Universal Day Two

I can’t believe I kept you all hanging from my last post about Universal! Life’s been really busy, but I’ll have to save that post for when things are official. Suffice to say, I’m packing up to move.

So day two Universal/Islands of Adventure!

Hubby woke up with his first case of vertigo and said he couldn’t accompany me, my four kids, 16 year old brother and two cousins 12 and 14 (all boys except Grace) to the theme park. I felt a little panicked but determined to go back to the park without hubby especially since it was our last day in Orlando and I had not ridden any roller coasters.

I can’t remember the details, but I was a tad stressed, and hubby felt a tad better as the morning preparations took longer than usually, so he decided to go with us. BIG SIGH!

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After we picked up the two cousins at the parking gate to avoid my cousin having to pay $12 for parking (she’s a single mom with a dead beat almost-ex, and was dropping her boys off to spend the day with us!) we headed to the HULK while hubby and the little guys went to some other part of Islands of Adventure. Chris decided to sit the Hulk out because he got sick the last time on a different roller coaster.

 

Half way through the line, there was something over the load speaker talking about a malfunction…but it sounded too much like the cartoon video and noise playing on the monitors that I didn’t realize it was for real until people started leaving. So we headed to Spiderman…

VERY COOL… virtual roller coaster. We headed to the Dueling Dragons FIRE next and rode it three or four times in a row. We quickly learned if we went into the SINGLE rider line we got on way faster and we weren’t that far apart. In fact, most times at least two of us got to sit together, sometimes three of us!

The last ride on the Deuling Dragons was pretty scary, not because of all the turns and flips, but because at the end of the ride we stopped before the unloading dock. In the distance we heard the screams of people on the next roller coaster…the one right behind us. We were locked in, suspended, and waiting to be impaled by the fangs of the Dragon behind us and the worst part was that we all sat in the LAST two rows. We start there for what seemed like several minutes, waiting for the crash, feeling a little panicked and wishing our legs were long enough so we could do the Fred Flintstone run, but it finally started up again, and our heart rate returned to normal. We all agreed, THAT was the scariest part of the ride!

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After lunch I took Grace to the water area in Dr. Seuss Land while the boys rode some more roller coasters. Then we went to Universal and I went with the big boys to the Mummy and hubby took Grace and Timmy to Jimmy Neutron.

We did the single passenger again and scatted past all the others to the end.

The wait time was not even ten minutes! The Mummy was GREAT, and I think a better thrill than Deuling Dragons. We rode the Mummy a few times and then headed over to Twister, but Hubby was still stuck in Jimmy Neutron, it seems it was broken down for 20 minutes while they were in there.

july-08-orlando-st-augustine-036.jpgOther highlights were the MIB alien ride, and the E.T. ride. The kids rode it more than once and got a kick out of giving the man at the beginning a FALSE name because at the end ET says goodbye

to you. The funny thing about this ride is that Grace refused to look, though it was very mild and not scary. She just doesn’t like ET and she usually doesn’t scare easily. Though at the end there was an opportunity to get a picture with ET in a studio and she said, “Mommy, I’ll take a picture if you really want me to!”july-08-orlando-st-augustine-034.jpg

What a sweetie! But I wasn’t about to shell out more money. I forgot to mention the first day I was with Grace I wanted to take a picture of her with Shrek, but she refused. Instead, I let HER take a photo of me and Shrek. It’s in the last post and came out pretty good!

So we had a wonderfully second day, even though the temperature was about 10-20 degrees hotter and it didn’t rain. That Souvenir cup came in real handy and one thing that didn’t cost us any money was water! They gave it to us with cups of ice at the drink stands!

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Gina Conroy

Gina Conroy

From the day I received my first diary in the second grade, I've had a passion expressing myself through writing. Later as a journalist and novelist, I realized words, if used powerfully, have the ability to touch, stir, and reach from the depths of one soul to another. Today as a writing and health coach, I inspire others to live their extraordinary life and encourage them to share their unique stories. For daily inspiration follow me on https://www.facebook.com/gina.conroy and check out my books here https://amzn.to/3lUx9Pi