May 14, 2008 - Day 20: Universal Studios Orlando

Aaagh, I’m exhausted! It was a terribly long day and my poor feet!

We had a bit of a later start especially since I had some insomnia last night. I was up at 8:30, showered and did my bit on the computer, then I woke Gary & Brynna around 9 and we finally got out just before 10. We drove thru McDs for some breakfast and headed on out to Universal.

Seems like we parked 10 miles away, wish I’d brought my pedometer today, I’m sure it would have been a large amount of kms. We went directly to Universal Studios side. I tried to get a guest assistance pass and all they would give me was a pass to sit in an air-conditioned area while the others waited in line. Didn’t think that was going to do much for us in the way of getting onto anything so we bought their version of a fastpass, an express pass. Cost a few $$ but worth it in order to do what we wanted to do in just the one day.

First stop was ET, such a fun ride, especially when he says your name at the end. Then we bypassed the new Simpsons ride as it’s a motion simulator and my barfie family didn’t want to test it. We did 2 rounds of Men in Black instead, lots of fun. Then Jaws, Disaster and the Mummy, absolutely the best Universal ride I think. We had some pizza for lunch in there somewhere too. Then our last attraction in that park was Terminator 3D. Haven’t seen it for a while but it’s still fun to experience.

It was stinking hot so we walked over to Islands of Adventure and started in Seussland. There we did the overhead train thingy, can’t remember it’s name but it’s never worked before when we’ve been here so it was fun to try it. Got a few good pictures being above the “land”. From there Brynna and I rode Ice, one of the Duelling Dragon coasters. It made me a little off balance and I kept my eyes closed for about ¾ of it! From there we went on Jurassic Park, always fun to get wet on, and we did, especially Brynna. We still managed to dry off fairly quickly although it was after 5. Quickly headed to the comic book area of the park, where we did Spiderman which wasn’t as much fun as it stopped several times and the show went dark. Oh well. Then we did the Hulk, not sure why, maybe cause it was the last ride of the day but I did it and kept my eyes open at least ¾ of the time. This one made me a little barfy but I managed to walk it off after a bit.

Since we were totally exhausted we decided to head to the mall! Dumb I know, but we had to exchange Brynna’s speakers at Apple. That done, we quickly went to Target to pick up sturdier luggage for our extras, my flimsy extra bag just wasn’t cutting it.

From there it was to the Olive Garden, I had a couple of $25 gc so we put them to good use and had a very good meal, as always.

We’re now back in the room and trying to pack some stuff away. Tomorrow is an early day, Gary has his segway experience booked at Ford Wilderness.