March 21, 2014
Universal Studios
With an unknown sickness starting to spread, we decided to have a bit of a sleep-in and a slow start before heading to Universal Studios, and anticipated staying later instead, so that we could potentially see the fireworks and eat dinner at the park. By slow start, we really meant sllloooowwwwww start, with the first two cars heading out about 10:30 while the T’s decided to take Carson, who was still not feeling well, to the local clinic first. He was diagnosed with an ear and eye infection and given antibiotics. Possibly due to the late departure, it took us a full hour to get to the park due to some crazy-ass traffic (this is normally a 30 min drive). Praying the traffic wasn’t a convoy of holiday-makers headed to the same park as us, we convinced James to pay the extra $6 for priority parking, which ultimately probably benefitted us more in leaving than arriving.
The park ended up being only a little busier than we have become used to, enough that the VIP passes were once again worth their weight in gold. We kicked off this day with a ride on the Rock-It, which is the roller coaster that starts with a completely vertical climb followed by a crazy ride of twists and upside down flips, all set to the rock and roll tune of your choosing. “Kickstart My Heart” by Motley Crue was definitely the group favourite. We all split up after the Rock-It to explore the park in smaller groups. Our group (Andi, Dave, James, Risa, Jeff) went on the Transformers 3D (very much like spiderman, but all agree it was better), Disaster Movie (a little campy, although funny, and decidedly lower quality than we were all expecting), Twister (kind of lame), Mummy’s Revenge (excellent ride but disappointingly short), and we caught a very good 15 minute Blues Brothers show.
Some other highlights included The Simpsons, Men In Black, Terminator 3D, and Fear Factor Live.
Mmmm, beer!
We actually spent the afternoon in Islands of Adventure so that we could re-ride some of our favourites. A few of the hard-core went for the trifecta of water rides, figuring why not get wet all at once. The river rapids ride was ridiculous in its efforts to get riders soaking wet. Seriously. At one point it looked like one entire side of our inner-tube-style boat was completely under water (the side that Riley was on). Because we were SO wet, the Duns’s and Barrett/Zaleski’s missed our 4:00 meeting time so that we could use a People Dryer. We wrapped up Universal with a stroll through Harry Potter land with a peak inside Honeydukes and a final ride on the Dueling Dragons roller coasters.
Seriously, does anyone have 5 bucks for the People Dryer?
Still wet from the earlier rides, we bailed on the fireworks and park dinner and decided to pick up a bucket of chicken and eat the leftovers from the house. After our deliciously carb-heavy dinner, Dave S used his newly purchased HDMI cable to play Midnight in Paris for us while the kids made use of the games room (still no functioning pool). Also broken in the house, the McCague shower now turns on, but no longer turns off. It was recommended that they remove the handle and use a towel to turn the bolt. Not kidding.
Meltdown count: 0
Breakdown count: 3 (Pool heater and filter still. Another breaker blowout. M family shower handle.)
Rundown count: 1 (Carson eye/ear infection)