Living the Disney Life: Heading North (12/12/06)
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Living the Disney Life
Heading North
December 12, 2006
About a month ago I wrote about my last trip to the Universal Resort, an afternoon at Islands of Adventure (click to read). Today, Rebekah and I and another friend decided to go to Universal Studios. The primary reason was to see the Macy's holiday parade featuring balloons brought down from New York. I much prefer visiting Universal Studios to IOA, and while I've been several times I've never spent an entire day there, so I'm always discovering new stuff. For example today we made our way over to Woody Woodpecker's kids area where they have two pretty cool kid's areas. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Our first stop (as usual) was food. We decided on a sit down restaurant, Finnegan's Pub (a very good and seemingly from scratch garden burger and a heavy but good fried onion and potato appetizer) and it went pretty well. Then we headed off to my absolute favorite attraction in Central Florida. It may not be the best, but it's the one I love to go on the most. It's corny, it's silly, it's a tad bit scary and always fun. It's Jaws. After a very satisfying ride we went to Men In Black on Rebekah's insistence. For me, this is the most overrated ride in the area (but given my opinion of Jaws, that may not mean much to you). I guess I can see why many consider it good, but it doesn't appeal to me at all. Then we headed to Woody's area to take in a new area of the park. It was pretty deserted on this cold, drizzly day but imagine it gets pretty crowded in the summer. Lots and lots of water there.
We next saw the Animal Actors show, a show which probably has had a significant change in 30 years (going back to the original version at Universal Studios Hollywood). The bird still takes a dollar bill then the trainer asks for a $50 (is there any show with a bird that doesn't use this line?) and the orangutan still goes backstage and brings out women's undergarments - some 30 years later. But I'm not complaining, I really enjoyed the show. One thing I like about Universal is they mean it when they say "walk-around character". I love to just happen upon characters walking down the street who like this...
We saw several examples of this today.
But here it is, the moment we've been waiting for. The last Universal holiday parade we saw (in California) was, to put it mildly, awful. Truly laughable. In fact, during the parade Chico Marx, seeing the bewildered look on my face, said to me "you were expecting something more?" So today I took Chico's advice and lowered my expectations. The parade started with what seemed to be real Orlando motorcycle police. Then two local High School marching band - but they were really good ones. Then all the Macy's stuff including several of the actual balloons from New York. The parade had a community feel which I always appreciate but it was grand as well. I really enjoyed it and would recommend any Macy's parade fans head out to see it. There's also an exhibit of the history of the parade and several more of the balloons are placed all around the park.
And with that, we headed out. Tomorrow it should be back to the resorts to take more Christmas pictures, but today was a great diversion. Tomorrow - another Disney day.
PS: The real reason we went to Universal Studios Hollywood during the holidays a few years ago was to see Santa Kong, a Christmas version of the King Kong part of the tram tour. A big Santa cap and Kong saying "Ho Ho Ho". That was worth the price of admission right there. Someday I'll dig up the video, it's priceless.
Discuss It
-- Doobie Moseley
-- Posted December 12, 2006