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Wednesday 22 December 2010

An Island Of Adventure

Yesterday i got up at 8 o'clock (which is hard, i know) and had my breakfast. Reason: Iwas going to Orlando, Florida's Universal Studios - Island Of Adventures theme park! Well that's a mouthful in itself!
Anyway, I'll skip the boring parts and tell you what i did all day...

When i got there, I went through the entrance and made a new world record of "Fastest time that foot has been run over by baby stroller after entering a theme park." The first thing i did was get a ticket for "The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter" which was available to me between 11:00am and 12:00pm.



The exterior temple of the "Poseidon's Fury" tour

It had only just turned 10:00am so i went over to "The Lost Continent" section of the park and joined the 20 minute queue for "Poseidon's Fury" a tour around the (fake, of course) ruins of Poseidon's temple. It turned out to be a terrible 3 roomed nightmare where your "Tour Guide" was just talking and screaming most of the time - no-one was listening and only stopped to watch a short movie projected on a waterfall which involved Poseidon and some evil jerk fighting in slow-motion. It kinda sucked yeah.





The massive Hogwarts Castle which holds "The Forbidden Journey" ride
After that I managed squeeze into the overcrowded "Wizarding World Of Harry Potter" and join the queue for "The Forbidden Journey." I had to store all of my loose belongings in a locker and walk through the line till i arrived at a moving platform where a robotic arm held dozens of benches (with 4 seats) aloft. You get in them and pull the guard over your head. Then it takes you high up and starts dropping, ducking, diving, ascending, descening, turning so your on your back, weaving and rotating in the air whilst you're constantly moving and watching clever hologramic images give you the impression that you're flying over Hogwarts. After I got off my legs were weary and i only just managed to retrieve my belongings from the locker narrowly missing being trampled by hordes of overexcited Potter fans. It was fun and awesomely cool - but i prefer to stay on ground level!


Butterbeer!


After that dizzying ordeal i ampled over to the Butterbeer stand. Incase you haven't read the books, butterbeer is a frothy beer like beverages served at the bars in Hogsmead - the town the park was built to look like (snow and all)! It turned out to be an overpriced cream soda but much, much sweeter - it was very nice and i got funny looks from passersby on many occasions after taking a sip as it tends to give you a nice frothy moustache!


Honeydukes Sweet Shop!






After visiting both a remake of the Honeydukes sweet store from the books and buying a "Chocolate Frog" and some "Berty Bott's Every Flavour Beans" and visiting Zonko's jokes store i sat down at a seating area and chomped on the "Chocolate Frog."


The Flight Of The Hippogriff rollercoaster!

The chocolate frog gave me enough energy to enjoy "The Flight Of the Hippogriff" a small 30 second rollercoaster ride. Once again i faced an obsurdly long queue but in the end boarded the front of the rollercoaster with my sister and quietly savoured the last few moments of my feet touching the ground. My brother actually chickened out on this ride! But i cannot blame him - he's not the rollercoaster type. Anyway, the coaster took a sharp drop right at the beginning which gave it enough speed to turn fast curves at uncomfortable angles thus making everyone scream - happy days!

It was a really fun day - and now i'm exhausted and my legs ache from both the Harry Potter rides... especially the first one! Youtube it.





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