Day 11

When we were waiting for Beth, whilst she rode One Fish, Two Fish earlier, we had caught, from afar, the end of an audience-free show on some sort of caravan stage. Now as we walked through Seuss Landing with our ice creams and cold drinks there was a commotion in front of us as the show began again. It turned out to be the Dr Seuss Street Show that recreated some of the Dr Seuss stories, including: - The Grinch who stole Christmas, and The Cat in the Hat. I sat under the shade of a Truffula Tree, (I think that's what the narrator, who incidentally looked like Richard Branson, called them), with the pram and finished Beth's ice cream. Meanwhile San and Beth went straight to the front for the show. This was the most entertaining show that we saw at Universal Studios, or Islands of Adventure, and Beth used almost a full roll of film in her fun camera, taking pictures of the characters.

The highlight of the show was when Thing 2, from The Cat in the Hat, came out into the audience and shook hands with Beth, as she sang along to the rhymes she had learnt. She nearly jumped out of her seat when Sam-I-Am came out to act out Green Eggs and Ham. I haven't seen this show advertised as a highlight at IOA and it didn't even make it onto the Universal Studios advertising video, but the colourful characters and great stories made it a memorable show that is definitely on our Must See list next year.

Following the Seuss Street Show, we made our way to the Jurassic Park Discovery Centre where we got to see what we would end up with if we crossed Peter with a dinosaur. We also saw the Dinosaur Nursery, along with the Velociraptor eggs in the incubators, but sadly we didn't see one hatch. This was one of the things Beth had wanted to see as she had seen it in all of the travel brochures and on the TV. Whilst we were in the Discovery Centre, San got chatting to an elderly American couple, who wanted to know what English people thought about the Clinton-Lewinsky controversy, and the death of Lady Diana. I made some excuse that I had to chase Beth around and quickly departed. (How boring!)

It was then time to leave the Air-conditioned comfort of the Discovery Centre and try out the Triceratops Encounter. It was again very hot outside, especially in the queuing area, and this attraction was very disappointing and not worth any length of waiting time. They might as well put cows in those sheds because they would be more entertaining….. what a let down! The queue for the Pteranodon Flyers was again over an hour, (why is this ride so popular? Or is it that it has a slow turnaround time?), so we went to try Dudley Do Rights Ripsaw Falls, but this queue was also over an hour long.

The park had been quiet for most of the morning, but as it got nearer to lunchtime it got busier. This may have been because it was Sunday and most people had slept in.

The wait for Popeye and Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges was only about twenty minutes so we decided to join the queue. Unfortunately Beth wasn't tall enough to ride, even though she was allowed on the Kali River Rapids in the Animal Kingdom, which is Disney's equivalent to this ride. Rachel volunteered to take Beth to Me Ship-The Olive, to see if they could squirt us with the water cannons on our way around.

After the ride we noticed that the sky was darkening in preparation for it's usual afternoon downpour, so we decided to go to Wimpy's for some dinner, which again amounted to an average burger. I had a chicken burger for a change, along with a side order of onion rings in batter, which were quite tasty when dipped in barbecue sauce.

After dinner, we walked through the Cartoon Land, stopping to take pictures by the speech bubbles that said things like -"I need a holiday to get over this vacation". These pictures sadly, were on the film that we lost, along with some great ones of the Hulk coaster. (We'll just have to go back and do it all again!) As we were passing the Cartoon Circus, the 1.30 show was just about to begin, but as Beth didn't know who Rocky and Bullwinkle were, we decided to head for Universal Studios instead.

The Islands of Adventure had been a great surprise for us and in some respects made some aspects of Disney seem disappointing. We all agreed that this was one of our favourite parks, and to think we almost didn't include it in our plans, but only tried it out because we had bought the Universal Studios Escape Pass. Again we were sad to be leaving the Islands of Adventure, knowing that we would not be coming back, on this trip.

When we got to Universal Studios I took Beth to see Barney for one last time, (see - I am brave), whilst San and Peter went to see Terminator 2-3D,which San thought was great, with only a 25-minute wait. When they finally caught up with us, after taking some photos at the New York Skyline photo-point, I was rescued from Barney's Playground.

We then went on Back to the Future again, at Beth's request, before heading for the 5 O'clock Beetlejuice's Rock n' Roll Graveyard Review, which was absolutely awful.

After sitting through Beetlejuice, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going on Kongfrontation, as there was no queue, whilst Rachel took Beth to Fievel's Playland. The first time Peter and I had tried to ride this we got all the way to the front of the queue, only for it to break down. So it was a relief to actually get on it on our last visit to Universal. A lot of the attractions depend on how good your Driver/Tour Guide is, again we were lucky that our Cable Car driver was a frustrated actress who put a lot into her performance, throwing herself around the cable car. Another good ride, although slightly dated, but they are all classic movies, and how scary can you make a big plastic gorilla? A realistic feature of the queuing area is the graffiti, just as you would expect in a Manhattan train station. Another nice touch is the 'Banana Breath' smell that you get when King Kong roars at you.

We then collected Beth and Rachel and went to check out some of the shops. We found the entire set of dinosaur figures from 'The Land Before Time' in Second Hand Rose, and Beth bought them all as they were half price. By then it was almost 7 O'clock, so we went to catch the final show of The Blues Brothers. This was a great show, which deserves to be on a proper stage, instead of the dreadful Beetlejuice.

As San and I clapped along, Beth wasn't impressed, so she went to play by the squirting fire hydrant with Rachel.

After the show, we changed Beth and wandered through some more shops. It had started thundering in the distance and as Beth had already been wet, and didn't have another change of clothes, we decided to call it a day.

As we left the park, it was quite surreal as the lightning flashed around us, as there was no rain. I had to console myself by buying some Jack Daniel's Punch from Goodings, again, on the way back to the hotel. Unfortunately the pool was closed when we got back, because of the weather, so I had to drink the Budweiser and Jack Daniel's I had bought, in order to relax.

Tomorrow:- Animal Kingdom/MGM Studios