Universal Studios - Post 2

Day 2 - We were up earlier today and got to the park before they opened at 7:00 am.  We know we are crazy!  Our goal was to get to Diagon alley and ride Gringotts again and then hang out in Diagon Alley for a while and wait until the rest of the park opened.  Diagon Alley opens at 7:00 am for only those visitors staying at Universal hotels!!  Big perk.

This morning we got in line and then waited for a while and we got through the bank and through the back of the bank and down the elevator shafts and then we got stuck.  The ride had gone down.  We waited about 25 minutes and the announcer said we could leave if we wanted to - but the nice girl working said to wait it out a little while longer (lots of people did leave!).  So we waited another ten minutes and we were on the ride!   Such a good ride!

It was already after 8:00 am, so we went to see the other parts of the park and do more rides.  We had never done Transformers, so we went there first.  Then we did Minions, Shrek, Twister and Mummy.  Then we went back to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch!  I wanted to try the Guinness Stew with beef, lamb and veggies cooked in a bread bowl.  Elizabeth had a chicken sandwich with bacon and something else.  Mine also came with a salad.  The Stew was excellent.  I recommend it!  We enjoyed our lunch and decided to take it easy as I had gone on all those spinning rides and then did lunch, so we went on ET!  I thought I would be okay, but I wasn't!   Needless to say, I had to rest for a while after the stew decided to show it's ugly face!

We went back to the hotel after that to sit in the sun and swim.  It was in the 90's so we needed a little break.  One park was open until 8:00 that night, so we knew we were going back to finish some rides.  We went back to Islands of Adventure and had dinner at Mythos that night.  What a great restaurant!   We each had a pulled pork hamburger and fries and it was delicious!   I also had some sort of soup that I just can't remember the name of....

We walked around Islands of adventure and Diagon Alley.  We stopped and took pictures of the Knight bus and Stan Shunpike.

 Elizabeth got chosen to be an extra in the Disaster show.  That was really fun.  She got hit on the head with fake rocks!

Some of the many characters that we had our photo taken with - This is a character from Dora - Elizabeth knew who it was, but I didn't have a clue, but I enjoyed laughing with them. 

 Here is one of the stilt walking pharoah men from Return of the Mummy.  He was great.  He loved Elizabeth's nail polish.

 Elizabeth and I and one of the many transformers that comes out every hour!

 The minions were awesome.  If you haven't seen Despicable Me 1 and 2, you have to watch them.  We did Boogie Fever with them and it is so much fun for kids who love the movies.

 Another Dora the Explorer Character!

 Woody Woodpecker!