Day 6 - Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure

So I was going to stick to the Disney parks but when snorkeling the other day and talking to someone from Orlando she recommended that I hit Universal as that's more of the older peoples parks. It didn't take much to convince me to try it out.

Glad I did because the rides were awesome, some pretty big roller coasts and lots of entertaining things to do for the 'young at heart' adults.

They have two parks next to each other. The first being Universal Studios which is based around movie sets and television. Wandering around trying to find a ride that didn't have a massive queue (Surprise, surprise everyone goes straight to the good ones), but what do I run into, the DeLorean from my childhood favourite movie series Back to the Future.. Awesome.

You can't bring anything with you on the roller coaster for obvious reasons unless you want it to end up flying away, so they have lockers for you to store your belongings. Pretty stock standard. The cool thing was that they were fingerprint operated so no need to make up a PIN number, just use your thumb!

The second park 'Islands of Adventure' had a number of different lands with rides and entertainment from Jurassic Park to the newest and most popular Harry Potter. Now even though I've made it a point to not ever reading any of the books or watching any of the movies, I will say that the roller coaster was awesome!

Now back to driving in the US. I'm adjusted now and pretty sure when I get back to Melbourne I'm going to initially head to the wrong side of the road! Two things I've noticed driving around Miami and Orlando, firstly there is a concept of a 4-way Stop sign. From what I can tell whoever gets there first has right of way and everyone seemed to be polite.

I understand that if you just make one of the roads a Stop sign your giving that one priority, but wouldn't we just put in a roundabout so it's clear rather than sitting there thinking, is it my turn, no its your turn, ok you go.

The second interesting thing about driving (in Florida at least) is turning right at a set of lights. Even if your at a Red, if it's clear you turn the corner. I don't know if this is just the done thing or is in fact legal, but being known as a bit of a Maverick driver, I was happy to participate.

The other thing of note in Orlando and it could just be a stereotype I'm aware of and so then noticing more but everywhere I went there were advertisements for Lawyers, on billboards, on the street, on the radio. Had an accident or injured yourself, call us!