If you don’t know, there are 2 parts to Universal. Firstly the Islands of Adventure which is one massive section, which we did a couple of days before. And then the Studios section. Each section takes at least 1 whole day to do, if not longer, and as we’d already done the Islands of Adventure, today was the Studios day. As we walked through the security all those memories of our last visit flooded back into my mind. But that wasn’t going to happen again. Today was going to be FUN!!

The family selfie was becoming common place.

We headed straight for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was totally BRILLIANT!! Emily is a massive Harry Potter fan, but we all like the films. Emily is more into Ravenclaw, and bought herself a Ravenclaw fleece, which her friends are very jealous of. When you arrive you see the wall to Diagon Alley, and have to walk through it to get into the alley itself. It’s very crowded as the area is small, but they have all the shops that you see in the film, and you can go in many of them.

It’s just like being on a film set.

Mark and the kids then went off to the Escape from Gringotts ride, which wasn’t for me at all. So I went for a wander round Diagon Alley and saw loads of wonderful things. It was just like being on the film set, and the attention to detail is amazing. Make sure that you look up at the ceilings in all the shops as they have all sorts of things going on up on high. As Mark and the kids were queuing for the ride, Mark took a picture of one of the animatronic goblins. Weirdly one looked like a cross between his dad and his granddad! On the hour, and every hour the dragon on top of the Gringotts bank breaths fire, and you really can feel the heat. If you are able to, make sure you see it, as it’s amazing.

It really does breathe fire, and it’s hot!!

We spent all morning in the Harry Potter section, and had lunch in the Leaky Cauldron. Outside the wall to Diagon Alley they had the Knight Bus and replicas of various London landmarks. Somehow they put Kings Cross Station right next to Leicester Square Station. This was a little confusing, especially for Mark as he felt for a brief second that he was back at work.

It can’t really be London, people are too polite.

In the afternoon we explored the rest of Universal Studios, and came across Jaws (shark still looks fake). I gave it a kiss on the nose and it didn’t bite me, we saw a Blues Brothers performance, a massive christmas tree with huge balls, the Back to the Future car and train, and many other films sets including the Twister experience. Now I know this sounds like something that I wouldn’t do, but you walk through it, and there are scenes from the film. It does get a bit windy, and being Universal you always get a bit wet, and we had a flying cow at one point. We saw the Terminator 2 show which was amazing. George is a HUGE Terminator fan, so he was a very happy chappy. And were part of the Disaster ride which we appeared in. It was rather odd as this was introduced by Christopher Walken. We finally ended up in the Simpson area of the park. Mark and George went on The Simpsons Ride, which is a roller coast thing (no suitable for me), and Emily stayed with me and we went on the Kang and Kodos Ride. It’s called Twirl ‘n’ Hurl, but it’s very, very Claire friendly. There was NO twirling or hurling involved. Just some gentle moving up and down when you decided. It was suitable for babies and me!