Spring Break- Universal Studios

The next day we spent a at lot of time the Aquarium and then drove south.  California is really pretty!  Except the big oil rigs or whatever they were.  Those things were spooky, and there were a lot of them!  But the green hills were pretty.  We saw a double rainbow.  We eventually made it to our hotel in North LA.  And we walked over to Denny’s for dinner.  Boo.  But the kids ate so that’s good.  We headed to bed early so we could get an early start at Universal Studios the next day.

We got early admission to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Because I bought my tickets online ahead of time, I got a discount and we got early admission.  Harry Potter world was the only thing open, and we didn’t get there at 8 like we had hoped because I have two kiddos who are very slow at eating breakfast!  We got there at 8:30, paid a little bit more to get better parking, and walked into the park.  We went straight to the castle to do the best ride.  Sadie was too short for that one so Ryan stayed with the two younger ones.  We ran right through all the castle and only had to wait for a few minutes at the front.  The only bummer was that the big screen, the whole point of the ride, that makes it look like you are at Hogwarts and flying around, it broke for a few seconds.  Not a big deal, but I missed that part.  The ride moved on and the rest of it was cool.  There’s a dragon that breathes fire at us and you feel the heat.  It really feels like you’re soaring around.  It’s a cool ride.  But I got a bit of motion sickness and I knew I wouldn’t want to ride it again, which made me even more bummed that I missed that part of it.  Oh well.  Ryan went on it with the kids right after and they still didn’t have to wait.  Ryan convinced Sadie to try the little hippogriff roller coaster and she liked it!  Maybe she is making progress and Lagoon will be better this year for her.  We will see.

Anyway, I won’t go into all the details of the whole day because that’s boring.  Just the highlights.  Kaden loved the Hogwarts Express and wanted to ride it.  I was told in Florida you do get to ride it and I immediately started planning our Florida trip to Universal.  Just kidding!  Well, kinda.  I mean, I do want to go there but not just because Kaden loves trains.  Anyway, we got a cute picture of him with it.

And everyone loved the Studio Tour.  Part of it was boring, but a lot of it was really cool.  There was a flash flood.

An earthquake. With fire.

King Kong fighting dinosaurs, which made our tram move and shake as they jumped over us.  And we got spit at by the dinosaurs.  Those screens and the effects are really cool.  Kaden loved that.

Jaws was kinda gruesome, but funny. 

There was a Fast and the Furious screen that really made it feel like we were speeding down a freeway.  In fact, when we left the building, Dylan turned to look back asking, “how long was that building??”  He totally thought we were actually moving.  I mean, he knew the other cars weren’t there.  But he thought we were moving.

I took the two little ones to the Despicable Me playground Super Silly Funland.  We went on the ride and Kaden liked it so he screamed when I pulled him out.  Which made the attendant give him jellybeans.  I guess that’s a thing they do there, carry jellybeans in their pockets and hand them out anytime someone looks unhappy.  Well, it worked.  He cheered right up.  And he shared with Sadie.  The minion was super cute!

I took the three older kids in line for Transformers and we were planning on an hour or so wait.  After 20 minutes Sadie said she needed to go potty.  Dylan said he did too but he would hold it.  Well, after a few more minutes, it was clear Sadie’s situation was more immediate and I called Ryan to have him come get her out of line.  We hadn’t entered the building yet so it was easy.  But she didn’t come back in line with us.  It’s probably for the best because the line was SOOOO long.  It was at least 80 minutes.  Dylan was doing the potty dance hard for the last 15 minutes.  Kylee and I were trying to ease our aching feet and back.  I looked at Dylan bouncing around thinking he is burning tons of calories like that!  Poor kid.  BUT the ride was really awesome.  I’m not sure I would wait more than 45 minutes for any ride ever again.  But that ride was awesome so I don’t know.  

One of the attendants on the Transformers ride gave us “Front of the Line” pass for our next ride.  He gave it to us when we had only been there about 20 minutes.  You see, he knew we were in for a loooong wait. We didn’t realize.  But we used the pass to get to the front of Jurassic World.  Which Sadie went on and liked it, even though it’s a little scary when it drops down.  It was really fun.  We did the “child switch” so Ryan and Dylan went on again after us. 

We pretty much saw everything we wanted to see.  We didn’t do Walking Dead because I didn’t think it would be appropriate for my kids.  The Mummy had a long wait too so we skipped that.  And Waterworld was closed.  We saw the animal actor show, Shrek 4D, and the special effects.  AND the kids got to share a donut the size of their head.  Good day!

These pictures were from lunch.  Dylan with his giant burger.  And Kaden eating only the salads, lol.  The boy likes salad!  He refused to eat the pasta Kylee got or the pizza Sadie got.  The girls weren’t very hungry.  In their defense it was early for lunch but we wanted to beat the crowd and move on.  

We also got butterbeer in the afternoon and saw the wand choosing ceremony, which was cool.  Kylee was on a no-soda-challenge, and I realized that butterbeer was technically soda.  But we chose frozen, which might still be carbonated but not much.  So I told her it was okay.  We felt good about that choice.