Universal Studios

I couldn't pass up a free ticket to Universal Studios. There is one in Orlando as well, but this one was free to me as a PDC attendee.

I had a huge sushi dinner with two coworkers, and barely made the last bus to the park. Once there, I went straight to the Terminator 2 ride. After all, I have to compare the experience between Orlando and Los Angeles, there might be subtle differences! There weren't and I enjoyed it again - the only difference is the star of the attraction is currently the governor of CA. ;)

After that I went to check out the "Revenge of the Mummy" ride, based on the Mummy movies starring Brandon Fraser. The ride started out kinda slow, with all sorts of animatronic skeletons reaching from the walls, but suddenly the lights dimmed and we were shot forward, accelerating to roller coaster speed, whatever that was. It felt fast enough. The coaster swooped and dove, and in the darkness it was quite effective. We came to a halt where a short sequence played on a screen - bugs attacking and the coaster car puffed air at our feet to simulate that - and suddenly we shot off backwards along the track. While I like real rollercoasters better (the ones with a huge first climb) this one was really good.

I decided to get a little bit of exercise by climbing the stairs back from the lower lot where the Mummy ride was. I lost count, but it was at least 200 steps.