Day 24 – Universal Studios

We headed to the Universal Studios park from the hotel only a 10 minute walk away. Then on to the Harry Potter ride. Carrying a bag & phones we needed to find a locker, but all were taken. We were beaten by the other 1 hours worth of muggles. So instead we headed to the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster. We’d go back later.20150118_093710

Big mistake.

The roller coaster pretty much set me on edge for the rest of the day, given my poor showing at EPCOT the previous day. While I suffer from sea-sickness (a real burley generator) I haven’t experienced motion sickness since before the kids were born. So, the last 2 days have been a bit of a shock.

The biggest problem was that both Grace & Ellie are roller-coaster junkies – obviously they don’t suffer. We then moved on to Revenge of the Mummy, Transformers 3D, Despicable Me Minion Mayhem, and Terminator 2 3D. All just adding to my grief. Even a cute little Nemo ride targeting 10 year olds didn’t agree with me.

I’ve worked out that motion sickness is cumulative. That is, you have a limit and each ride edges you closer; & with each minute you’re not riding you gradually improve. The problem is that your approach is faster than your departure.

I happened to have started with the most vigorous ride in the park and could then barely tolerate the tiddly ones.

My motion sickness really only affected one ride where I called no joy – that Harry Potter ride we revisited at the end of the day. I joined the queue, but my gut hit the spin-cycle even just standing in the line – I aborted the mission as we neared the entry. Maybe thinking about it for an hour did my head (& stomach) in. I was really starting to look forward to the next day at the other Universal park – NOT.

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and yes, you could by Duff beer (alcoholic), and it was even on-tap at Moe’s:20150118_121816

Harry Potter takes centre stage at both parks and was certainly the area of interest for the girls.

The Knight Bus:20150118_143338 20150118_143521

Way too many muggles in Knockturn and Diagon Alley:20150118_151748 20150118_151904 20150118_151914 20150118_152423 20150118_154001

Top of the shopping list for both Ellie & Grace were wands at Ollivander’s – “Makers of Find Wands since 382 BC”…20150118_161142

Having been been selected by their wand, Ellie & Grace emerge:20150118_160853

Most annoying were tour groups (mostly Brazillian) who would move through the park as one mob – this made it very difficult to get around where there was restricted space. We perservered, though, trying the famous Butter-Beer (the cold version is a bit like a ginger beer with vanilla cream on top), lunch at the Leaky Couldron, and just generally wandering around visiting most of the shops in the alley-ways.

Spotted around the park were props from their most successful movies. Here, the time-travelling train from Back to the Future III:20150118_121641

Maybe the girls were suffering a little too: We had dinner, but only chips/fries as we left the park at closing (6pm).

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