The rest of Universal Studios

For lunch we opted to try out Monsters Café.

 



I liked the "weird science" feel while you are waiting in line to order.

 

Plus the kitschy look of the dining area with silly classic horror movie clips playing on the tv screens was just plain fun.

The portions are HUGE.  Seriously.  We could have bought two meals and split them between the four of us easily.

After lunch we realized that the Despicable Me character meet was about to start.  The best part about these is that they "parade" the characters out in the Hollywood section and then park where you can do your photo ops.  Vector drives out in this...

 

... and then the rest come out on this giant thing.

 

They are blasting "Boogie Fever" and the characters all start dancing around.

 

Then the bonus dancers start pulling kids out from the audience to join in.

 

Yeah, Joshua didn't hesitate.  That kid loves to perform! 

 

We got in line for Gru first, figuring he'd be the most popular.

 

Then worked our way around through the girls.

 

I was wrong, it turned out Agnes had the longest line.

 

We made it to Vector right as they were closing the lines. 

 

Whew!  A quick shot of the minion's car (that they went shopping for the "toy unicorn" in) and we were done. 

 

 

It appears that if you start with one character and work your way around, you can get to all of them before they close the lines... but barely.  I would recommend starting with Agnes.

 



 We checked out some of the Christmas decorations...

 

... on our way to the Transformers Ride.

 

Turns out, this ride is identical to Spiderman.  I mean motion-for-motion identical.  The only thing different is the storyline and what gets tossed at you.

 

As we left Transformers, the parade of Hop characters was happening.  I was surprised, but Joshua said he wanted to meet them.  Okay.

 Not as big a crowd for those guys, so it was no problem.

The crowds were starting to gather along the streets for the Macy's Holiday Parade.  We debated for less than a minute and decided that standing for a couple hours waiting for the parade at this point wasn't what we wanted to do.  So, we opted to leave the crowd behind and stroll through the shops on our way out.

 

 

It's so fluffy! 

 

What struck me as most amusing was that they sold boxes of cookies from Despicable Me.  The ones that Miss Hattie forced the girls to sell.

I also encountered someone that did not speak English well.  A fellow shopper in the store.  I guess I looked friendly enough because she tapped me on the arm, pointed to a minion shirt she was holding and then pointed to Daniel and said, "For him?"  Took me a minute to realize that she was asking about the sizes.  Was it a kid shirt or adult.  I took Daniel with me and pointed to a rack of clothes, showed her the label and underlined the word YOUTH.  I said, "These are children sizes" pointing to Daniel.  I pointed to another rack and underlined the word ADULT on the label and said, "These are for you or me" pointing my fingers back and forth between us.  Her eyes lit up and she gave me the "Thankyouverymuch" response.  I hope that was what she was asking anyway.  I may have accidentally traded myself and Daniel for a shirt.  I'm not sure which. 

 

Universal Studios Orlando

Saturday, December 21st -

Since there was no decent breakfast option at our hotel, once we were up and ready we crossed the parking lot to the Waffle House.

 

Looking a little draggy, aren't they?  Probably a good thing this is our last day.

 

  Nothing quite like the Eggs 'n Cheese plate to start my day off right.

 

 

We hit the road in plenty of time to make it to Universal Studios by opening time.  Unfortunately, so did a lot of other people.  

 

We parked and made our way through the walkways and down CityWalk, where we lost over half the crowd.  With Harry Potter in IOA, that is where most people go now.  Once the new HP section opens up on the US side, I'm sure that crowd level will shift again.

 



 

Universal Studios has lots of the Macy's Holiday Parade balloons around the park.

 



 

We went through the gate and straight to the new Despicable Me attraction.

 



 

The wait time was already listed at an hour, but I knew that this is one of those lines that won't get better.  It will only get worse as the day goes on, so we sucked it up and got in line.

 

They had minion cartoons running on the overhead screens and some funny signs along the way.

 



 

And then there was this one, that was unintentionally funny to us.

 I said it was the "no jack-in-the-boxes allowed" sign. 

Since we had been in this building before when it was Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast (and I was on it way, way back when it was the Funtastic World of Hanna Barbera), we knew what kind of ride/show it was going to be.  We just didn't know exactly what they would do with it.  They redesigned the pre-show area.  Lots of Despicable Me things to look at while you are waiting for the storyline movie clip to run.

 

It was a very cute minion story and we were all glad we waited that hour to see it.  I'm not sure I'd be in a big hurry to wait it out again, but it was totally worth it this time.  As you exit the ride, there is a "dance party" where you can meet a minion.

 

The boys tell me this minion is Kevin.  I'll have to take their word for it.

I decided we should move away from the entrance crowd in the Production Central area, so we headed for the Woody Woodpecker's KidZone section of the park.  On the way, we spotted Scooby and Shaggy.

 

As soon as the boys spotted this store, we *had* to go in.

 

And there was a meet and greet with SpongeBob with NO LINE at all.  Okay.  Can't pass that up!

 

They decided to explore SpongeBob's pineapple...

 

... and as I was telling them to pose for this picture...

 

... look who photobombed us on his way by.

 

Talk about timing!  I guess he was on his way to the back for his break?  Anyway, the boys thought it was hysterical.

 

We walked next door to ride the classic E.T. Adventure.

 

There was only a few minute wait, while the pre-show before us finished would be my guess, and then we were on our way.  The only time we stopped in line was to give our name at the "boarding pass" station.

 

The best part?  E.T. was working!  He said our names when we went by. 

We have been on that ride SO many times where E.T. just says "goodbye Friend, Friend, Friend, Friend, Friend..." that it was a nice surprise to finally hear our names again.

Next we took a quick ride on Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster.  I guess I didn't get a picture of that because there was no line.  We just walked straight on.

Then we headed to the new (to us anyway) expanded Springfield area.  The last time we were here the Simpsons Ride was open, but they hadn't developed the section around it to look like Springfield.

I didn't get pictures of everything, but Duff Gardens Brewery made me chuckle.

 

 And, of course, the Kwik-E-Mart.

 

I wasn't too sure about the new Kang & Kodos Twirl ‘n Hurl (based on the name) until I saw it.

 



Oh, okay.  It's just a Dumbo/Astro Orbiters/Flying Carpet type ride.  I can handle that.

 

Next up was the Simpsons Ride.

There was about a 20 minute wait, but that's not bad considering the last time we were here we waited over an hour to ride it.  I love watching the clips in the first pre-show area.

We finished off the back of the park with Men In Black Alien Attack.

 

At least the locker storage areas here weren't quite the madhouse that Harry Potter always seems to be.  We had about a 15 minute wait in line.

 

And I kicked butt.  The ride picture was "meh", so we didn't get it.  But, still.  I kicked butt.

We were getting tired and hungry, a dangerous combo, so I suggested a break for lunch.