Friday, February 23, 2007
Universal Studios~~!! 22nd-23rd July 2006
finally!! 6 months after i'm back in singapore, i've finally come up with my first post on florida! haha. this post would be about our 2 days spent at universal. we went to both of their parks; universal studios and island of adventures. :) be prepared for 100 over photos of universal, orlando!the hotel (very cheap and lao pok one) that we were staying was outside disney/universal. it did not provide shuttle services to the theme parks... and so what we did was to walk over to the one opposite our hotel (very discreetly) and well, got their bus schedule to take the free shuttle to the parks!
it ferried us all the way straight to universal and we stopped at the bus bay.
inside the bus. this way to universal theme parks! :)
the place which we alighted and made our way to the park.
up the escalator and to this common area... we are nearing!
on the escalators.. it was kinda like those at changi airports where they have this long stretch of road to bring you to your destination. 
the common area where they had alot of shops there and a cineplex too! wow.
welcome to universal orlando resort! hooray!
one step nearer to the main entrance of the park!
the resort area outside the park. hard rock cafe.
pretty pretty. they have this small river kinda thing in the middle.
pretty trees, skis, buildings, water. boats. :) 
pretty day!
we see a familiar logo!
don't you just always see this on tv?? ore more like in movie theatres?? haha.
universal studios, orlando!
so the first park we headed to was island of adventure.. or was it islands of adventures or island of adventures?? hmm.
at the entrance posing with out tickets!
the online ticket that we bought. we had to print it there. we got it for a deal for 79 bucks only! we could have used it for 4 days but we didn't had enough time so 2 days was all we could afford. haha.
through the main entrance... "the adventure lives on... "
pretty pretty interior.
ain't the theme just so nice. you feel like you are inside the story?
and further in..
then we reached our first ride!
roller coaster ride named after the movie the hulk!
it was like anaconda.. but bigger and more magnificient! they could sit 4 in a row, which was like twice of anaconda! amazing. but i remembered we spent a really VERY LONG time queuing for it! annoying.
then we continued walking on.. theme of cartoons!
don't the buildings have the 3D effects?
ohh.. adn we took a picture with.. err don't know what's the name of this character. don't really watch much cartoons. haha.
and then with these 2 gals from.. some cartoon. haha. this was taken on the first day.
we took another one when we saw them on the second day too! cuz we realized they were 2 different people! haha. so these characters don't work everyday eh. not pro enough eh.
and then with... can someone tell me who this character is?? haha. im deprived of my childhood cartoons. lol.
me me in the park.
they had those characters driving in in these mega motor vehicles kinda thing. like some kinda chingay parade?? haha.
so they would stop and take pictures with us.. and wave and smile at people.. some of them also try to scare us. haha. after they are done, they would all get back into their vehicles and move off together again! lol. a bit bo liao la.
SPIDERMAN!! haha i know this character! we were gonna go ride spiderman! it was a LONG queue too.
in the spiderman gift shop. i am spiderman!! hahaha.
inside the queuing area. they had lotsa nice things surrounding us while we queue. i guess it's part of the theme of the movie... not too sure but it was nice... and AIR CONDITIONED! haha. beats PKD hands down! duh.
we all took a pic each with the fake computer desk as we moved down the queue. haha
it's our turn soon! put on ur black glasses so you can see the effects!
then we moved on.. to another theme. it was some comic themed like area. very pretty and colorful!
see liao make people feel so happy hor. don't you feel like you are in one of the story books you've read when you were a little kid? we took this ride though.. it was actually just a very normal flume ride but it was the theme, design and color that made all the difference.
then we move on to.. JURASSIC PARK! i loved the movie when i was young.
the stuff from the movie!
we hoped on the ride separately by joining the single rider queue. it was much faster though we were all separated. this was inside when we were on the ride.
is this a rhinoceros? haha. it's a dinosaur.
big dinosaur.
fat dinosaur.
out of the water dinosaur!! whoops.
part of the movie.. the area where the human beings were!
moving closer...
and be careful cuz there's a raptor kept inside there!!
posing with another car after we were done with the ride.
bye bye jurassic park area.
and then we walked.. and took another picture with some kinda bird thingy.
the area outside had similar theme. those ancient ancient kinda theme.
nice nice hor.
even their trash cans matches the theme of the area! hrms.. no such thing in kd man.
and their atm too! cute right.
there was a resturant there too.. this was their menu placed right outisde the mall of their restaurant. goes with the theme too!
