Today is January 2nd, or as I like to call it, everyone returns from vacation to school and work day.  Everyone is all bitter because they don’t want to return to work or school and they take it out on me.  They drive their cars on the road that I was so used to owning for two weeks.  For instance on Monday, on the way home, I was able to drive distracted, messing with my Ipod, texting on my phone and driving with my knees.  I was even able to avoid eye contact with the road and other drivers.  But today, there were other drivers on the road that I had to concentrate on not hitting.   If only there weren’t any other people I could have so much more fun.  Just like traffic, Universal Islands of Adventure would have been more fun.

We finally decided to change things up (because we are wild and crazy like that) and went to a non-Disney park.  Maybe it would be different and exciting and less expensive.  So we followed the GPS along International Boulevard past an upside down disaster building restaurant, and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not restaurant, which tilted and also looked like a disaster.  We arrived in the parking garage and of course, another disaster happened. That’s right, parking was more money than at Disney! What a Disaster!

My lazy and tired feet would be in for a treat, as unlike Disney, there were escalators that took us to those moving sidewalks, which would then take us to the part of the park where they searched our bags, and there would be more moving sidewalks to get us to the gate where we could pay.  But apparantly the bitter curse was alive at Universal as well. The moving sidewalks weren’t working so I had to see them there taunting me, giving me a hope of a lazy 30 seconds where sad, bitter feet could rest, but only if those things would work!  Another disaster!

Finally in the park we had heard about some actual roller coaster rides, so we decided to see which ones were more popular and then get some “Fast Passes”.  You know like at Disney where you get a pass now, and then later you can take cuts in line and watch all the other bitter people watch in envy as you get on without effort while they wait for hours?  So I noticed a sign that showed an “Express Pass” which I assumed was the same as Fast Passes at Disney.  The only difference was the name and one more thing.  Oh yeah, about $70.  Disney let’s you do it for free, but Universal lets you do it for only 70% of a ticket.  I’m no cheap skate (actually I am) but paying $70 for a pass(I believe that was per person) that let’s you cheat seems like a little much.  Especially for someone like me who just cheats for free. Disaster!

Since my kids are only scared of rides that moved over 2 miles an hour, ones that are in the dark, ones that would get them wet, or that are loud, we had to skip the Hulk Ride.   But my son loves Spiderman, so we convinced him to try the Spiderman 3d ride, a mild ride that both my kids didn’t like.  There is no better way to enjoy a ride, than to spend the whole ride ensuring your kids that it isn’t scary, while real life fire shoots out of one of the villians.  So as excited as I was to try another ride in Superhero park, we decided to move to another milder part of the park.

Toon Lagoon had those comic bubble signs above our heads that we could take our pictures with.  One of them said, “I am going to need a vacation from my vacation.”  Okay, now I am a little scared.  They do psychic readings here? I wonder what it would have said had my feet been under the bubble.  “You will kill your master for making you do so much.”  So I decided that my feet would get to be lazy for a minute and we would find a ride.

Since it was early, there was a ride called Dudley Do-right’s Ripsaw Falls.  It promised to get you wet.  I laughed.  (Probably like that lame sprinkling we got in the Animal Kingdom ride.)   My wife told me to go for it, she would wait with the kids (you know they didn’t want to get wet).  So I gave them my backpack and kept only my cell phone and wallet(you know things that would be fine if I only got a sprinkling.)  There is nothing that makes a ride more enjoyable than worrying about damaging your cellphone and soaking every dollar in your wallet.  (It’s not like I would have any dollars left after this trip.) Needless to say, I escaped the ride only slightly more soaked than Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook.  Of course, I chose to wear my jean shorts.  I have done laundry a few times in my life and I’m pretty sure that jeans are the ones that take the longest to dry.  After this day, I had no doubt.  Disaster jeans!

As I slowly dried off in the few sunny spots I could find, we found a ride that would give us a tour of Jurassic Park.  Yeah!  That would be fun, and the kids most certainly wouldn’t be scared of dinosaurs running amok.  We convinced them that it was similar to another ride they liked,(not sure which) so they reluctantly agreed.  We got on and realized that it was another raft one.  So by the end I was soaked again and would not be dry for the rest of the day.  More like Disaster Park!

As a soaked Harry Potter Fan like almost everyone in the world (the fan part, not the soaked part) I was excited to enter the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Just like the traffic on January 2nd, it seemed as if the rest of the world was on the freeway of Harry Potter Land.  There is nothing cooler than being with all these people that you can’t stand, because for some reason they like something that you do.   Some had robes, some had wands, some were drinking butter beer or pumpkin juice (some adults were probably drinking the fire whiskey).   I guess I didn’t get the memo about the dress code, because I was only wearing wet jean shorts.  I rode the dragon ride while my kids bought a wand and stood in line with my bitter curse for the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.  It took 30 minutes for the magic of Harry Potter to overcome my bitterness.  Luckily, my bitterness spread, because a bunch of people left the line.  I am pretty sure I want to punch that Sorting Hat as I had to listen to him almost as much as Mr. Potato Head(He’s another day, another bitterness).

We rushed away from Potterland, not because we wanted to leave, but all the people.  We ended up in some place called the Lost Continent.  I think lost is the appropriate word because my kids found this talking fountain that was witty and told jokes and they could have been there the whole day listening to this thing.  A whole park worth of crazy awesome rides and my kids want to talk to the talking fountain.  And I must say that this fountain was more sarcastic and funny than all the people in all the parks.  Does this explain why I don’t like people?

We (I) felt bad about hogging all the rides while my kids didn’t to do the kid rides, so we finally made our way to the Dr. Suess part of the park and pretty much spent the rest of the day there.  They had a play called Grinchmas, you know because it was Christmas.  I love The Grinch because he is my kind of guy, bitter about all the Who’s and stuff down in Whoville.  Unfortunately, they changed the ending, because the Grinch learns a lesson about sharing and caring about others.  Why did they have to change the ending?

So what did we learn from the Day 4 Universal Studios disaster?  Universal would have been awesome if there weren’t people, jeans take a long time to dry, and they change the ending of the Grinch to be happy.  Haven’t we learned that we shouldn’t mess with the endings on classics? Oh, and disasters don’t come just in theme restarants and movies.

Well at least we get to close the loop on the Disney Parks tommorow.  Maybe Disney Studios will be different right?

ARRRGGGHHH

Bitter Ben