Potterheads

In the quiet hours before the dawn, they came.

In silent lines, streaming from the guestroom buildings, from the hotel lobbies, from the overpriced cappuchino cafes, in hundreds, they came.

They traveled lightly, with only what provisions they could carry. Families, mothers carrying the smallest children, larger children close at the side in order not to get lost in the mass migration. Faces set in a mixture of grim determination of the refugee and the hope and expectation of the pilgrim at the end of the journey.

In long lines, they traveled. The boats could only carry so many, and the rest walked. As the sun rose in the distance, they traveled along the resort walks, the shuttered shopping and entertainment districts, the murmur of the crowds growing and swelling as they approached the place they had sought. Many had come from far, many had crossed oceans and seas to be here. The pace quickened as the masses surged passed the gates, the excited murmuring growing to a rapturous roar.

They were the chosen people, gifted above all others by what had been given unto them: an early pass to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

We, too, were pilgrims. Striding past the slower families in our quest to attain a favorable position in line for the castle ride, we had only 30 minutes to wait before we could ride. It was a pretty good ride, but I think I actually enjoyed the ambiance of everything, the castle and the village more than the ride itself.

There was one other thing we brought, that made the day at the park much more enjoyable. The other benefit of being a guest at one of the three Universal Studios resorts, apart from the ability to get into the park an hour earlier than the regular visitors, is that you get an ExpressPass, which lets you cut at least 2/3rds of the lines at nearly all the rides. It was awesome. We probably saved at least four hours of waiting in line over the course of the day.

Anyway, after we finished the first ride, we wandered around the Hogsmeade street for awhile, enjoying the scene before we headed over to Spider Man adventure. Mom and tay had been diligently tracking wait times since a few days before with their iphone apps, and apparently this ride was one of the longest wait times, so we jumped on it second.

Actually, we had to stop for breakfast first since mom was getting punchy, and nothing was open that early, so we ended up munching on $4.99 salted pretzels. Gotta push through.

Spider Man was probably the biggest disappointment in the park. You have to wear ill-fitting 3D glasses for the unbelievably bad CGI elements of the ride, which turned out to be a lot. The ride is basically you get into a cart which rolls around in front of a screen, where bad CGI 3D characters from the spider man universe jump on the front of the cart and point various weapons at us before being dispatched by Spider Man. It was really quite bad, and we could not for the life of us figure out why wait times could get up to an hour for such a terrible ride.

The rest of the morning was a blur. We hit the park hard. I got drenched in the Jurassic Park river ride, we rode the Hulk which has a fun bit at the start but actually is pretty tame in comparison to the "Dragon Challenge" in Potterland. It's just a big, noisy ride.

We even did the train ride above Suessland, which is actually a great way to get a good view of the rest of the park. The ExpressPass made such quick work of lines, it was easy to say, hey that looks kind of fun, lets try it! without worrying about a huge time commitment.

Anyway, around lunchtime, we'd been at the park for five hours, moving pretty fast, so we were pretty burned out, so we left the park and took the water taxi back to the resort. Back at the resort harbor piazza, we split a pizza at the 'deli', and went back to our room for a nap. We slept for about three hours.

After we woke up, we grabbed gelatto downstairs for our ride back to the park. It was a great time to go back in the late afternoon. It was cooler, the sun was going down, and the hordes of people were thining out slightly.

Our first stop was GrinchMas, a 30 minute long live song and dance show based on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I've read the book, seen the Tex Avery cartoon, seen the Jim Carey movie, but I havn't seen the staged version. I'd rank GrinchMas just above the Jim Carey movie. Like the staged verision and the live action movie, this thing spent way too much time in Whoville, dealing with the least interesting characters in the entire story. The Grinch was kind of fun, and so was the more involved reparate with the narrator, but Whoville seriously needs to be buried in an avalanche.

The park is so much more enjoyable in the dark- the dinosaurs look more real, the Hogwarts castle looks more real and dramatic, everything is a little more exciting and fun and fantastic without the critical light of day. We rode the Dr.Suess tram again at dusk, and it was really pretty to see the park in the afterglow of the sunset. They lit the torches at the gates of the Jurassic Park land, and the river ride itself was a lot more enjoyable. (although we still got drenched in the flume drop at the end.)

Around 8 o'clock, we got into Mythos, billed as "the best restaurant in a theme park" which is kind of like "the best chairs in a department of motor vehicles", but we'll take what we can get. The food was good. The Mahi Mahi was cooked through (not seared), but overall the food was much better than say, Olive Garden. I liked the inside decor, which was made to look like a soaring grotto, and we got more cheap, bad drinks (whiskey whip - $5).

We spent the last hour in Potterland, riding the castle ride one more time, and the Dragon Challenge another three times. Seriously the most under-rated ride in the park. Fast, exciting, almost no lines. We rode the front of the coasters (there's two of them on parallel tracks) one right after another. We were out-riding the teenage kids riding alone.

Before we left, we stopped for a cold butterbeer, which tastes about as a good as it sounds, but we decided to grab one anyway. It's kind of like a mild rootbeer with a butter flavor. Not fantastic.

But the park finally closed at ten, and we joined the mass exodus of people out of the park, and hopped on the boat back to the hotel, our pilgrimage at an end.