*roar roar* this reminds me of some movie but i don't know what.
then we went to ride this coaster ride of 2 dragons. it was from some movie too i guess.
we took this.. can't remember. while queuing or on our way there? haha. we just took it cuz it had the kinda extended wooden bridge from the castle kinda thing like you see in movies and story books.
queuing queuing...
and posing with stuff the put up for us. haha.
i can't even remember if this was part of this ride or of another. should be this one. haha. it was a REALLY LONG queue too.
jsut before we were gonna board the coaster.
dragon coaster ride! it had two dragons and so it was actually two colored tracks and two completely different rides. anyhow, we just choose one cuz we did not had enough time to queue for both! this was similar to volcano in kd except that it had a theme and somehow... it felt more fun cuz the whole ride was much longer than the one at kd.
more pictures with the ancientic theme!
yicui's favourite photo!
me me along the streets of this theme!
then we moved on to.. kiddy themed area!
we could see our first ride from here.
don't the skies look beautiful? they just look.. different from those here. the sky is more blue and the clouds more white. i think it's the bluer clouds that makes the sky look prettier.
pretty kiddy land.
i'm in kiddy land!
and the bins look kiddy too.
pretty and colorful kiddy stuff.
kiddy buildings.
even the caroseussel looks so differently from the normal boring horsey kind.
it's colorful and have different animals for you to ride on.
the place we were gonna find food!
i've heard of the cat in the hat.
inside the restaurant/cafe that we had lunch. the food wasn't that cheap.. but we were really hungry and thirsty!! they even had this small colorful train kinda thing that went through the top part of the restaurant... we took a picture but it came out quite badly. it's kinda like the ones at genting highlands. so while you eat, you look up and you can see people having fun and moving in the small traijns through the restaurant.the whole place had the theme of kiddy land too so it was very nice and very colorful. it makes people feel happy and good.
the bridge linking the ancient area to kiddy area. we even bought a goose drink from the kiddy area.. it was really cute. it's actually just cold flavoured syrup water la. but when you are so hot and thirsty.. it all tastes heavenly.
we went one round and back to square one. near the entrance and near our first ride.
and more pictures..
walking down to the exit/entrance
does this picture look repeated?
goodbye island of adventure.
we were out at the city walk way again! is this yao ming? haha don't think so right... just a NBA shop.
the we went straight into universal studios and the first thing that greeted us was the universal studios store selling all your souvenirs!
nickelodeon! they have this character in the kiddy part of kd too! so cynthia has fond memories and feelings in particular here!
inside universal studios... 
a building. haha.
lots and lots of people.
a character walking around in high stilts. i thought only the chinese do that.. haha so angmohs do that too!
i love the skies and the trees.
shrek! =)
the big palm of shrek!
then we continued walking around and saw big white balls on the waters. haha.
MIB there.
more big white balls on the water.
posing.
then we went to watch fear factor live!! oohh.. my favourite! i've always liked watching this show!a short video of the starting part that mingshun took.
photos from the show.video of a stunt done live!! eeww.
well, overall it was a little disappointing cuz it's definitely not as good as those on tv. it was just.. kinda fake la. and like they made it for the sake of it. little boring.
then we took this.. at some queue. can't remember which ride.
we went to ride mummy returns!!
queuing! it was the best ride i had at universal!!
then we continued walking around as the sun began to set.
on the streets with another theme!
pretty eh.
me and cui.
it started to get darker...
white balls again.
the nightview looks pretty good right.
yups of cuz.
here's the rental station that they had around the whole park. it was for people to put their bags while they go ride. it's free for like first hour.
it's super cool cuz you use your thumbprints to lock and unlock it!
click on to get a largr view of what the screens wrote.
anyway it was almost time to go off so we headed back down to the souvenir store to buy some stuff and exited out of the park.
night view...
then we continued walking around as the sun began to set.
on the streets with another theme!
pretty eh.
me and cui.
it started to get darker...
white balls again.
the nightview looks pretty good right.
yups of cuz.
here's the rental station that they had around the whole park. it was for people to put their bags while they go ride. it's free for like first hour.
it's super cool cuz you use your thumbprints to lock and unlock it!
click on to get a largr view of what the screens wrote.
anyway it was almost time to go off so we headed back down to the souvenir store to buy some stuff and exited out of the park.
night view...
and so this spelt the end of 2 days at universal studios! we didn't take pictures for every ride that we took la.. but overall, i would say it's a great experience! i like the parts when they had all the effects in the rides which makes you feel like as though you are inside the movie! i wonder how the universal at IR in Singapore would be like when it opens next time! :) hopefully it would be better though it might be hard because of the lack of space here.
tag me if you finally manage to reach the end of this post. haha... not sure if anyone still comes by and read anymore... but it sure took me a VERY LONG time to come out with this post of more than 100 photos so i hope you enjoyed it. :)
YuAn® spun on 8:33 PM.
