We walked over into the Jurassic Park section and since there was no line for the Jurassic Park River Adventure, we decided to go on there. It was fun (Rick and I did it last time), and the ride picture is priceless (I'll have to scan it later). The kids look...scared spitless. They take your picture during a plunge similar to Splash Mountain, right after the T-Rex tries to eat you. Jacob particularly has an OMG! look on his face, but he tried to get us to go right back on it as soon as we got off. Instead, we decided to head over to Suess Landing before it got busy with familes.
Suess Landing is my favorite in terms of visual interst. They did such a good job making it look like a book story land. It was so tempting to buy us Thing1, Thing 2, Thing 3 and Thing 4 t-shirts, but I refrained. I've always called Brandon and Jacob my Thing 1 and Thing 2, so I love to get pictures of them with stuff.
We waited in line less than 10 minutes to go on the Caro-seussal, which Jacob really enjoyed.
Next was a 5 minute wait to ride One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. It's kind of like the Dumbo ride, except you have to listen to the words; there's s rhyme that tells you when to move your fish up and when to move it down to avoid getting sprayed. It was chilly enough today that they had the water spitters turned off, so it didn't matter.
During the ride, I tried to turn around and take a pic of them flying, and got admonished that photography was not allowed, because "the fish are shy."
The sign said the wait for the Cat in the Hat ride was 40 minutes, but we decided to give it a try, since Jacob was trying to drag us in there. It was closer to 25 minutes, so that worked much better for us. It's kind of like the Pooh ride at DW; you ride on "couches" and it goes throught the story of The Cat in the Hat while spinning you to and fro to see everything. Jacob thought it was great and spotted the telephone right away. (Of course!)
A glimpse of Hogwarts Castle as we headed back across the bridge to Jurassic Park.
The backside of Hogwarts Castle.
"Faster, must go faster!"
"Mom! Take my picture!" Inside the Jurassic Park Discovery Center, there are dino models, learning activities and you can "pick" a dino egg to scan to see what kind of dino is inside.
With the Triceratops outside the Discover Trail. They've added a "Do Not Climb" sign to it since we were there in 2004. ;) No picture of Brandon riding it to compare.
The boys were itching to run around in the Camp Jurassic play area for a little while. Jacob found this slide (which was his favorite in 2004, as well) and happily did loops of climbing up the stairs to dad, sliding down to mom, and back around again.
Brandon took off and scampered around on the next and climbed to his heart's content. After riding the River Adventure again (much to Brandon's dismay), it was time to head back over to Harry Potter land.
When you first get in, you see the Hogwarts express at Track 9 3/4. The entire area was packed with wall to wall people. You couldn't even find the line to get in line for Forbidden Journey (the main HP ride). We were told that it was down most of the morning, and it seemed like that everyone who had gotten in, never left in hopes of getting to ride it. The line to ride Flight of the Hippogryffs was only 30 minutes, so we hopped in that one
In front of Hagrid's Hut.
The other side of Hagrid's Hut.
Getting close to the ride, and Jacob is still waiting patiently.
The Hippogryff. It's a short, fast roller coaster that's not jerky and doesn't invert. Jacob loved it so much that as soon as we got off, he was pointing to it, and saying, "ride?" Next we looked at the line for Olivander's Wand Shop (an hour plus), and Brandon was fine with getting his wand from the wand cart. He was having trouble choosing at first, between Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and Snape.
Once he realized that he had Christmas money from Grandma Staigle, Uncle Randy, and his souvenir money for the day, he bought himself all three.
More of the front side of Hogwarts Castle.
Brandon really wanted a cape/cloak/robe, but was dismayed to discover that Gladrags was just a storefront, so it was back to Filch's Emporium. Oh My Gosh...total out of control crowd. We just pushed our way through and Brandon picked himself out a Slytherin scarf and t-shirt and a Christmas ornament. They didn't have any robes, though.
Hogsmeade Village.
The entire week, we could never get Jacob to use the bathroom in Harry Potter land. Brandon thinks he was too freaked out by Moaning Myrtle.
Animatronic Mandrake Root in a window. He was quite screechy.
More Hogsmeade.
Olivander's Wand Shoppe
Brandon and his Slytherin scarf and Snape's wand on the way out of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Jacob had decided that he had had enough of the noise and crowds, and Dad was agreeing with him (especially since Jacob was trying to bite him, me and and himself as he was getting more and more overwhelmed). We decided to walk through Toon Lagoon, since it is generally pretty quiet and deserted (there are really only two rides there, and both of them get you soaked).
Blondie's Sandwich Shop
Popeye. I'm sure it's intentional, but it almost exaclty mirrors a mariner's statue of in front of the Jaws Ride in Universal Studios.
Marvel Super Hero Island has a lot of cool graphics and plays cool rock music.
Brandon wasn't interested in doing the Spiderman ride/show, so we skipped it.
We tried to do Storm Force Acceletron (like the magic teacups) but after standing in line for 10 minutes, Jacob was beside himself with the noise, so we decided to call it a day at 4:30. Frankly, I'm impressed he made it 7.5 hours.
Brandon with his loot. On the way out of the park, we stopped into the main Universal store and there he found a Slyterhin fuzzy lap blanket (Slytherin combines his two favorites: green and snakes), a journal and a giant chocolate frog. He did finally find his cloak/robe, but he was unwilling to pay (even mom and dad's money) $100 for it.
After that, we drove back to the condo and just hung out and let Jacob veg. He seemed to appreciate that.
