family got cut off the top of the picture.

We caught the shuttle back to the hotel and had a lovely and refreshing swim.  Our hotel has a large pool and hot tub.  It's the first hotel I've ever stayed in where I felt the water could have been a bit cooler than it was.  But it was wet and relaxing after a long day on our feet, and the kids and I were glad for the swim.  We walked across the street for dinner and came back to get ready for bed.  It was a long, full, somewhat exhausting day, and we've got two more still to go.

In Universal City Walk, outside the parks but still in the complex,

are lots of shops and restaurants.

This HUGE screen shows sporting events, and as we were leaving,

the end of the World Cup semi-final was playing.

We hurried through so as not to get swept up in the mass departure that was coming 

in about a minute and a half.

France won.

Swimming with palm trees poolside!

Brandt is doing washing machine on Blythe.