Universal Studios
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One of (if not the main) reason why we chose Florida was to visit Universal Studios.
If you know me and my twin sister, or have read some of my previous posts you may know that we like Harry Potter… ALOT! So, making it to Universal and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was a dream for us, for quite a while.
I still can’t believe, as I’m writing this, that we’ve actually been.
And yes, it’s every bit as epic as you can imagine (& then some) because I really think it’s one of those places that you can’t quite imagine until you are there.
Universal has three parks, Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure are the theme parks đ˘ and separate is Volcano Bay which is a water park đ
Islands of adventure homes Hogwarts, Hogsmede village, Seuss Landing, Juarssic Park, Superhero city, King Kong and loads more!
Universal Studios homes Diagon Alley, The Simpson’s, Transformers, Men in black, Minions, Shrek etc etc.
The rides are brilliant and, not just that, the queues!!
You never really feel like you are queuing up for ages because everything is so well themed.
The Harry Potter queues were EPIC.
You got to go through Hogwarts as you wait for ‘Harry Potter & the forbidden journey’
And you go through Gringotts bank as you wait for ‘Harry Potter & the escape from Gringotts’
The attention to detail is incredible, it’s just all so well done.
Even if you aren’t a Harry Potter fan you would love it.
It was so cool to go through Hogsmeade, visit the shops, have food in the eateries (just like in the books!!) Travel on the Hogwarts express and Shop in Diagon Alley. It’s just amazing.
The Hogwarts express train takes you from one park to the over so although you can walk this is a lovely way to go.
I will go into a bit more detail about the Harry potter section in a later post as me and my sister had a day at the Harry Potter parts đ
Some of my other favourite parts of Universal include ‘Seuss Landing’
This is all themed like the different books by Dr Seuss, such as The Grinch, Cat in the Hat, Sneeches, Green eggs & ham etc.
It was absolutely brilliant. So colourful and fun you couldn’t help but enjoy yourself in there. We had a lovely lunch in The Circus Mcgurkis too which was fun as one of the rides goes through the restaurant.
This was a big hit with my nephews, very child friendly and as I said, lots of fun!
I also loved The Simpson’s area; ‘Springfield’ this again was so well done. The roads and decorations were all done in a cartoon style so you really felt like you were walking through the Simpson’s.
There were loads of the iconic shops like Moes Tavern, The Kwik i Mart, Lard Lad doughnuts etc. It was great. The Simpson’s rides was also one of my favourites too.
Universal have loads of Simulator rides which are fantastic, you really feel like you are in the experience whether it be the Simpson’s, Harry Potter, Spiderman. If you are a fan of 3D/4DX simulators then you’ll love these. They were great for me as I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to rollercoasters haha.
One of our favourite things about Universal was the refillable cups that they had on offer. You paid to buy it and then you could refill it as many times as you want! The machines had LOADS of different beverages with so many flavours. Each day you had to re activate it but it was cheaper to do so and when you are spending the whole day there it saves you alot of money.
It was a god send in the August heat!!
Universal was so easy to get to from our Hotel, we could walk in 30mins, although it wasn’t always advisable in the heat with small children, especially at certain times of the day (but we did go in August!!)
Our hotel also had a free shuttle to Universal and there were free shuttles to Volcano bay too which was super handy.
Volcano Bay
We spent an afternoon at Volcano bay water park and it was really good fun.
It’s quite a new park.
It was super easy to get to as I said and once you were there, there was lots to do.
You get these cool Tapu Tapu wristbands that allow you to book a space on a slide so you never have to queue, you just get notified of when there is a space!
We loved the lazy river đ
The Volcano at the centre of the park was really impressive and although I was too much of a wimp to try out the hideously high slides coming from it, it did look really cool.
We could even see it smoking from our hotel a few miles away haha.
It looked really cool lit up at night.
Until next time,
Roseanne đ
Roseanne Byford 