Universal Studios

Tuesday was the anticipated theme park adventure at Universal Studios, Orlando with the Wizarding World of Diagon Alley.  Universal Islands of Adventure has The Wizarding World of Harry Potter- Hogsmeade.  Of course since they are in two different theme parks, you have to buy a combined ticket for $140.  The Hogwarts Express train connects the two parks. We went to HARRY POTTER AND THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY ride, which was only a 30 minute wait time.  The line wandered through lush gardens and wasn't too long of a wait and you got to visit with each other,  David Case met us half way in line because we had to put our backpacks in a locker.  When we got out, the locker area was totally packed with people.  David found our locker, but the finger print mechanism wouldn't work for him.  He had to push through the shoulder to shoulder people to find someone to help.  This took almost as long as waiting in line for the ride.  My brother David, his wife Marlene, and David and I were the adventurers. The ride was as promised, an exciting  journey following Harry through the valleys, buildings and forests to escape something, I forget what.  The cars turned, twisted, bumped and swirled, leaving David and I queasy and not excited about taking any more rides that day.   We then went to The Lost Continent and rode Poseidon's Fury.  It was actually a walk through with an explorer as our guide.  Poseidon won.  Then we took the Hogwarts train to Diagon Alley which was fun. The window had a passing scene just like you might see on the train with people walking outside the compartment.  At Diagon Alley, lots of preteens had their special wands and instructions and were waving them at various signs and windows to see if they could master the spells.  If you waved your wand in a W, something weird would happen in the window.  If we had had more time, I would have like to try.  We had our photo taken with the conductor of the Hogwarts train. 

Hogsmeade next to butter beer cask

Hogwarts train & conductor

We did not sample butter beer or pumpkin juice, having heard it was mostly syrup.  My brother Larry and Carol, who visited together on Thursday did have some, and said it was very different, sweet, but like nothing they had had before and was what they would imagine butter beer tasted like. We did not wait in any lines to go on a ride.  But the Men in Black, Alien Attack ride had a line for "singles".  David and Marlene held our backpacks and we went there, getting to the front of the line in no time.  We had to shoot at monsters that appeared at every turn.  At the end you got your score.  I'm sure I hit most of them, but my score was only 22,800.  We went to the Beetlejuice monster revue show.  I am surprised that people still remember Beetlejuice, but the show was about dancing and singing monsters and walking dead people.  

We decided to see the attraction Disaster, the movie.  

Dorothy in her film debut

We were told that we would be part of the final movie.  When we walked in the Producer picked audience members as actors.  He wanted a Grandmother.  Well, I am a Grandmother now, so I raised my hand.  I had on my yellow flowered hat and was picked.  I was told I would be doing gardening.  We all went to the stage area and I sat on a stool with a scene in the background.  Others did their shots.  I was last.  I was given a hoe and was told to pretend to rake the earth looking down.  Then suddenly I had to look up and shield my head to protect me from the rain. Then we all went on a train which encountered various obstacles. Our reactions were being recorded for the movie.  Then we saw the final movie.  What an adventure of disastrous proportions!  In the end, the Grandmother was seen suddenly reaching up to something which evaporated her in a puff of smoke!  

Blues Brothers

We passed by the Blues Brothers concert just in time, since it was all of 15 minutes.  On the way out we went to the Lucille Ball tribute museum which was very interesting.  I forgot they also had a daughter.  We were home before 5:00pm to take Dobie for his walk and give him love.  I forgot to say that the weather turned very cold.  Marlene gave me her green hat and gloves to wear.  I am realizing I have no warm clothes.  What I considered cold weather clothing was for weather in Hawaii at around 70 degrees.