Islands Of Adventure

We were greeted to an unnerving site this morning as we arrived at Universal. Row after row of coaches lined up in the parking area. Worse still, there were hordes of school kids getting off them all wearing matching t-shirts. That could only mean one thing - SCHOOL VISIT!!!!!


Indeed, we must have counted 20 different class of 2007 school trips / school band outings / mystery outings / well done for getting good grades outings all wearing their own distinctive t-shirts and all as noisy as hell!
Needless to say, this caused chaos especially around the entrance and all the trip leaders tried in vain to control their charges. I could live with the chaos, but the accompanying increase in wait times for rides was another thing entirely!!!

I managed to get onto the Hulk ride, but ignored the Popeye and Spiderman rides as they had stupid wait times. Instead, we headed to Jurassic Park.

I decided to have a go on the river ride. Once the ride had been fixed (it broke down whilst I was in the long queue) I was placed in the front row of the boat. Of course this meant I got hit with the backwash from the big drop at the end of the ride!
I'm just about visible in this shot with my arm up. It wasn't the splash that got me wet through, more the wave that the boat created that washed up and over the bow, covering my front completely. Luckily, I had my wallet and phone in a protective bag. Just in case!

I managed a go on duelling dragons, another roller coaster. Last time (2005) I'd ridden Ice, so this time I did Fire.

Queues were still long into the afternoon, so I was rather relieved when 4pm arrived and we started making our way out of the park. I'd reserved a table at the Hard Rock Cafe so we'd have time to have something to eat before the Spiderman film.

On arriving at the cinema, I discovered we were not after all, in the DLP version of the film (The Digital presentation). This was a disappointment to some extent, but I was told that the DLP version had already been sold out a while back. I've no idea what the cashier was trying to do when I booked my tickets then! I was told, however, that the quality of the film print I was going to see was very high as it's a brand new print (I'd guess under 20 showings) and indeed it was very clean.
As to the film, I quite liked it really. I'd say 7.5 / 10. I still can't get used to the US audience's tendency to "join in" with the film they are watching. All that clapping, whooping, Ohoh-ing all seems a little out of place to our British reservations :)

Back to the hotel - via one last open top drive through the night.

Linda's now packing up our cases ready for an early drop off at Downtown Disney tomorrow. Hope the weight is within limits!