Day 6: Thursday, June 19th, 2014
The sixth day of our vacation took us back to Universal –
this time to Universal Studios. There’s no particular rhyme or reason why we
put a Disney day in-between our Universal days... it just seems to feel like
we’re stretching it out a bit more by not going back to back days. For whatever
reason, this is how we like to do it for now! As always, before heading out to
catch our shuttle, we grabbed a light breakfast and made our way to the bus!
View of the entrance to Universal Studios |
After Transformers we made our way over to one of our favourite attractions – the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. After conquering our nerves for this ride in 2012 we knew it was a must-do! We love that you can rock out to whatever song you like through individual speakers. The lines were still minimal at this point so after the first go-around we decided to do it again!
One our way to our next stop – Shrek 4D – we found Homer and
Lisa Simpson and knew we had to snatch a few pictures with them! To the best of
our knowledge, Universal doesn’t necessarily schedule times for the characters
to be out and about for pictures (much like Disneyland, they wander around or
show up unexpectedly). This keeps the wait lines pretty short if you’re in the
right place at the right time! We waited a matter of minutes for Homer and Lisa
and got some great pictures!
After our pictures we headed to Shrek 4D. Much like Muppets
3D at Disney, you head into a pre-show where you wait and are entertained by the
characters of Shrek on two big screen televisions. Once in the theatre, the
show begins and you experience the full 4D experience! It’s a cute and fun show
and an excellent way to rest your feet in an air-conditioned theatre.
Our light breakfast had begun to wear off at this point so
we decided to stop for a snack – corn dogs! This isn’t something we often eat
at home so it was a yummy treat!
While we were eating our corn dogs, we noticed a small line
forming near the Shrek ride. We knew it was separate from the queue so we
decided to check it out. It was Shrek himself and Donkey! They were interacting
with park guests and taking pictures so we hopped in line (still short at that
point) to take part! This was a very fun and interactive experience. We’re not
huge on doing character meet and greets and Disney simply because we’d rather
spend our time on the attractions but Universal makes it so easy to take 5
minutes that we couldn’t resist! Shrek was typical of characters and mimed with
us to interact but Donkey was having full-on conversations with us! He was
hilarious and made the experience very memorable.
At this point, we were exploring the park a bit deciding
what attraction/ride to do next when someone came up to us and asked us if we
wanted to be part of a filming for The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. Ryan had joked about
it on our previous Universal day because we figured we had missed the filming
in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We even took a picture with the Tonight Show sign because we thought it was as close as we would get to it!
The Tonight Show was filming at Universal all that week promoting the opening of Universal Studios newest section, Diagon Alley, in the coming weeks. We excitedly made our way to “Springfield”. Once there, we saw that there was definitely something going on outside of Moe’s Tavern. We jumped in the crowd and tried to catch a glimpse. After waiting for quite a while, we had made our way to the front of the group and eventually filming started for a segment of The Tonight Show with Pitbull. They played a game of giant Duff beer pong which was fun. After being there for a while, the shooting wrapped up and the crowd dispersed. They were both very gracious and came and shook hands with us before filming began.

Here is the youtube clip from The Tonight Show of the Duff Beer Pong sketch. You can see us on the right hand side up against the gate near the tavern door when they come out:
While in the area, we took advantage of splitting a Lard Lad’s donut which was delish! The Springfield area of the park had expanded quite a bit since we were there in 2012 so we were excited to check everything out. After our snack we went to The Simpsons Ride which is always a blast. It’s a simulated ride and is really well done, we always love doing it!
The Tonight Show was filming at Universal all that week promoting the opening of Universal Studios newest section, Diagon Alley, in the coming weeks. We excitedly made our way to “Springfield”. Once there, we saw that there was definitely something going on outside of Moe’s Tavern. We jumped in the crowd and tried to catch a glimpse. After waiting for quite a while, we had made our way to the front of the group and eventually filming started for a segment of The Tonight Show with Pitbull. They played a game of giant Duff beer pong which was fun. After being there for a while, the shooting wrapped up and the crowd dispersed. They were both very gracious and came and shook hands with us before filming began.
Here is the youtube clip from The Tonight Show of the Duff Beer Pong sketch. You can see us on the right hand side up against the gate near the tavern door when they come out:
While in the area, we took advantage of splitting a Lard Lad’s donut which was delish! The Springfield area of the park had expanded quite a bit since we were there in 2012 so we were excited to check everything out. After our snack we went to The Simpsons Ride which is always a blast. It’s a simulated ride and is really well done, we always love doing it!
Mmmmmm Doughnut |
Great Ride! |
Relaxing in the Simpson living room |
Duff Man |
Springfield Founder |
Sharing a Duff Beer with Barney in Moe's Tavern! |
After lunch we made our way to ET Adventure which is an easy-going attraction where we board a “bicycle” for the magical ride. Next up was Terminator 2 3D. Ellen may or may not have fallen asleep for part of this ride but it’s not because it was dull or boring. It was just a dark, cool place to sit after a long day of standing and walking.
Phoneeee Homeeeee |
The second last attraction we hit was Disaster! We did it in 2012 and really enjoyed it so we wanted to do it again. It has a great mix of scenes involving a veteran director making a disaster movie (Director is played by Christopher Walken!) and interaction and if you’re lucky enough – you can star in the role yourself!
The last ride of the day was Revenge of the Mummy. This
attraction is fast, dark, and full of unexpected surprises. It’s defiantly one
of the best in the park!