rock n rollercoaster stops the traffic
Today was supposed to be rainy and cold, but it was dry all day and not as cold as yesterday. It was also Friday which almost counts as a weekend here (Traffic was pretty ordinary on the way home). We headed for Universal early, and once there we decided to give the other park a try (Universal studios instead of ‘Island of Adventure’). First up was the ‘Jimmy Neutron’ simulator which we all enjoyed. This park has less big coasters but it does have the ‘Rip Ride Rock it’ which has a vertical ascent followed by a near vertical drop right at the start. Of course IrishWrath wanted to try it, and as his ‘volunteered’ sidekick that meant I was also doing it.
IrishDoom and IrishKinghidding out in the play park
While in the line I saw one of the coaster cars move off, and counted it, going up..then out of sight…then down the far side. All up that took about 20 seconds, which by my estimates gave it a climb time of seventeen and a half seconds up and two and a half seconds of and eyes-clenched drop @#!$. This coaster lets you pick an artist to listed to on the ride (kind of like in flight entertainment on planes) so I picked Sabotage by the Beastie Boys for both of us….it seemed appropriate! There was another small kids section that we spent a while at; another Play-park to lose parents in, a ball factory where kids can fire sponge balls at unsuspecting parents who are gathering balls for the kids to load into air guns (there is a sort of symbiotic balance to the force just there).
IrishKing questioned the credentials of this coaster the whole time….it’s not scary!
There was also a kiddie coaster for the little’uns to ride. After the kids section we went to see what all the fuss was about for the new Simpsons ride. It’s another simulator and I have to admit that it was really cool. The queue was quite long, but worth it. The graphics are great and the coaster car shakes you about to make it feel real. I rate it higher than the Harry Potter simulator because it didn’t konk half way through!. After the Simpsons I bought the four boys through the ‘Men in Black’ ride, where you have to shoot aliens whilst spinning and moving in a coaster car; our car won against the car beside us, but mostly because of the girl in the sixth seat who scored more than all five of us put together (girls with guns…only available in America).
the usual suspects
The last ride we went on was the ‘Jaws’ boat tour. The fake plastic shark really scared me a few times…honest!
outside the Irish shop
On the way out we saw an Irish shop in the New York section, where they sell genuine ‘Garda Siochana’ baseball caps. For some reason they also sell Italian t-shirt s(no other county just loads of Irish and a couple of Italian). We stopped off at the Florida Mall on the way home for some essential shopping (and a few ice creams). IrishWrath was keen to get home before 7:30 as they saw an advert on the TV for a ‘Brand New Episode’ of Star Wars Clone Wars today, but when we got home it wasn’t on (I suppose we got our time zones wrong).