Daytona Beach

Day Five - Universal Studios

Left Daytona for Orlando and Universal Studios this morning at 7:30. Traffic wasn't too bad - seemed a lot better then the last time we made this trip. We arrived at the hotel around 9:30. They let us check in early and we headed across the highway to Universal Studios. Then we had to park the car, take the long trek to the entrance, get our tickets and wait in line to have our fingerprint scanned. That fingerprint scanner was a real pain, the attendants tried all kinds of things to get it to work - constantly cleaning the lens, wiggling your finger around, etc. It was around 11:00 when we finally got in the park. Weather wasn't too good - cloudy and dreary.

We got on the first ride we came to, Shrek 4D. It was OK but geared towards little kids. After that, we started heading for the rides we wanted to get on most, instead of going through the park in order. The next ride we got on was Men In Black: Alien Attack. I thought it was disappointing. You're supposed to shoot the aliens, like in the test Will Smith takes at the beginning of the movie. Natalie wanted to ride it again and not bother with the guns but we never got back to it. Then came the best ride - Revenge Of The Mummy. Great beginning, great indoor rollercoaster and a cool ending. At the very end of the ride, the actor from the movie talks to you but because we were backed up behind another car, it was out of sync.

By this time the weather had gotten worse - it drizzled a lot and poured a couple of times. We stopped at Finnegan's fake Irish pub to get some food and regroup. We had pasties, Scotch eggs and soda bread with apple butter. The soda bread was great but Natalie was the only one of us who really liked the other stuff. Some guy played acoustic guitar with electronic backing. We could hear him but not see him. Southern rock and country music - yeech. We saw Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue at 3:30. Beetlejuice was trying to turn Dracula, Frankenstein, Frankensteins Bride and the Wolfman into a band. It was lame. After a stagehand set off some big explosion, Beetlejuice asked him "Where do you think you are, Gatorland?" Gatorland had a big fire the night before. When the audience groaned, he said "What, too soon?" That was the first of several Gatorland jokes.

As far as the other rides go - Twister: Ride It Out and Earthquake were live action shows. I liked them both. The Earthquake show started with a green screen special effects segment using volunteers from the audience and scenes from the movie "U-571". Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast was OK. I liked Jaws but the rest of the crew wasn't impressed, although Matthew really jumped in one part when the shark showed up on his side of the boat and there was a big explosion. All of us really liked Back To The Future: The Ride. Towards the end of the day we went to the Horror Make-Up Show. It was OK. The prize for the volunteer from the audience was tickets to Gatorland. I know I was freezing during the show. By then I was soaked and the air conditioning seemed to be running full blast. Somehow, we missed the exhibit of props from the movie "Van Helsing". It was right next door to the Make-Up Show. I remember seeing the carriage from the movie sitting in front of the theater. The Terminator 2 - 3D was really cool. It was a mix of live actors and 3D. I snoozed for a few seconds during it. One thing they had in "Hollywood" by the T2 ride was a Lucy Tribute. It was a room full of Lucy & Desi Arnaz memorabilia. There were monitors playing the show and home movies, dresses and jewelry worn on the show, her Emmys, Lucy records, Lucy comics - all kinds of stuff. You could take a Lucy trivia quizz. I really like the section about the technical aspects of the show, how they were the first TV show with permanent sets and multiple camera angles.

We all were soaked by the time the park closed at 6:00. On our way back to the parking garage, Natalie fell off the people mover. She was turned around talking to Tom, when it came to an end. She didn't hurt herself but she made a lot of noise and everybody was looking at her. Back at the hotel, we changed and sat around for a couple of hours taking it easy. We drove back across the highway to the Universal City Walk to eat. Universal City Walk is a free area before the entrances to the parks with two levels of shops and restaurants. We went to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. The food was very average. I had conch chowder without a trace of conch flavor. Natalie had crab corn chowder, the highlight of our meal. The two of us split an order of Jamaican jerk chicken. It was bland, really just barbequed chicken without any jerk seasoning. Matthew had a burger and fries, and I think Tom had some kind of chicken sandwich. There was a band playing, Blue Stone I think they were called. They were really good but most of the songs they played I am sick of - lots of 70's stuff like "Gimme Three Steps, Brown Sugar, Etc. And although I hate country music, I liked one song they did that's borderline - "The Devil Went Down To Georgia". One of the two guitar players switched to violin and he was great. After we left Margaritaville, we walked around the lake and went into the Hard Rock Cafe to look at all the memorabilia. When we got back to the main drag of City Walk, we decided to head back to the hotel.