More Harry Potter Land!

More random photos from HP land!

Jonathan's new toy

My Black Friday deal was a ladder from Lowes (see my 365 photo-a-day album on facebook).

Jonathan's black Friday deal was a flip cam. I guess he uses them at work alot, so he was familiar with how awesome they are.

He's been playing around by taking short videos at the Osborn lights (at Disney), and he walked around HP land at Universal all day.

I caught him in action a couple times. Hee hee. Here he is standing outside of the 3 Broomsticks restaurant. See the actual 3 broomsticks above his head? There's also a "wanted - Serius Black" poster to his right.

More Harry Potter Land!

Harry Potter Land is a cross between Hogsmead and Hogwarts. Some HP purists say things like, "there's no Olivanders wand shop in Hogsmead!!!", but I didn't care. I don't really pay attending to many minor details when I'm reading.

It was really fun just to wander around and look in all the shop windows.

Here you can see an overview of the 'land'. HoneyDukes is the sweet shop (chocolate frogs, etc ...) and one of the outdoor Butterbeer carts.

And, it's snowing in Florida!!!! (nah, it's all fake)

Butterbeer!

Hog's Head - home of the Butterbeer! (and other alcoholic drinks, but who cares about those)

One of the attractions at Harry Potter land is the food! They serve butterbeer, pumpkin juice, chocolate frogs and more! The main attraction is the butterbeer. It tasted like a sweeter cream soda, and we LOVED IT!

We had 4 through out the day. It comes in 'frozen', which is a slushie consistency and 'regular'. Frozen was by far the best!

Pumpkin juice was NASTY!!! Normally if I order something, and it's gross, I'll choke it down just b/c I paid for it. This crap I couldn't even choke down. It was downright disgusting.

Butterbeer #1 (frozen). There is some delightful foam on the top that makes a fantastic mustache!

Butterbeer #2 (regular)

Butterbeer #3 (frozen again!)

Butterbeer #4 (one more for the road in the souvenir mug!)

Harry Potter land

Jonathan had a free ticket to Universal Studios that expires at the end of this 2010. We calculated the perfect day to go would be 12/5/10. The Christmas decorations would be up, and it's the perfect time in-between Thanksgiving and Christmas so the parks would be dead.

Were our calculations correct?

Heck yes they were!

Did you hear news stories about people waiting for hours and hours and hours to ride the new ride? (That's not an exaggeration - when "Harry Potter land" first opened this summer you had to wait multiple hours just to GET IN to the land, much less do anything.

We walked right on the ride. No waiting, no nothing ... walked right on.

The ride is inside the giant Hogwarts castle. The queue line is fully decorated like the inside of the castle, so I honestly wanted to wait a little tiny bit so I could look at all the details.

Later on in the day we walked thru the queue line again. This time the line was a whopping 15 minutes (ha!). When we got to the front we said, "we don't want to ride please", and went thru the chicken exit.

The ride is pretty cool, but it's 1/2 looking at stuff and 1/2 virtual reality. My inner ear can't handle that virtual stuff. Even Jonathan was a little queazy afterwards.

The ride was kind-of scary. A dragon and a bunch of dementors are in your face (I mean, inches away!).

More on HP land (better known as "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter") later!

Dudley Do Right's Rip Saw Falls

Coming Soon!

Check out what is coming soon to Universal Studios.  Harry Potter Land (or what ever it's called).  I hope it's going to be super cool.

The Simpsons Ride!

Even though simulator type rides make me violently ill, I was so excited to see the new Simpsons Ride at Universal.

It was AWESOME!!!  

I took 2 dramamines before hand, and only closed my eyes a couple times on the ride.  I think I saw most of it.  I can't believe I didn't get sick or anything.

The preshow was the best part.  I almost wish we would've waiting in line for at least 10-15 minutes (we walked right on the ride), b/c I bet there were tons of little Simpsons touches all over the place.

I must say, the Universal marketing department blew it big time when it came to souvenirs.  They didn't even sell BORT license plates.  You Simpsons fans know what I'm talking about.

Ahhhhhhhh!

This might have been the greatest ride photo ever.

It had been raining all day at Universal, so we figured, "what the heck - let's go on a water ride!"

Even though we were already soaked, we managed to get even more soaked!  Especially in the crotch area.

And the drop on Dudley Do Right's Rip Saw falls is really steep!  I think some of us are screaming because we're wet and some of us are actually scared!

From top to bottom:

My brother Corey

My friend Julie

Me (I'm not scared!)

Julie's husband Mitch

Good times!

Universal Studios

(My brother purchasing his 2nd soft pretzel)

We all went to Universal Studios last Monday.  It was supposed to be not too cold, but 70% chance of rain.

(Julie and Mitch are the only ones on Dueling Dragons!)

I made everybody get up early, and we left the house at 8am.  We were  going commando style!  We only had 9 hours (9am-6pm) in both parks, and I wanted to do everything we possibly could.

(We are soaked after riding Rip Saw falls)

Little did I know that NOBODY was going to Universal that day.  

Seriously, there were NO lines.  It was amazing.  We walked right on to every single ride.  And I'm not exaggerating at all.  I couldn't believe it.

(Corey is not excited about riding The Hulk coaster)

That 70% chance of rain was correct - we were all soaked by the time we left.  But I think everybody had a fun time.

Blue Man Group

My friend Melanie won 40 tickets - you read that right - to the Blue Man Group.

I guess she won them off a radio contest. After the show we got to meet one of the Blue Men!

I really wanted to ask him some questions, but he stayed in character the entire time, meaning he was silent and kind-of creepy.

The show overall was really cool! I guess I'm glad I didn't pay $80 for my ticket, but I really enjoyed myself. I don't want to say much about the show, because I don't want to ruin anything ... but the show is ANYTHING but unpredictable. Just don't be late for the show, or you may get picked on.

Universal Studios

Last weekend Jonathan and I went to Universal Studios. We didn't go on many rides (b/c they make us both sick - we're both such wimps). We did walk around, ate Chinese food (they have the best!) and took some photos. 

The Office is the best 1/2 hour on TV - check it out on Thursday nights.

And I got a kick out of the Back to the Future characters. They looked and sounded just like the movie!