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.
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.
and yes, you could by Duff beer (alcoholic), and it was even on-tap at Moe’s:
Harry Potter takes centre stage at both parks and was certainly the area of interest for the girls.
The Knight Bus:
Way too many muggles in Knockturn and Diagon Alley:
Top of the shopping list for both Ellie & Grace were wands at Ollivander’s – “Makers of Find Wands since 382 BC”…
Having been been selected by their wand, Ellie & Grace emerge:
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:
Maybe the girls were suffering a little too: We had dinner, but only chips/fries as we left the park at closing (6pm).