Two Hours and Six minutes

Sunday, November 6, 2022

We got up at 6:30 and were out the door by 7:20, walking toward the early opening (one hour early for hotel guests – 8am). We got stopped on the path for quite a while as people had to go through metal detector security. We made it into the crowd waiting at the entrance by 7:50 and into the park by 8:10.

The app told us that the Hagrid coaster was at a 150 minute wait by then. No thank you. We went to Velocicoaster again. We had chatted with Tom from Philadelphia in line to get in, and as we walked back and forth in the line we kept passing him. I told him he should say excuse me, excuse me, excuse me and come up to join us. He said no, he couldn’t do that to the people.

Seriously! What was I thinking? I would never do that and yet, I had as much as done it by suggesting he do it. WHAT?! I immediately contacted my brain and we waited in a corner for Tom to catch up to us and enjoyed the line with him. He was delighted with the coaster, as we were for the second time. Terrific ride.

We went to get a new cup for the day, since we enjoyed our beverages so much yesterday. While we were waiting, I asked the people ahead of us why their cup had a different lid than ours had. They said it was 3 years old – apparently you can bring your cup back forever and pay $11 to recharge it for the day. Well. That would have been nice to know before we left yesterday’s cup in the room. It was $18 for new one, and now we have two.

We wandered around a bit, then decided to go to Universal Studios via the Hogwarts Express. We figured if we did that park early, we would get the train back in time to finish the day at Islands of Adventure.

We rode the Mummy roller coaster 5 times. It has been closed for refurbishment for months and is not officially open, just in previews – meaning some features might not work. They all worked for us. We have been on it MANY times in the past, but always using the express pass and never have gone through the regular line. That is terrific for us – but we never saw the preshow, so we never knew why Brendan Fraser didn’t get his cup of coffee. Today, no express pass worked, so we went through the regular line for the first time and learned why he didn’t get his coffee (no spoilers here – you’ll have to come down and go yourself). The line said 45 minutes, but we finished 5 rides in less time than that, so total win.

On to 5 rides on Men in Black. Keith was just kicking it and we were going to ride a sixth time, but the ride went down and we went off to lunch. We had Italian again. We were enjoying our meal al fresco when a group of construction workers came by and did a percussion show. They were very entertaining and we had a perfect (behind) them seat. Lunch and a show. They nailed it!! (hahahahahaha!)

Before we headed back, we did the last ride we hadn’t done yesterday – Fast and Furious. It was so much better than I expected. The ride was really good, but the preshow was fantastic. You go through a couple of rooms and the plans are being made by the actors from Fast and Furious. Vin Diesel is talking with some guy I don’t remember, then The Rock calls in and they are going back and forth. The great part was that the actual Universal employees that are in the room are pretending to be part of the conversation and no one is listening to them. There was an older lady in the second room, and she was comedy gold. It was an absolute delight.

The line for the train back said an hour, so we decided to walk. It was a really good thing we did, because if we hadn’t I wouldn’t have known I needed to buy a ridiculously expensive little Jurassic Park backpack, because I wouldn’t have know it existed. It’s a backpack and an activity! The doors open and shut! I thought about it for about 5 hours before Keith said he was buying it with or without my consent. I consented.

We also bought a refillable popcorn bucket. Refills are $2 and you can bring it back forever. We were tempted earlier, because popcorn smells so good, but then we found out for 50¢ more you can get caramel corn.

We went to King Kong: Skull Island – twice. I enjoyed it so much, we went right on a second time. (It was closed yesterday.) The second time, we were chatting with the people behind us. They were doing both parks in one day and had some questions. I was more than happy to fill them in. I found it BEYOND FASCINATING (and completely incomprehensible) that they didn’t remember what they had been on. I asked what they had liked so far and the husband was like, “There was one with a dinosaur. I liked it. I was going to pet the dinosaur, but he spit at me. I think. I think that happened.” Um. This was today. The wife said she thought that maybe it was the castle one. I suggested it might have been a dragon, then? No. It was a dinosaur. I suggested the Jurassic Park ride – the one with the big drop into water? Yes! No. They hadn’t been on anything with water. Mmmm. I have no idea. I asked them lots of questions; they could answer none. Oh well. They enjoyed Skull Island with us. 🙂

On to Jurassic Park for us. Keith bailed. HE BAILED. He didn’t want to get wet. How weird. I just told him to take my picture and I express passed myself through the line and onto a boat without pause. I sat next to some people from Sweden. They knew where MN was, because lots of people from Sweden emigrated to MN. I thought that was very interesting. We were in the back of the boat, so we didn’t get wet – just a lovely misting.

I had a pretzel and cheese for dinner, because it is vacation. Keith had kebab and it had a red sauce and it was delicious. We sat on very low chairs and I was happy we were able to get up when we were finished.

We debated a LOT about whether to get in an hour line for Velocicoaster, or get in a 90 minute line for Hagrid. We finally got in line for Hagrid and by then it had gone to 150 minutes. 150 minutes!! That’s crazy. We never believed it would go that long, and it didn’t. It was 126 minutes – two hours and 6 minutes. We chatted up a family from MO – Grampa, Mom, 5th grade daughter, and their foreign exchange student from 20 years ago (from Poland, but now living in Mallorca, Spain). The grampa and mom had been on the ride in February and had waited 3 hours then. WOW! We waited for a coaster for 2 hours at Six Flags magic mountain once, but that is my only experience with a big wait. We decided to get in line tonight, so we wouldn’t have to go in the morning and go way earlier and try to get on then.

It was so good that now we have to get up way earlier tomorrow and try to get on again.

P.S. It was very hot in our room last night and we kept waking up. It was still hot when we got back tonight, so Keith called the front desk. A guy came in like 10 minutes and replaced a condenser and NOW it is cooling off. Yay guy who came!!