I hadn’t slept very well that night. My throat was feeling better, but I was very congested. That suggested to me that at least I didn’t have strep. So, that was a good thing.
When Josie got up, she told me she wanted to get a Big Pink Donut from Springfield. Yesterday, while Kara and I had been at Volcano Bay, Mindy and Josie went to the hotel gift shop looking for a Big Pink. Usually, they have them in stock but as it turns out they were all out. So this morning, Josie and I were going to the park to get one.
Mindy and Kara decided to hang back at the hotel. They might join us later, they weren’t sure. Mindy has family in Florida and her cousin Becky wanted to meet up with us. She has an annual pass to Universal, but without Express Pass it would be difficult to hang out in the parks. Eventually we settled on meeting up in Citywalk for lunch.
That morning, Josie and I had a funny captain on our water taxi. Most of the captains stuck to just driving the boat. A few offered commentary and a couple told jokes. This was by far the silliest captain we encountered. He played music and lead cheers. When we passed another boat, the captain insisted all of his passengers chant “We’re number one!” Josie thought he was hysterical.
We arrived at the park entrance just as they were starting to let people in. There was a big crowd, but I assured Josie that the vast majority of them would be headed to Diagon Alley. Since we weren’t, we would have the rest of the park mostly to ourselves. That turned out to be true as you can see from the pictures above.
I asked Josie what she wanted to do today. This would be our last day at the parks, so I wanted to make sure she had seen and done everything that interested her. At the top of her list was reriding Revenge of the Mummy. So we headed that way first figuring it would be better to eat afterwards.
We walked right on to the ride. As you can see from our ride photo, our vehicle wasn’t even half full. The second ride through cemented my opinion that The Mummy is a really fun attraction that serves an important function. We were starting to suffer motion simulator fatigue and The Mummy was the perfect antidote.
Another old fashioned ride was E.T. Adventure. This attraction had been closed for refurbishment for most of our stay. Mindy and the girls weren’t especially impressed when we rode it in 2015, but I wanted to give it a second try. So Josie and I stopped in on our way to Springfield.
E.T. is a strange ride that relies heavily on nostalgia for a movie that has fallen out of cultural relevance. The highlight of the ride, for me, is the first half in which you ride a bicycle over a Spielbergian suburb and soar past the moon. Once we get to E.T.’s planet, it’s all pretty weird.
This isn’t a ride you should wait in a long line to experience. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait at all. Josie got to sit in the bike with E.T. on the handlebars which is always fun. Since we had prepurchased the photo package, we stopped posed for pictures with E.T. afterwards. Josie was mostly humoring me so we could try to get some value out of the expensive package.
After E.T., we went to Lard Lads in Springfield. I was impressed by the variety of donuts offered. Mindy wanted a maple-bacon donut which you can see back in the back. I texted her this picture to let her know they had them. Time permitting, I promised to swing back around and pick some up for her. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Josie got her Big Pink Donut which we managed to finish off between the two of us. The glaze is a bit too thick and sweet for me, but it was a good donut. A Homer-sized pink donut is undeniably fun.
After we finished, we decided to hop on the Hogwarts Express and ride over to Islands of Adventure. Diagon Alley was busy, but people weren’t ready to go to Hogsmeade yet so the train station was empty.
We were able to walk right on to the train with no wait whatsoever. It’s really amazing what you can do when you tour against the flow of traffic. Crowds flow in predictable patterns. If you know where the crowds are going to be, you can cut down on your overall wait times by going where the crowds aren’t.
When we passed Hogwarts, we saw the wait time for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was non-existent. I asked Josie if she wanted to give it a try and to my surprise she was game. We walked through the queue and right on to the attraction.
In 2015, I had experienced some motion sickness on this attraction. But this time, I was fine. I was glad we revisited this ride because it’s really spectacular. The blending of the physical effects with the screens is mostly seamless. As a result, you don’t need the 3-D glasses to feel like you’re actually soaring around Hogwarts.
Afterwards, we tried out Flight of the Hippogriff. This is one I really hoped Kara would get to ride since it seems like it is exactly her speed. Josie thought it was a kind of lame, though she liked seeing Buckbeak. It’s a solid kid’s coaster for guests who aren’t quite ready to tackle some of the bigger rides yet.
Our next stop was Fury of Poseidon. This is an odd attractions in that it’s not a ride, I guess it’s a show. You walk through what is supposed to be ancient ruins guided by an archaeologist. There is a storyline involving Poseidon and an evil wizard. It’s all pretty cheesy, but it’s air-conditioned and there are a few neat effects. If you’re looking to get off your feet, Poseidon’s Fury won’t help you. But it will get you out of the heat for a while and it offers a change of pace from motion simulators. It’s strictly filler and I probably wouldn’t do it a second time, but I was glad I experienced it once.
Next:
Mutants and Cowfish