Trying to plan our trips around spring break and Easter crowds at Disneyland, and hearing from Lindee that Saturdays are actually less busy then Fridays, we decided to spend our Friday in Universal and hit Disneyland day two on Saturday. Out came the map and my navigational skills shown through again. West had looked on google maps and found routes everywhere before we left, and written directions to help us on the map. Only, for some reason, the directions to Universal that he had copied down had us going from one interstate to another one... another one that, according to the actual road map, didn't even touch the interstate we were on. Luckily I found us a new way. This system of West driving and me navigating was working extremely well for us, as I'm a terrible driver but obviously was able to make progress with the maps. Though the maps we had didn't go down small enough to show us the all the side roads, just the prominent ones, so sometimes we were left guessing as to what to do once we left the major roads. We did get lost (afterwards realizing West's directions had been based coming from the airport to the North, rather than our hotel to the south, so that threw us off a bit), but it was a good lost as we found Hollywood Blvd and saw all the stars on the sidewalk and the theater. It was a seedy part of town if you ask me. Kind of dirty and creepy looking.
We parked in the parking garage and had to walk through an outside mall type of area to get to the entrance of Universal Studios. We found this garden and I loved the wall around. Photo opp. The girls were pretending they were giant gumballs.
Classic shot, couldn't resist.
Our first stop was the new Simpson's ride. So far, after Sea World, Disneyland, and now Universal Studios, we were finding 3-D, 4-D, and simulator rides to be a big thing. I was getting tired of them. They made me viciously motion sick. But I HAD to see the new Simpson's ride. Or at least I had to because I kept harping on my girls to just TRY the rides before you say you don't like them. I couldn't cop out. It was fun. These rides scared the pants off of Cali. I think sometimes she would really forget it was just pretend. That's when I would remind her to just take the glasses off. After that we headed down to the lower level where we found the ride heights were higher than Disneyland. Only Cas, Jayme, and Brynn were tall enough, and out of those three only Jayme was wanting to ride. West took Jayme on the mummy roller coaster, then we switched and I went with her on the Jurassic park ride. It was a water ride that takes you on a tour through the Jurassic park and, oh no!, the carnivores have escaped! Jayme didn't like the T-rex dropping unexpectedly from above. Let's not forget the big splashing drop at the end of the ride (as every good water ride is going to have). When we got off the ride we met up with West and the rest of the kids, only to find that Cali now possessed only one shoe. They were standing on the railing at the bottom of the drop watching for us to come down on the ride and get soaked, when Cali's flip flop fell off her foot and floated away on the Jurassic river. I'm sure some innocent dinosaur is now suffering from indigestion from it. Great. Now what? Guess you'll have to go barefoot kid. About this time Suzann and Lindee showed up so I went to check out the mummy roller coaster with them while West took the circus down to the special effects show. All I'm going to say about the mummy ride is if you ever go to Universal Studios GO ON THAT RIDE! Holy cow! Hands down my favorite part of the entire vacation!
I guess while West was with the kids in the special effect show, they tried to get one of our kids to be a volunteer for the show. We must have some cute kids to keep getting picked at all the parks to help out with this stuff. Only our kids all turned it down. Crazy things!
From there we saw the Back draft show (which is being taken down after this summer so I'm glad I got the chance to see it). They lit the room we were in on fire and the building started to "fall apart". It was cool until the roof started to fall in on us ha ha.
West and his mom and sister wanted to go on the Jurassic park ride, so it was my turn to go off with the kids. We went and entertained ourselves by taking LOTS of pictures (please feel free to note Cali's shoeless feet in these):
Cali was NOT a fan of the shark.
Jayme wasn't actually too fond of it either.
And guess who we found? Cali was so excited she could barely contain herself. (Please feel free the note the $20 sandals I was forced to buy from a little stand on her feet).
We took a tour of the studio and I got to see Wisteria Lane. Hello housewives! We also almost fell off a broken bridge, and got trapped in a subway tunnel during an earthquake. Oh, and the murderous man from... what was that show? Psycho? Was stalking us from his hotel and I would guess scared the living daylights out of the people in the back car. While we were driving past some buildings with reflective windows he told us to wave, and then the tour guide started making fun of West for waving. Though if you ask West, he never waved, it was Sean next to him.
West's favorite part of this day was the Water World show. It was amazing with the diving, and the boats and jet skis. It was a chilly overcast day so we absolutely did not sit in the splash zone on this one.
Curious George's tree house was insanely chaotic! We walked in, not knowing what to expect and found full out chaos. Balls were flying every where, people just throwing them where ever, and at whom ever they wanted. Of course we joined in!
We left Universal Studios, caught some dinner, and made it back to the hotel completely exhausted. This riding rides all day long for four days was definitely starting to take it's toll! We relaxed in the hot tub and swam in the pool (this hotel having a pool that would actually fit more than just our six kids) and crashed hard in our beds to get ready for another day at Disneyland.
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