It took 2 hours…to drive 36 miles over to Universal Studios. Such a short distance made really long by traffic. As soon as we got into Universal Studios around 10am we immediately went to Hogwarts and rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
The Harry Potter ride and land was basically the entire reason for making the trip to Universal Studios. The ride was a really cool mixture of Screens/projections and animatronic models. There are a few transitions that feel natural and seamless in the ride that leave you with a wow that was really cool feeling. We rode this ride twice once first thing at 10:30, and again as the last ride of the night at 7pm. The wait-times at Universal are a lot longer.
For lunch we ate at The Three Broomsticks, I had the Shepard Pie, with a butterbeer. The food was good, and presented in a really nice way.
Transformers was really cool, it makes use of 3D effects and animatronics to tell a short but sweet story about preserving a piece of the All Spark from falling into the Decepticons hands. There is a part of the ride that is really cool, a missile is fired at your car, and switches other to a scene where the missile prop is there, and blowing hot air at you. It really makes you want to duck out of the way.
The Mummy ride was really short, it was so short that it seemed a little underwhelming after the wait. The rollercoaster was still a fun ride.
Jurassic Park ride was wet, and it was also a cold day, so nobody really wanted to be wet. I managed to sit in the middle and stayed mostly dry.
Studio tour was really neat with the two 4d elements in it. With King Kong 360, and later on Fast and Furious. They were filming World of Dance and we could see some of the dancers preparing.
The Walking Dead was really interesting as a fan of the tv show, although for me I was more interested in the locations from the show, and less in the horror aspects of it. Walking through the Hospital as seen in season 1.