My Universal Studios pass expired a little over a month ago and I wasn’t sure originally when I’d be back. I knew I’d be getting another pass eventually, but I figured I probably wouldn’t start using it until after the summer since the pass level I get isn’t good for the summer. But when my friend Erin mentioned that she and her daughter Olive were going to be there on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, I decided that I should get my pass sooner than expected.
Even though the pass I get isn’t usually good on weekends, when you have a new pass you can have your first day be any day. So that worked out pretty well for me. We knew that it would be pretty crowded going to the park on a holiday weekend, but we figured that even if we only got one ride in we would be pretty happy.
Olive loves all things Harry Potter, so our first stop had to be the Harry Potter section of the park. Olive has one of the wands that can be used to do spells around that part of the park and she wanted to test out her wizard skills as soon as we got there.
Olive is really cute with all of the wizard stuff. She believes in it (which I loved!) and she practices the various spells so she can do them all when she gets to the park. She can even do them behind her back or with her non-dominant hand!
And since we were in the Harry Potter section, we did the main Harry Potter ride first. Because of the way the seats are on that ride, I have to use the alternative loading area. That’s fine with me (and I’m no longer fat-shamed on that ride) but sometimes it can be a bit of a wait because only one magical bench can be used at a time with the alternative loading. It usually goes pretty quickly, but it seemed to be taking forever for us. We found out later that the ride had broken down and the people who were on it rode it again. But they were given one time front of the line passes because they got stuck and they decided to give one to Olive! That was so sweet of them and then it was our turn to ride.
And somehow we got stuck on the ride too! We were only stuck for maybe 2 minutes and it wasn’t in too bad of a spot (and we weren’t hanging in a weird position). The ride started up again pretty quickly and the rest of the ride was fine. But the employee at the loading area felt bad that we had to wait so long and we got stuck so we got 2 more one time front of the line passes! This was amazing because we knew the lines would be horrible all day and these passes were going to save us so much time!
After the ride, we made a quick stop for lunch and then did the tram tour. I’m sure I’ll be sick of the tram tour eventually, but I do still love it and how silly it is. I enjoy seeing the fun theme park elements of the tour and I really love going past Bates Motel and remembering the good time I had working there during Halloween Horror Nights.
After the tram we headed down the set of escalators to the lower lot to ride some of the rides down there. Erin and Olive haven’t been on any of those rides and Olive decided to try the Jurassic Park water ride. I usually don’t go on it because I don’t like water rides, but it was hot enough out to want to cool down a bit. I think Olive was a bit nervous about how big the drop is on the ride, but she seemed to enjoy all the dinosaurs on it and I promised to warn her when the big drop was going to happen. And when the ride was done, she seemed pretty glad that she tried the ride. And she didn’t get that wet because it seemed like all the water hit me! I’m glad I wore quick drying workout pants but my shirt was dripping with water.
Erin wanted to try the Mummy roller coaster, which I love, and we thought Olive might want to try it too. But after being in line she decided she didn’t want to do it so Erin and I did the kid swap service so I rode first and then she went on it after. It was fun getting to have some time hanging out with Olive and she and I decided to work on planning out what else we wanted to do that day.
And of course, all that Olive wanted to do was the Harry Potter stuff some more. That was fine with me so we headed back up the escalators to go back to the upper lot. We rode the Harry Potter ride one more time (we didn’t get stuck this time) and Olive did some more spells around the park. And since it was warm out, we made a stop to get frozen Butterbeer, which is one of my favorite treats at Universal.
We just walked around enjoying our drinks and I was glad that the park wasn’t nearly as crowded as I was afraid it would be. Of course, having the front of the line passes helped a lot too. But it was a gorgeous day out and it could have been much worse with the combination of the holiday weekend and the nice weather.
Olive had been saving money to afford some glasses (I don’t know Harry Potter stuff too well but I guess this is a big deal for a character she loves) so we did some souvenir shopping to end our day. Olive seemed so excited that she got exactly what she wanted and that she was able to pay with the money that she had been saving.
After shopping, it was time for me to head home so I could do some of my normal Sunday chores (like laundry). I’m so glad that Erin and Olive invited me to join them at Universal that day. Even though I had been recently, this was the first time I had been with a kid in a very long time. I think the last time I was there with a kid was when I went with Olive which was almost 7 years ago! It’s so fun seeing a theme park through a kid’s eyes and I hope that I get to go with Olive again soon!
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