Wow! What else can I say? I must have led a very sheltered life as I have never been to a place like the Universal Theme Park. In the past my experience has been limited to fairs and much smaller venues like Upper Clements back in Nova Scotia and Seven Flags north of Toronto in Ontario. They simply don't hold a candle to the organization, to the extent, to the imagination, of the Universal Park.

Where to start? Well first it was an hour and three-quarters drive from Gulfport so truth be told I wasn't 100% sold on the idea of going there and only went because Barb and Kayt wanted to go. Now of course I'm glad that I did. Secondly, if you go, take the valet parking. At $20/day it only costs $6/day more plus a tip, but it gets you hundreds of yards closer to the entrance and cuts out a lot of the hassle when you arrive and when you depart. Thirdly, don't even think about going on a weekend. We went on a Monday and the place was still crowded by our standards. First thing in the morning we were waiting about an average of 20-30 minutes for each ride, and by afternoon that had expanded to 30-40 minutes, but we are informed that when it is crowded 2 and 3 hour waits are quite common. English was a minority language spoken as we moved around the park with Spanish, French, Portuguese and even Russian and Serbo-Croatian taking precedence, so I expect that most of the people there on the Monday were vacationers who had come in on a package tour. On a weekend all the Floridians would come out with their families too. A fourth point, obviously you should prioritize your choice in rides with choosing the more popular and newest rides first and go to them in the morning so as to minimize your waits. And, by the way, most of the "rides" in the Universal Studios portion of the park are not rides but rather short 15-30 minute stories told surrounding the theme of the movie that they represent and making use of technology and special effects to create the visitor's excitement. Over in the Islands of Adventure, also built around movie themes, they are mostly rides. By the way, if you do most of the rides you will find that a substantial number of them will involve getting wet so be prepared. Wear quick dry clothing, or bring a towel and a change of shirt at least. I recommend the former as there are a number of get-wet rides and you would have to bring several shirts. I saw quite a few people come to these rides in bathing suits!

Which did we go on? Well let's see, in the Universal Studios we went to: Shrek - this one was really a great introduction of using 3D along with vibration effects on the viewing room and chair; the Mummy - this was a great combination including a story and a ride; Twister - using a special room to try to give the effects of being in a tornado; the Disaster Movie - in this one there was the use of the audience to make the movie; Fear Factor - where they selected people from the audience to participate live in the sort of stunts that they do in the TV show; Jaws where we rode in a tour boat and got attacked by a Great White Shark; and finally The Terminator where we were all part of the final revolutionm to defeat the machines. All the human participants must be struggling actors waiting for their big break as they had to, could and did put on quite a performance. After that we went over to the Islands of Adventure and went on several rides, all with a movie theme: the Hulk roller coaster; Dudley Doright's Log Ride, the first one where we got wet; and Jurassic Park River Ride where we got wet all over again just after drying off. Every ride had a conveniently located camera that would snap your picture and it would be ready for your purchase as you departed the ride for the low, low sum of only $20. They have several means of making you bleed money, but the day is so exciting and different that you really don't notice that it's happening and don't mind it too much. You don't have to buy them but it is always fun to go see the expression on your face when the bottom dropped out of the world.

We went there for a whole day and barely scratched the surface. You could easily spend two and even three days in the park if you are the kind of person that has to try every ride and the best ones twice.

By then we had run out of time and headed out to Margarittaville for supper. This was really quite good made even better by an excellent entertainer a la Jimmy Buffet. Then of course there was a short while of souvenir shopping before we recovered the car and made our way home to Nelleke.

Margarittaville Entertainment Video