Tuesday, November 12, 2002
On This day I woke up to Madison climbing up into my bed and informing me, "Today I NEED to see Spiderman." Well that settled where we would be visiting that day....Spiderman can be found at Universal Island's of Adventure. So after a quick breakfast at the Gingerbread house we were off to Universal. We parked in the parking garage and headed toward CityWalk. CityWalk is a big area that joins the two parks (Universal Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios). Our First stop, Of Course, was Gotham City. We found Spiderman riding a four-wheeler down the street with his superhero friends. Madison now tells me that "they do exist" and he plans to be a superhero when he grows up! Spiderman and friends were soon called off (via Gotham citywide inctercoms and sirens) to save the world, and we were on to visit the rest of the park. Our next stop was to visit Popeye and friends. They were putting on a show right down the street. Nana was happy that Olive Oyle was there, and we got her picture taken with her. We watched most of the show and then started to leave. Beetle Bailey would have none of that though, as he had spotted Madison's button. He chased us down the street and proceeded to claim the stroller and wheel the kids back. (He even took off his little floaty ring and used it to bop people on the head to get them out of our way!) We had no clue what was going on but what do you say to a big cartoon character with a deadly floaty ring? Turns out when the show was over they escorted us down a path away from everyone else and we got a private photo session! (Which is also where we picked up the photo of Olive with Nana!) Woody Woodpecker even held hands with Morgan for the short stroll. We were just really amazed that they went out of their way to take pictures with us. What great people! Then we were off to explore the rest of the park. We found screaming dinosaurs, a mountain carved in the shape of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a talking fountain, Dr. Suess Landing. (Dr. Suess Landing was phenomenal! It was colorful and laid out just like a Suess Village. The colors were just vibrant. Morgan even had her picture taken with Thing one and Thing two....wonder if that makes her thing three???) Morgan also stopped and got a hair wrap while we were there. Then we were off to the second park...Universal Studios....
Universal is also more Calm than Islands of Adventure. ET and Barney both reside there, and we rode the ET ride. Of course we were on the FRONT as we were the first put into the ride. The ride is built like a big bicycle and ET sat in the basket right in front of me, Madison, and Morgan. (Nana and Aspen were behind us.) The ride itself is great. It really does simulate you flying through the sky above a city. When we went in they asked us our names and as we were ending the ride ET was waving to us and saying....."Bye Debbie, Bye Madison, Bye Morgan...." Haha! We also went to the Barney show. To this Day Madison still says he was able to imagine Barney and he came to life! They took us in and had all the kids close their eyes....they dimmed the lights until it was totally dark to simulate eyes closed. Then suddenly music played and glitter sparkled and there was Barney not even three feet in front of us! We were also told to stay in our seats when the show was over and once the rest of the people had cleared out Barney came out to meet us personally. The little kids loved that. However that was nothing compared to who we ran into next......SCOOBY DOO AND SHAGGY! Not only did we run into them but they were driving the Mystery Machine! Madison thought this was beyond cool. We then toured the rest of universal and headed for the Hard Rock Cafe, which is located in City Walk between the two parks. We ate there for free and they even gave Madison a free Hard Rock Cafe Tshirt. What a place....Madison thought it was cool that a car was hanging from the ceiling. (A pink Cadillac of course that rotated.) It was about to pour rain on us when we got there and by the time we came out it was getting dark and the rain was over. We were then back to the village where once again there were more presents for the kids. The little ones were exhausted so I took Morgan to Japanese night at the castle while Nana put the little ones to bed. |
